Cell phone Giant Nokia buys Symbian
Open
software is the basic building block for delivering this future. Nokia has been
huge success in the wireless world and now company will add a huge challenge to
the Google's Android. It was a very smart move to buy Symbian and get such a
great group of big businesses together to develop new, better mobile platform.
Just one excellent example how effective open source projects can be.
"With this in mind, industry leaders are coming together to establish Symbian
Foundation, to bring to life a shared vision and to create the most proven, open
and complete mobile software platform - available for free. To achieve this, the
foundation will unify Symbian, S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) software to create an
unparalleled open software platform for converged mobile devices, enabling the
whole mobile ecosystem to accelerate innovation.
The foundation is expected to start operating during the first
half of 2009. Membership of the foundation will be open to all organizations,
for a low annual membership fee of US $1,500.
The Symbian Foundation platform will be available to members
under a royalty-free license from this non-profit foundation. The Symbian
Foundation will provide, manage and unify the platform for its members. Also, it
will commit to moving the platform to open source during the next two years,
with the intent to use the Eclipse Public License. This will make the platform
code available to all for free, bringing additional innovation to the platform
and engaging even a broader community in future developments.
The platform will be free and open to develop on from the start
whether you are enthusiast, web designer, professional developer or service
provider. To develop on the platform you will not need to be a member of the
foundation. The Symbian Foundation’s developer program will provide a single
point of access for developer support; providing a wide offering of tools and
resources."
Very wise move! Just think of many freeware application. Many of
these have been made by open source community.
Partial source:
Nokia and
Symbian Foundation, About Nokia
FreewareKicks news Release: 06/25/2008 (mm/dd/yyyy)
