Symbian Foundation fast becoming a reality before your very eyes

As announced on December 2, 2008, Nokia has acquired Symbian Ltd. and plans to publish both Symbian OS and S60 software as open source code. The platform release will be governed by Symbian Foundation, an open source initiative started by Nokia together with AT&T, LG Electronics, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, ST-NXP Wireless, Texas Instruments, and Vodafone.

Later in December, the foundation appointed an Executive Director, Lee Williams, to quickly ramp up its operations. During the first half of 2009, we will see the foundation become operational, its governance model up and running (including the board of directors, four technical councils, and several working groups), and the availability of the initial code base with compliant tools and supporting material.

The foundation will have a compelling offering for device manufacturers, silicon chip vendors, mobile operators, application developers, and even tech-savvy private consumers.

Some of you may have been actively following the blogs and discussion boards documenting Symbian Foundation’s transformation from plan to reality.

Blog.Symbian.org, Symbian.org in LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media all feature lively discussions where volunteers and employees, including the Symbian Foundation leadership team, openly discuss setting up the foundation.

You might like to share your opinion on the foundation’s platform release cycle, for example, or comment on how roadmaps should be developed. The debate is ongoing at blog.symbian.org>>

Or, if your area of expertise is marketing, you may want to follow the discussion in LinkedIn, where the foundation leadership team is currently addressing the question of which events to participate in.

This is a radical new approach to setting up an organization, with practically every detail being planned out in the open.