Open source ain't silver bullet
In June 2008, Nokia made its first big move to turn around the platform, and announced that it was acquiring Symbian, with the intent of turning the OS into an open source project.
Two years later, the move to open source has proved to be a miscalculation that is slowing down Symbian’s development. It would be better for Nokia to take full control of the OS, according to Wood. A lack of support from other vendors means Nokia has to do most of the work itself, while the open nature of the platform allows competitors to keep a close eye on its progress.
A classic OSS misconception. Somehow people think that when they make something open source they’ll instantly will get an army of free staff to support and develop project. That’s not how OSS works.
There are few prerequisites that can make open source project flourish. And many companies (apparently, including Nokia) don’t understand that. It wouldn’t surprise me if most companies in open source has more obligation to the project than some simple and obvious benefit.
So, first of all, you need to be prepared for community management. It’s hard work and you will spent time on that.
Second, you need the actual community. You need people that are passionate about your project. I’m not sure if there are such passionate people about Symbian. It’s way easier to be a fan of, say, Android this days. It’s built on known technology - Linux. It’s supported and actively developed by many big companies like Google and HTC. Also it has clearly defined revival (iOS) and it’s easy to know if it’s already there or not. On the other hand, there’s not clear alternative to Symbian. It’s on a lot of devices but none of them stand out. Neither none of Symbian competitors stand out. Also Symbian is way behind iOS or Android. So basically there’s nothing to be passionate about.
As an alternative to passion may be an urge to fix a major pain in the ass. The irony about Symbian is that there’s so much to fix in it that it’s almost always easier to switch to Android or just buy an iPhone. So nobody bothers spending their time on Symbian.
Another interesting moment in the quote is that Wood complains that Nokia has to do most of the work itself. If you’re not prepared to drive the project development why have you bought it?
In conclusion
You should not seek a free manpower in community. You can find it there as well as many other things like customer engagement, testers, source of small fixes or new features you’d never thought of. But you should not hope that community will do most of the work on project.
Silly Nokia.