here's a project the Android team could learn from

[sarreq]

Enlightenment (E17) Reaches 1.0

Enlightenment version 16 was one of most configurable window managers back in late nineties (and still is). For the next version however Rasterman and friends decided to create a complete desktop shell instead of just a simple window manager. Enlighenment version 17 is therefore based on a set of graphical libraries which can used for other applications as well. But do we need another set of libraries when QT and GTK+ are already mature and stable? Depending on your needs, you might find that using the Enlightenment libraries is truly an enlightening experience!

I've actually been paying some attention to Enlightenment since E16 was still in alpha. I used the Windows port in Windows 95 (I don't believe it was an official port), and it was blazing fast compared to Windows Explorer.



edit: I missed this...

So today Nokia did something "interesting". The became a Windows House. More specifically they announed a strategic partnership with Microsoft that makes Windows Phone 7 now thier primary and premier Smarthpone OS. Symbian seems relegated to being a "Franchise OS" (given a low key position) and, Nokia's attempts to finally have an OS of relevance and innovation, Meego, is dropped to the status of a "Toy experiment" OS. It is for "trying new ideas". It will not become their main focus.
Now What does this mean for Qt? Well Nokia claim Qt will have no place in their Windows centric Smartphone universe. Where does this leave Linux and Qt? Well... at best as a sideline micro-amusement, and probably more likely, downsized and put on nothing more than life-support.
Now why talk about this? Well I'm here at Samsung. I am a principal eningeer, so I talk with some level of authority in saying that Samsung has been working on its own Linux based OS for a while now, with significantly less fanfare than Nokia and Meego. Not only is is solidly being worked on and not relegated to irrelevance, but as part of the work, Enlightenment and EFL have become a central focus. Samsung is putting real resources behind EFL and using it to make a production-ready OS. The OS not only is Linux based, It uses all the other infrastructure from Linux (DBus, Glibc, Xorg, and much much much more). It is also going to be Open Source (GPL, LGPL etc.) and with Opensource upstream gaining contributions back from Samsung.
This is a real effort and not just some research experiment. Stay tuned. Things will only improve from here. If you were hoping for a slew of Meego handsets, then maybe you should also keep an eye out for something from Samsung (actual product details not available yet - if it be a Tablet, Handset or TV or anything else for that matter).

interesting