mobile computing: embedded gets bigger

i've been running into more and more interest and opportunity in the "embedded" space. i use that word in quotes because the machines i'm talking about are hardly the kind of things people used to use that word about. these devices have nice (relatively) high resolution screens, decent CPUs and amounts of memory and are capable of running sophisticated software stacks.

the Eee PC that recently came out contains a shwak of KDE software on it, and it pretty well sold out on its first day on the market in Asia. this is not only cool, it's a good example of the demand for these kinds of things.

playing with the moblin, watching people interact with it (including the p-man, who's a big fan of it now), has also been quite interesting.

with a media center avenue opening up (i've got a conf call this week about that, hopefully i can then share some more information on where that's all going once that's done), there's yet another place for our software.

i have been approached by people from a few different large tech vendors over the last several months asking for a hard contact point into the KDE community for these kinds of devices. as such, post-4.0 (only because i won't have the time until then), i'll be assembling a task force to do just that.

if you have experience with the KDE stack and small form factor devices and would like to get in on what could be a large addition to the KDE family, please contact me directly. you should be ready and willing to get your hands dirty with free software development on devices and be able to help maintain working relationships with other projects as well as companies in industry. we don't need a large group to get this started, just a dedicated one. i'm hoping that some of those who step can help lead this along so that it doesn't all fall onto my plate.

by starting the wheels moving on this now, we'll have a couple of months to formulate some coherent strategy and get the kernel of a mobile KDE community ... mobilized. (excuse the pun ;) come january we can work on increasing the number of people who are willing and able to participate on all aspects of the initiative.

peace ...