Trolltech and OpenMoko?

Trolltech today announced Qtopia Phone Edition, the leading application platform and user interface for Linux based mobile phones, has been ported to the Neo1973 mobile phone from Taiwanese manufacturer FIC and open-source software provider OpenMoko. Now, in addition to Trolltech’s Qtopia Greenphone, developers have an additional reference platform and form factor for development and testing of new mobile Qtopia applications.

The Neo 1973 is an open platform phone that combines the hardware expertise of FIC and the software integration and software environment from OpenMoko. As part of the port of Qtopia to this phone, Trolltech was able to leverage some of the Linux software developed by OpenMoko to create this offering.

"We welcome Trolltech extending the reach of our Neo 1973 and the OpenMoko platform. And we applaud their efforts at simplifying application development for mobile devices. I look forward to a closer collaboration between our two communities," said Sean Moss-Pultz, President of OpenMoko.

“We applaud OpenMoko’s vision to make the Neo an open platform and the excellent work they have done with this phone,” said Benoit Schillings, CTO at Trolltech. “In the spirit of open development and innovation we want to showcase the versatility of Qtopia by porting our application platform to the Neo phone, which has had a positive impact on the open mobile ecosystem.”

To coincide with the porting of Qtopia to this open platform, Trolltech is also announcing that for the first time Qtopia Phone Edition--and all its components--will be completely available under both the open source GPL license (version 2) and a commercial development license. Until now some Qtopia components, like the telephony, DRM and the safe execution environment software stacks, were only available under the commercial development license. The full open source release of Qtopia Phone Edition is the latest example of Trolltech’s longstanding commitment to its dual licensing model that combines the best of commercial and open source software development.

Trolltech also continues to support Greenphone as a reference platform for mobile development within the company and through its partners. The full GPL version of Qtopia Phone Edition will also be configured to run on the Greenphone, a mobile camera phone that can be re-flashed with new and different applications.

The technology preview of Qtopia Phone Edition 4.3 licensed under the GPL is available from Trolltech’s distribution servers: ftp://ftp.trolltech.com/qtopia/tech-preview. A binary image to flash onto the Neo 1973 is available on Qtopia.net. Trolltech anticipates the beta release of Qtopia 4.3 to be released in late October.

Trolltech’s Greenphone comes packaged as part of a Qtopia Phone Edition SDK. Qtopia is used in 90 different devices, of which 25 are phones. To date, there are more than nine million Qtopia-based mobile phones in the market including mobile phones from Motorola, ZTE and Cellon. More information on Greenphone features, specifications, availability and other details can be found at www.qtopiagreenphone.com.

http://www.openmoko.org/