Since I’ve recently covered open source SMS/WAP from Kannel, I thought I would mention another open source mobile project that I’ve had my eye on for a while. Funambol is an open source development company focusing primarily on mobile 2.0 messaging applications, such as their popular open source push email and calendaring software. They also offer one of the largest open source mobile development communities around today, appropriately dubbed Funambol Forge.
Back in March, Funambol introduced new “Code Sniper” projects into their development community that encouraged the development of mobile social networking applications. Code Sniper is Funambol’s community program that rewards developers with monetary rewards to work on open source projects that benefit mobile users around the globe. This new slate of Code Sniper projects ranges from syncing photos of friends on social networks to the address book on a mobile phone, to making it easy to invite your mobile contacts to join your favorite social network. All of the apps developed as part of Code Sniper are made freely available under the standard open source licensing.
Though the applications that have already been developed are somewhat basic in their social networking functionality, it still shows what the future holds. The market for this is only going to expand by leaps and bounds, and going the open source route is the way to go in my opinion. Not only for the low cost, but also for the intense creativity of a worldwide group of developers that all share the same ultimate goal; killer mobile social networking applications.
