This was an exciting week for open source mobile technologies. Google finally released the source code for its Linux-based Android mobile platform. The source code can be obtained from the kernel.org git repository and Google has published documentation at the Android wiki describing how third-party developers can contribute code to the project.

Google is already working on various Android improvements, including support for the W3C Geolocation API in Google Gears. We also took a look at the latest emerging details of Motorola's plans to build Android-based devices with advanced social networking capabilities.

Another major development in the open source mobile ecosystem that took place this week was the release of Nokia's first technical preview of Qt for the Symbian S60 platform. Although the technology is still at a relatively early stage of development and this release is still not production quality yet, it will allow developers to begin porting their mobile Qt applications to S60. Nokia acquired Symbian earlier this year as well as Trolltech, the company that originally created the open source Qt widget toolkit. Bringing the two together represents a major step forward for Nokia's open source mobile strategy.

We also took a close look at the first alpha release of Mozilla's Fennec mobile browser this week. We tested it on a Nokia N810 Internet Tablet device to see how it performs on real hardware. Although the new user interface is very impressive, this release was very sluggish and unresponsive. Mozilla says that optimization efforts are underway and that we will see improved performance in subsequent releases.

Ubuntu community manager Jono Bacon, who is also well known for his involvement in the LugRadio podcast, has released Denied by Reign, a metal album that is distributed under a Creative Commons license. He encourages others to build on top of his content and use it to promote awareness of open content distribution models.

The Linux Foundation conducted a study to compute the value of the Linux kernel and the broader Linux software platform. The results, which were published this week, indicate that it would take $1.4 billion to build the kernel from scratch and that all of the source in the Fedora 9 package archive is worth $10.8 billion. Although the study is based on some seriously dubious math, the results reflect the growing scope of the platform.

Ubuntu 8.10 is scheduled for release at the end of the month. The Ubuntu developers announced the availability of the release candidate this week and are encouraging users to help participate in the testing process. The new version includes a guest mode for the fast user-switching feature, improved support for mobile connectivity, and the new dynamic kernel module update framework.

Stay tuned next week for more of our open source coverage and also keep an eye on Open Ended, our open source software journal.