Mark shares with us that since Symbian is fully open source, there are lots of ways you can get involved, some of them could win you the respect of your peers, others the gratitude of millions!

The first & easiest way to get involved is the Symbian Bug Squad. Join up, test on the Symbian^3 emulator, find bugs and report them (you can fix them too if you like!) – make Symbian better for everyone.

The second way you can get involved is to help set Symbian free.  Although Symbian is open source, it’s still tied to a proprietary compiler. Join the Software Freedom Fighters and help get all of Symbian compiling with GCCE. Doing this will let anyone work with the platform and create their own ROM images – which is important because…

The third way you can get involved is to join the Wild Ducks project. The Wild Ducks are building a smartphone from off the shelf components. It’s based around the popular BeagleBoard. We’re currently working with a company in Germany to produce a relatively low-cost 3G modem and GPS expansion board so that anyone can build their own phone on their desk. I’m also talking to a Chinese company who are working to produce an LCD & Touch panel that will also connect to the BeagleBoard. There are plenty of ways to get involved, but the biggest need at the moment is people who are willing to write drivers and other low level adaptation software. If you have those skills, or want to learn, they you’ll be very welcome indeed! In the future we hope to turn these efforts into a proper developer device with open hardware and software.

The fourth (& final for this blog post) way to get involved is join the effort to backport the Symbian^3 homescreen to the S60 5th Edition SDK. If you’ve got a 5800XM, or one of the other 5th Edition devices and would like the latest greatest homescreen from Symbian^3 running on it, then this is the project for you! The effort is supported by Jake Haukipuro – the package owner for the homescreen in Nokia, so if you get stuck the best possible expert is on hand to help.

Of course there are many, many other ways you can make a difference with Symbian but these are some that are already growing their own communities. I think they’re all worthwhile activities. I hope one of them interests you.