Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation, used his keynote at the MeeGo Conference to highlight the benefits of open platforms, when compared to more tightly-governed platforms such as Windows Phone, iOS and BlackBerry. According to Zemlin: “You have software and platform vendors who are still selling their platforms to device makers, but they are also taking revenue opportunities by creating their own app stores. And now operating system vendors and platform providers aren’t just letting ISVs [independent software vendors] write anything they want and provide this to anyone directly, they are creating gateways through app stores, where they control what is on the platform and collect fees for that.”

Following the high-profile departure of Nokia as the primary MeeGo smartphone supporter earlier this year, Zemlin was keen to highlight continued momentum for the platform. “We have many more people here than were at the Dublin [November 2010] event, so it’s going nowhere but up,” he said.

Zemlin drew parallels between the progress of MeeGo and the success of Linux as an open-source computing platform, noting that: “This is a truly superior way to create software and to create products. I have been working in the Linux community for some time, and you know companies come and go, people come and go, and things change. One year it’s this, and one year it’s that. But the fundamental principles remain the same.”