Greetings! –I’m Fred Blesser, marketing manager for the Symbian product line at Texas Instruments. I’m currently focused on delivering a new way for Symbian developers to engage in the open source community, specifically on the Zoom ™ OMAP34x-II Mobile Development Platform (MDP).
As you might already know, the Zoom II MDP is an OMAP™ 3 processor-based software development platform. Designed in a robust handheld form factor, the MDP includes an OMAP3430 processor, TI connectivity solutions (WiLinkTM 6.0 WiFi/Bluetooth®/FM solution and NaviLinkTM GPS solution), debug capabilities, and quite a few other things.
More details and ordering information are available on the web.
As announced a while back, the Zoom II MDP has been selected as the hardware reference platform for Symbian^3. (See here for David Wood’s blog entry on the subject.) In a nutshell, the feature-rich Symbian^3 will be supported on Zoom II and TI will provide part of its baseport and adaptation software (we’ll refer to this as ZoomSW) to the community.
This will be made available either in binaries or in source code, all under an R&D license, allowing the community to modify, improve and/or develop for the Symbian^3 platform on real hardware. By the way, expect a first delivery of this ZoomSW for Symbian^3 in October. This ZoomSW will need to support the feature-rich Symbian^3environment.
TI is introducing a new way of working on Symbian, offering members a chance to integrate specific Symbian^3 features as they are delivered, by giving partners source access to TI’s ZoomSW under an Evaluation License Agreement (ELA), otherwise, it would be difficult to integrate! This will allow Foundation members to begin working right away instead of waiting for all the code to be delivered.
One main condition though: this is a transparent activity, and the whole community knows what’s happening! So how does it work?
Well, the “process” is easy:
1. Partner comes forward openly to offer to integrate feature(s)
2. TI provides specific ELA for ZoomSW files to partners for the duration of the integration, and delivers ZoomSW
3. Partner gets Symbian^3 source code from Symbian Foundation
4. Partner integrates the selected features
5. Partner contributes back modified code to TI and Symbian Foundation
6. TI packages back the ZoomSW files to make them available to the community, while the Foundation does the same with Symbian^3
So where do we go from here? Well, this new way of working will officially be announced during the next Release Council conference call (September 24th), the minutes of which will contain the presentation with all the details. A Wiki page will be setup on the Symbian Foundation website for partners to:
• Register their interest in particular features
• Provide feedback on their progress.
It is great to see that some key members of the Symbian Foundation have already expressed a keen interest in such a new approach, bringing a healthy diversity to the bring-up of Symbian^3, diversity that is the mark of a true open source operating system.
Just to clarify, does the ZoomSW being contributed under an R&D license mean that only Symbian Foundation member companies can make use of the Zoom II?
Evaluation License Agreements – that is a “new way” to do open source. Well, it’s a start I suppose. We can’t change things too fast.
Looking forward to seeing the results of this new collaboration model.
Hi Mark,
Only people who can download the Symbian^3 PDK will be able to make use of Zoom II with Symbian Foundation software. So if only members can download the PDK, then the answer is yes.
A detailed presentation was given to the Release Council back in August during the latest face to face meeting that explains this.
Regarding the ELA, this is for this specific partnership project. Please don’t confuse a specifc proposal to enable a fast bring-up of Symbian^3 for Zoom II, with the global community support.
On a side note, Zoom II supports already other open OSs (http://www.omapzoom.org/projects.html).
Fred
Thanks Fred. The Symbian^3 PDK will shift from being member only to public, probably shortly after it is feature complete. What I was really asking is, will there be publicly distributable binaries for the ZoomSW, so that non-members can also use it?
The kernel and hardware services package will be EPL around the same time the ZoomSW is delivered, so in theory, anyone with a Zoom II could modify and test drivers, even if they can’t do full system integration. I’m not sure if any non-member is actually interested in doing this, so it may be irrelevant.
Thanks for the clarification on the purpose of the ELA – it sounds like a good plan for the bring-up of Symbian^3 and I’m glad that there’s interest from key members.
Are you planning something similar to BeagleBoard? The same TI Baseport could probably be used with small modifications on BeagleBoard too. Of course the BeagleBoard doesn’t have GPS, WLAN, bluetooth etc, which the Zoom has, but you could still do some Symbian developement with it.
Indeed the processors on the Zoom II and the BeagleBoard are almost identical. If you look at the listings for the hands-on lab sessions at SEE, you’ll notice a session about Symbian on BeagleBoard. I’ll say no more now – don’t want to spoil all the surprises at once.
could the zoom II be used as a phone if you wanted to? I always wondered. Would be nice to whip that bad puppy out on an iphone user… LOL
A cellular modem is an optional extra for a Zoom II, so in practice probably not. You could use Skype or similar via WiFi though.
if its available as an optional extra, that seems to imply you could use it as a phone. What am I missing? You seem to contradict yourself, but you also seem smarter than me, so I’m listening…
Yes, in theory you could use it as a phone with the optional extra modem, but I don’t believe the base port for Symbian (or ZoomSW as it’s called here) contains anything to drive that optional extra hardware – perhaps Fred will correct me that if it’s wrong.
So, in practice, you’re probably not going to be able to use it as a Symbian phone, since telephony adaptation for a new modem is a lot of work.
that makes sense. So what is the modem for then, data only, or for hardware designers? just curious.
Can’t speak directly for TI here, but typcially the modem is available in case anyone wants to use it in their product and it therefore makes sense for them to develop early support for it on a Zoom II rather than build their own reference boards. The layout for the Zoom II and then modem board may also help hardware designers.
The other thing worth noting is that that Zoom II does also support alternative operating systems – so it may be in use with one of those.
just thought the same thing. Good answer. I was wondering why I don’t see the super geeks using it as a phone…
[...] promised in my previous blog entry, I am extremely pleased to announce that the first Zoom II MDP baseport for Symbian^3 is now [...]