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Nokia’s Open Source Response: The Symbian Q&A
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| Q: What does this mean for Nokia’s interests in open source generally and
| Linux and Qt specifically?
|
| A: On a general basis, it’s certainly true that Nokia now has spent liberally
| on open source and will be for the foreseeable future heavily vested in it.
| What’s less clear, however, is how the different investments - both internal
| and M&A - will compete or not with each other. As discussed at the time of
| the Trolltech acquisition, the decision to support two competing frameworks
| in GTK (Maemo, Nokia N770, N800, N810) and Qt was curious. As was its
| decision to embrace the Debian foundation for the Maemo project based
| devices, frankly, given its long standing commitment to the competing Symbian
| platform.
|
| No less complex is this acquisition. Symbian is, as mentioned, a massive
| market presence in the mobile space at present. But Linux has shown excellent
| strength of late in smaller, sub-PC class devices such as the Eee, and Nokia
| seemed to acknowledge this in the N770 and its successors. Then consider the
| Linux foundation upon which Android will be resting, and even the recently
| released OpenMoko Neo FreeRunner, and the Linux mobile story becomes that
| much more compelling. Linux, it would seem, is here to stay as a mobile
| platform.
|
| [...]
|
| Q: How about the compatibility of the selected license?
|
| A: A few of the inquiries we’ve seen incoming have asked whether the EPL is
| compatible with the GPL - the license that governs, among other projects -
| Linux. The answer to that question is no, it is not. So Symbian assets will
| not be permitted to be legally recombined with Linux code for their mobile
| efforts.
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http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2008/06/26/nokia_symbian/
Nokia to buy and open source Symbian
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| There’s a huge difference between Linux and the handsets, though, and I think
| it’s an important one. Linux’s license (the GPL) prevents people who ship
| Linux from including proprietary extensions. If you ship a modification to
| Linux, you must release the source. This means there are no privileged
| applications (the way Microsoft’s apps used libraries that third-party apps
| couldn’t), no proprietary competitive advantages in the kernel, and so the
| rate of improvement of every Linux distribution is maximized.
|
| [...]
|
| Both Google and Nokia, however, have deliberately chosen licenses that don’t
| encourage that…Proprietary competitive hardware and software can be put into
| any Android or Nokia phone at the appropriate level of the stack. I think
| this will slow down the success of their platforms and means neither will
| unlock the true potential of an open mobile platform. I believe true
| demilitarized openness is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for open
| mobile platform success.
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http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/06/nokia-to-buy-and-open-source-s.html
Recent:
LiMo Foundation Says It Welcomes the Symbian Foundation
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| This last point is important. While the LiMo Foundation's position on the
| Symbian news is high-minded, I still see it as essential for the LiMo
| Foundation and Android to have solid amounts of money going to application
| developers. Apple has a $100 million fund for that purpose, and RIM has a
| $150 million fund.
|
| Absent best-of-breed applications, the LiMo Foundation and Android will have
| a tough time against the competition. One possible wrinkle here, though, is
| China. China represents a potentially huge market for handsets based on open
| source mobile platforms, at low price points. If China adopts LiMo- and
| Android-based handsets in a big way, growth in the market itself could help
| pave the way for success for these Linux-based platforms.
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http://ostatic.com/166156-blog/limo-foundation-says-it-welcomes-the-symbian-foundation
Farewell then, Symbian
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| The "Foundation" may also prove to be an expensive liability for Nokia. The
| whole idea of "multi sided markets" is susceptible to a change in the
| regulatory fashion. Should Nokia be regarded not as a benevolent platform
| provider but as a dominant player - not difficult given that rivals such as
| Ericsson, Siemens and Motorola have a habit of spontaneously
| self-destructing - then life could get very difficult indeed. A change in the
| regulatory weather could see the venture catch a chill.
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/24/andrew_on_symbian/
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