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Symbian Foundation Takes First Step In Open Sourcing Mobile OS

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the many-options-to-play-with dept.

readthemall writes to let us know that the Symbian Foundation has released the first of several packages in their plan to open source the entire Symbian mobile OS. "On Wednesday, Symbian made available its first package covered by the EPL, the OS Security Package, according to Symbian developer Craig Heath. 'The OS Security Package source code is now available under the EPL, and it is the very first package to be officially moved from the closed Symbian Foundation License (SFL) to... the EPL,' Heath wrote in a blog post. Heath said the EPL would allow the security package to bypass export regulations in the UK, where the Symbian code is legally based."

6 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Okay... by rumith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Look, that's definitely good news (especially the part of the Symbian Foundation using EPL instead of inventing some special license of their own). But does it really matter that much now? I mean that writing apps for Symbian is a horrible experience (as has been highlighted multiple times here on Slashdot, too), and now that Android has arrived and brought a much more friendly programming environment, this step is too little, too late.

    1. Re:Okay... by SpinyNorman · · Score: 4, Informative

      You should soon be able to use Qt for Symbian development.

      Nokia own both Symbian and Qt, and the Qt labs blog is reporting Qt being ported to S60.

      http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2009/06/29/port-of-qtwebkit-to-s60/

      Note that Qt is an entire cross-platform library, not just for GUI - it includes stuff like threads, network comms, XML even WebKit!

    2. Re:Okay... by Freetardo+Jones · · Score: 3, Informative

      and now that Android has arrived and brought a much more friendly programming environment, this step is too little, too late.

      Too bad the figures don't bear you out what with Symbian powering almost 50% of all smart phones while Android is fighting to get more than 2-3% of the market. There are more Symbian-powered phones sold each quarter than there are even total devices running Android.

  2. Decline of Windows Mobile? by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With Symbian and Android now free, what is the reason for even producing a Windows Mobile handset anymore? I mean, why pay extra for a license when you can just customize your own OS for next to nothing?

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  3. Symbian has 49.5% ww smartphone market share by MagicMerl · · Score: 4, Informative

    For developers looking to make money, and use a very rich set of APIs/functionality, Symbian is the way to go. Gartner recently announced that Symbian has 49.5% of ww smart phone market share (300m+ devices). The distribution channel potential is there for developers to take advantage of now - not some unknown time in the future. Note that Symbian also has Runtime dev environments for Web, Python, and Adobe Flash Lite - who else has that?

  4. Symbian vs. Linux by lixee · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'll quote the wiki: "Symbian OS kernel (EKA2) supports sufficiently-fast real-time response such that it is possible to build a single-core phone around itâ"that is, a phone in which a single processor core executes both the user applications and the signalling stack. This is a feature which is not available in Linux. This has allowed SymbianOS EKA2 phones to become smaller, cheaper and more power efficient.[citation needed]"

    Is that even true? If not, we should take it up on the discussion page.

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