GNUstep (palmtop) for PDAs and Smartphones

[address@hidden]

Since there is currently a lot of discussion about a GNUstep desktop
distribution, I just want to remind that we are already following this
approach/target for PDAs and Smartphones:

* we have mySTEP (a GNUstep fork optimized for embedded devices)
* some additionally required runtime libraries (and kernel if needed)
* an Application suite with typical PDA/Smartphone applications:
Address Book, Calendar, Phone Dialer, Mail, Notebook, Browser, ...

A screen shot of how the "palmtop" looks like is here:
http://www.quantum-step.com/swi/showdetail.php?app=4405

A list of palmtop applications being available or worked on can be
found here: http://www.quantum-step.com/swi/index.php

The full project is called QuantumSTEP:
http://www.quantum-step.com/wiki.php?page=About
It already works to a satisfactory level on the Sharp Zaurus (with
linux 2.4 kernel) and on an Acer n30 (with Linux 2.6 kernel).

The GNUstep (LGPL) based libraries are called mySTEP and its sources
are of course open: http://www.quantum-step.com/download/sources/ (for
a .tgz)
or http://www.quantum-step.com/download/sources/mySTEP/ (to view
individual files in your browser)

But: not everything is open source. The applications itself are
proprietary since a hughe effort was put into them.

Well, it would not be too much effort to compile everything for an x86
API instead of ARM, bundle with some standard Linux or BSD kernel and
X11 to make a complete desktop distribution out of it.

According to http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1996 Windows
costs 48$ and MacOS X 107$ per year. How much would you be willing to
pay per CD?

If there is enough interest, we can create and offer such a Desktop
distribution.

Nikolaus
www.quantum-step.com