Symbian goes open source four months early

[dhilipkumar]

Symbian goes open source four months early

Symbian has completed the process of open sourcing its entire code base, in advance of its June deadline.

While the release is ahead of schedule, the first phones -- expected to be out early next year -- will hit the market more than two years after the first Android phone became available. The Symbian software will have to be unique and attractive to compete with Android, its main open-source competitor, and other popular operating systems, an analyst said.

The process of making the Symbian operating system open source started with Nokia's announcement in June 2008 that it would buy out the rest of Symbian and release the code to the public.

The Symbian Foundation had expected to finish the process of transition from proprietary to open source in the middle of this year. Larry Berkin, who runs global alliances for the Symbian Foundation, credits the hard work of enthusiastic contributors for the speedier release.

The code is expected to become available on the Symbian developer page on Thursday.