Linux Uptake Stronger Next Year Thanks To Android — Torvalds
Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Android has received some kudos from the man himself, Linus Torvalds. “I haven’t been personally involved, but it certainly looks like 2008 may be — thanks to the Google alliance — one of the years you will find more widely available phones with Linux,” Torvalds told Reuters. Google has come under fire because Android has made the mobile Linux market more fragmented. Still, you’d expect Torvalds to be bullish on Linux, and he went on to say that the increasing penetration of smartphone would improve the uptake of the Linux operating system on mobiles. “Quite frankly, Linux makes much more sense in a smartphone than it makes in a really low-end product,” Torvalds said.
What's the difference between fragmentation and healthy competition? At least we don't end up with a scenario like Microsoft has, leading all of their developers up a blind alley with Vista.
There's plenty of healthy competition in the mobile OS space. The problem with fragmentation is that developers have to create lots of different forms of their programs based on the OS, the handset and often the operator. One or two mobile Linux OS's is good — several dozen is bad.