computer science

Symbian Foundation

Symbian Foundation is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Symbian Foundation rather than just read about it. In short: The Symbian Foundation was a non-profit organisation that stewarded the Symbian operating system for mobile phones which previously had been owned and licensed by Symbian Ltd. Symbian Foundation never directly developed the platform, but evangelised, co-ordinated and ensured compatibility.

Key takeaways

Symbian Foundation belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Symbian Foundation to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Symbian Foundation from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Symbian Foundation was a non-profit organisation that stewarded the Symbian operating system for mobile phones which previously had been owned and licensed by Symbian Ltd. Symbian Foundation never directly developed the platform, but evangelised, co-ordinated and ensured compatibility. It also provided key services to its members and the community such as collecting, building and distributing Symbian source code. During its time it competed against the Open Handset Alliance and the LiMo Foundation.

Operational phase (2009-2010) The Foundation was founded by Nokia, Sony Ericsson, NTT DoCoMo, Motorola, Texas Instruments, Vodafone, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics and AT&T. Due to a change in their device strategy, LG and Motorola left the Foundation board soon after its creation. They were later replaced by Fujitsu and Qualcomm Innovation Center. During its operational phase (from 2009 to 2010), it also provided:

platform development kits and tools documentation and example code discussion forums and mailing lists application signing (Symbian Signed) application distribution (Symbian Horizon) idea gathering and feedback (Symbian Ideas) an annual conference (Symbian Exchange and Exposition, abbreviated "SEE")

Members The Symbian Foundation invited companies to join as members, and attracted over 200, from a large number of categories:

Device manufacturers (e.g. Nokia, Fujitsu) Financial services companies (e.g. Visa) Semiconductor vendors (e.g. ARM, Broadcom) Mobile network operators (e.g. China Mobile, Vodafone, AT&T) Software companies Professional services firms

Closure of Symbian Foundation Following "a change in focus for some of [the] funding board members", the Symbian Foundation announced in November 2010 that it would transition to "a legal entity responsible for licensing software and other intellectual property", with no operational responsibilities or staff. The transition is a result of changes in global economic and market conditions (widely attributed to the stiff competition with other OS such as iOS and Android). Along with this announcement, Nokia announced it would take over governance of the Symbian platform. Nokia has been the major contributor to the code, and has been maintaining their own code repository for the platform development ever since the purchase of Symbian Ltd., regularly releasing their development to the public repository. On 17 December 2010 all Symbian Foundation public web sites, wiki and code repositories were shut down and Nokia launched a new Symbian site. A GitHub organization named SymbianSource describes itself as hosting "Final repositories from the defunct Symbian Foundation"; its repositories include oss.FCL.sf.os.kernelhwsrv, which is labelled "Symbian OS Kernel". However that year both Samsung and Sony Ericsson left the Foundation in favor of Google's Open Handset Alliance and the Android operating system, leaving Japan's NTT Docomo as the only major Nokia partner. Then with the announcement of Nokia's partnership with Microsoft in February 2011 and the transition to Windows Phone OS as the primary platform, the development of Symbian stopped and was outsourced to Accenture. Nokia closed this service at end of 2012. After the transition completed in April 2011, the Symbian Foundation will remain as the trademark holder and licensing entity, and will only have non-executive directors involved. The Symbian Foundation became legally insolvent, on the 15th April 2022, and it is currently unknown who the successor organisation is.

References

External links

Official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Symbian Foundation

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Symbian Foundation claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Symbian Foundation before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Symbian Foundation ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Symbian Foundation

In research: Symbian Foundation appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Symbian Foundation in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Symbian Foundation is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Defunct organisations based in London, Embedded operating systems, Free software project foundations, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Symbian Foundation outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Symbian Foundation in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Symbian Foundation means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Symbian Foundation out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Symbian Foundation in simple terms?

Why does Symbian Foundation matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Symbian Foundation?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Symbian Foundation.