Symbian Foundation completes move to open source

Published by Rafe Blandford at 14:01 UTC, February 4th 2010

Today the Symbian Foundation announced that it has completed the move to open source. The platform, which runs on more than 330 million devices and has been developed over the last 10 years is now freely available to all under the EPL (Eclipse Public License). The process, which was delivered four months ahead of schedule, is the largest transition from proprietary code to open source in software history.

The completion of the open source transition marks a critical milestone for Symbian as it seeks to build the enablers for the future of mobile, based on openness and innovation. Read on to view our video interview with Lee Williams and for further information.

The move to open source started when Nokia bought out the remaining shareholders in Symbian Ltd. and created the Symbian Foundation with the intent to move all Symbian code to open source. The move to open source was expected to take two years; in the intervening time, the code was made available to Foundation members under the Symbian Foundation License (i.e. free, but not open source).

The Symbian Foundation begun operations on Januray 1st 2009, but did not have its inaugural board meeting until February 5th (a year ago tomorrow) and began work in earnest on April 1st 2009. Less than a year later, the transition of the entire operating system to open source is complete. 

We spoke to Lee Williams, asking him about the announcement, the challenges involved and the implications for the Symbian and mobile ecosystem:

Implications

The Symbian Foundation estimate they are releasing 40 million lines of source code into open source. This makes it one of the biggest ever contributions to open source. To put this into perspective, Android has around 11 million lines of source code, the Linux kernel has 11.5 million lines of source code and Firefox has around 2 million lines of source code. (As the primary contributor to the Symbian Foundation, this automatically makes Nokia a leading open source company.)

If you printed out all the source code on A4 paper you would have a pile of paper 133 metres tall (almost three times the height of Nelson's Column). If you laid the A4 paper sheets end to end it they would reach 250 miles (400 km).

The statistics may be impressive, but what really matters is what it enables. It means that the Symbian platform has open code to go with its open governance model. This makes it much easier for companies and developers to start using the code, learning from it and contributing to it. It fulfills the promise of the Symbian Foundation that any company or individual can jump in and directly influence the future direction of the platform. It enables companies to take the code and use it for any purpose they can envision; it means we are much more likely to see non-phone devices powered by the Symbian platform.

The move to open source is the keystone in the the Symbian Foundation's belief that a philosophy of openness will allow it to to provide 'the foundation for unlimited mobile development' and allow innovation to occur faster than ever before.
 

Where can I get it?

All 108 packages making up the Symbian platform are available from the Symbian Foundation web site (tiny.symbian.org/open). They are made available under the EPL license.

You can also download complete development kits for creating both software (Symbian Developer Kit) and devices (Product Development Kit). These kits are from the Symbian^3 release, which is currently being finalised and will be feature complete later in Q1 2010.

Example source code (from Symbian^3 Homescreen package)

From the press release:

Lee Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation, said:

"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. 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."

Categories: Software, Developer, Industry, Editorial Thoughts, Events
Platforms: General, S60 3rd Edition, UIQ 3, MOAP, S60 5th Edition

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dynite You can submit changes to Symbian which if taken would get picked up by manufacturers and would go in to future devices. However, Manufactures allowing you to modify the products they create is nothing to do with open source.

If the product in question, as in this case, is in fact (at least supposedly) open source, then allowing people to modify it has everything to do with open source. Remember, we are talking about software, not hardware.

Quote:

Originally Posted by brrip going open source does not have anything to do with xenon flash. that's for the companies making the products to decide.

Either you didn't get the sarcasm, or your sense of sarcasm is truly sinister :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unregistered As a professional mobile industry analyst, I have to say given this announcement, I now see very little or no reason for anyone to show any interest in Android whatsoever.

Then I shall provide you with a reason: The HIP factor.

Andriod is seen as hip. Symbian is not. Take a look at what the hip factor did for the iPhone despite its initial lack of basic smartphone features such as MMS support.

Then there is also the stated opinion by many 3rd party Symbian developers (many of which are now former 3rd party Symbian developers), that Symbian is a beast to program for. From what I gather, Android does not have this problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dynite I don't think open source has anything to do with upgradability, despite how desirable it might be.

You're flat out wrong, I'm afraid. Open source means that everybody has access to the code, and are able to modify it. Let's take the case of Linux as an example of an open source product. If Linux for some reason suddenly stopped supporting my old computer, I could grab a copy of the its source and implement support for it myself. That doesn't necessarily mean that my modifications would make it back into the mainstream version of Linux - that decision would be up to the Linux maintainers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unregistered I've read the article and there is no mention of xenon flash. Can anyone tell me if this move to open source has a xenon flash?

Steve posting anonymously?

Gotta laugh :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enfors Then I shall provide you with a reason: The HIP factor.

