[kwlug-disc] Google purchases Motorola (Mobile)?

[unsolicited]

Or ... any OS?

Any OS is just an interface to the hardware, usually bringing a set of 
more common interfaces to that hardware. The OS interfaces to the CPU, 
you, the next higher level up application, don't care what CPU it is, 
you just trust that there is a CPU there, the nature of which is not 
your problem. You can extent the analogy to a filesystem, and beyond 
to an app. An editor interacts via API's with the CPU for keyboard and 
screen, or more likely a windowing system, including 'write my file to 
the filesystem.' As pointed out elsewhere, java does much the same 
thing, as do VM's as you point out. I can't imagine Android, on any 
platform, isn't similarly 'virtualized'.

Hysterically, as one moves up the API food chain, things get slower 
and slower (early java), so I take your point.


I used QNX heavily a long time ago, very nice. QNX 2, never made it to 
QNX 4 (Posix). Throughout it has been admired as a PC pre-emptive 
multi-tasking OS - one of the very few or only to be truly 
pre-emptive, and truly multi-tasking. ['Starting' with QNX4 they 
changed paths to a much more heavy emphasis on embedded systems. Thus, 
I presume, RIM's purchase.]

My Palm suffers, badly, from the lack of a pre-emptive multi-tasking 
system.

Today's Android phones ... is the OS truly multi-tasking / pre-emptive?

If not, will such benefit of QNX brought to the RIM handsets be ... 
market changing?

If so, and such benefits accrue significantly to Android on RIM, will 
RIM's handsets not be something to keep a very close eye on?


Colin K wrote, On 08/17/2011 6:11 PM:
> [Quote]In any case, RIM will need to step up work on its software shim for
> Android apps on QNX.
> Now not to steer the thread here but isn't this basically like VM'ing a VM
> architecture?
> 
> On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 3:10 AM, John Johnson <jvj at golden.net> wrote:
> 
>> On 2011-08-15 22:42, unsolicited wrote:
>>
>>> Don't know whether that's good or bad / what it means for open source.
>>>
>> Idealistic? Hopeful? Maybe.
>> But just maybe, Google will be more encouraged to champion the Linux (FOSS)
>> underpinnings of Android and the (FOSS) portion of Andriod.
>> AFAIK: I have read that some parts of Android are - and will remain -
>> closed, non-FOSS.
>> And the licensing model allows apps to be closed, non-FOSS.
>>
>> I have read blogs that suggest Google wants:
>> a) Motorola's library of patents and
>> b) more eyeballs to roam over its sea of e-ads
>>
>> IMHO: You need a lot of eyeballs to justify B$12.5.
>>
>> HTC?: The all-knowing blogs suggest that HTC is already hedging its bets
>> with products both Android and MS camps.
>>
>> In any case, RIM will need to step up work on its software shim for Android
>> apps on QNX.