Symbian Foundation Shuts Down Its Websites

Symbian Foundation, the organization behind the Symbian operating system, is set to shut down all of its websites as of December 17th, 2010, following the announcement regarding the transitioning to a licensing body.

A recent post on the Symbian Foundation wiki states that the site is expected to close on that day, but that the organization is trying to put together all the necessary content and make it available in other forms than web services.

For what it's worth, the shutting down of these websites was somehow expected, since Nokia announced that it would be taking over the development of Symbian, and that it would invest its own resources in the process.

Here's what the said post notes when it comes to which sites will be affected by the move:

All of the websites hosted by the Symbian Foundation will be affected:

www.symbian.org, www.symbian.org/cn, www.symbian.org/jp
developer.symbian.org, developer.symbian.org/cn, developer.symbian.org/jp, kernel.symbian.org
horizon.symbian.org
ideas.symbian.org
blog.symbian.org, blogcn.symbian.org, blogjp.symbian.org

The @Symbian Twitter feed and the Symbian.org fan page on Facebook are also likely to be discontinued.

Symbian Signed will continue to operate, as will Symbian communities hosted outside the Symbian Foundation.

As stated above, the Foundation will try to make the content (source code, kits, wiki, bug database, reference documentation & Symbian Ideas) available in other forms, such as a DVD or USB hard drive, which would be delivered upon request to the Symbian Foundation.

There are no specific details available on when this content would be ready, bu they estimate that we should not expect it to be delivered before January 31st, 2011. “A charge may be levied for media and shipping,” the said wiki post continues.

While the source repositories will most probably be shut down on December 17th, the Foundation will make available upon request on a DVD or USB stick kits like: Symbian^2 – PDK 2.0.3, only to accredited SF members, Symbian^3 – PDK 3.0.4, Symbian^4 – PDK 4.0.a.

At the moment, all the content is available for download online, and those who are interested in it should download it before December 17th, 2010.

Additional info on the closing down of the Symbian Foundation website can be found here.