With the declaration on Tuesday of the formation of the Symbian Foundation, the forces of mobile open source appear to be congregating into two bigger camps: the Symbian Foundation and the Open Handset Alliance, which is developing Google's Android, a compare with mobile platform. Below we compare the membership, licensing and timescales of both the (SF) and the Open Handset Alliance (OHA). What are the two organisations' aims? SF: While Nokia currently owns the lion's share of shares in Symbian, 48 percent, the handset leviathan has pledged to start source Symbian software. Subject to the approval by competition authorities of Nokia's grip of the remainder of Symbian's shares, the foundation said it would be.
Nokia will develop the Symbian stand through the SF conglomerate of organisations. OHA: OHA announced late last year that it would age the Android platform. Android, originally a start-up mobile-phone-software company, was purchased by Google in 2005. Google announced that it would activate source Android under the aegis of OHA. Currently developing the Android platform, OHA is comprised of portable operators, semiconductor companies, handset manufacturers, software companies and commercialisation companies.
Some companies have given scholar property to OHA that will be released under the open-source Apache License construct 2. Some are making sure their chipsets support the platform. Handset manufacturers and sensitive operators are working to develop handsets based on the platform, while commercialisation partners are working on Android services models, as well as developing some of the Android software. Membership SF: The associate companies of SF will be: AT&T, Broadcom, Digia, EA Mobile, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Freescale, LG, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, Symbian, T-Mobile, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Plusmo, Teleca, Texas Instruments, Vodafone, Wipro and STMicroelectronics. OHA: OHA has a larger membership than SF.
The travelling operators in OHA are: China Mobile Communications Corporation, KDDI Corporation, NTT DoCoMo, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and Telecom Italia/Telefonica. Semiconductor companies concerned in OHA are: Audience, Broadcom, Intel, Marvell Semiconductor, Nvidia Corporation, Qualcomm, SiRF Technology, Synaptics and Texas Instruments. The handset manufacturers in OHA are: HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung. The software companies confused in OHA are: Ascender, eBay, Esmertec, Google, LivingImage, LiveWire Mobile, Nuance Communications, PacketVideo, SkyPop and Sonivox.
The commercialisation companies in OHA are: Aplix, Noser, The Astonishing Tribe and Wind River. Crossover: Some organisations have unconditional to blossom on both platforms, and so have membership of both organisations. Companies that have membership of both OHA and SF are: LG, Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, Samsung, T-Mobile and Texas Instruments. Licensing While SF will use the , OHA will use the.
The Eclipse licensing unity will allow developers and organisations to set up on Symbian horse's mouth cipher and strew that code. Software patents can be applied for and enforced under the licensing agreement. Under the agreement, organisations accede debit for any breaking of patents that may crop up in the encypher under their control.
In contrast, the Apache licensing concord is less unprejudiced of software patents. Signatories of Apache version 2.0 assent to exceptions to the irrevocable nature of software patents granted under the licence. Apart from that major difference, Apache allows developers and organisations to found on Android source code and distribute that code, so sustained as any code modifications are clearly attributed, in a similar way to Eclipse. Timelines SF: According to Alain Mutricy, elder vice president of Motorola, SF will launch in the cardinal half of 2009.
"We expect to launch the Symbian Foundation with all assets made at one's fingertips to members," he said. The first complete SF release can be , including handsets and software. Devices up to this question will continue to be developed using Symbian, Series 60 and UIQ, elbow from the foundation royalty-free.
The reason that SF is expected to take shape in early 2009 is that Nokia's intended damned acquisition of Symbian will come about in the fourth quarter of this year — a condition that is subject to regulatory approval. According to Kai Öistämö, Nokia's head of devices, the elementary handsets bearing the new platform will appear in 2010, around the same time that the platform is fully open-sourced. OHA: This timeline puts SF a certain extent behind OHA.
T-Mobile has repeatedly promised that Android-powered handsets will be on tap by the end of 2008. In February, T-Mobile chief executive Hamid Akhavan said the gathering plans to ship an Android phone late in 2008. T-Mobile confirmed at the beginning of June that its Android-based phone is still on road to arrive in the fourth quarter. Android software overseen by Google will appear in the initially Android phones, but Android software overseen by partner Wind River will appear in later models, expected in the at the outset quarter of 2009.
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