We’ve got a little correction to make – although this time, it’s kind of Nokia’s fault for an ambiguous choice of words. We said in a short item that the source code to Symbian had been published online by Nokia, but this is, in fact, not exactly the case. They’re not open as in open source, but open as in open for business.
Yes, it’s a tricky word, open. “We have received questions about the use of words ‘open’, ‘open source’, and about having a registration process before allowing access to the code,” Nokia writes, “As we have consistently said, Nokia is making the Symbian platform available under an alternative, open and direct model, 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.”
So, it’s open for a small few? Yup.
“Through these pages we are releasing source code to these collaborators, but are not maintaining Symbian as an open source development project,” Nokia further clarifies, “Consistent with this, the Nokia Symbian License is an alternative license which provides an access to Nokia’s additional Symbian development for parties which collaborate with Nokia on the Symbian platform.”
Is this bad? Well, kind of – I mean, Symbian is on life support from now on. It’ll receive some prettification, but Nokia’s focus is Windows Phone 7. The platform still has a massive installed base, of course (in fact, larger than any other smartphone platform), but as far as futures go, Symbian doesn’t have one. As such, having up-to-date source code is vital in the long-term preservation of the platform. Let’s hope Nokia will do a code drop of what will, by then, be the final Symbian release.
I hope they post the source code in the end. I mean, everyone else does it, like Apple with OS9, Palm with BeOS, Microsoft with DOS, Amiga with… ok you get the point.
All kidding aside. I think there is a very small chance they will open source and give away Symbian. It’s giving away the platform with the largest install base of them all (in the mobile phone world). They are then potentially making for themselves their own biggest competition… It doesn’t make sense from a business perspective.
On the other hand, I’m an open source dev and actually LIKE the Symbian OS (and a lot of other embedded OS’s). So personally I hope they do. Only time will tell…
I just figured they could release most of Symbian, then change the other version to SINOS. Symbian Is Not Open Source. Well, looks cooler as SinOS.
Wait, I think maybe if I ever end up making my own Distribution of Linux or my own operating system, that’s what I’ll name it. Don’t touch it, it’s MINE!!!
All kidding aside, how awesome would it have been if the AmigaOS had just been open sourced… just sayin….
http://sourceforge.net/projects/symbiandump/
This project contains a full dump of all the public source code from the Symbian project under the original EPL license, as of 07/12/2010.
I thinks ‘Symbian Is Not Open Source’ is best.
You seem to have forgotten your blog post of yesterday.
Open does not mean open source. In fact, “open” means absolutely nothing.
In fact, “open” means absolutely nothing.
Open means the platform is open for anyone to use it. Windows for example is an open platform. Windows Mobile is also an open platform. Linux is both an open and open source.
Edited 2011-04-09 07:23 UTC
> Open means the platform is open for anyone to use it.
> Windows for example is an open platform.
If you read the EULA of Windows, you’ll see that if Microsoft doesn’t want to, you can’t use Windows 🙁
Mmm… even if we don’t read the EULA, we remember that someone has to ask permission for using Windows in his own computer, he has to “contact” Microsoft to “activate” and see if Microsoft allows him. After he has paid. 🙁
There are many definitions of “open”, as you’ve mentioned one of them. Another one is that “open” refers to a particular project being open for interoperability due to the fact that it implements standards. An example would be OpenVMS: It’s not open source, but it complies to (industry) standards such as the POSIX specifications or UNIX compatibility. The abilities grounded in standards make the system open – primarily open to other systems, but also to programmers, and finally to users.
Given the definition above, “Windows” would not be called “open”. 🙂
Additionally, it’s free as in beer. 🙂
Unfortunately open beer has a tendency to get either flat or empty. Free beer on the other hand, is awesome
I knew Nokia wasn’t going to risk others improving Symbian and having the success they couldn’t have.
Its not like other device manufacturers weren’t able to make changes to the platform and release products. No, I’m afraid Nokia was doing the best job possible with Symbian but ran out of time completing the enormous task of making it suck less. Programming Symbian with Qt was a great idea, but the Ui and everything else besides battery life that’s not under the control of app developers isn’t up to par. From the stories coming out of nokia, it seems like they just didn’t do the things they needed to, fast enough.
Those parts that were licensed under EPL remain under that license. What is with all the FUD spreading on osnews lately?
Symbian OS is a relic from the past. Even if it looks modern and nice on the outside (which it doesn’t, but let’s give it a break), it’s a nightmare from the inside.
No volunteers were really going to contribute to a project like that, when there are perfectly fine MeeGo and XDA-developers mobile platforms to contribute to. It’s time to admit it: Almost all contributions were made from Nokia. Because you need to be paid Nokia developer to work on an OS like that.
Nokia open sourced Symbian for the same reason Sun open sourced Solaris, because they thought a million volunteers will descend from the sky and contribute to their project for free. In other words, they went with the UnderpantsGnomesStrategy ( http://bit.ly/dY8aYa )
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Volunteers work only on projects they want.
Edited 2011-04-11 17:44 UTC