Linux calling

,

,

,

,

, and

announced today their intent to establish the world's first global, open Linux-based software platform for mobile devices.

According to Motorola, a world-class Linux-based platform aims to provide benefits for the mobile industry including lower development costs and increased flexibility, all of which contribute to the group's objective of creating compelling, differentiated and enhanced consumer experiences.

To help guide these efforts, the companies are also announcing their intent to form an independent foundation. The founder companies' objective is to realize the development of the platform based on the contributions of all interested stakeholders through an open and transparent process.

Focusing primarily on the joint development and marketing of an API specification, architecture, supporting source code-based reference implementation components and tools, the foundation intends to leverage the benefits of community-based and proprietary development.

Once established, the foundation aims to provide an API specification, architecture, references to open source code, new source code-based reference implementation components (to be developed and committed by foundation members) and specifications for referenced third party software. The foundation also plans to provide a test suite to assess and demonstrate product conformance to the platform specification.