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Nokia Opens the S60 Browser Source Code

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the open-for-business dept.

segphault writes "Nokia has released the source code of it's S60 WebKit browser for mobile devices. Based on the HTML rendering components used in Konqueror and Safari, the S60 WebKit has a multitude of advanced features designed specifically for web navigation on devices with small screens. Nokia decided to release the source code under the permissive BSD license in order to promote adoption by other mobile device companies. From the article: 'the power and scalability of WebKit-based browsers and the highly permissive license under which the S60 WebKit source code is available make it a good choice for companies that want to add mobile web browsing to their devices. I think it will be particularly interesting to see how this affects Opera, whose revenue primarily comes from distribution of its own virtually ubiquitous embedded browser.'"

4 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Are they not required to release it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Webkit is released under a "BSD-style license". It's WebCore which is based on the LGPL... so in neither case would they be required to release the source of the browser, but they would have to release the source of any modification of webcore which they did...

  2. Re:Are they not required to release it? by MWelchUK · · Score: 4, Informative

    From http://wiki.opendarwin.org/index.php/S60Webkit:

    "The MemoryManager, WebKit and Reindeer components are covered by the Nokia BSD license. The WebCore and JavaScriptCore components are covered by the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). The Netscape Plug-in API is a ported version of the open source plug-in interface from Netscape Communications Corporation, which is covered by the Netscape Public License v1.1."

  3. It is! by xNstAble · · Score: 2, Informative

    As other pointed out, it's likely you are not using the browser discussed here. It is available only on the S60 3rd edition, it is based on KHTML and it is a real breakthough in the mobile area.

  4. Re:Symbian 91. is a closed platform by S3D · · Score: 2, Informative
    So I can't run Python code on Symbian 9.1 through Nokia Python ?
    On the latest 9.1 phones Python interpreter is not included into installation. And you will not be able to install it yourself without Symbian Signing or having developer certificate on the phone.