Nokia denies Symbian speculations

One of Nokia's most senior executives has played down speculation that the Finnish vendor could bring development of the Symbian mobile OS in-house - a move that would spell the end for the open source Symbian Foundation, writes Mobile Business Briefing.

"I don't see any reason for that. What would be the benefit of doing that?” Nokia's EVP and GM for markets, Niklas Savander said.

“The Symbian Foundation will exist as an open source movement and we will use it. Other people are welcome to use it if they want to. If they don't, that's not going to change things. That's how open source works.”

A Russian teacher claims he was forced to quit his job after he complained about being made to use Microsoft software, states Thinq.

Computer science teacher Vladimir Sorokin in Moscow says education officials had pressured him into resigning after he complained to president Dmitry Medvedev about an online training system that required students to use Microsoft Office.

"The education directorate is giving preference to Microsoft," Sorokin complained. "There has to be freedom of choice."

Open source developers and supporters continue to push new frontiers, and the latest example is Digium's Scalable Communications Framework (SCF), says InternetNews.com.

Its open source Asterisk project started off as an effort to be an on-premise IP-PBX. Over the years, demand for increasingly scalable and modular approaches for voice communications has grown, which is why a new Asterisk project is being announced soon.

The Asterisk SCF is a new project sponsored by Digium that aims to build an open source VOIP system for large-scale deployments.