Portable Linux Pact Quietly Fades Away, Leaving Questions

Man, I hate to see this happen and you better believe that the Portable Linux Pact is going to leave some serious questions!

A much-hyped partnership of two fast-growing
Linux software makers has quietly fizzled, raising questions about the free operating system’s appeal beyond servers.

More than two years after touting a deal to create a version of Linux for phones and other handheld gadgets, Wind River Systems (NASDAQ:WIND - News) and Red Hat (NASDAQ:RHAT - News) are parting ways.

Going solo, Wind River last month launched the first major upgrade of its development platform for a version of Linux that will be embedded — or “hard-wired” — into electronic devices. It’s also updating its Linux platform for network gear. That product will compete directly with Red Hat’s main Linux software.

“That partnership sort of withered away,” said Glenn Seiler, who heads Wind River’s Linux products. “It never really came to fruition in terms of what we originally aspired to.”

Red Hat gets the bulk of its sales from customers running Linux on Intel-compatible servers. Adapting the software to work with less powerful chips used in handhelds proved a bigger task than Red Hat counted on, Seiler says…. Source: Investor’s Business Daily