Foss @ Mobile Posted by Adel Mubarak , Saturday, October 24, 2009 at 1:21 AM, in Labels: FOSS

According to this story on Marketwire, there has been dramatic growth in FOSS applications for mobile devices. The story cites a study by Black Duck Software, a company that helps businesses develop software that contains FOSS components. It spiders the web looking for FOSS applications and collects downloadable apps into a FOSS repository.

It found around 2300 FOSS applications for mobile devices. A summary of its results over the fold.

Platform ......... Total Project .......... Releases Project
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Palm ....... .................1,850 .............. ........ 113 ........
iPhone .......................391 ............... .......... 266 ........
Windows Mobile ....... 359............ ........... 174 ........
Symbian ................... 322.............. ............. 64 ........
Android .....................246 ........... .............. 191 ........
Rim/Blackberry ......... 237 .............. .......... 96 ........
Maemo ...................... 56 ............. .............. 17 ........
LiMo .......................... 28 .................. ...........6 ........

Although Palm leads in total apps, more apps were produced for Google’s Android platform in 2008. That’s a good sign. Indeed, given Android’s relatively late arrival compared to Rim/Blackberry and iPhone, it’s catching up quickly. With 246 apps, it has surpassed Rim/Blackberry (237) but trails iPhone (291). I’m guessing it’s going to jump in the lead by next year at this time