Symbian and fragmentation?
Symbian has four different GUIs. Pretty much every phone has its own load of their OS. They have a big fragmentation problem. At least with Open Source, especially when you're talking about the GPL pieces, it's possible to merge the good work into the main thread without getting a signature.
Symbian's main problem as they transition to Open Source seems to be that they haven't figured out what is differentiating about their system and what isn't. I am still having a lot of trouble believing that their kernel is differentiating - in the face of Linux - and thus worthy of continued large investements. Haven't they watched Sun's efforts to win market share with Solaris? Solaris is a fine system, it just isn't that differentiating for Sun any longer. Customers don't care whether it's there or not. Developers sometimes do, but not enough to make their market.
Anyway, they don't make friends in the Open Source world by bad-mouthing other projects. They should know better.
Bruce
Biting the hand that feeds IT
