MeeGo

The latest debate over Android’s ‘openness’ is fueled by Steve Job and Facebook’s Joe Hewitt, the Firefox co-creator rumored to be working on a Facebook-branded mobile OS based on Android. However we are not going to delve into Android but focus on a brand new entry in the mobile OS foray – MeeGo!

MeeGo who?

MeeGo is an open source project based on Linux that is capable of running on multiple computing devices, including handsets, netbooks, tablets, connected TVs and in-vehicle infotainment systems. The OS connects Intel’s Moblin project and Nokia’s Maemo into a single entity. By integrating the experience & skills of two significant development ecosystems in communications and computing technologies, MeeGo forms the technical foundations for next generation platforms and usages in the mobile and device platforms space.

15 Must Know Facts About MeeGo

  1. Full open source project governed according to best practices of open source development: Open discussion forums, open mailing lists, open technical steering committee meetings, peer review, open bugzilla, etc.
  2. Hosted under the auspices of the Linux Foundation
  3. Aligned closely with upstream projects - MeeGo requires that submitted patches also be submitted to the appropriate upstream projects and be on a path for acceptance (Figure 1)
  4. Offers a complete software stack including reference user experience implementations
  5. Offers a compliance program to ensure API and ABI compatibility (Compliance program discussed in a later section)
  6. Enables all players of the industry to participate in the evolution of the software platform and to build their own assets on MeeGo
  7. Lowers complexity for targeting multiple device segments
  8. Offers differentiation abilities through user experience customization
  9. Provides a rich cross-platform development environment and tools
  10. Offers a compliance program to certify software stacks and application portability
  11. Supports multiple hardware architectures
  12. Supports multiple app stores
  13. Has no contributors agreements to sign; instead it follows the same ‘signed-off-by’ language and process as the Linux Kernel
  14. Has over 1000 committed professional developers and hundreds of open source developers and a very a vibrant community of users and developers
  15. MeeGo 1.0 Netbook release supports the following languages: Japanese, Korean, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Swedish, Polish, Finnish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, English, and British English.

What next? Come Join the Party!

The MeeGo project will continue to expand platform support as new features are incorporated and new form factors emerge in the market. Participation in MeeGo is open and as easy as participating in any other true open source project.