Haskell has bindings for Gtk+ if you want a statically typed language without the bloat of a VM (Java/c#).

Virtualization?

Wouldn't it be less work to
      - get kvm/xen working on your phone or tablet? The ARM v7a architecture defines virtualization extensions, paving the way to run Android AND Gnu/Linux simultaneously with minimal performance overhead (relative to one's 2GB quad core smart phone)
      - run android-x86 in a window via virtualbox? Less mucking around than porting desktop Linux to Android or Dalvik to Xorg?

efforts were underway by KDE to port Calligra to Android.

http://blogs.kde.org/node/4521

Possibly the core libraries are GPL. So any linkage becomes a derivate work.

By contrast, gcc is GPL but the the gnu libc contains a linking exception so that the resulting binary is exempt. Similarly with openjdk.

OpenJDK under the GPL ain't free enough for you? You suggest Harmony was 'freer', with reference to some obscure website that rejects the Apache license as well. Hmmm.

Indeed, like any client GUI, an 'app' will only run faster to the extent that its logic is parallelized.

I thought a main benefit of multiple cores was potentially to achieve the same amount of work at lower clock speeds. i.e. by delegating background processes to the secondary/tertiary/quaternary cores, the OS can run with fewer battery-draining CPU spikes.

Agreed, 'revolutionary' makes me envisage Ernesto Guevara with a scruffy beard and a beret. Nevertheless...

To be honest, the hardware looks rather mundane - borrowing none of the sleek lines that Samsung "stole" from Apple. ;-)

But amongst OS aficionados, QNX is the business - a real-time embedded kernel that supposedly would leave Linux/XNU in the dust on phones (whoops, is such a statement considered blasphemy in these parts?!) A revolution? probably not but providing souped up multi-tasking of Android apps, continuing the Qt legacy of Meego/Symbian and providing enterprise services that made it the original BB a hit is at least a challenger to the bring-your-own-phone culture that has seen BB lose market share.

Yes, it has POSIX compatibility and uses netbsd's pkgsrc ports collection. Thus subject to compatible licensing and 'linuxisms', it should be possible to re-package software written for other Qt-based platforms (open webOS, Nemo, Plasma Active, Ubuntu Mobile).

Isn't R-pi a UK company? That could be a factor. Shuffling £ from one british org to another and all the money stays in the country.

Hmmm, my Brother wifi enabled laser printer has been chugging along for 5+ years.

your usage may vary but it was definitely a selling point all those years ago. Having to hook up a legacy desktop PC via USB just to share a printer via samba/wifi just because an iPad can't print directly represents a significant downgrade.

Mac os x will run fine on Apple machines!

it only works on Intel and AMD compatible machines

Wine runs Windows applications compiled for a compatible CPU architecture. So if one were to cross-compile a Win32 program (e.g. Notepad++) using MinGW to produce an ARM exe then it ought to happily run under wine on one's ARM linux installation (e.g. Ubuntu on a Nexus 7.)

Wow, your post shows up as the first search result. Congrats!

MS would be keen to become totally 64bit clean for Windows 9. Intel (aside from a few Atoms) and AMD migrated to x86-64 half a decade ago. Let IA-32 die already - it's nearly 10 years since the Athlon 64 came out...

[even if the machine I'm typing on is a P4 running ubuntu 12.10, I don't expect I'll be upgrading it to Windows 9!]

I'd be surprised if MS and ARM aren't working on AArch64, for a subsequent generation Surface RT, as we speak.