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Nokia Confirms Symbian Is No Longer Open Source

Posted by Unknown on from the two-plus-two-equals-closed dept.

theweatherelectric noted an article on the H. From the article "Nokia has confirmed that it has closed the source code for the Symbian smartphone operating system. It says that despite it describing its new model for Symbian smartphone operating system development as 'open and direct' the 'open' part did not refer to 'open source' but to being 'open for business'. The 'open and direct' model is designed, according to Nokia, to 'enable us to continue working with the remaining Japanese OEMs and the relatively small community of platform development collaborators we are already working with.''"

3 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. Borg assimilation in progress by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is exactly what happens when a Microsoft mole takes over a company. Past example:

    -Rick Belluzo: while at HP, he announced to the press that HP would be "dumping HPUX" in favour of Windows NT (it wasn't true, and it did cause a panic of sorts). Windows NT 3.1, no less. Later, the mole moved on to SGI where he did precisely that: threw IRIX in the trash and attempted to shove Windows NT where it didn't belong. After thoroughly destroying SGI, he then moved to the Borg Cube itself, I'm sure with a big fat reward.

  2. Good move! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Closing the source of such a poor operating system as Symbian may be a clever move. People might start to think that there is now some value in it. I used to program in it quite some years ago and my impression at the time (not changed since) was that it owed its position to being owned by Nokia, and being at the time was the only smart phone system on the market. Programming in it was not easy and took at least 4 times as long as programming Windows. I remember any kind of memory leak was forbidden, or the software wouldn't work. When I eliminated all the ones in my code I discovered that the OS calls I was making were themselves leaking. At that point I threw in the towel.

  3. Re:Next by sdiz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually, they are following this guide: http://lwn.net/Articles/370157/

    If Nokia close Qt, the community win.
    If Nokia keep Qt open (but make it sucks), the community is destroyed.