Linux Tavern

This is it — the dream of all open source and linux software developers. Develop open source software — for linux — in your spare time — for your own use — offer it to anybody for free — and have a large company contact you out of the blue and offer you money to continue development of the software. This is exactly what has happened to Matthew Allum and his Matchbox Window Manager Project.

Matchbox is a lightweight window manager developed for non-desktop platforms with small screens, such as handhelds and cell phones. Like many GPL and Open Source Software developers, Matthew wrote Matchbox after trying to run Linux and X on a Compaq Ipaq handheld. He was so frustrated with trying to find a window manager that would work on the small screen of the Ipaq that he ended up writing his own. Like many free software developers, he made Matchbox available for free on the Internet and also became active in the Linux handheld community.

Then, in 2002, he received an email asking about Matchbox which, he admits, he almost deleted. By chance, he decided to respond to the email, and he immediately received a response back from a Nokia email address expressing interest in funding further development of Matchbox. All of a sudden, Matchbox was no longer a side project for his own use, but a business and a full time job!

Today, Allum now has his own company (OpenedHand) and employs four full time developers! He is also working closely with Nokia on the continued development of Matchbox for several Nokia Hardware Platforms along with other projects.

This is a great Open Source / GPL / Free Software success story — we can only hope for more!

Technorati Tags: Linux, Matchbox, X Windows, Nokia, Ipaq, GPL, Open Source

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 5th, 2005 at 12:23 am and is filed under Linux Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.