Nokia announced the first Open C Challenge, a global contest encouraging open source and freeware developers to create mobile applications for S60 on Symbian OS smartphones via the handset giant's Open C environment. Sponsored by the Forum Nokia global developer support program in conjunction with Orange and the Symbian Developer Network, the Open C Challenge will identify and reward development and porting of S60 applications for next-gen devices--the contest will also offer developers webinars, training sessions and peer-to-peer discussion to facilitate migration from desktop to mobile development and in porting open-source applications to Symbian OS by means of the Open C SDK Plug-In.
Open C Challenge finalists will be invited to present their applications to a panel of industry judges at the Symbian Smartphone Show in London in mid-October. Winners will receive cash prizes totaling more than $20,000, the opportunity to distribute their application via the Orange Application Shop, premium membership in the Orange Partner program, free Symbian Signing for their application, a free year's membership in the Forum Nokia PRO developer program and related Nokia marketing and business support.
The just-announced Open C Plug-In for the S60 3rd Edition Software Development Kit (SDK) is built on Symbian's P.I.P.S., employing eight standard C function libraries for migration of open source and desktop applications to Symbian OS. Open C also delivers to developers portions of the OpenSSL, GNOME, and LIBZ open source projects, promising the S60 and Symbian developer communities access to middleware functionality shared by projects including Apache and Firefox.
The Open C Challenge is now open for registration at The Forum Nokia site. Up to five applications may be submitted for consideration in two application development categories: 1) Porting existing open source assets to Open C; and 2) Native Symbian C++ development in Open C. Prior to registration, developers must first sign up as members of Forum Nokia and download Nokia's Open C SDK Plug-In for S60 3rd Edition at the Open C site. Deadline for submission: September 14, 2007, at 11:59 p.m. EST.
For more on Nokia's Open C Challenge:
- read this release
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- Forum Nokia introduces Launchpad