14 DAY TRIAL // The Symbian Foundation announced today the completion of the largest transition towards open source in the history of software. Starting today, the Symbian platform is available to every one, as the Foundation has just finalized the open source release of the source code for the most popular mobile operating system in the world. The release of Symbian in Open source has been completed four months ahead of the original schedule, and is meant to open the door to new mobile development based on innovation and openness.
According to the Symbian Foundation, the code is now available for anyone who wants to do something with it, regardless if it is putting it on a mobile phone or something else. The Foundation also expects for the move to result in more innovation brought to the platform, while also enabling faster time-to-market and the opportunity to develop on the platform for free. Moreover, the future plans on the Symbian platform will enjoy more transparency, and the roadmap for the OS will be published with planned features for this year and the next.
“The development community is now empowered to shape the future of the mobile industry, and rapid innovation on a global scale will be the result. When the Symbian Foundation was created, we set the target of completing the open source release of the platform by mid-2010 and it’s because of the extraordinary commitment and dedication from our staff and our member companies that we’ve reached it well ahead of schedule,” commented Lee Williams, executive director of the Symbian Foundation.
There are 108 packages that contain the source code of the Symbian platform, and they are all available for download from the Symbian’s developer website, released under the terms of the Eclipse Public License and other open source licenses. In addition, developers will also be able to download the complete development kits needed for the development of applications (the Symbian Developer Kit) and mobile devices (the Product Development Kit). The kits sport compatibility with the latest version of the platform, Symbian^3, which is expected to become “feature complete” during Q1.
“Nokia congratulates the Symbian Foundation on the completion of its platform migration to full open source well ahead of schedule – a significant milestone for the Symbian platform, the foundation and the entire mobile industry. With this achievement, the world’s most popular smartphone platform is available in its entirety for developers around the world to innovate on and contribute to, enabling new opportunities for engagement and monetization. For Nokia, this truly open platform environment brings the promise of exciting new user experiences for our Symbian-based smartphones,” says Peter Ropke, senior vice president, Devices R&D, Nokia.