Symbian, though always touting their open development concept, has been notoriously slow in providing a truly open source version of its mobile OS to developers.  That’s all changed, with Symbian’s announcement that they’ve finally released a fully open source version of its widely used OS, and it’s available now.

Symbian has always deemed themselves an open source mobile OS, but to access the so-called “open” source code, you had to pay for membership into the Symbian Foundation.  This has long been off-putting to developers used to the truly open source environment surrounding other open source projects- mainly the Android OS, where developers can do just about anything they want to customize it.

The new source code was released under an Eclipse Public License (EPL), which is similar to a General Public License (GPU), except it includes a few provision protecting Symbian’s patents and copyrights.  It still provides developers with unbridled freedom to modify the code as they see fit, while protecting IP that Symbian has honed so diligently over the years.

It’s obvious that Symbian sees the light that Android is shining in terms of the potential a fully open-sourced mobile OS can provide, and Symbian isn’t going to sit idle while Android enjoys the spotlight.  While Symbian revels in obscurity in the US, it’s still the most widely used and accepted mobile OS worldwide.  Symbian will undoubtedly use its position to take on Android, which is growing rapidly at the expense of Symbian and other so-called legacy OSs.

It should be interesting to see what happens from a development standpoint, and whether the “open-sourcing” of it’s code is relegated to being too little too soon for Symbian.

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Last week, Smaato released a report detailing mobile click-rates for the varying mobile operating systems, in which Symbian was deemed the clear-cut leader.  This came as a surprise for some, given the fact that the iPhone/iPod Touch and Android-based devices seem to get all the attention in terms of mobile advertising these days.

Today, Symbian issued a response to the report in which it attributes much of its continued success in the smartphone market to making its platform as open as possible and continuing to become as developer-centric as possible.  “Naturally, it’s very encouraging to see Symbian excel in click through rates – a statistic that certainly reinforces our leading position in the smartphone market,” Symbian said in it’s response statement.  ”The high rate of click throughs will be in no small part attributed to the flexibility and level of interaction available on our platform.”

“It’s now critical that we do not rest on our laurels, but build on this momentum and strive towards our goal of making our platform completely open to the developer community, which will undoubtedly increase this flexibility and interaction. We believe that the future of mobile is indeed open, in order to instill creativity, foster innovation and ensure the developer community has the optimal platform to continue to evolve the mobile phone at the rate we have experienced over the past ten years.”

It’s clear the statistic claiming Symbian garners the highest mobile-ad CTR was even surprising to Symbian itself.  Though they might not receive the press and praise that other new-age mobile platforms and OSs receive, it’s clear that Symbian will always be a major player in the mobile ecosystem.

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