News Symbian open-source completed

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2010/02/05/symbian-open-source-completed/1

The release of the Symbian platform under an open-source licence went ahead this week, completing a process which started in June 2008.

 

Since it is completely open source (VS the semi open Android [Yes, I know the core is open, but the UI isn't]), I guess yes.

 

As long as they sort out the support, updates and firmware issues as experience by almost all users of the Symbian OS via Nokia, Sony Ericsson, etc... handsets for the last several years. Random crashes, hang ups, call disconnects, display freezes, data loss and even terminal failures are all frequently experience issues with the previous iterations of the Symbian OS.

However, I must say that I still love Nokia phones and will most likely be picking up the N900 in the next few weeks.

 

I cannot wait to see what starts appearing now it's fully open. I may even relearn some coding language to have a go.

 

Recently got 1 myself, truly awesome phone. People moan about the resistive touch screen but i havent had 1 problem with it yet.

The only downside is the current small selection of apps. Hopefully with it finally becoming fully open source more apps will appear

 

Maemo =/ Symbian
They're two totally different OSes altogether.

 

Neither of us said there were the same. I admit nukeman8's last comment can lead to confusion but I do believe that Maemo is fully Open Source, correct me if I am wrong though. Its because the N900 runs the Linux based Maemo instead of the Symbian OS that the N96 runs that I decided to go this model instead.

 

I was referring to nukeman8's comment.

He said that he hoped, with the introduction of Symbian becoming fully open source Maemo would have more apps.

 

Nokia had impressed me before but not now. There are better products and OS's, I know samsung is using a modified version of the Symbian in some of their phones but a remarkable phone company, Blackberry.

They have a tough competition and need to push the envelop more than ever and it seems that they aren't doing it

 

I don't like Nokia (never have 1) but I glad to hear this. Hope they can make building software for the Symbian OS easier (though I prefer a J2ME application

 

Remarkable? In places the Blackberry OS looks even more spartan and something out of Win 3.11 than even WinMo 6.1, much less S60, which most reviewers gave them hell for, mostly because they expected tons of eyecandy. S60 was already much more capable than BlackBerry, sans the functions of the BB service.

 

As a Blackberry owner, I can honestly agree with rickysio. Even with the release of BB OS 5, my bold is still nowhere near the awesomeness that are modern smarphone OSs. Heck, it was only last week (OS5) that they added smiley support! Blackberry e-mail support is awesome, and the hardware is well-built and easy to use (so much so, that I haven't used a computer for e-mail in nearly 18 months) but other than that, they are waaaaaay behind. I think my next phone is likely to be the N900.

 

You are aware that Maemo is Debian based and running any GNU/Linux app is just a simple matter of compiling it for ARM?

So you never actually had any Nokia, but you don't like them? That's idiocy in my book.

As a S60 user (E72, but I also use N900 and Motorola Milestone), I say: More s60 non-touchscreen phones! I love the flexibility of Maemo, but touchscreen interfaces are something I can't stand.

 

While it's good news, I'm pretty convinced that Android is going to gain some major marketshare within the next few years and become the #2 OS, if not #1, in the mobile space..