Enfors wrote:This is very interesting - but perhaps not as interesting as one might think.If Symbian really would go "completely" open source, then that would mean that I'd be able to create a new firmware for my own phone, like my old Nokia N93 for example. I could fix some of its age-old bugs, and install it in my own phone. And then Nokia could consider releasing my firmware version as an official Nokia N93 firmware update. That's what open source is all about - not just letting other people have copies of your code that they can modify, but to also include some of those modifications into future versions of the officially released software.
But I'm fairly certain it's not going to be that open, unfortunately. But I'd happily be proven wrong.
You have to differentiate between open source software and open hardware. Note that EPL also allow manufacturers to differentiate on top of the software (i.e. some bits of a phone may still be closed). It's the core platform and applications that are done by Symbian.
While I think it would be nice to able to play around with this stuff it's a minority interest when compared to the millions of device out there. However it does mean its more likely that people could do this assuming they can 'unlock' the hardware. Theoertically you could compile your own version of the OS an run it on any phone - however you need to get into things like the boot loader and write stuff to the ROM etc. etc (someone who is more technical feel free to step in here).
BoyBawang wrote:So it's Symbian^3 ? Anybody compiled the source? How does it look like? Same as Symbian^1 ?
It doesn't look that different at this stage. But watch this space for more videos. Note at the moment you need to compile it onto ARM hardware, howver there should be a QNX based emulator available soon so you'll be able to see for yoursel
Hih wrote:And implications for our real life with Symbian phones are??! 😮
Basically it doesn't mean much for existing phones... although a developer might be able to find it easier to fix a bug if he can see the system code. Going forward t means more inovative features on the phone more quickly. I also think its likely that this will increase the liklihood of upgrades between differen versions of the platfrom (S^3 to S^4 may be the exception here).
svdwal wrote:I'll buy the first person who ports Symbian to the N900 a beer. Collectable at the next Symbian Smartphone Show, or whatever it is called then 😉.
Me too. That's two beers. What more do you need?
davidmaxwaterma wrote:This is quite important, but the market is very fickle and respond to price more than anything else, IMO. If Symbian (or manufacturers' devices delivers what they need/want for less money, then it'll work for them; and the developers will follow the money. Note that Symbian hasn't (historically) been able to make it easy for developers to make money - I think that's where the difference lies. Manufacturers have largely dealt with this issue now, and Symbian are addressing it too (I don't know what has happened to Symbian Signed now - Rafe?)
Symbian Signed continues, costs were cut - down to 10 EUR for Express Signed. I agree cost is hugely important (and generally under rated). There's a lot in S^3 that help cuts cost for manufacturers and open sourcing in general helps with that too... The third party developer issue is a seperate (alebit related issue), which is multifacted, but here things are improving too.
I think this is a misnomer. It was really Symbian C++ which was difficult, and the S60 UI framework - I forget the name. ...and I think they're whining anyway. They're just complaining because it has 'C++' in the title and it isn't what they know as C++ - too many lazy programmers not willing to learn something different.
AVKON has a lot to answer for in terms of the current perception of Symbian by both consumers and developers...
In any case, what other platform allows you to program in so many different languages. The developer is really spoiled for choice. I'm sure someone can compare them with the other platforms, but, IINM, Android only allows Java (and web runtime?) and iPhone only Objective C.
Yeah, having limited you to so few options [1] mean you can make those options much sleeker in SDK/IDE terms, and there is surely some work to do there on the Symbian front, but still.
Agreed, I think WRT in particular could be very important. However this advantage has been some what irrelevant because of the distribution problem for developers. Ovi Store, PlayNow Arena etc. are removing this as an issue, but there's still work to be done.
Enfors wrote:The question I raised, which still remains unanswered, is whether or not the Symbian Foundation will consider including my homegrown modifications in future official releases of Symbian. In other words, would Nokia make an official release of a new firmware version for, say, the Nokia N93 that I had created?I'm not sure what your point is. Firmware, in the context we are using it now, is operating system software installed on a phone.
Potentially yes. You would have to submit them as contributions to the platform. However the N93 example doesn't really work (old device running on earlier version of the platform)... moreover Nokia would not be likely to endorse this. However the EPL means you could release it yourself.
rosh1182 wrote:Does this include drivers for devices? I understand that the drivers are from the manufacturer and not the Symbian Foundation. However, Nokia has been touting all the donations of code that have been made to the Foundation, so perhaps it is not too far-fetched to imagine they donated drivers. In the Linux world, you can use binary drivers as long as you know the API that they respond to. Is that true in Symbian?
I'm not sure on this - I think there's some - browsing the source yourself is probably a good way to get an answer. One of the things being introduced in S^3 is SHAI, which has relevance here.