Tizen: Open source Intel/Linux Foundation-backed mobile/device OS | Hacker News Reader

device OS

tizen.org

65 pointsjoahua28 comments

So, yet another Linux distribution (why do they keep calling it an OS is beyond me) backed up by Intel... Why?

Why do they think they need a new OS for "Html5 apps" and not make evolve MeeGo, except for political reasons?

Why do they think they need to restrict the APIs, like in MeeGo (and it took them quite some time) for desktop or for Html5 applications; why not just check the requirements at the publishing stage on their appstore?

I might be missing something obvious...

I don't understand it either. And the constant jumping from project to project on the part of Intel can't be helpful.

I think they are trying throw new names at the wall of hype and see if one sticks.

Have you tried MeeGo ever? I don't think so.

This is not "yet another Linux distribution", this is "one LESS Linux distribution". It's essentially a merger of LiMo and Meego. It's a merger of cool but unpopular (Meego) and boring but popular (LiMo, used on most Japanese featurephones).

From a source that was at Nokia/Meego: "Summary: Intel has joined LiMo project. Samsung has renamed it to save Intel's face. Qt is abandoned and KDE too is hurt unless . . . unless HTC takes MeeGo!"

Yet another start of a mobile Linux backed by Intel, yet another, non-backwards-compatible UI stack.

Previous ones were: Moblin (Gtk and Clutter) and MeeGo (Qt and QML). Now Tizen (HTML5, whatever that means in this case). Will be hard to convince developers that they'll really stick to this one.

Technically they could bundle GTK3 and get Waypoint HTML5 apps for free.

An HTML5 app is an app written using HTML5. A GTK app is an app written using GTK. A GTK3 app rendered on an <canvas> is still a GTK app.

Right, despite the downvote (what don't we downvote for these days people), this platform (can and may [if some rumors thus far are true]) support GTK. I don't know what your reply is supposed to mean. (I suppose it may have been from my poor use of the phrasing "Waypoint HTML5 apps" although if we're going to nitpick over it, I would argue a frontend rendered in HTML5/canvas at least partially qualifies for the moniker.)

My point is that since this will likely ship with the GTK3 runtime support, it can render to a web app interface. Meaning that the Tizen project maintainers or consumers can write GUIs that just handle HTML5 "cards" like in WebOS (as they seem to allude is their goal), and be able to utilize any applications built for GTK3 without having to shim in new elements to their window manager.

"Tizen will provide a robust and flexible environment for application developers, based on HTML5 and Wholesale Applications Community (WAC)"

I hadn't heard of WAC before. WAC's about page makes it sound like an app store and a set of APIs [1]. Whatever that actually means, WAC has backing by a lot of big companies [2].

[1] http://www.wacapps.net/what-is-wac

[2] http://www.wacapps.net/our-members

It seems like the Big Telcos attempt at doing what Apple did with the App Store. Their biggest fear have always been to be reduced to a "dumb data pipe", which is basically what has happened now with the iPhone and Android (notice how Apple and Google are not participating members :)

You can be sure that WAC will be prominently featured on any handset where the operator has any influence.

Maybe it will work, or maybe it will be the next WAP, time will tell.

Tizen appears to be replacing MeeGo. The MeeGo blog has a post "What's next for MeeGo": https://meego.com/community/blogs/imad/2011/whats-next-meego

As Samsung are on board, I guess Tizen may be taking parts of their existing Linux platform: http://jeffhoogland.blogspot.com/2011/02/samsung-is-backing-...

OK, look, my head is spinning here. This quote from The Verge:

//The MeeGo project is already encouraging its members to make the transition to Tizen, going so far as to say that it believes the “future belongs to HTML5-based applications, outside of a relatively small percentage of apps, and we are firmly convinced that our investment needs to shift toward HTML5.”

I just don't understand how this then differs from webOS! Can someone make this clear to me? Why reinvent the wheel? Do they feel webOS is now cursed or what?

From a coder's perspective, what's the real difference here?

[typo edit]

In a word, licencing.

WebOS isn't open source, and is never likely to be.

Why couldn't they band together, buy webOS, and then open source that? Spread over the number of members, the investment would be less than starting from scratch or trying to resolve incompatibilities between all these groups looking to cut their own slice of cheese.

Follow the B2G commit logs; they're actually building stuff. Intel is starting from scratch every other year.

This seems destined for mediocrity. Lacking vision and passion.

"Lets create a linux platform for every single device that isn't a computer."

Bleh.

Hum.. the name sounds that it's something that came from Texas Instruments: "Texas Instruments Zen"

It's interesting to see Samsung in the dev team, does that mean Bada will be joining the new OS?

Bada is not a full OS, it's more like Qt. Bada does contain a kernel out of the box afaik, but the kernel is pluggable. So perhaps Samsung can use Tizen under the hood, and Bada on top.

Maybe not Bada, but LiMo, and presumably now Tizen, is not just GTK. It also includes support for EFL (aka Enlightenment/E17), a project Samsung has been supporting for the past few years.* The EFL Webkit port is also progressing, also with Samsung support.

Hopefully being HTML5 buzzword-compliant doesn't mean they're dropping all support for native apps too.

* As previously discussed: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2495826

Open source webOS replacement with Web Intents, SSE, etc? Yes, please. Where do I sign up? I'd like to know how this stacks up to boot2gecko (which theoretically can already reach all of the Android devices that CM runs on.

Gecko won't run on ARMv6 processors, which rules out a significant number of devices CM runs on. But, I get your point.

What does something like Tizen offer developers beyond standard HTML5; why not just target browsers?

> why not just target browsers

Well, ObjectiveC isn't the reason Apple's app store is successful.

From an entrepreneurs point of view, it's more about creating a sales channel, and marketing.

That's entirely the point. Tizen can't entice developers to choose their platform, so they aren't even going to try. They're just going to make the best HTML5-backed phone they can. Hopefully.

Since webOS is 90% of the way there, and is a joy to use, and is being abandoned, it's an ideal candidate to be open sourced. Please HP.

I think the development stack should be based on native elements instead of GTK or Qt or HTML5, it may include have a web based development and native including C++/Java.Idea , purely, based on WebOS really sucks.

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