AMD is the latest chipmaker to join the MeeGo project, a collaborative effort to produce a standardized mobile Linux platform. The move is a sign of growing acceptance for MeeGo in the hardware industry and also demonstrates the project's ability to foster collaboration between competing vendors. The news was announced by Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin during a panel on Monday at the MeeGo Conference in which an AMD representative was a surprise participant.
The MeeGo project launched earlier this year when Intel and Nokia brought together their existing mobile Linux platforms under a single banner. They invited the Linux Foundation to take over stewardship of the project and help establish a vendor-neutral governance model with the aim of attracting other contributors. Although we haven't seen many MeeGo-powered devices reach the market yet, a growing number of mobile device and component manufacturers are backing the effort.
The fact that AMD is adopting a mobile platform that was cofounded by its arch-rival Intel shows that the MeeGo project is living up to its goal of encouraging cooperation around a vendor-neutral software stack. During the panel at the MeeGo Conference, AMD committed to contributing technical resources to MeeGo. MeeGo's emphasis on upstream development was cited as one of the major factors that attracted AMD to the effort. The company stressed that it intends to be an active participant and isn't just adding its name to the platform's roster of supporters.
"MeeGo represents an exciting, open-source mobile operating system we expect to be adopted by mobile and embedded device makers over time," said AMD VP of software development Ben Bar-Haim in a statement. "We are glad to provide engineering resources to joint industry efforts like MeeGo and expect that this operating system will help drive our embedded plans and create expanded market opportunities for our forthcoming Accelerated Processing Units."
AMD's announcement was a bit surprising and seemed almost impromptu in the sense that it didn't feel like a planned part of the MeeGo Conference. It was introduced almost like an afterthought with little fanfare during a panel discussion that followed after the opening keynotes. Despite the informal manner in which the news was presented during the conference, it was arguably the most significant revelation of the day.
Source: ars technica
