Today both the Linux Foundation and Limo Foundation Announced a new Operating System – “Tizen”. This Operating System is a combination of Limo and MeeGo that will eventually replace MeeGo. The project will be hosted by the Linux Foundation and led by a technical steering team composed of Intel and Samsung.
As I have mentioned previously news was on the horizon and this is it. Intel see that the Industry is increasingly becoming Web centric and web technologies such as HTML 5 are critical in moving forward and as such Tizen will be based on HTML5 and WAC web development environments.
Tizen will have the same dreams that MeeGo had of running on multiple devices ie Tablets, Netbooks, Handsets, Smart TV, and In-Vehicle Infotainment systems and it will be interesting to see if it can realise those dreams.
So More information to come soon.
Here is the Press release for the Linux Foundation:
By now, you may have read that The Linux Foundation, with the support of several other companies, announced a new project, Tizen, to build a new operating system for devices. This new project is first and foremost open source, and based on Linux. So it begs the question: why not just evolve MeeGo? We believe the future belongs to HTML5-based applications, outside of a relatively small percentage of apps, and we are firmly convinced that our investment needs to shift toward HTML5. Shifting to HTML5 doesn’t just mean slapping a web runtime on an existing Linux, even one aimed at mobile, as MeeGo has been. Emphasizing HTML5 means that APIs not visible to HTML5 programmers need not be as rigid, and can evolve with platform technology and can vary by market segment.
Granted, this is a judgment on our part on which reasonable people could disagree, but that’s the conclusion I came to.
But in the new project, a lot of things will be the same as they were in the MeeGo project. The Tizen project will reside within the Linux Foundation, will be governed by a Technical Steering Group, and will be developed openly with familiar and improved infrastructure. Much like MeeGo, the Tizen project will support multiple device categories, including Tablets, Netbooks, Handsets, Smart TV, and In-Vehicle Infotainment systems.
Here is the Press Release by the Limo Foundation:
New cross-device and cross-architecture platform will drive standards-based web applications
September 27, 2011 – LONDON, ENGLAND and SAN FRANCISCO, USA – LiMo Foundation™ and the Linux Foundation today announced a new open source project, Tizen™, to develop a Linux-based device software platform. Hosted at the Linux Foundation, Tizen is a standards-based, cross-architecture software platform which supports multiple device categories including smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, netbooks and in-vehicle infotainment systems. The initial release of Tizen is targeted for Q1 2012, enabling first devices to come to market in mid-2012.
Tizen combines the best open source technologies from LiMo and the Linux Foundation and adds a robust and flexible standards-based HTML5 and WAC web development environment within which device-independent applications can be produced efficiently for unconstrained cross-platform deployment. This approach leverages the robustness and flexibility of HTML5 which is rapidly emerging as a preferred application environment for mobile applications and the broad carrier support of the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC). Tizen additionally carries a state-of-the-art reference user interface enabling the creation of highly attractive and innovative user experience that can be further customized by operators and manufacturers.
“LiMo Foundation views Tizen as a well-timed step change which unites major mobile Linux proponents within a renewed ecosystem with an open web vision of application development which will help device vendors to innovate through software and liberalize access to consumers for developers and service providers,” said Morgan Gillis, Executive Director of LiMo Foundation. “LiMo will maintain its focus on providing the industry with a broadly backed vendor- and service-neutral ecosystem grounded in the spirit of open and unconstrained opportunity that is embodied by Linux.”
The mobile industry continues to embrace Linux and open source technologies as key factors in lowering device realization cost, increasing flexibility and improving time to market and it is expected that Tizen will further enhance these effects due to its cross-category reach and strong focus on open standards.
“The Linux Foundation is pleased to host the Tizen platform,” said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation. “Open source platforms such as Tizen are good for Linux as they further its adoption across device categories. We look forward to collaborating with the LiMo Foundation and its members on this project.”
To participate in the project, please go to www.tizen.org
Over the next couple of months, we will be working very hard to make sure that users of MeeGo can easily transition to Tizen, and I will be working even harder to make sure that developers of MeeGo can also transition to Tizen.
I want to personally thank everyone who has participated in MeeGo over the past year and a half, and I encourage you to join us at Tizen.org. We hope to use what we learned from the MeeGo project to make Tizen successful, and I hope to see you participating in Tizen!
Imad
