Symbian OS Goes Open Source
Proves Steve Jobs didn't invent smartphones
by Leticia Smith
February 4, 2010
The Symbian platform, which has been developed over more than 10 years and has shipped in more than 330 million devices around the world, is now completely open and the source code is available for free. According to the Symbian Foundation, an industry group, the transition from proprietary code to open source has been the largest such project in software history.
Symbian operating system grew out of David Potter's early 1980s designs of games and office productivity software for Sinclair's personal computers. In 1989 the first devices shipped with a primarily 1-bit, keyboard-operated graphical interface. By 2006, Symbian software was at the base of more than 100 million mobile devices.
Nokia bought the Symbian operating system software in 2008. Today, the Symbian Foundation includes Nokia, AT&T, LG, Motorola, NTT Docomo, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, ST Microelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone.
Even though it is the world’s most popular smart device OS, Symbian has been overlooked by the press and consumers who have been entranced by the hype generated around Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone.
Now that security researchers and other developers can get a look 'under the hood', we’re hoping that this announcement sparks the development of high-featured devices that aren’t as tied to major media outlets. S|A
File under Mobile and Opinion and Security and Software
