Linux Foundation Europe, an independent trusted supporter and vendor-neutral home for open source projects in Europe, today announced the formation of Open Mobile Hub (OMH). Designed to streamline mobile app development, OMH’s unified, open source framework and adjacent suite of SDKs and tools aims to simplify the development process for mobile devices. OMH is the latest project hosted by LF Europe, marking another milestone in our commitment to fostering open source innovation.
Born out of a desire to reduce complexity and accelerate the development of mobile applications, five leading organisations in the mobile technology sector, including Futurewei, Squid, Meetkai, BharOS, and Amaze, have come together to form the OMH project. This collaboration aims to address challenges associated with fragmented development environments and ensure consistent user experiences across all mobile devices.
“I’m excited to welcome OMH to Linux Foundation Europe, as the formation of this project represents a crucial step towards addressing the fragmentation and inefficiencies in mobile app development,” said Gabriele Columbro, General Manager, Linux Foundation Europe. By bringing together industry leaders in an open mobile ecosystem, we aim to create a unified solution that simplifies the development process, ultimately leading to a better cross-platform user experience. Additionally, we see the potential to democratise another critical area of technology, characterised by a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape in the EU and beyond.”
In addition, Preston Lau, Technical Steering Committee Chair of the OMH Project, commented: “The OMH plugin’s extensible capabilities foster collaboration with third-party services providers, enabling a seamless service switching, thereby reducing development complexities and enhancing innovation. For example, the OMH Maps SDKs gracefully abstracts the features of major mapping services, allowing developers to effortlessly switch between Google Maps, Azure Maps, Mapbox, and OpenStreetMap with minimal code adjustments.”
Specific Goals of the Open Mobile Hub Project Include:
OMH will release a comprehensive suite of SDKs and tools, including the Login & Authentication SDK, Maps & Location SDK, Storage SDK, and Core Gradle Plugin, all of which will be available as open source on GitHub. Additionally, OMH will develop a unified codebase to ensure that applications can be built and deployed across all mobile devices, regardless of the underlying OS platform. Finally, the project will enable extensibility with plugins, allowing third-party providers to develop their own plugins through standard interfaces, thus offering flexibility and adaptability in the development process.
