Large companies group together to make Linux standardized for mobile phones. PalmSource, Orange and others want Linux to be an alternative for mobile phones too.

“Lips” is the Linux Phone Standard Forum and is intended to standardize Linux in order to make the operating system a viable alternative in the mobile industry.

Unfortunately at this moment, Linux has many interfaces and the software for it has to be customized for each one. The group wants to eliminate this problem and to make a better competitor for Windows and Symbian.

“There’s a need for an alternative to Microsoft and Symbian. We’re interested in reducing fragmentation and introducing a standard Linux platform that will allow people to make Linux phones faster, at lower cost, and with greater interoperability.” said John Ostrem, Lips board member.

The program is divided in two large steps. For the first one, the companies want to make a profile for normal phones that run simple applications. This step has to be accomplished by the end of the first quarter of 2006. Then, the second step is for high end devices and will be finalized in 2007.

This is not the first project of this kind. OSDL (Open Source Development Lab) tried to promote Linux for some mobile phones as well as the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF) which made efforts to define numerous phone profiles.