2010-2-4 In a press release, Symbian announced that their code, used on most smartphones will be open. Distributed under the Eclipse Licence and others, the code will be available to all for any purpose promoting the use of the software in diverse ways on these gadgets or anything else. See that M$? The world is becoming open as you go further back into your cave to die.
According to FSF, the Eclipse Licence makes this free software but incompatible with the GPL. Still, this is a good, competitive move to promote competition rather than to kill competition as M$ always tries. One thing is sure. This move will make the smartphone software environment much more interesting, vibrant and full of choice. M$ will not be able to grow in this space on the basis of its meagre product in comparison. Expect Symbian now to be able to move into the netbook segment, further weakening M$’s hold on that space. Manufacturers will have customers who like Symbian on cell phones who want it on netbooks and perhaps by the end of the year, every other kind of PC. Who knows? Openness leads to an exciting future, not a cattle chute.
2010 will be the year of ARM and it is still young. ARM is excited by all the prospects. This move could make the exaggerated claims of ARM real very soon. While M$ is stuck on its treadmill, the world is racing ahead on flying feet. The design of Symbian is based on sound principles rather than marketing like that other OS. Symbian will be able to compete with GNU/Linux well. Both will kill that other OS in the portable field. The world does not need to pay repeatedly for M$ bloat and inefficiency. It has many better choices.
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Sigh, where to begin? Chrome, been there done that; Android, yep that too; Symbian, finally saw what was happening with ChromeOS and decided to join the party. It’s amazing what happens when you unleash something to the busybodies of F/OSS community.
You mean busy bodies, right? Coders are naturally curious. They will take a peek at how someone does something and find fault with it, improve it or add something. Opening the code will unleash a lot of energy at very little expense to Nokia/Symbian. Sharing works. I predicted this would be the year of ARM and I did not realize this has been in the pipe for a couple of years. I am not into phones…
It seems to me thatSymbian marketshare is less than 50% and dropping. I don’t think that equates to ‘most smartphones’. For example:
http://www.wirelessandmobilenews.com/2009/10/symbian-blackberry-iphone-and-android-poised-to-lead-smartphone-market-says-abi-research.html
http://androidandme.com/2009/08/news/android-closing-in-on-blackberry-taking-share-from-iphone/
http://phandroid.com/2009/11/15/android-stealing-symbian-winmo-market-share/
Picky… but correct. No one else is close however, so “the largest share of smartphones” would have been better than “most smartphones”. It’s still a big deal. It looks like a reasonable defensive move against the growing influence of Android. How refreshing to see choice in the marketplace compared to desktops and other PCs.