Symbian has announced that the kernel of their immensely popular Symbian OS will now be open source. Currently, Symbian OS is the most popular mobile operating system and powers about half of the smart phones.

Since the formation of the Symbian Foundation in July 2009, the Symbian OS has been in the process of becoming a full open source OS. Today's announcement that the kernel is now open source is one big step in that direction. They have also released a Kernel Taster Kit, which is like a scaled down version of PDK 3.0.b, to help the open source developers get started quickly.

Opening up the kernel to the open source community opens up a lot of potentially interesting possibilities for the Symbian platform. It open up the possibility of the Symbian OS being ported to various other devices, like maybe a netbook. We will know how far it goes once the whole platform becomes open source.

You can get the Kernel Taster Kit from here.

via Symbian Blog