Android -v- LiMo -v- Funambol?

A post on the BFF caught my attention this morning. The title: "Android -v- LiMo -v- Funambol". Now, being put against two operating system initiatives is interesting ;-) Then I read the source of it, which is an article on ZDNet by Dana Blankenhorn. The title: "Whose mobile open source community will deliver?". Much better, now we are not fighting anyone, but we are battling to deliver.

Dana's article starts from the consideration that Android is too close to be open... And that LiMo is "a corporate billboard". Then he adds:

This is a mistake, both on the part of the companies involved and on the part of the industry. If mobile Linux is to really take off, then a development community must be activated.

This week Funambol made the first move to do just that with the launch of its Funambol Forge.

The new forge has many of the tools you look for in a good community site. The question is whether it will attract mobile developers generally, or just those who care about Funambol’s own software.

I know that corporate-owned forges are usually devoted to a corporation’s own software, but it may be time for that to change.

If other mobile projects won’t develop high-quality forges with good community tools, why shouldn’t Funambol Forge become the center of the action?

In like the thought. I would love the Forge to aggregate the entire mobile developers community. Our community is not building just an operating system, but a complete mobile platform for developing Mobile 2.0 applications. From getting the application on the device, to delivering the data to it, via a push mechanism, to managing the entire device. Full circle. Mobile operating system independent.

Certainly, if you have a mobile project with an AGPL license, we'll be happy to host you. Google does not... And LiMo does not even allow you to talk to them ;-)