Symbian goes open source

Symbian OS is now available as an open source platform. The Symbian Foundation has released free code to everyone to enable them to contribute openly to the future of mobile. The release comes four months ahead of the schedule and provides the basis for unlimited mobile development based on innovation and openness.

The early release of the free Symbian OS platform is viewed as an attempt to compete with the Apple and Google's Android market share. Also the transition of this market-leading platform from proprietary code to open source is reportedly the largest in software history.

Lee Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation, comments: "The development community is now empowered to shape the future of the mobile industry, and rapid innovation on a global scale will be the result. When the Symbian Foundation was created, we set the target of completing the open source release of the platform by mid-2010 and it’s because of the extraordinary commitment and dedication from our staff and our member companies that we’ve reached it well ahead of schedule."

All 108 packages containing the source code of the Symbian platform can now be downloaded from Symbian’s developer web site (tiny.symbian.org/open). For more information, you can visit Symbian.