Monday, 13 November 2006

Motorola to Adopt Apache 2 Licensing for Java ME

Motorola has extended an invitation to the broader Java ME ecosystem to establish a complete Java Micro Edition (Java ME) software stack for the mobile industry, under the Apache License Version 2.0. Motorola will work to align its future Java ME-based developments with Apache's model of licensing and open governance in order to help promote a unified mobile Java platform.

"We’re very excited Motorola has decided to adopt the Apache model as part of the company’s ongoing efforts to open the Java ME platform," said Geir Magnusson Jr, vice president, JCP for the Apache Software Foundation.

Motorola is proposing an Eclipse Tools for mobile Linux (TmL) project, which will support development of C++ applications targeting mobile devices. The decision is seen as a significant endorsement for further use of the Linux open source operating system within the mobile handset market.

In one sense the open-source community passed a landmark in the summer when development tool firm Wind River released of over 300,000 lines of code to the Eclipse foundation of open-source software.

The software and tool supplier said its aim was to "make the restrictions associated with closed, proprietary developer tools a thing of the past".

Chip firms are also riding the open-source wave only recently NXP, STMicroelectronics and IBM announced they were working on a EU-funded open source project to create a parallel processor architecture based on the Cell microprocessor.