Mobile Phone Profile Working Group

Table Of Contents:

Workgroup Description
The Mobile Phone Profile Working Group was formed to work on providing a Linux, open-source base for building mobile phones. The mobile phone industry has seen growing interest in using Linux as a product base. Since many technology developers are building their components on Linux, phones based on Linux should be able to adopt those new technologies more quickly than phones based on proprietary platforms.

In this domain, real-time performance, system size, boot-up time, and power management are areas where critical improvements need to be made to Linux. Additionally, the middleware available for building phones needs to be broadened and matured.

The Working Group will formalize requirements for system and middleware components and will identify existing and needed open-source projects that provide components or capabilities for Linux-based mobile phones. The Working Group will also identify standard middleware APIs enabling third-party software development and projects implementing such APIs.

Charter

 * Develop reference architectures for Linux-based mobile phones for one or more reference tiers.
 * Components
 * Relationships between components
 * Identify performance and functionality requirements and allocate them to elements of the reference architectures.
 * Mobile-phone-specific requirements for core Linux (kernel, libraries, tools)
 * Requirements for enabling middleware for the MP domain
 * Requirements for horizontal (functional) domain middleware important to mobile phones
 * Maintain a roadmap for the evolution of the profile, projecting requirements for areas expected to be important in future phones.

Scope

 * Linux interfaces, middleware, APIs, and component implementations supporting phone-specific functionality tiers.
 * User-level feature functionality and air-protocol support are included only as sources of requirements and as plug-in points in the architecture.
 * Where open-source components are not available, the profile may specify plug-in points, such as API definitions, where outside components can be connected to provide needed functionality.

Activities

 * Engage CELF members interested in this domain (phone manufacturers, software and hardware suppliers, customers)
 * Define technical scope
 * Reference tiers (for example, "Smartphone")
 * Specific functional (horizontal) domains to be included
 * Key requirements for the MP domain
 * Define reference architectures
 * Identify available components, frameworks, projects
 * Define plug-in interfaces for non-CELF functionality
 * Define needed implementation projects
 * Write up profile documentation

Mobile Phone API
The Working Group has been developing an API for handset functionality. The first parts of that API are now available for public comment during their Formal Review. For more information, see Mpp Api Formal Review.

WG Technical Projects
The Working Group has made progress on two of its work items.

The Group agreed on profiles defining several Reference Tiers] that define classes of phone products.

The Group has begun work on defining an API for mobile handset functionality], beginning from a proposal presented by NEC and Panasonic.

Resources
The WIPI Specification and supporting materials].