Symbian Foundation talks about its move to open source
By Chris Ziegler 
posted February 4th 2010 1:54PM
posted February 4th 2010 1:54PM
As we'd figured out last night, Symbian's big reveal for today was the completion of its move to a fully open, royalty-free platform -- meaning you no longer need to be a paid-in-full member of the Foundation to see all the code -- and they're ready to talk about it and spread the word far and wide. Though Symbian's certainly not getting as much share of the mobile discussion these days as some of its smaller competitors, it's certainly important to keep in mind that these guys have software deployed on literally hundreds of millions of devices, making this perhaps the largest-scale conversion of a closed operating system to open source in history. Because the code has been licensed under the Eclipse public license rather than the harder-core GPL, device manufacturers will be able to continue to tack on custom features and hardware support without open-sourcing it, which should make them less gun-shy about throwing weight behind the platform -- and considering how badly these guys need to get back into the spotlight, that's a good thing. Follow the break for the Foundation's intro video to the wide, wide world of open source and Symbian^3, the first version to be fully spread out for everyone to see.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Great Scott!
I was just about to tip this to you guys.
here is Lee M Williams (head of Symbian Foundation)
his message to Billgates,Stevejobs and probably Google .
http://twitter.com/leemwilliams/status/8638502561
i know this isn't about the article per say, but i would just like to thank the editors for everything they do and I am especially impressed with the amount of comments they replied to in the article where they turned the comments back on. shows me they're not pretentious like everyone and their mothers were trying to make them out to be over the past few days. you guys are awesome. engadget = my homepage forever.
@Nokia N900
"4.5 billion worth"
4.5 billion *what*?
4.5 billion dollars worth? That doesn't make sense.
4.5 billion lines of code worth? That doesn't make sense either.
Apparently he forgot units.
@Johnny Rockets
Units? Where we're going, we don't need units.
@Johnny Rockets
He didn't forget units, they just didn't fit into the Twitter's character limit.
Open source is the future!
@Javindo
I agree, accept that it needs another name. If you say it enough or too quickly, it sounds like Open Sores.
Moving to open source is obviously a good move. As firefox has shown, keeping a software platform open to peer review is good for the software just the same way that peer review is good for improving the integrity of science. ^^ Symbian Foundation
Some years ago, Symbian was my favourite mobile OS, but they forgot to add innovative new features. Today it seems so outdated, but on basic phones it is still very useful. Nevertheless, a nice move to compete against Android.
@Emporio Check this out for q quick info: http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Symbian^4
We should not count anyone dead. When Nokia finally releases Qt4.6 this will be great for developers. Let's just hope they do it right so we can have ever greater mobiles around there...
@Mr w00t
I'd like to believe it but, Nokia has always been chasing silver bullets and the "next version", instead of fixing even the basic problems of their SDK and platform.
Also Qt has been available for long time, it's a good framework but it hasn't taken the world by storm. It's still C++ (high barrier of entry, especially considering Symbian's bastardized version of it) and a bit long in the tooth compared to the competition.
@Spolsky Python+Qt then ;)
I started learning python after I bought my N900 and it is so damn simple that even I am learning (and boy I do stupid things in life).
I have created my self few apps for personal usage (a desktop applet for email notification and my own file synchronizer, both in GTK...) both very easy and stupid but just for me. Imagine someone with skills doing it....
I think python it will lower the entry level for programming for Symbian/Maemo devices. And if someone needs a real deal programming, I mean better resource management and graphics, they will jump into C.
And it is not like Java(Android) and Cocoa(Apple) are the easiest things in the world... Palm promised an easy entry but they are nowhere to be seen.
@Mr w00t
I'm programming in Python for my Symbian phone as well and it's very easy, in fact it's just like programming for a PC. I'm making my end-of-university project (don't know what it's called in english) in Python for S60, and i'm making progress a lot faster than i expected.
