20 July 2010

Symbian Developer Cooperative
Launches And Joins The Symbian Foundation

The Symbian Foundation today welcomes its newest member, the Symbian Developer Cooperative (Symbian DevCo), a non-profit, independent organisation founded to raise the profile of individuals within the Symbian community and give them a full voice in the governance of the Symbian platform.

Participants in Symbian DevCo, known as Associates, enjoy the same rights and benefits as employees of other member companies. Symbian DevCo launched today, along with its web site at symbiandevco.org.

The organisation is open to all individuals and participation is free of charge. The Symbian Developer Cooperative will provide a focal point for passionate individuals within the Symbian community and bring like-minded industry enthusiasts together to play a leading role in the evolution of the Symbian platform.

Sebastian Kügler, President and founding Board Member of Symbian DevCo, said, "Our vision is to create an organisation where open discourse is valued among its participants and contacts are made between people and companies working with Symbian." Kügler, who is also on the Board of KDE e.V, continued, "By open sourcing the Symbian platform, the Symbian Foundation has opened up the participation model to everyone who wants to work with it. However, in order to fully leverage this opportunity, a thriving ecosystem is needed as well. Symbian DevCo is an agent and advocate of that for individual contributors in the Symbian community."

Participants from all sectors of the mobile industry are expected to join Symbian DevCo to form an active group of Associates with wide-ranging skills and interests. Through the mechanism of internal voting, Associates will be able to raise the issues that matter most to them and influence the agenda of the wider Symbian community. Lars Kurth, Community Manager at the Symbian Foundation as well as founding Board Member and Secretary of Symbian DevCo, commented, "An individual voice can be lost so easily in the fervent buzz of a community. DevCo now ensures Associates will be heard and the structure we’ve put in place will help bring their issues and suggestions directly to the attention of Symbian’s governing bodies."

Benoit Schillings, another of the founding Symbian DevCo Board Members, remarked, "Individuals can really benefit from the open source model and can advocate their favoured technology for idealistic or business reasons, or both! There is nothing like putting your ideas into a platform shipping on millions of devices around the globe to see them evolve and flourish." Schillings, who is also Chief Technical Officer of Myriad Group, said, "DevCo’s purpose is to maintain the quantity and quality of the paths of platform evolution and ultimately to maintain the competitiveness of Symbian."

By joining Symbian DevCo, Associates have tangible opportunities to actively and directly influence the future of Symbian. While it has always been possible for anyone to contribute to the Symbian platform, this organization enables individuals to play an even larger role in the governance of the platform and the foundation itself that was previously reserved for employees of member companies. For example, participants will now have the option of becoming a Package Owner or the chance to stand for election to the Symbian Councils.

"Through DevCo, individuals can demonstrate that developer requirements come from a real developer constituency and not just a few vocal individuals or media pundits, and we can effect real and useful change to the Symbian platform and wider developer offering," said Ian Weston, of commercial application developer Steely Eye Digital Media and founding Symbian DevCo Board Member.

Tim Holbrow, member of the Symbian Foundation Leadership Team, said, "Symbian welcomes the Symbian Developer Cooperative as a member of the Symbian Foundation, and we are delighted to have played our part in its establishment and launch. We have high expectations that this unique member will provide individuals who are passionate about the mobile industry in general, and Symbian in particular, with the opportunity to shape the future of the Symbian platform."

The Symbian Developer Cooperative invites any individual interested in joining to visit the Symbian DevCo web site, at www.symbiandevco.org.