MeeGo becomes Tizen. What Comes Next?

Once upon a time there were two mobile operating systems called Moblin and Maemo, the former being developed by Intel and the latter by Nokia. In the beginning of 2010 the two companies decided to join forces and so MeeGo was born.

The MeeGo project was hosted by the Linux Foundation as a true open source project. One could have hoped that the umbrella of the Linux Foundation would save it from dying young. I didn't. After all, the underlying code base being free and open, part of MeeGo will live on in the new Tizen software platform. From its project Web site we learn that:

Tizen will support multiple device categories, such as smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, netbooks, and in-vehicle infotainment devices. The Linux Foundation will host the project, where Tizen development will be completely open and led by a technical steering team composed of Intel and Samsung.

While Intel still participates in the project and is joined by Samsung, Nokia decided to discontinue their Linux efforts and became a Microsoft vassal. This time also the LiMo Foundation is onboard. Their goal to create the first truly open, hardware-independent, Linux-based operating system for mobile devices looks like the perfect fit.

Tizen's application programming interfaces are based on HTML5 and other web standards. Despite being reminiscent of webOS, another mobile operating system likely to be obsolete soon, this seems very reasonable and sould rejoice developers who are interested in creating applications for this platform.

The entire Tizen software stack, including the operating system core, the APIs and the software development kits will be open and reportedly released in the first quarter of 2012.

While the last sentences read quite promising the whole evolution from Moblin to Tizen is not a strong argument for other hardware manufacturers to ship their devices with Tizen. What's your take on this? Would you still buy a MeeGo netbook or even develop applications for it or rather choose a model running an operating system with a more reliable history?

Via The H Open Source