Linux for Cell Phones

A collection of electronics giants are forming a forum to promote Linux as an alternative operating system for mobile phones. The companies include Matsushita Electric, Sony, Hitachi, NEC, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sharp Corporation and Toshiba. The 'CE Linux Forum (CELF)' will discuss and formalize requirements for extensions to Linux to meet the needs of CE products such as audio/visual products and cellular phones. CELF will publish such requirements and will accept and evaluate open source solutions that support to meet the published requirements. CELF will also promote broad usage of Linux for CE products. IBM, an industry leader in Linux solutions and supporter of open standards ecosystems, is pursuing membership and plans to be an active participant in the CELF.

Linux is widely used today in personal computers and network servers, and has been selected as an OS for CE products. On December 18th, an announcement was made to develop Linux for CE products and to establish a forum with the aim to enhance Linux platform for consumer electronics devices.

CELF will first aim to improve the following: Further improve the startup and shutdown timeImprove real-time capabilitiesReduce ROM/RAM size requirementsImprove efficiency of power management CELF's main activities will include defining requirements for a variety of extensions in 'Linux based CE products', collaborating and reaching consensus with open source projects as well as with the Linux community, thereby promoting the proliferation of CE Linux based digital electronics in the electronics industry."

Posted to the site on 2nd July 2003