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]
Potentially great!
I just wonder if the KIRFers in China who already bang out a gazillion (and that's a conservative number) fake Nokia smartphones will now be able to crank out fake Nokia smartphones with a REAL Symbian OS?
Strange Days!
@WickedEast Watch your mouth! You're the reason Engadget closed the comments for a few days.
As far as that article, Thats what OPK says, where are the numbers that back that up? Who the hell wants to buy a TS Nokia or that buggy E72?
The N97 Mini was just kicked out of Orange UK.
Silly fanboy, you care more about how many phones Nokia sells than actually having a quality phone in your hands.
You can only dream of Nokia making a phone as good as mine. The Nexus One!
@josesxi
If Nokia is making increased profits and has increased profit margins, then it is rather obvious that the low end phones will not be responsible for the increased margins...of course ur nokia-hating bias prevents you from seeing these rather simple facts.
Have you used the e72 to judge it as being buggy?
@spartandre217 Yes, the ridiculous 2'36 QVGA screen killed it for me.
I don't hate Nokia, I used to be a fan, I feel sorry for them not being able to compete.
What I do hate is the Nokia fanboys. All they talk about is how big a market share they have. How about making ONE competitive decent phone? Eh?
@josesxi
N900?
@josesxi N900? E72? 5800 best selling phone in europe? They are giving profits for Nokia yes. And even more now that people will get the devices with maps.
Seriously, inform yourself more in the numbers and give sane comments. It is almost like you hate Nokia when you talk about....
@josesxi I think your phone is a Nexus One, right? Well, Google sold 80,000 of them so far. Is that competing? Do you feel sorry for Google?
I'm not hating the Nexus One. My point is: what may be decent for you doesn't necessarily mean it is for other people, and vice-versa. So, while the Nokia phones are not "decent" enough for you, they are for million other people.
And about you're claim of "not hating Nokia", well, maybe if you stop writing total BS about them, then we might believe you.
I love when Howard Stern has girls ride the Symbian. It's awesome.
Oh... wait. That's SYBIAN? Then what's this? Just some smartphone OS?
Damn. I can't get any women to ride THAT.
@ZeroCorpse, well, it can vibrate...
HTC and NVIDIA should join Symbian Foundation. I'm sure they would have a lot to give.
i always loved symbian i still use my n95. this sounds good but what does this means for my n95 or thats gonna stay the way it is.
i like it