Symbian OS officially goes open source
 

Today the Symbian foundation officially made Symbian OS open source 4 months ahead of schedule
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8496263.stm
you can find the code here
they also revealed that Symbian OS will in the future run on more than just mobile phones and we will see it on tablets and more
I'm looking forward to Symbian^3 and especially what Symbian^4 as to offer in 12 months time.
The UI concepts look a lot like Maemo 5 but lets wait and see.

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

I hope this means my old N95 will become more relevant. It would be neat to be able to upgrade symbian.

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

only if You compile some code and do it yourself.
Symbian^1is basicly s60v5 its only designed to run on touch and hybrid devices which is why s60v3 is still being used on non touch phones. so i doubt you'll ever see OS upgrades for devices like n95 running v3

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

Oh no! :(


;)

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

4 months ahead of schedule? Very, very nice, kudos to the Symbian Foundation. Now they only have to keep up the release of Symbian^3 and ^4. Check up the roadmap here: http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/in...mbian_Platform

Edit: Holy crap, they have a lot of information on their site. Very interesting digging... http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/in..._Platform_Plan

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

Symbian^3 is on course there will be news at MWC maybe new devices shown off too. Symbian^2 is being skipped by handset makers they are going straight to Symbian^3 that is a sure sign its almost ready.

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

And check this out:

"Highlights from the list of features targetting Symbian^3 include:

* Networking: An improved networking architecture, ideal for streaming high definition audio and video
* Multimedia: Full HDMI support with HDCP to provide a great high definition video experience when plugging your mobile device into a television."

And:

"Want to show multiple email accounts or weather forecasts for more than one city? No problem, in Symbian^3 the Homescreen gains support for multiple instances of a widget. "

http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Symbian%5E3

Go Symbian! :D I bet it could make a nice tablet too.

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

maybe a silly question, but if S^4 is already in development, what is the point of S^3?

seems that S^3 has tangible features, and S^4 is kinda vague in features. Are these intended to be backward compatible on (some) hardware?

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

S^4 brings a completely new UI based on a Qt and Orbit, using the new 3D engine that S^3 launches. It also has some neat stuff like NFC:

"Touch to connect: take the pain out of Bluetooth pairing; no more waiting, scanning a long list of Bluetooth devices and then entering a PIN code, simply touch your two NFC-enabled BT devices together and they will find one another and pair automatically. "

Check it out at http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Symbian%5E4

And the Symbian roadmap: http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/in...mbian_Platform

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

yea Symbian is getting really interesting for the future, multi touch and gesture support will be in symbian^3 too.
Just when i fall in love Maemo, Symbian starts pulling on my heaertstrings again, i'll probably just use both lol

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

i guess im wondering if this is going to be truly open source (which i dont believe maemo even is, as far as kernels), whats maemo gonna have on symbian? and why does nokia spread itself thin on multiple platforms? surely symbian is flexible and powerful enough to span the entire range of consumer handsets to multimedia mobile computers.

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

maemo is an experiment, one that probably fueled their interest in opening up symbian after seeing the unexpected interest maemo gained.

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

So by having symbian now open sourced.. can we take some of that code (useful apps in symbian that are not present in maemo) and port it to maemo? Is that possible?

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

So - when Symbian is now also open source and people are getting involved and the Symbian community will get an active one - where is the place within this Nokia univers for the Maemo community then - preaching the same paradigm?

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

maemo will be used for the very high-end phones (focus on internet, and high multimedia experience), tablets and netbook-like (smaller than netbooks, ARM-chips) devices.
symbian will be used for comes-with-music- (x-series), the lower multimedia- (n-series), the business- (e-series), and the allround (c-series) -phones.

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

Because its open source.. what are the chances of seeing a dual boot of symbian and maemo on the n900? symbian would run great on the n900, and it would be handy to have best of both worlds! :)

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

@kevin that sounds good too!

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

There was a Nokia employe who said that Maemo will be taking N series as a whole in November. After that Nokia had official statement saying that the roadmap is yet too premature to say things like that. Believe it or not.

Giving N series to Maemo while Symbian keeps X, C and E series makes sense to me. Maemo still doesn't have the business capabilities that Symbian got so it can keep the other high end side, E series.

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

not all n-series devices will be maemo devices (at least in the near future)

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

Yes that's for sure that. Even if that roadmap really is the real deal the Nokia guy who talked about this said that in 2011 there would still be new Symbian N series phones, but not in 2012.

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

Come on n98 dont be a n97 nokia lets get this right

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

I still don't fully understand the license they chose (EPL). The EPL FAQ-page states that it's somehow copyleft, meaning that you have to distribute your changes to an EPL-licensed application under the EPL again and must not distribute a proprietary binary only.

On the other hand, it says it's perfactly legal to re-license EPL-licensed code under a commercial license if you don't change it.

