Back in 2008, Nokia increased its 48% share in Symbian to 100% – and said it planned to transform the company into an open software platform for mobile phones. That led to the creation of the non-profit Symbian Foundation, which allowed its members to use its mobile platform under a royalty-free licence.
Today the Symbian Foundation says it's completed the open source release of its source code. The Symbian platform, which has shipped on more than 330 million devices, making it the world’s most widely-used smartphone platform, is now completely open. This move has been completed four months ahead of schedule.
Any individual or organisation can now take, use and modify the code free of charge for any purpose, whether for a mobile device or for something else.
Lee Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation, said "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."
Symbian^3 is the current version of the Symbian platform; Symbian^4 is expected later this year.