By: twitter

twitter — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:13:18 +0000

For people who have been using gnu/linux on PDAs for more than a decade, the pace of change in the ARM market is excruciatingly slow. Part of the problem, of course, is Microsoft. They destroyed the market for PDAs ten years ago the same way they attacked netbooks three years ago. They had proxies launch patent attacks, based on the moon writing derivative known as graffiti and played tricks with vendors so bad that Sharp has yet to return to the US market. Microsoft PDAs, of course, were terrible and a market filled with them died off quickly at great loss to everyone involved. Google's Android has created a thriving market for ARM devices which is fundamentally different from the more fragile economy created by Palm a decade ago because Android is free software. Finally, a decade's worth of market damage is undone and unlikely to be repeated and the world once again has interesting portable hardware choices. Robert Pogson has an insightful observation or two on Microsoft's current attempt to dominate ARM vendors as well as PC makers. OEMs have expressed their outrage in concrete form recently, forcing Microsoft to delay Windows 8 hype. Pogson concisely explains the reason for their outrage here:

[M$] wants to jump into the game as quickly as possible but they have not done their homework. All the players in the ARMed ecosystem need their whole channel involved, nearly 100 parties, if products are to be delivered. The ecosystem is thriving with Android and they don’t need to be divided over “8″

He also points out another critical weakness Microsoft's non free binary model has with ARM, a lack of bios. Some of the trolls that torment Pogson tried to play the black is white game by pretending gnu/linux has the problems non free software does but it is obvious that free software has thrived on ARM and will continue to do so while Microsoft thrashes around.

Comments on: Reader’s Thoughts: The Linux/UNIX and ARM World

By: twitter