Symbian goes open source, Now download it for Free
Symbian, the popular smartphone operating system has entered a new stage of its existence – its code is now open source. This move began in June 2008, when Nokia bought Symbian and created the Symbian Foundation to take over the development of the OS. And the Foundation has big plans for the future.
Symbian is still the most popular smartphone OS with 330 million units shipped only last year. The Foundation claims this is the largest transition to open source ever and believes it will help speed up the evolution of the platform. And evolution it needs – with the likes of the iPhone and Google’s Android OS, which is also open source, exploding into popularity.
The group has now released what it calls the Symbian platform as open source code. This platform unites different elements of the Symbian operating system as well as components – in particular, user interfaces – developed by individual members.
Until now, Symbian’s source code was only open to members of the organization.