Poulsbo mess casts a shadow on Intel's Moblin project

Intel has inform Ars Technica that it is not working on a fix for the Moblin incompatibility of its GMA500 graphics chip, more commonly known as Poulsbo. It is used in popular netbooks like the Acer Aspire One and certain Dell Mini models

Moblin is a Linux-based platform targeted for small form-factor mobile devices the company launched back in 2007. Since then, Intel has been erratic in its support for it. The most glaring omission is the Poulsbo driver problem. The open source portions are unmaintained and haven't been updated since March 2008, despite not being able to work with recent versions of the Linux kernel.

Yet Intel has simply dismissed criticisms, incredibly arguing through its MoblinZone blog that open drivers aren't needed in the mobile and embedded space because products in that market don't have to be user-upgradeable. Intel has been courting the Linux community with the hope of expanding its involvement in Moblin. But it doesn't seem to feel any responsibility for making sure the hardware that it sells to OEM's is fully compatible with the Moblin platform.