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Symbian’s countdown was to announce that the entire OS is now open source and free for all

Categories: Symbian
By: , IntoMobile
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 8:37 PM

The mystery of Symbian’s countdown timer has finally been solved. Tomorrow Symbian will announce that their operating system has completed transitioning from closed source to open source and that anyone can download their code, for free. This is big news. It’s like Microsoft announcing that Windows is going open source. Say what you will about how old Symbian is, and how their UI is busted and unintuitive, but 4 out of every 10 smartphones shipped run some flavor of Symbian. With Nokia prepared to announce their Cseries at Mobile World Congress too, bringing Symbian to even lower price points, expect Symbian’s share of the smartphone pie to increase and only become more relevant with time.

Will people care is another question all together. Android is getting people all hot and bothered because the types of people who buy smartphones are already addicted to Google. Building an Android device is more about standing next to Google’s brand than anything else. Symbian doesn’t have that prestige, and while yes, the Symbian Foundation is “independent” from any one corporation, most, if not all, of Symbian code is written by people getting paid by Nokia.

Note: This post will be updated once the relevant press release and additional details go live tomorrow. It’s probably Symbian 2, not Symbian 3.

Update: It’s official, and I was wrong, it’s Symbian 3 that is now open source, not Symbian 2! Watch a video here for more info. Can’t embed it here, sorry.

[Via: Wired]

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

  • Ahmed Eltawil

    I guess the threat from Google Android and Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Mobile 7 is shaking Nokia’s headquarters.

    I used to buy only Nokia phones running Symbian (obviously) but the UI got bland and boring over the years. I must admit though, Nokia phones are known for their stability and longevity and Symbian is mainly the reason (plus Nokia’s hardware).

  • Brendan

    Now that the news is official (as of 2PM GMT), a quick revision of the last sentence is required to let everyone know that it’s actually Symbian^3 and forward that’s being open sourced. Symbian^2 will remain under SFL (i.e. you must be a member to have access)

  • matt

    So Symbian^1 isn’t open source, and Symbian^2 has been apparently skipped entirely.

    This benefits almost nobody until Symbian^3 phones are released.