The non-profit LiMo group has been officially formed by Motorola, NEC, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics, NTT DoCoMo, and Vodafone following their commitment last June to create a single mobile phone software platform based on the Linux kernel.
The LiMo Foundation aims to create a common source code tree for mobile Linux that will reduce time to market as well as development and testing costs. It will also work to try to minimize fragmentation, promote an ecosystem of Linux developers, co-operate with existing industry organizations, and attract new members. This will be done via the joint development an API specification, architecture, supporting source code-based reference implementation and tools.
In creating the LiMo Foundation, the founding members have also created two new licenses for contributed code, while it appears that not all the code will be available to everyone.
Open source licenses such as the GNU General Public License and Mozilla License can be used, but members can also choose from the FPL (Common Capable) license, which includes a patent non-assert clause and covers code that could be included in the common core.
Also available is the FPL (Non-Common Capable), which covers code not considered for inclusion in the common core, and enables the contributor to charge non-discriminatory royalty fees for patents.
According to LiMo’s intellectual property policy: The FPL is the primary software license under which the common code of the Foundation Platform is licensed among members. Only members that have completed a self-certification demonstrating the implementation of adequate security mechanisms and procedures, and their contract developers, will be permitted to access the source code licensed and contributed under an FPL license.
Contributors may also include code under proprietary licenses on the grounds that they offer copyright and patent licensing on non-discriminatory terms. Such code will have a conversion data after which it will revert to an FPL (Non-Common Capable) license, although that date could be set to infinite.
The LiMo Foundation will be overseen by a board of directors headed up by Foundation chairman and Motorola corporate VP of mobile devices software, Greg Besio, as well as Foundation vice chair and VP and managing director of NTT DoCoMo’s product division, Kiyohito Nagata.
