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PalmSource introduced the ACCESS Linux Platform (ALP) at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Spain earlier this week. ALP is the developer's long promised Linux-based operating system for smartphones.

The first pictures of ALP in action recently appeared on Spanish-language site PDAExpertos.com, proving, as PalmSource VP of business development Albert Chu told us, that a working version of the new platform would be demonstrated at 3GSM.

ALP merges open source components—GIMP ToolKit (GTK+), GStreamer, and SQLite—with PalmSource’s middleware (messaging and telephony), HotSync, Palm Desktop and personal information management expertise, parent company ACCESS's Netfront Web browser, and a new graphic user interface and application framework code-named MAX. Expect both ALP and MAX to both receive new names by the time PalmSource ships the smartphone platform to manufacturers and developers.

As you can see, the images show a N60 Haier phone - a Chinese Linux handset running what appears to be the traditional Palm OS Memo application in emulation mode, which will support most well-made current Palm applications when phones built on ALP ship sometime next year.

(PalmSource bought China Mobile Soft (CMS) and its Linux platform for low-end handsets late in 2004, starting its road to Linux—although CMS's Linux platform didn't make into ALP after all. The Chinese market is ripe for Linux - particularly the government - according to a recent report on smartphones by The Diffusion Group.)

So while we can see ALP running on a phone in the pictures, we don't get a preview of what the actual MAX user interface will look like. And even if we did get a chance to see MAX now, it'll surely change as the year progresses—by the time PalmSource releases an ALP/MAX software development kit (see bottom image) to developers by the end of 2006. ALP devices aren't due until 2007.