Starting today, Thursday (2/4/2010), Symbian that is widely used in the smartphone device made its debut as an open source platform. Symbian Foundation was officially released open source package for kernel packages Services & Hardware Symbian platform that is free download at their site.

“Kernel & Hardware Package Services is a foundation while the rest of the platform is being developed,” that is the introduction on the Wiki page for Symbian developers. With the release of the Symbian open source package that is officially starting today Symbian is used and modified freely without charge.

Symbian is still the dominant platform in the global handset market and is used by a lot of smartphone vendors. However, major challenges with the entry of major competitors like RIM, Apple, and Google. Last year, Nokia took over all shares of Symbian and decided to make it as open source platform to facilitate the support of content developers.

However, in transition, the new Symbian Foundation provides most of the open source platform with royalty-free license only for members with a license called the Symbian Foundation License (SFL). Source code is open to the public with a license EPL (Eclipse Public License) begins with the kernel and is scheduled to be opened completely in mid-2010.