The Symbian Foundation offers free code to everyone to enable them to contribute openly to the future of mobile

SAN FRANCISCO, US, and LONDON, UK, 4 February, 2010 - The Symbian Foundation today completed the open source release of the source code for the world's most widely-used smartphone platform. 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. The transition of this market-leading platform from proprietary code to open source is the largest in software history. The move has been completed four months ahead of schedule and provides the basis for unlimited mobile development based on innovation and openness.

 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. This strategic move provides the Symbian ecosystem with greater potential for innovation, faster time-to-market and the opportunity to develop on the platform for free. Symbian's commitment to openness also includes complete transparency in future plans, including the publication of the platform roadmap and planned features up to and including 2011. Anyone can now influence the roadmap and contribute new features.

 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."

 IDC Analyst John Delaney remarks: "It's increasingly important for smartphone platforms to offer developers something unique. The placing into open source of the world's most widely-used smartphone platform emphatically fits that bill. It will be exciting to see where this takes the industry."

 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), under the terms of the Eclipse Public License and other open source licenses. Also available for download are the complete development kits for creating applications (the Symbian Developer Kit) and mobile devices (the Product Development Kit). These kits are compatible with Symbian^3, the very latest version of the platform, which is now fully open source and will be "feature complete" during Q1 of this year.

Supporting quotes from Symbian Foundation Board members:

Hideyuki Saso, Corporate Senior Vice President, President of Ubiquitous Products Business Group, Fujitsu:

"When we joined the Board of the Symbian Foundation in October 2009, we signalled our commitment to the continued commercial success of the Symbian platform. As a Board member, we are pleased to have the opportunity to welcome this announcement and we look forward to working with the extensive mobile community, particularly in Japan, to help them take advantage of Symbian's open platform."

 Peter Ropke, Senior Vice President, Devices R&D, Nokia:

"Nokia congratulates the Symbian Foundation on the completion of its platform migration to full open source well ahead of schedule - a significant milestone for the Symbian platform, the foundation and the entire mobile industry. With this achievement, the world's most popular smartphone platform is available in its entirety for developers around the world to innovate on and contribute to, enabling new opportunities for engagement and monetization. For Nokia, this truly open platform environment brings the promise of exciting new user experiences for our Symbian-based smartphones."

 

Toshio Miki, Associate Senior Vice President, Managing Director of Communication Device Development Department, NTT DOCOMO:

"NTT DOCOMO congratulates the Symbian Foundation and respectfully acknowledges its significant effort to accomplish this great step of making the Symbian platform fully open to the public well ahead of schedule. We look forward to witnessing the Symbian platform being a centripetal force for collective intelligence and further stimulating our user-base with the more than 100 Symbian-based models that have been shipped in Japan so far."

 

Rob Chandhok, President of Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. & SVP Software Strategy, Qualcomm:

"When the Qualcomm Innovation Center joined the Symbian Foundation, we did so in order to participate in a new Symbian community created around the promise of an open source Symbian.  The foundation has delivered on a promise to its members and the community to undertake one of the most complex transitions to open source code the software community has seen."

 

Yong-suk Moon, Managing Director, Vice President, Samsung Electronics Research Institute, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.:

"Samsung welcomes the successful opening of Symbian platform. We expect further development and growth of Symbian Foundation as mobile industry keep evolving dynamically."

 

Patrik Olsson, Head of Software, Sony Ericsson:

"As a founder member of the Symbian Foundation, Sony Ericsson is very pleased that the Symbian source code is now fully open and available to all for free. We believe this will create new innovation on the platform and bring additional benefits to consumers.  As a company that strongly believes in openness and the power of partnerships, the success and speed of the Symbian Foundation's transition from proprietary code to open source illustrates what we as an industry can achieve when we work together."

 

Teppo Hemia, Head of 3G Multimedia BU, ST Ericsson:

"ST-Ericsson has been strongly supporting the Symbian Foundation since its creation and is delighted that the Symbian Foundation has delivered its promise of providing the platform on time to the open source community. As a supporter of open source we believe this step will bring new opportunities and accelerate innovation in the wireless ecosystem, enabling excellent future mobile consumer experiences."

 

Pierre Garnier, Vice President, Texas Instruments:

"As a long-time supporter of open source software, Texas Instruments strongly believes in the value that open source brings to the mobile market by fostering innovation, which will pave the way for exciting new mobile applications and user experiences."

 

Mats Svardh, Director of Terminal Products and Technology, Vodafone:

"Vodafone are pleased to see the Symbian Foundation making great progress with open sourcing its platform under the EPL. Vodafone supports the Symbian Foundation's goal to make the platform completely open source and believes this is good for the industry."

 

Supporting quotes from the wider Symbian community:

 

Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director, Eclipse Foundation:

"We are pleased to see the release of such a significant code contribution under the Eclipse Public License. The rate at which the Symbian Foundation has worked to make its platform fully open has been very impressive. Symbian should be congratulated in achieving this milestone ahead of schedule."

 

Peter T. Brown, Executive Director, Free Software Foundation:

"The FSF welcomes today's news, and appreciates the Symbian Foundation's?continued efforts to release the Symbian platform as completely free?software.  There is still work to be done, particularly to ensure that?Symbian's kernel can be compiled with free software, and we look forward?to working with the Symbian Foundation to make that happen."

 

Eben Moglen, Founding Director, Software Freedom Law Center:

"The release of the whole of Symbian under a FOSS license is a milestone of great importance.  Software freedom on mobile hardware is absolutely necessary to the preservation of privacy and the encouragement of innovation in mobile technology, and to protecting the freedom of the Net overall.  Developers everywhere will want to study Symbian, to hack on it, and to write applications for it.  The day of truly free telephony is about to dawn."

 

About The Symbian Foundation

The Symbian Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to enable an open ecosystem dedicated to creating the most innovative user experiences on mobile devices. Symbian maintains the code for an open source software platform based on Symbian OS and software assets contributed by Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, and Sony Ericsson, including the S60 and MOAP(S) user interfaces. The Symbian platform is now fully open source.

 

The foundation promotes collaboration, contributions and active participation, and operates as a meritocracy. Symbian's board of directors comprises: AT&T Mobility LLC, Fujitsu Limited, Nokia Corporation, NTT DOCOMO, INC., Qualcomm Innovation Center, Ltd., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, ST Microelectronics NV, Texas Instruments Inc., and Vodafone Group Services Ltd.

 

The Symbian Foundation has offices in the UK (London), US (Foster City), Japan (Tokyo), Finland (Helsinki), China (Beijing) and South Korea (Seoul).

 

For more information please visit www.symbian.org and blog.symbian.org.