Finally, the FAQ states it's incompatible to both the GPLv2 and the GPLv3.

GPL-incompatibility worries me. What worries me even more is that they can re-license the "open" code and distribute it as non-open binary (as long as they don't make changes), which is what I don't like about Android.
It means that although they claim Symbian is open, it's perfactly legal to distribute Symbian on handsets as closed source with a license that explicitely says: "You must not make any changes to the software on your handset, must not distribute it,... " etc.

Is there anyone how knows more about these legal issues?

Re: Symbian OS Officially go's open source
 

What becomes of Android now ?. Why would a manufacturer bother with google controlled Android when a more stable and arguably open Symbian is available and not subject to the machinations of the increasingly anti-privacy google ? - e.g. promoting Nexus1and adding features to it (mtouch, eclair etc) at expense of other Andoid devices. No wonder Symbian is predicted to continue to rule the roost. Dont forget that MS Office (love or loathe) for Symbian is currently under development in India. RESPECT to Nokia for making this move in addition to Ovi maps, Maemo - they are really aiming at Google as iApple will eventually dwindle into its usual niche.

Symbian goes fully open source
 

downloads should be available later today.

http://www.gsmarena.com/symbian_goes...-news-1427.php

Re: Symbian goes fully open source
 

Wont be long before Symbian 3 is ported to the N900 :D

Re: Symbian goes fully open source
 

It's available now: http://tiny.symbian.org/open

Re: Symbian goes fully open source
 

I know you are joking, but there are obviously *parts* of symbian that should be ported to maemo to give a more complete common phone experience.

Re: Symbian goes fully open source
 

To be honest i think of Symbian as the old warhouse that should be just put out of its missery.

It was a nightmare for developers to code for and it should of been more how developing an app for Maemo is now, nice and easy with the ability to engage the community.

Go with Maemo and forget Symbian is what i say !!

Re: Symbian goes fully open source
 

I think this needs a thread merge to here ?

Re: Symbian goes fully open source
 

That is why they are setting down on Qt for both Maemo and Symbian.

Re: Symbian goes fully open source
 

Well that's the reason why it is Symbian Foundation now and why it's getting totally revamped. Especially when we get to Symbian^4 with Qt.
Symbian as a OS is one of the most complete smartphone operating systems there is and that's why there is many who bought N900 with not really knowing what it was just and just naturally thought it will have all the Email and phone functions from Symbian, that's just not the case yet.

Symbian is going to be Nokia's mass market OS alread this year. Showing already in the leaked C series phones.

Re: Symbian goes fully open source
 

I agree . . . moving the clock is a recent Symbian firmware update feature?

lol . . . :p

Re: Symbian goes fully open source
 

Symbian CEO Lee Williams Tweets Steve Jobs and Bill Gates about Symbian going open source.

Funny 35 second video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmtiJ...ayer_embedded#

Re: Symbian OS officially goes open source
 

The thread "Symbian goes fully open source" with ten posts has been merged into this thread.

Re: Symbian OS officially goes open source
 

The really strange thing about Symbian roadmap is that Symbian ^4 only supports touchscreen and touchscreen+QWERTY devices. That leaves E7x/Blackberry and N95 like devices out. Both form factors are still big sellers, and at least E7x/Blackberry form factor will continue to sell big for foreseeable future

Does nokia really expect that S60 3rd Edition is gonna be viable platform for high end business devices around 2012? Is that Microsoft corporate software that's supposed to be big selling point for Eseries really gonna run on a E74 that's based on S60 3rd? Even if non-touch UI is on roadmap for Symbian ^5 it's propably gonna be 2012 at earliest before that problem goes away.

Re: Symbian OS officially goes open source
 

Rauha, I don't see why future eseries cant have touch+qwerty, that would be even better IMO than just qwerty

Re: Symbian OS officially goes open source
 

They just have to make a device with the same form factor as the Palm Pre.

Edit: In fact, they almost have it in the E66 (http://www.seguridad-vigilancia.com/.../nokia-e66.jpg). They just have to make it a bigger, touch enabled screen and the keyboard QWERTY and presto!

Re: Symbian OS officially goes open source
 

seeing as HTC seems to position itself as more of JUST a hardware manufacturer and makes phones with several OS flavors on it, i wouldn't mind seeing some third party put out a symbian 3 OS on some nice htc hardware with some slicked up UI. Could be a winner

Re: Symbian OS officially goes open source
 

the point is that a not so small group of people prefers non-touchscreen devices even in the higher price segment. they're just easier to operate. nokia abandons these customers if both of their smartphone OSs are touchscreen only.

Symbian now Open Source!?
 

Wow, didn't see this one happening...

Read more over at Betanews

How does this affect Maemo, which is also open source? Bold move by Nokia though!