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Symbian Completes Transition To Open Source

Posted by timothy on from the still-a-contender-or-not dept.

Grond writes "Symbian, maker of the the world's most popular mobile operating system, has completed the transition to a completely open platform months ahead of schedule. While the kernel was opened up last year, the entire platform is now open source, primarily under the Eclipse Public License. A FAQ is available with more information about the platform opening." Adds an anonymous reader, linking to PC Magazine's story on the transition: "By putting Symbian fully in the public domain, the Symbian Foundation is pitting it against Google's Android. Symbian is well known across most of the world, but it's mostly a foreign curiosity in the US, AT&T is the only carrier that currently has a symbian phone in its lineup, the Nokia E71x."

10 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. "By putting Symbian fully in the public domain" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Except they didn't, in any sense of the term, put it in the public domain.

  2. http://maemo.org/ by Colin+Smith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's even Linux. Hell, it's Debian.

    http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/

     

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    1. Re:http://maemo.org/ by Max+Littlemore · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, I have just ordered a new N900 to replace my G1. The G1 is being only replaced because I dropped it a few too many times and it got flaky. I am moving from Android partly because the only way I have found to make the most of the hardware I own is to run a bunch o' hacks, I am more comfortable running a bunch o' hacks on Debian/Linux than Android, and partly because I can't find another Android phone with a flip out keyboard I like.

      From what I have read, Nokia are dropping Symbian from future N series smart phones, so basically this announcement means that they are open sourcing their low end crappy OS which has pretty much failed in the smart phone space.

      I vowed never to own another Symbian device when my last Nokia was retired a year ago. It is painfully limited and obscure and I don't see how opening up the source code will help when there is such a strong alternative in Maemo which already benefits from the familiarity of Linux/X/Qt. Waste of time, Nokia.

      As an aside, and a bit off topic, I am interested in the AndroidExecutionEnvironment that was being developed for Ubuntu. A (hopefully) simple port to maemo would mean I could still run my favourite Android apps.

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      I don't therefore I'm not.
    2. Re:http://maemo.org/ by Toy+G · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maemo is suffering from the US-centric view of the average IT media. It's simply the best smartphone OS... because it's not a phone OS, it's a full desktop OS with a phone-friendly UI, more or less like the iPhone. But differently from the iPhone, it's a standard Linux, it's open to all sorts of hacks, and you don't have to pay rent to develop for it (at least not yet). I have one, and it's mind-blowing. I can run anything I want without worrying about "jailbreaking" and other absurd locks. Once the price goes down a little, it will become the perfect device for, well, almost anything. (Yeah, the screen is resistive, but the quality and resolution... man, the iPhone looks very cheap in comparison).

      What is holding Maemo back, at the moment is:
      - the above-mentioned US-centric attitude
      - fear. Many in Nokia are scared of dropping their old Symbian workhorse, which is still immensely profitable even if it managed to irritate almost every single user it ever had, and never managed to establish a decent ecosystem of third-party developers. They are afraid that Maemo (an untested platform in the wider market) might fail, so they don't allocate enough resources to it, which leads to unpolished releases, which in turn means they don't feel confident enough to push Maemo-based devices as hard as they should...
      - internal politics. In Nokia, Symbian is the establishment, the cash-cow, the power, the suits, the veteran developers; Maemo is the skunkwork geek project, youthful and technically light-years ahead, but bringing a revolution in how things are done, with an unclear business model... not everyone is on board yet. Sometimes the friction shows.

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      -- Let's go Viridian.
    3. Re:http://maemo.org/ by Mulder3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "(...)so basically this announcement means that they are open sourcing their low end crappy OS which has pretty much failed in the smart phone space." ARE YOU SERIOUS??? Symbian is the leading(not the best, but surely, is the leading) Smartphone OS... Actually, there is more Symbian smartphones in the world that Android+iPhone combined... If you don't believe me, check the numbers... (Worldwide, not only US numbers) Just because Symbian is not popular in the US, doesn't mean it ist't popular at all... To you guys, US people, the concept of smart phone is new, i know(mainly because of your crappy cell phone market) but in Europe, smartphones is really not a new thing... I had my first Smarphone 6 years ago... A Nokia 7650(Symbian)

    4. Re:http://maemo.org/ by PeterBrett · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have one, and it's mind-blowing.

      If you don't mind, could you tell us which Maemo phone you have? I'm interested in them and short of hearing a more extensive review, I'd like to know which model you are so happy with.

      There's only one Maemo phone so far: the N900.

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  3. Re:Drivers too, please! by jellomizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Symbian, is finding that it is loosing its once strong share in the Mobile OS Market. They are moving to an Open Source Model in an attempt to "Firefox" their OS back to a good standing.

    Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. However trying to go against big names like Apple, Google and RIM you need to do something.

    It isn't as much as Open Source for comunity sake. Just kinda a gap so new companies who are making mobile apps wont go with android all that quickly so they can keep their market share. So I doubt I will see Drivers too... As they are not interested in mr. Normal Hacker who wants to tweak their phone. But to someone who wants to make a new phone... So they would be making their own drivers. Thus pushing market share.

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    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  4. Re:Too little, too late by dysonlu · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So by that logic, the iPhone OS is pushing Android out of the market?

  5. Re:Seems like overkill by ascari · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You make no sense: Doesn't the existence a really good and satisfying vibrator somewhat reduce the frequency of actual humans getting laid?

  6. The 1st epoc devices were 16bit and had 256kb by Colin+Smith · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My current N97 has 128Mb of RAM and 30+Gb of storage on board.

    It browses web pages fine, plays music, videos, sends video emails and calls, has gps and maps and it lasts up to 3 days on a battery charge.

    The maemo N900 has 256Mb of RAM, 600MHz CPU. As fast and powerful and as handy with Linux on board as it is, do you think the battery life is going to last 3 days?

    If you want an embedded platform where the costs and specific performance criteria are important, e.g. making profit selling hardware, the OS requirements can make a huge difference to the bottom line. Developers... Well battery life is only important to their wives and storage comes in terabytes.

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