Symbian goes open source ahead of schedule

4 February 2010 16:14 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

The Symbian Foundation has announced it has completed the open source release of the source code for the widely-used smartphone platform.

This means the 10-year-old Symbian platform, which has been the OS for over 300 million devices around the world, is now completely open with the source code available for free.

"Any individual or organization can now take, use and modify the code for any purpose, whether that be for a mobile device or for something else entirely", says the Foundation.
"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", Lee Williams, executive director of the Symbian Foundation, says in the press release.

"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".

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Phones, Mobile phone industry, Operating Systems, Symbian, Nokia, Biz