Hmmm. This is where it gets interesting.

Samsung couldn’t “buy” MeeGo because it was an open source project. But Samsung has now joined forces with two of the three major sponsors of MeeGo in creating this new OS.

Well, well, well… if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!

So what else is different with Tizen?  HTML 5. This is good for developers, but Web-based platforms have been tried before: webOS.

The Linux Foundation is pushing Tizen for use outside of the normal mobile device milieu: in-vehicle systems and consumer electronics. This may be attractive for manufacturers, as Tizen will likely be more affordable than paying for a Microsoft license.

Meanwhile, Samsung has signed a cross-licensing agreement with Microsoft that covers development and marketing of Windows phones as well as a broad patent agreement. It’s hard not to see that this agreement is an effort by Samsung to protect itself from the Android lawsuits facing its competitors.

Oh, and this just gets better — the Tizen announcement was made on the same day that Nokia released the N9, which is the first, and probably the only phone to ever run MeeGo.

Intel announced the end of MeeGo on the project’s blog, garnering some angry developer reaction, especially those who are concerned with the future of the Qt framework.

This all begs the question: How bright is the future of Tizen? Leave your thoughts and comments below.

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So now that Android is clearly dominating the mobile space, competing heavily with Apple’s iOS and all but drowning out Windows Phone OS, what’s going on with MeeGo? I tried to find out at LinuxCon, but was met with some platitudes about how it’s still being developed. Those I talked to said that the Nokia departure was admittedly a big bump in the road for the OS.

This week, Intel’s general manager of the company’s Systems Software Division, Doug Fisher, said that Intel was “fully committed” to its mobile OS.  Meanwhile, rumors flew that Samsung was going to step up and buy MeeGo, but today Samsung quashed those rumors, telling Roger Cheng of CNET that they couldn’t buy MeeGo even if they wanted to — MeeGo is an open-source project and therefore can’t be the focus of an acquisition.

So MeeGo lives on. The Linux Foundation and Intel are continuing to spur developers to work on applications for the OS and get it onto hardware.

In the meantime, we may forget that it exists.