

Samsung invests $500K in Linux Foundation to battle iOS - dcesiel
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/06/05/samsung_invests_500m_in_linux_foundation_to_battle_ios.html

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jiggy2011
Is this a trend? First Valve is investing in Linux (by developing their
platform for it) and now Samsung.

Whilst there has obviously been commercial investment in the past , I'm
assuming the majority of it was for enterprise server stuff or embedded
things. This is to build user facing stuff.

Perhaps companies are realizing that the only way to escape the nets of
MS/Apple and their walled gardens is to invest in open technology.

~~~
truncate
Adding to this, I've heard Electronic Arts released two games on Ubuntu Market
as well. Anyway, this growing interest targeting general user is overall good
for Linux.

~~~
adestefan
They are HTML 5 games that were already in the Chrome store [1]. It ended up
being a big story of nothing.

[1] [http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2012/05/new-ea-games-released-
in-...](http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2012/05/new-ea-games-released-in-
ubuntu.html)

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pavlov
This is not so much an investment, but a PR move to remind the world that
Samsung continues to be involved in mobile Linux.

Samsung is investing much more substantial amounts of R&D money into Tizen, a
Linux-based mobile OS with a HTML5 UI layer (co-developed with Intel). That's
their real hedge against Apple and Google.

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alttab
$500k? When are they going to get serious?

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cperciva
$500k is almost the entire budget of the FreeBSD Foundation. I don't know what
the Linux Foundation spends money on, but the FreeBSD Foundation does great
stuff with its money.

And if you happen to have a "paltry" $500k sitting around, feel free to send
it in FreeBSD's direction. :-)

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tlrobinson
That may be enough to fund the FreeBSD or even Linux Foundation's budget, but
is it enough to make a difference in competing with iOS?

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m_eiman
The kernel is just a small part of the software on a phone, of corse, and
likely not the crucial differentiator either. Don't forget that Samsung
probably uses Linux in a lot of other products too, e.g. TVs.

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seclorum
This is all about Tizen. Samsung, and its associates and partners in various
markets around the world, knows that iOS can be competed with, rapidly, by a
Linux-based alternative. It has been proven already with Android, and as we
all well know .. there will be next generations.

Tizen could be a next-gen mobile/integrated platform, and it could well be
that Samsung are the only ones who have anything to do with it, because there
is one thing about a Linux-based approach: it is multi-variate. Tizen will be
Samsungs Linux, but HTC might do something similar, and Creative Labs could
even dust off Plaszma/ZiiOS and produce a shudder effect through the lower-end
markets, too.

The Distro Wars won't be over for a while, I think, once this starts
happening.

Edit: I want to add that I think that things like the Sharp/Samsung engineers'
experience with AngstromOS and so on are sort of behind this.

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bad_user
They tried and failed before Android too.

These companies don't have what it takes to produce something as polished as
Android. And even if they throw money at it and manage to do it somehow, they
still do not have what it takes to build a developer community around it or a
popular app store, like Google or Apple did.

Is anybody anywhere using the Samsung/Kies App Store for instance? It comes
bundled on Galaxy S phones, I guess there are some people using it by mistake.

This effort can be easily underestimated, but even Microsoft is having
problems doing it.

~~~
seclorum
They have to get the hardware out there, first and foremost. Zii Labs
(Creative Labs Plaszma OS partners) could have easily competed with iOS in its
earlier days, if only they'd gotten the hardware out there. They lost because
they didn't get things deployed; but factually the technology is there for a
real ass-whooping, in the Mobile Linux-vs.-iOS department. They have to manage
a good deployment, and with an investment like this it seems that they are
gearing up to do so ..

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arpit
I think this article was more newsworthy when they accidentally quoted it as
500M instead of 500K (thats how I saw it on my Twitter feeds). The update to
reflect the correct amount makes the title feel out of place.

~~~
raphman
Agreed. And it is interesting that they did not even do simple fact-checking
before posting such a headline.

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truncate
Samsung emerged as one the top vendors and gets revenue in order of billions
due to Android. Hence it would be surprising if they _don't_ invest in Linux.

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arnoooooo
But they still won't refund my unused Windows License even though French law
says they have to.

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bstar77
If Samsung worded it "We're donating $500k to support the great work the Linux
Foundation does with FOSS" then I might give them a nod. But to say they are
investing $500k (a paltry sum) to battle iOS is kind of sad. Why even say
that, it sounds so petty.

So your only motivation is to attack Apple? It's not to simply support the
legion of open source developers that have been giving you free software for
years?

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tikhonj
I _really_ doubt Samsung would have worded it this way.

Instead, you're reading commentary from Apple Insider, which is obviously a
_completely_ unbiased source, that clearly doesn't believe everything revolves
around Apple.

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bstar77
my mistake

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chubot
What does this investment actually buy them? And what does it go toward?

~~~
wmf
<http://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs>

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kiiski
Corporate membership: <http://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/join/corporate>

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dfc
I do not know if it is Firefox, NoScript, RequestPolicy or just me but the
AppleInsider page looks like the default mobile formatted version of most
websites.

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electic
Samsung spends $500K in one hour on legal fees. Seems like a low amount to
such a great foundation.

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dscrd
Isn't this more like a donation?

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devin
For a company the size of Samsung this is not a large amount, but it's
certainly not a small amount either.

Articles like this make me feel like I'm back on slashdot sometimes. Am I
alone?

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voodoochilo
500K is embarrassing. probably the samsung corporation is spending more money
per year on toilet paper.

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vidarh
It's a _membership fee_ for the top tier of the Linux Foundation, not an
investment.

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DigitalSea
Oh, wow $500K... Most people I know have houses worth more than that. Are
Sumsung taking the piss out of Linux here? I get $500k if the entire FreeBSD
Foundation budget but you'd think more money means they can pay to hire even
more great developers. You don't battle iOS with $500K.

