Sailfish Alliance

Sailfish Alliance is the open alliance established in 2011 by Jolla company to develop Sailfish OS, a Linux kernel-based operating system combining mer with proprietary components written by Jolla, for various devices in the mobile industry and continue to develop the Linux MeeGo ecosystem, as also the Sailfish OS is a part of it. Important parts are:

• companies supporting and using developed code and software in various devices like netbooks, laptops, computers, mobiles, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), cars, yachts, navigations, household goods etc.
• hardware vendors
• the merproject.org, which develop code of core on open source basis
• the open source community by all means, especially Linux and MeeGo Harmattan enthusiasts.

Overview

"Sailfish Alliance is first and foremost a movement that will unite OEM and ODM manufacturers, chipset providers, operators, application developers and retailers. The key target is to bring innovation to a stagnating market and help mobile industry players to stay on the bleeding edge of the mobile OS development" – from the Jolla press release of November 21, 2012.^[1]

The Sailfish OS software development kit (SDK) uses Qt with virtual box for development and support various systems like Android, Linux, iOS or Windows. This and the open source nature of SDK allow to shape and rebuild it for particular and specific needs of a company or an organization or a group of developers, what allow to create context specific environment.

As Jolla's Sailfish OS uses the Mer core distribution, then various hardware and architectures can be used like ARM or Intel and many others. It is possible because the Mer core distribution does not contain any kernel, but libraries above the kernel and below user interface (UI) layers. To make a working Linux distribution, a kernel compatible with a particular hardware and UI are to be added – this creates the distribution of Linux Sailfish OS for particular hardware. Also this allows Sailfish OS to work on every hardware with appropriate kernel. Because of open source basis and rules, this can be used by all interested in using of those solutions e.g. to adopt for a particular hardware or any special needs.

Aim

The aim of the Alliance is to offer unique differentiation opportunities and sustainable competitive advantage for OEM and ODM manufacturers (for ODM see: Original design manufacturer), chipset providers, operators, application developers, retailers and other interested in sides.^[2]

Uses

The Sailfish OS can be used for many kinds of devices like mobiles, computers, notebooks, tablets, navigations, smart TV, cars and IVI, yachts and boats, household devices of many kinds etc.^[3] - this is similar situation as with MeeGo.

Jolla's Sailfish OS works in a tablet too.^[4] In November 2012 it was said that "we could see Sailfish tablet, but Jolla itself will on this first wave (note: of devices to be delivered to markets) concentrate on a smartphone".^[5]

Partners

The Sailfish Alliance is open and can be joined to contribute for or just the effects (like results of the cooperation and contributions of other partners) can be used.^[6][7] So far the partners in the Sailfish Alliance are following:

• Cyberport in Hong Kong – digital community with a cluster of technology and digital content tenants.
• D.Phone – China’s largest retailer for mobile phones and accessories.
• Digia – in 2011, Digia acquired the commercial licensing business for Qt from Nokia and in August 2012 acquired Qt from Nokia.
• DNA – Finnish mobile network.
• Invesdor – Northern European crowd funding platform.
• Joiku – produces Mobile WiFi HotSpot software for Nokia phones.
• Jolla Ltd. – Finnish smartphones manufacturer.
• Merproject.org – open source project developing the Mer tools and the Mer core based on MeeGo, on which the Sailfish OS has been built.
• Myriad Group – Myriad Alien Dalvik enables Android applications to operate on non-Android devices.
• Opera Software – company that makes browsers for most major mobile phone platforms.
• ST-Ericsson – industry leader in design, development, and the creation of cutting-edge mobile platforms and wireless semiconductors.
• Tekes – Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation.
• Tencent Holdings – one of the largest portal service in China.

References

External links

• Sailfish OS wiki explain relations, provides open source binaries and further links for contributors and potential partners interested in joining the alliance.