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Aug. 8, 2008

Motorola is joining the open source community and now offers a public preview of Linux development tools for yet unreleased mobile phones.

The free Eclipse-based tools will help Linux developers create, test and certify native applications for the newest Motorola mobile handsets.

MotoDev Studio for Linux is a freely downloadable, Eclipse-based tool suite aimed at helping third-party and community Linux developers create, test and certify mobile applications for the newest Motorola phone models.

Motorola calls MotoDev Studio for Linux a public preview but that is still a "work in progress" and is functionally incomplete as of now... Why they are announcing it if it isn't ready yet is still unknown.

Dino Brusco, director of developer platforms for Motorola, explained in an interview that the designation and disclaimers exist primarily because the phone models that the tool kit is meant to support aren't available yet.

"The development tools will be finalized at the same time that the new Linux platform becomes available," Brusco said.

The new development platform is one of four MotoDev suites currently available from the company's developer Web site. The others target Java, UIQ and Web widget development.

Some industry observers think that Motorola is getting a bit nervous now that organizations such as Openmoko said yesterday it is releasing schematics for a new Linux phone to whomever wants it.

Though an unsettling idea to most modern handset manufacturers, in Openmoko’s opinion, its schematics are just another form of general documentation, the company and its partners explained.

If users, developers and system engineers can discover and subsequently repair bugs in the original open source design or simply add new features, then it will be for the benefit of all, the company said.

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Source: Motorola.