RIP Dash Express ?

I wonder if Dash Express has any future now? The company has already announced that it is quitting the hardware market. Now they want to sustain themselves as a platform provider. Only companies that want to make GPS and are not on a viable platform will find Dash attractive. Even the companies with established platforms such as Garmin, and Tomtom will find it tough to survive in Post Google Navigate market.

Dash may want to sell out itself to Nokia, or Google and/or port its platform to Maemo or Android. Since both of these are running on Linux, it should not be a totally difficult task. There are other options such as Openmoko and Palm, but in terms of funding Nokia and Google may be able to get the platform needed lift and merge it with their existing offering.

Dash can become a "Google Dashboard" on a car, just like Android trying to become the preferred Phone OS.

DD-WRT :: News

Okay, I hadn't been monitoring DD-WRT site (I hate that they don't use a blog like format with permalink). They seem to have released v24. I haven't tried it, but will try to do in few days.

DD-WRT :: News

Technorati tags: Linux, DD-WRT

Why isn't there an anti-trust case against Oracle?

Now that polarization is almost complete in the industry.

Microsoft is still the leader in the desktop space, with Windows Operating System. Apple is second with Mac OS X, Linux is probably at Number 3.

Google is inching closer to achieving monopoly in the web space. It probably just needs to acquire Yahoo, AOL and FaceBook (and shut down Orkut, if merging proves to be difficult). MSN and Lycos will remain to cater to rest of the market till Google acquires more and more of it.

Oracle has already acquired Siebel, Peoplesoft & JDEdwards, Agile, BEA Systems and so on.

Nokia acquires Trolltech

Trolltech is the company behind Qt Toolkit that powers many of the GNU/Linux user interfaces such as KDE has been acquired by Nokia. It makes a large foray for Nokia into Linux world. It is expected that Trolltech acquisition will help Nokia complete its mobile phone transformation to Linux Platform. But it will also have an impact into Linux PCs as KDE remains a popular. Other technologies that Trolltech had contributed to include KHTML.

The Linux Mobile space is crowded with three serious contenders: Nokia, Access (who owns PalmOS), and Google with its Android Platform.

Open Source Code Bombs

Various companies have been getting benefited from open source technologies while they build their product, but not all of them are doing enough to contribute back to the original open source project.

E.g. Meraki and Fonera created their firmware by modifying OpenWrt and building their custom code on it. They have also complied with GPL terms by releasing source of their code on their site. Note: I have never tried to use their provided code and build firmware, but people have reported various level of success (Indicating that the procedures are for Hard Core Geeks only - no muggles allowed, documentation is sketchy).

This also occurs with other technology such as GPS, where TomTom and Dash both have created GPS devices based on Linux. They have released open source portion of their code as downloads available from their site including modified Linux Kernel and various utilities.

Apple also did same when they used KHTML and created WebKit. They released occasional  Code Bombs for modified KHTML.

So what is it that they don't do right now?

What they do not do is, they do not contribute the code to the original project. They release the modified source code, but it remains separate as it was forked. It does not get merged into original code. The issues it creates are listed here:

1. It is left to open source community to explore the code bomb and extract, merge, retrofit the changes into original code.
2. It is left to open source community to identify missing pieces as sometimes the code does not provide details into where the code was taken from, and what was changed.
3. Sometimes open source community and the vendor who forked starts moving the code to two entirely opposite directions making it very difficult to merge the code.
4. Software company gets an advantage as so they have visibility into Original Code, changes they have made and changes made to original code by open source community for their next release, but this does not get passed to community.
5. They just make it harder for community to merge the code into main tree.

I wish that they would also make effort to merge their changes into original  projects, there by keeping original projects relevant to real world applications and updated.

Dash GPS

Well, I wrote about capability being added to TomTom that would allow it to collect data related to trip timings etc. But the first company to actually announce such as product was IMHO Dash.

Dash offers a device called as Dash Express. The device features concepts such as a built in WiFi receiver (Others provide bluetooth and require a phone with data plan, Dash needs a Wireless Hotspot with an Internet connection, something easy to have for most people) ,Autoupdate over Internet, ability to send data to Dash over the Internet (such as itinerary). Most important thing it offers is ability to collect information about trip timings, route taken, road block encountered, analyze historical traffic patterns and suggest a better router.

Dash Express is based on open source technologies such as Linux just like TomTom is. In fact, Linux Kernel as modified by Dash is available for download (I wish they would submit their changes to Linux Kernel rather then releasing such code drops, but that needs another discussion).

My wish-list for such devices:

• Give me a free device with a free subscription
• Have a tie up with multiple large hotspot providers such as T-Mobile Hotspot (Think of yourself stopping at a Starbucks for a coffee, and your GPS system uses their Internet connection for free and updates itself with map updates, updated traffic/weather information etc).

A bigger wish:

• Create a standard POI exchange format, which multiple GPS providers can standardize. GPS providers should create standardized POI registry which people can access for free or a very small fee (If the repository is shared, then individual GPS providers do not need to maintain it, it saves them the efforts).

I can ask for more, but this is sufficient for now.

Chili Systems' all-in-one Appliance may be based on Open Source

The Appliance created and sold by Chili Systems (http://www.chilisystems.com/index.jsp) may be based on open source software. The appliance runs on VIA hardware and Chili Systems claims that it runs ChiliOS which is based on Unix. But it does not offer any more information about it. Anyone who has such an appliance? Have you taken it apart to see what is under the hood?

Google Android

Google just released Android aka Open Handset Alliance.

Well, yes, everyone knows that.

But it is not something new. It is something Google had acquired as part of Android Inc. and they have been working on it since then.

But there is a problem. Is it fighting against Handset makers or the carriers or both? Well, it did get support from T-mobile and few others. But those are not the only company in the world. Even if they can not get AT&T and Verizon to sign up, there are many others (well they did get China Mobile) such as Reliance of India, Hutch Worldwide, Airtel Worldwide etc.

But one thing is for sure. It does give Linux Kernel plenty of credibility as a backbone of a Mobile Operating System (Yes, Linux is not an operating system, but just the Kernel).

Technorati tags: Linux, Google, Android, HTC, China Mobile, Verizon, Hutch, Reliance, Airtel