Open Source Software For Mobile Phones

Members of the open source GPE project (GPE Palmtop Environment) today announced a new offspring project to create a fully open source software stack for mobile phones, GPE Phone Edition. GPE Phone Edition is a fully open source project based on developments from the GPE project adding necessary components for mobile phone usage. Based on standards defined by the LiPS Forum a complete application software stack is built. The current implementation is based on code contributed to the LiPS Forum by Orange/France Telecom's research and development lab located in Beijing China in collaboration with GPE project members. The result is now an open sourced software stack which can handle a GSM compliant mobile modem for making voice calls, handling the SIM address book and sending and receiving SMS. Also some additional application exists e.g. for media playback, instant messaging and email. They have some screenshots there and even a downloadable VMware image using which you can try the whole thing in a virtual phone on your PC — if you connect a GSM Modem (like an existing phone) to /dev/GSM-Modem you should probably even be able to use the full phone functionality (access SIM card, send/receive SMS, make a call!).