Symbian goes open source
Symbian, the operating system that’s shipped on more than 330 million phones, is to be made open source. It’s the conclusion of a two-year process that began when Nokia bought the rights to the system.
Back in June 2008, Nokia took 100 percent ownership of the company behind Symbian and set up the Symbian Foundation. The group allowed everyone from major corporations to amateur enthusiasts to join without charge, the aim being to “enable the evolution based on one unified platform.”
Today that transition is complete, with the foundation calling it the biggest switch from proprietary code to open source in history. The entire source code is now downloadable in 108 packages, along with development kits for making compatible applications.
The commitment to openness will be backed by the publication of a “roadmap” for future developments to the system over the next two years, with everyone invited to comment on and “influence” the plans.
The foundation’s executive director Lee Williams told the BBC that one of the main reasons for making Symbian open source was a fear that it was developing too slowly to compete with rival systems. He noted complaints from app developers that it could take as long as nine months just to sort out the intellectual property administration required to produce a legal Symbian application.
Few expect the switch to open source to reverse the trend of Symbian, still the world’s most widely used phone operating system, steadily losing market share. But it will likely give it a burst of life, for example by making it easier for developers to produce Symbian apps aimed at capitalizing on the system’s immense audience.
It’s also theoretically possible that Symbian may attract the interest of handset manufacturers who’ve seen the benefits of open source with Android but either don’t want to deal with Google or could use a bargaining chip.
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