You can do stuff like this with open source because:
a) There are no license restrictions
b) You have access to the code
and
c) You do not have to wait for some company like Microsoft to adapt
While Linux does not have a marketing push fueled by big advertising budget, Linux grows, in part by filling in the holes that proprietary software is unable to fill.
Freescale and ARM promise $200 netbooks
Summary
Freescale has unveiled an ARM-based, Ubuntu-toting netbook reference design, claiming it will bring cheap internet devices to the younger, more widget-centric generation.
Topics
Chipset manufacturer Freescale on Monday unveiled an ARM-based blueprint for cheap, low-cost subnotebooks.
At the heart of the reference design is the i.MX515 processor, which uses ARM's Cortex-A8 chipset architecture. The design also incorporates a new power management integrated circuit from Freescale, as well as Adobe Flash Lite and the netbook version of Canonical's Ubuntu Linux distribution.
According to Freescale, this combination makes it possible for manufacturers to build netbooks with retail prices under $200 (£137) and battery lives of eight hours.
The i.MX515 processor can scale in performance from 600MHz to 1GHz, and can support both DDR2 and mobile DDR1 memory types. It also offers both OpenVG and OpenGL graphics cores, to support 2D and 3D graphics.
Monday's announcement brought to fruition a prediction made by ARM executives in October 2008, when the British chip-architecture company told ZDNet UK that netbooks using Cortex technology would soon be announced.
Thierry Cammal, Freescale's vice president of global consumer wireless marketing, said on Monday that manufacturers would be likely to launch netbooks using the Freescale design in the second half of this year.
Cammal predicted a "co-existence" of Intel-based and ARM-based netbooks in the future.
"Intel is a very strong player and will continue to play, especially in the netbook and mobile internet device [MID] market," Cammal told ZDNet UK, suggesting Intel's architecture was better suited than ARM's to running Windows. "There will be the traditional users, business guys who are using Windows and all their applications through Windows, and they will continue to use Windows, but we will bring some different product categories to the consumer."
Freescale has done group studies on the way people use the internet, Cammal said, and those studies suggested younger users were more keen on an "always-on, widget approach" than on using Windows.
"We believe our power-efficient solution, combined with Linux, plus some special application widget-based software, will enable a new kind of utilization of the internet," Cammal said. "New players want a simple utilization of the Internet."
Cammal also claimed Freescale's "cost-competitive" chipset would, together with Ubuntu, cost manufacturers around $20 (£14) to put into netbooks, whereas Intel's Atom combined with Windows XP cost more than $60 (£41). "We are enabling a cheap type of device that could offer new ways to utilize the Internet," he said.
Freescale, which used to be Motorola's semiconductor wing, is in the process of selling off its business making modem chipsets for traditional handsets, Cammal said. The profusion of connectivity types (HSDPA, LTE and so on) requires too costly an investment and is likely to lead to industry consolidation, he said. The company will now redirect its experience into the netbook and MID markets.
"All the experience we have developed around the application software for handsets is directly reusable into netbooks and MIDs," Cammal said. He added that the same i.MX515 processor would be used in MIDs - an announcement he predicted would occur soon.
Talkback Most Recent of 6 Talkback(s)
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hamobu-223331361395187734816855141288125th Jan 2009 -
RE: This is why open source is great
A) There are license restrictions. Read them. You have to publicize any changes you make to the source code.
Basically people always want improvement and you can join groups to improve programs that you use or create. Most are in a group because large programs take time to develop. One in particular is Eclipse. That took over 10 years and is still being improved on a daily basis.
Maarek6th Jan 2009 -
That's not completely true ...
A) There are license restrictions. Read them. You have to publicize any changes you make to the source code.
There are no license restrictions when using GPL software. You can download and modify the source code any way you see fit and you are not forced to make available any changes to the source code.
Your are only required to make available any modified source code when you make a distribution of that GPL software. The theory is that you must make available the same freedom that was granted when the software was distributed to you. Now this in itself is not a restriction but only an issue of compliance with the GPL agreement.
Now there are some restrictions on linking and/or including closed source software or certain types of software that have an incompatible license with the GPL, but once again this only applies to a distribution and not actual end use.
MisterMiester7th Jan 2009 -
RE: Freescale and ARM promise $200 netbooks
It will have linux on it, no thanks.
Loverock Davidson5th Jan 2009 -
With 8 hour battery life, and a lower cost, these will be VERY popular.
Microsoft again caught with their pants down, and no viable OS for a new category. They STILL only have an eight year old OS for the current crop of netbooks.
DonnieBoy5th Jan 2009 -
Also, when you lower power, there are all kinds of other cost savings.
Cooling, charging circuits, power adapters, batteries, etc, all become cheaper.DonnieBoy5th Jan 2009
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