On the other hand C++ is a terrible terrible language on its own, but for Symbian it's even worse, i spent 3 days trying to set up all the compilers and development kits which took up 10 GB of my HDD space and in the end i couldn't even make a hello world app. So i hope Symbian makes developing native apps a lot simpler, until then mere mortals like myself will have to stick to PyS60 or alternatively switch to some more developer-friendly OS.
@(Unverified) Cool :) Hope everything goes well with app dude...
@(Unverified),
FYI, the reason you haven't seen much advancement in Symbian lately, especially to the SDK, is because they stopped development to focus on rewriting most of the code, creating new APIs and framework based on Qt, and a completely new UI, also based on Qt. The goal is to hardly ever have to access the deep code layers of Symbian, staying in the Qt environs as much as possible. Many hardcore Linux devs familiar with Qt will tell you how easy it is to use, alone or along with other native code.
It was hard watching many advances happen on other OSes, but in all honesty, they're only catching up to the core functionality of Symbian (Apple still lacks Flash or multitasking. RIM's app framework is Java based only, and it has a weak browser. Android only does Java apps, with a nascent native app framework just implemented, but nowhere near the juggernaut of Symbian, allowing Python, Ruby, Flashlite, Mscript, C++, Java, and others. WebOS is just a baby...), which is NOT S60, the most common UI for Symbian. S60 is nothing more than the same as Sense or Moto Blur for Android, a UI skin. The OS itself is the most optimized and advanced ever made for mobiles.
If Qt allowed apps like VLC, Google Earth, and others, I'm sure you'll be able to make some compelling apps with it. Viva la Symbian!! (and go Maemo, the Qt cousin of Symbian, 2011)
@(Unverified), blasphemy! C/C++ is the mother of all (human readable) languages, and it will stay like that for a long, long time. You cannot say that it's terrible just because you cannot grasp it.
Welcome back Symbian. Waiting for the new Symbian devices to hit the stores
I'm sure this will work out just as well as it did for Sun.
@(Unverified) I am sure this will work as well as it did for IBM. ;)
Depends on how you want to see, if you are already biased not to like Symbian/Nokia/Sony Ericsson/etc then there is no way this announcement will turn your head.
This should lay any doubts about Nokia's awesomeness to rest. At least for a while.
Great article, but being in a hundred million devices doesn't fit with "needing to get back to the spotlight". World is a bigger place than US.
Otherwise, magnificent article.
PS: Go Symbian! Can't wait for ^4!
It would be interesting to see this code used to develop a desktop OS.
Lets see what the talented people out there can do with Symbian OS.
Exciting times ahead! :D
Woa, crazy eyebrows! Anyway, this is good news, but I'm wondering what parts *aren't* open source. It seems we now have three mostly open source phone OSes. It's the closed bits that are interesting.
For example, apparently the entire UI layer in Maemo is closed source, despite Maemo bein repeatedly described as 'open source':
http://wiki.maemo.org/Why_the_closed_packages
In android, most of the hardware drivers are closed source, in particular the OpenGL and GPS drivers. I suppose this is to be expected since google have little control over the hardware device manufacturers use.
I bet there's some critical stuff missing from Symbian.
@Timmmmmm
Apparently it's the whole thing. Open source alternatives have been found for bits that couldn't be licensed for free (i.e. fonts).
Agree with you that Maemo is surprisingly closed.
@Timmmmmm "most" of the hardware drivers are not closed source on android (at least on typical devices shipping today). For example, on nexus one, the opengl library, camera image processing library, video encoder library, and gps and radio interface bridges are proprietary userspace libraries. Everything else: GPLv2 linux drivers (including the memory management side of the opengl stack, the code that talks to the modem, all the peripherals (uarts, usb, power management, display, 2d blit engine, wifi drivers, cellular data transport, etc). The QSD8250 in N1, for example, requires no closed source code to do 720p h264 decode, and after a firmware update this year will not require a closed source encoder library either.
