Nokia asks open source to embrace closed environments

Posted by Ken Y-N on June 17th, 2008 at 07:22am

At the recent Handsets World conference in Berlin, Dr Ari Jaaksi, Nokia’s vice president of software and head of their open-source operations, talked about the need for open source developers to understand the realities of the mobile world’s business models. The word he used was “educated”, which has got certain negative undertones to me as a native English speaker, but I suspect he might not be aware of them.

In the mobile world particularly there is certain business (and legal) rules and models regarding DRM (digital rights management) and respecting IPR (intellectual property rights), the use of SIM locks to deter theft, and other business models where subsidies allowing cheap devices are recouped through paid-for content.

Nokia has used Linux in, for example, their Maemo operating system on their N800-series tablets and are also members of LiMo, the Linux Mobile consortium that is developing a common middleware layer for Linux-based mobile devices, although Nokia are also one of the primary users, promoters and owners of Symbian, the closed-source operating system that Dr Jaaksi himself believes will be the best smartphone platform for years to come.

Read the full story on Business Week here.

Tags: ari jaaksi, business week, limo, nokia, open source

Under Advocacy Tags: ari jaaksi, business week, limo, nokia, open source