The Register is reporting that Nokia is planning a Perl port for series 60 phones. This would be really cool. Not only cause I think more development options are a good idea, but because the language is an open source option. I admit I’m not familiar with most of what Nokia has been doing, but I did recently inherit a Mako. That prompted me to look around at some of the software, cause the Mako/Psion run what is apparently an early version of Symbian. I was surprized to see how open the Symbian platform seems to be. When I finally get a chance to get a new phone, I’ll have to take a serious look at Symbian instead of a PalmOS based device. Especially if their developer community is strong and supported with open development tools. Palm has really been slacking in respect to their support for open source developers. And it’s resulted in lots of bitter and disappointed people. Bad luck for Palm if those people migrate to another platform, somewhere that they’re supported and able to produce enhancements that they feel good about giving away. That’s the kind of thing that turns a normal product into a segment dominator, lest Palm forget. That old claim about Palm having “thousands of add on applications, many of them available for free” is starting to dwindle. The free apps are showing their age, and are dwarfed by commercial offerings. It leaves everyone except Palm and their commercial developers very frusterated.