Not a week had gone by since joining the SF when the first big task landed on my still-getting-to-grips-with-my-new-job shaky hands… take the security package through the Architecture Council and obtain approval for EPLing asap. Easier said than done, as you can read in Craig’s post We’re Off and Running! it was a steep learning curve for all of us involved, despite everyone’s, and I mean this, everyone’s common goals to move the code to EPL. There’s that, true commitment to open source.
Now that we are wiser on the matter the big question is ‘what is the next package to go TRUE open source?‘ While Security is a very relevant package, we need to target something that will trigger discussions, represent Symbian at the heart, fuel development, overload the forums, engage the non-believer and most of all start putting us on equal fighting terms with other available open source platforms… no doubts, it has to be the Symbian Kernel. But it should not just show up in the OSS section of the mercurial repositories, no, it has to be accompanied by a all other components and drivers to run a shell with full I/O, i.e. a Board Support Package, a HW vehicle and of course a freely available toolchain.
By enabling this Kernel development environment we will open the old debate monolithic vs microKernel, facilitate adoption and fuel the proliferation of kernel expertise and board support packages for a wide variety of HW. Throw in the Symbian Hardware Abstraction Interface (SHAI) and we then have the perfect ‘brewing pot’ for a true horizontal HW support environment. In essence, more and more devices running Symbian, deeper system knowledge and a lower adoption barrier.
The good news is that we are working hard to make this happen in the short term, which in my mind is a three month horizon. Challenges, many, willingness, unlimited.
Any takers?
Wow, just goes to show that the Foundation isn’t just resting on it’s laurels. I’d be more than happy to see EKA2 or whatever the current kernel is get examined and dissected, and toasted on the Open Source Altar, if it means that we get a better quality kernel as a result (and hopefully a better quality OS as a whole thanks to that).
If there wasn’t that little issue of license compatibility (EPL vs GPL), I could see the Genode.org folks having a field day with it, along with people trying to do crazy things like bolting it to an L4 implementation (as we’ve seen happen to Linux, Minix, Plan 9 and Apple’s XNU kernel from Darwin, so far).
Refuelling the “nanokernel inside a (micro)kernel) vs “a true microkernel” vs “a purely monolithic”/”modular monolithic” kernel debate will be fun, too.
Nice to see SHAI already “out there” somewhat (or at least header files from it), along with the web browser and some of it’s supporting infrastructure, too.
So when can I build the Symbian kernel and drivers with GCC?
Thanks for the comments! There’s more than just SHAI header files in mercurial, we have started to upload and clean wiki content for each API as well..look up http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/SHAI_API_Specifications
Regarding GCC, I am 100% on board with the idea, but there are hurdles and I do feel that this is where the community (other than OEMs) will help tremendously. If you belong to a member company the Kernel is available under SFL and you can start trying GCC and rasing bugs…otherwise you’ll need to wait until we push it out into EPL before you can start helping out…
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I like the concept of this blog… To promote Symbian. The comment from above “While Security is a very relevant package, we need to target something that will trigger discussions, represent Symbian at the heart, fuel development, overload the forums, engage the non-believer and most of all start putting us on equal fighting terms with other available open source platforms…”
I posted this comment in another part of this site, but noticed I had posted a number of days after the most recent comment, and wasn’t sure if it would get noticed, and then I saw the above quote in this thread and thought I would share. Please take my comments in the spirit it was intended, to make Symbian a success.
I think Nokia (Symbian if you like) had better get a move on positioning themselves in the marketplace. I can’t remember the last time I saw a Nokia TV Ad (but I see iPhone and Blackberry apps daily)Recent InfoWorld article showed 2nd quarter profits down 66%. Most people in the U.S. haven’t even heard of Nokia lately (let alone Symbian, forget about the caret, it will do nothing but complicate things if people don’t know what it means). I have been a Nokia owner for about 12 years (4 phones), but with the Buzz of Blackberry, Pre, iPhone 3GS, etc… the Nokia/Symbian brand is poised to be lost in the background for those who aren’t techies and understand the Nokia/Symbian benefits. One suggestion would be to get Phone manufacturers, Symbian, and AT&T/T-mobile to start a “Symbian Inside” campain much like the “Intel Inside” campain that got people thinking about why they would want an Intel Processor over an AMD. Maybe even tie it in with a movie placement showing the Symbian phone doing GPS, multi-tasking, being dropped and still working, etc… to show the public what it can do and why they would want it over other brands. I know the U.S. isn’t the World, but the U.S. drives a lot of what the world “wants” and I would hate to see Nokia/Symbian et al fade due to lack of exposure.
fair comment, EVVJSK…while nothing would make me happier than having a Symbian Branded phone (or Symbian inside…) we have to let that role to the OEM’s. At the SF we aim to serve end users, service providers, carriers, developers, professional services providers, silicon vendors, device makers, and everyone in the ecosystem. Some of them we serve directly and some indirectly, and my blog was more intended to rally developers more than anyone else. Let’s see what sort of commercials come out when the first Symbian OSS based phones are released… all other platforms do not advertise the OS itself but the parent brand.