Due to graphics being a general IP and competitive minefield, I think finding any platform with a modern GPU and a full opengl ES 2.0 stack that's open source is going to be tricky.
@Timmmmmm
That info is outdated: "This list needs update as it mostly refers to Maemo 4.1. This list needs update as it mostly refers to Maemo 4.1. "
But yes, some UI bits are closed in Maemo5, mostly artwork(same for Symbian), but they are releasing more and more source code, even from Maemo6 :): http://maemo.gitorious.org/
Interesting. Symbian is by far the most complete of the mobile operating systems so it'll be fascinating to see what comes of this.
Does this mean Nokia gonna ditch Symbian ??
@ericlin
Does Android being Open-source means Google is gonna ditch it ?
Does your ability to post mean you can actually think ?
Symbian had to do this in order to compete with Google.
Otherwise, they'd be utterly crushed.
Well, they're still going to be crushed eventually, but now not as quickly.
@Johnny Rockets
Yeah? On what basis?
Given that Symbian increased its market share by more than Android has in total I mean.
@MarkAnderson
Ahhhh a soul after my own....personally I'm tired of the dithering fools (for want of a better word) in the comments section of engadget spewing things like this with absolutely NO basis on which to found their suggestions. It's nice to see someone with more than half a brain on here every once in a while :-)
@Johnny Rockets you sound like the guy who hates the sky because it was a little too blue. On what basis?
makes sense, since maemo is open-source, and the community (albeit small) has ended up creating a multitude of solutions that nokia hadn't
if for example the migration of some symbian devs to another platform (android, iphone, webOS, etc) the rabid fanbase can rely on the community for that same solution
@TheLionOfAzzalle
Actually the latest figures show that Nokia has about 39% of the world mobile phones market and climbed up from 36% an year ago.
More details here: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2358603,00.asp
Open source is nice. Let's what these people can do. At least they are trying..I think is a matter of time to reach the UI experience of more modern platforms.
Umm... good move? I'd say they missed this by a decade.
So am i right in saying that developers could extend the features of symbian or even the UI and push it out to the millions of symbian phones out there?
@TheLionOfAzzalle Seems to me that Apple is a sinking ship:
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/02/01/iphone-loses-market-share-in-fourth-quarter/
It may have received a fresh coat of paint but it's still the rotten Symbian core underneath. Messed up C++ version, compiler stuck in the 90s, horrible legacy filesystem layout trying to mimic Windows drive letters. And the Carbide.C++ IDE... if you've used it you know what I mean. And they're still pushing it! Programming on Symbian for fun is something that just doesn't happen.
Nokia doesn't seem to be ready to switch horses just yet, but for developers Linux is sunshine and rainbows in comparison with a healthy ecosystem of companies actively improving it. I predict the Symbian foundation is Nokia's exit strategy to let Symbian gently fade into the night over the next 5 years.
@Spolsky AFAIK you don't have to use Symbian C++ to program for Symbian anymore (few do). Most people seem to have switched to use Open C/C++, Python, QT etc. for Symbian. The operating system (or rotten core as you describe it) is second to none when it comes to things like battery life and power saving - things that some people may find useful. The competitors are still quite far away it seems, although Maemo does quite well.
open what?
no one wants 4.5 billion lines of code, especially when large portions of it date back more than a decade.
By "opening the source" they are admitting they need help from the talented community that contributed to Googles Android.
Smart.
Dead OS walking
@josesxi
Can someone explain to me how Symbian is dead when Nokia increased market share over the Xmas quarter by 5%?
Anyone?
No, really. I'm curious.
@MarkAnderson Someone is cooking the books?
Increased market share by giving up the high end market and selling crappy, cheap phones in Angola, Sudan, Libya etc..
@josesxi The increase in market share was actually due to high-end devices such as the N900. This explains their improved margin.
And contrary to you, simply writing non-sense shit from your pigeon brain, I give you a source:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704878904575030712670442760.html