It’s official — and ahead of schedule. The Symbian mobile operating system is now completely open source. The Symbian Foundation on Thursday released Symbian 3, the latest version of the platform.
With the open-sourcing of Symbian, along with Google’s Android operating system, the mobile world continues forging an open strategy that invites handset makers to further customize and differentiate their products.
“Open-sourcing a market-leading product in a dynamic, growing business sector is unprecedented,” said Haydn Shaughnessy, CEO of Cogenuity and editor of the Symbian Foundation’s blog. “Over 330 million Symbian devices have been shipped worldwide, and it is likely that a further 100 million will ship in 2010, with more than 200 million expected to ship annually from 2011 onwards.”
Is the Future Open Source?
Symbian’s transition from proprietary platform to open source is the largest in software history. The Symbian Foundation insists the open-sourcing of the platform lays the foundation for unlimited innovations in mobile development.
“The development community is now empowered to shape the future of the mobile industry, and rapid innovation on a global scale will be the result,” said Lee Williams, executive director of the foundation. “When the Symbian Foundation was created, we set the target of completing the open-source release of the platform by mid-2010, and it’s because of the extraordinary commitment and dedication from our staff and our member companies that we’ve reached it well ahead of schedule.”
Under terms of the Eclipse Public License, any individual or organization can use and modify the code for any purpose, whether that be for a mobile device or something else entirely. Symbian’s commitment to openness also includes complete transparency in future plans, including the publication of the platform road map and planned features up to and including 2011. Anyone can now influence the road map and contribute new features.
“It’s increasingly important for…
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