There was an interesting article in the print version of the San Francisco Chronicle a few days back, all about Freescale.
Some points interesting perhaps : They have recovered about 1/2 of $15Billion debt, which the article said was due to slowdown in auto industry and slow recovery. Just gives you and idea of the size of that market for them currently. There was something in there about an upcoming design which incorporated "entertainment systems" in the vehicle along with the usual control/ diagnostic stuff. Hmmm. Some have speculated that soon our vehicles will be online with regards at least with regard to maps, gps guidance, etc. Anyway it seems like there could be opportunities to involve the Linux community in all that somewhere. Also noted in the article that Freescale is making chips in both the Kindle and the Sony E-Reader. That surprised me. I am still waiting for a good handheld computer, that could run a real version of Linux like Debian (Android definitely does not count). I think that people running Linux on powerpc should keep in mind that if there is a future it may be quite different from the Apple years. For instance if an industrial developer is working on something you will only see a few people here dealing with it whereas back in the old days you would have had a much more consumer market, that is consumers of macs, rather than industrial designers which is no huge mob of people but on the other hand perhaps more interesting ... ------ One other thing I noticed not too long ago perhaps of interest. I am a pretty compulsive label reader. On Xbox carton printed in Spanish and English descriptions of the product. The Spanish version said Powerpc cpu, and the English omitted that. Funny; usually the Spanish descriptions are less detailed since the Spanish is more verbose (requires a fair amount more words to say the same thing). Some of my most fullfilling experiences in the Linux world have been with global interactions, communicating with people from around the world I otherwise would never have had any contact with. One can not assume that they are dealing with US cast offs, many of these markets are the hottest places for all kinds of development and are much more amenable to Linux than either the US or even the European markets. These are opportunities to strengthen the position of Linux and of powerpc presence in Linux. As far as Debian goes, at least there are the bits about Debian being a basis upon which Linux grows in several ways, or at least it is supposed to be. Brian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-powerpc-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/aanlktin9rvujxhmoy45sbtxwx90brs1bqx7rnwuw_...@mail.gmail.com
