[there]

which don't contain the proprietary apps from google like maps, gtalk, app market, and youtube.

in addition, a number of android phones currently on the market have closed-source hardware drivers for things like their wireless radios.

[briansmith]

Symbian isn't open sourcing any of those things either, AFAICT. Symbian will still have many closed source components similar to Android. Symbian also has components that are not open source, but whose Android equivalents are--e.g. its fonts and the font rendering code. In fact, the Symbian fonts have a very restrictive license--no redistribution allowed, usage for R&D purposes only.

Further, during the open-sourcing process, Symbian created new ("open source special") implementations of some components; that is, the open-source implementations of some components are not the same as the implementations that real devices have been using. It will be a long time, if ever, before these open-source versions catch up to the production-quality versions.

The Android license (BSD) is a lot easier/safer to comply with than Symbian's license (EPL). And, if you actually want to read the source code, Android's code is a lot easier to jump into than Symbian's is. (I'm not saying Android's code is better or that Symbian's code is bad; I'm just saying that there are many layers of indirection and unusual, Symbian-specific idioms in Symbian's code that makes it difficult to read.)

Anyway, I don't understand why Symbian is so eager to start the "who's more open source" debate. On many points, Android clearly wins on open-sourciness. I'm sure Symbian wins on other open-sourciness points. Open-sourcing was a smart thing for Symbian to do, whether Android exists or not, and I think Symbian should emphasize the positive aspects of this change.

That said, it would be very cool if somebody created a table that detailed which parts of Android and Symbian are open source, component-by-component, side-by-side.