The potential synergy between the GNU/Linux OS and the Palm platform is huge, but so are the potential pitfalls. Larry Garfield looks at both the pros and cons of the Next Next Palm OS.
This week, PalmSource announced that it was buying yet another OS company and branching out into even more markets. Besides a new Palm OS-look-alike mobile phone OS, PalmSource is looking at plans for a "Palm OS for Linux" offering that will coexist alongside Palm OS Garnet and Palm OS Cobalt.
PalmSource's plans are quite impressive. When speaking with PalmSource's Director of Competitive Analysis Chris Dunphy, he confirmed that Apple's OS X design is a good analogy for how Palm OS for Linux will work; a Free Software base OS to handle all the boring but hard stuff with a proprietary PalmSource system on top of it, handling the more fun and marketable stuff that users actually see. Like Apple, PalmSource claims to have every intention of playing nice with Open Source software. That includes contributing code back to the community when necessary as well as "expos[ing] Linux APIs for everything we're doing," according to Dunphy. That will allow developers the ability to port or write Linux-native programs for Palm OS for Linux, even software like the ubiquitous Apache web server or, potentially, the OPIE graphical environment, an open source handheld interface similar to that of the Sharp Zaurus line of handhelds. "We're really excited to see what kind of cool stuff happens just because it's cool to do," Dunphy commented. As a fan of cool stuff myself, I heartily agree.
Dunphy also claims that PalmSource will coordinate more formally with developers working on Linux-based HotSync conduits, who so far have had to painstakingly reverse-engineer the data format for every new device. Using Linux will also save development time and money, as well as win a lot of support in potentially lucrative Linux-friendly Asian markets. All of the "Linux stuff" will be hidden from the user's view, however. To the user, there will simply be the "Palm Experience", sitting atop Linux, or Garnet, or Cobalt, with software working everwhere, the exact opposite of Microsoft's mobile computing strategy of a common core OS with several different platforms on top of it.
Despite the rosy marketing picture, however, there are major hurdles to a Palm/Linux marriage. Linux and Palm OS are extremely different, architecturally. The former uses bitstream files, hierarchical directories, and other Unix-style concepts. The latter uses native databases, flat-namespace data storage, and eXecute-In-Place for near-zero program load time. Making those two talk to each other is very non-trivial, and PalmSource has of course been mute on how it will accomplish this amazing feat.
Of more concern is a fact that PalmSource has only been muttering under its breath; Protein programs (those using new Cobalt features) will run on Palm OS for Linux with only a "simple recompile". Assuming for a moment that it really is that simple, that still means no binary compatibility. No binary compatibility means, effectively, a different platform for developers to support, to say nothing of different accessory drivers. While older Garnet apps will still run emulated as they do on Palm OS 5 and above, a fragmented platform is the last thing PalmSource needs right now for its next-generation developer tools, especially as Cobalt devices still have yet to appear. Why should developers bother with the new features when that means maintaining multiple versions yet using the 1996-era code requires only one version? Although Dunphy hinted that Cobalt devices are coming "soon", there's the threat of Cobalt going the way of Copeland. ("Copeland" was the name of a late-90s Apple OS to replace the aging Mac OS, one that never shipped but did serve as an incubator for many Mac OS X features. The Apple/Palm parallels are uncanny.)
If PalmSource can pull off an Apple-style revolution it will be a huge boon both to the Palm OS market and to the handheld and Open Source communities, one with the potential to give Microsoft and Symbian a good scare. That's a big "if", however. Given the delay to get Cobalt devices on shelves, it will be at minimum two years before Palm OS for Linux (Palmix?) devices are commercially available. A lot can happen in two years or more. Here's hoping for that "if".
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