Symbian is now Open Source

The Symbian Foundation is announcing tomorrow (today in Europe) that Symbian v2, the software that powers more cell phones in the world than any other, is now freely available with an Eclipse open source license.

This is huge news in open source, as there has never been such a popular operating system that was previously proprietary converted to open source. It has taken over a year to complete the conversion, since the Symbian Foundation was founded and the software was donated. Symbian, of course, began as the venerated EPOC operating system created by Psion in the early days of PDAs and small devices. EPOC became Symbian in 1998 when Psion joined forces with cellphone manufacturers Nokia, Motorola, and Ericsson. According to Wikipedia, a million Symbian phones were shipped in Q1 2003, and that number exploded to a million per month by Q4 of that year.

Huge kudos to Nokia for opening Symbian in the first place, and a big Well Done to the Symbian Foundation for following through on their promise to open the software. It looks like an interesting year ahead.

UPDATE: Press Release from symbian.org

LinuxCon CFP now open

The Linux Foundation has announced a CFP for LinuxCon in Boston this August. This is your chance to become a speaker at a premier Linux event, so check it out. Also check out the Open Source Conferences page for more conferences and speaking opportunities.

Liquid Glass

While there is a ton of stuff going on in the open-source world right now, I am going to take a moment to post something completely different, as I do from time to time.

I keep hearing that Liquid Glass, essentially glass suspended in water that you can then spray onto surfaces to create a coating, will revolutionize… well, just about everything. While it looks very interesting, I’ll wait for the jury to come back on the punditry. I really want to know what they mean by “non-toxic”, as DDT was listed as non-toxic not too many decades ago.

More Free Linux Training!

The Linux Foundation just announced that on March 1 they will provide a free webinar training series hosted by Jon Corbet. Jon will present the first video in the series, How to Contribute to the Linux Community (follow link to sign up).

Thanks to LinuxForDevices for the scoop.

Don’t forget to look for even more on the Free Embedded Linux Training Page.