This is quite important, but the market is very fickle and respond to price more than anything else, IMO. If Symbian (or manufacturers' devices delivers what they need/want for less money, then it'll work for them; and the developers will follow the money. Note that Symbian hasn't (historically) been able to make it easy for developers to make money - I think that's where the difference lies. Manufacturers have largely dealt with this issue now, and Symbian are addressing it too (I don't know what has happened to Symbian Signed now - Rafe?)

Quote:

Andriod is seen as hip. Symbian is not. Take a look at what the hip factor did for the iPhone despite its initial lack of basic smartphone features such as MMS support.

I don't think MMS is/was a smartphone feature - any phone with a camera has been able to send MMSes since I can remember. IINM, users being able to add (native?) apps is/was usually considered the feature that makes a smartphone.

Still, yes the iphone was missing MMS; but the US market didn't care since they tend to use email more anyway, and didn't really use even SMS much back then, let alone MMS.
Note that the N900 also doesn't support MMS (though there are moves in that direction from the community).

Quote:

Then there is also the stated opinion by many 3rd party Symbian developers (many of which are now former 3rd party Symbian developers), that Symbian is a beast to program for. From what I gather, Android does not have this problem.

I think this is a misnomer. It was really Symbian C++ which was difficult, and the S60 UI framework - I forget the name. ...and I think they're whining anyway. They're just complaining because it has 'C++' in the title and it isn't what they know as C++ - too many lazy programmers not willing to learn something different.
In any case, what other platform allows you to program in so many different languages. The developer is really spoiled for choice. I'm sure someone can compare them with the other platforms, but, IINM, Android only allows Java (and web runtime?) and iPhone only Objective C.
Yeah, having limited you to so few options [1] mean you can make those options much sleeker in SDK/IDE terms, and there is surely some work to do there on the Symbian front, but still.

Just my tuppence worth..

Max.

[1] Also having so few models to support is key too. iPhone has essentially one (or at most a few), and Android isn't running on so many devices yet, but I'll guess they'll have a bit if a headache when they start to get huge. Of course, having the platform open source should be an enormous help for developers who are trying to figure out why their app doesn't work on a particular model; also for manufacturers for a similar reason.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dynite you CAN access the source, change, compile and redistribute the code. That's open source.

The question I raised, which still remains unanswered, is whether or not the Symbian Foundation will consider including my homegrown modifications in future official releases of Symbian. In other words, would Nokia make an official release of a new firmware version for, say, the Nokia N93 that I had created?

Quote:

it's open source SOFTWARE, not open source phone.

I'm not sure what your point is. Firmware, in the context we are using it now, is operating system software installed on a phone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hih And implications for our real life with Symbian phones are??! :o

I think it might well be quite difficult for 3rd party developers to make changes to phones running older Symbian firmware.

However, I'd fully expect it to be easier for phone released with the open source Symbian to be able to fix things and install those onto the device. It'll take some hacking, I'm sure, but someone will do it. I guess it's not out of the question that such firmware could make it onto older models, but I doubt it.

The impact a regular user should see is more reliable phones (really the s/w on the phones, but that's the same thing to the end user, IMO). Both 3rd party developers and manufacturers can now see all the source and see what's going on under the hood. Previously, they'd have to pay quite a lot to do that, or not be allowed at all. If there are any bugs, they can be fed back to Symbian to have them fixed (or a patch supplied too).

If Symbian don't take the changes back, I guess you could even fork the code and make a new distribution, like with Linux (though I haven't checked the license to see if that's permissible).

I'm not sure what people were expecting from something being made open source, apart from the source being made open. Are there any examples of it meaning something else?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enfors Then I shall provide you with a reason: The HIP factor. Andriod is seen as hip. Symbian is not. Take a look at what the hip factor did for the iPhone despite its initial lack of basic smartphone features such as MMS support. Then there is also the stated opinion by many 3rd party Symbian developers (many of which are now former 3rd party Symbian developers), that Symbian is a beast to program for. From what I gather, Android does not have this problem.

Android is seen as hip, or trendy/cool? Not really, at least nowhere near the apparent level of the iPhone.

Android is going to suffer in a very similar way to Symbian and WM devices. An utterly confusing range of products being released that just serves to confuse the market.

Apple have got a few key things right - simplified model range (only the 3G and the 3GS right now), so choice is simple. How many different Android devices are out there, same with WM, and the same with Symbian.

I've got no issues with Symbian offering low end (5230), mid range (5800) and higher end (N97), but the differences between them are relatively minor. 5230 has the basics, but for an extra maybe £80 the 5800 just adds WiFi and a slightly better camera. The N97 adds more internal memory, hardware keyboard and slightly better camera.

Problem is that the price differences bear little relation to the cost of these hardware differences, although the same can be said of the iPhone and Touch - the cost differences for the extra memory are stupidly expensive.

Full thread: 43 Comments / Post New Comment