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HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

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Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#71

Post by TomOfTTB »

beatle wrote: post #34
megaduck wrote: post #12

This is fantastic news. WebOS has always been full of great ideas, but held back by shaky underpinnings. It's like the inverse of most open-source projects. Great UI, not-so-hot implementation. There's a lot of folks (myself included) that would have been happy to jump in and assist, but couldn't due to the closed-source nature of the platform. The real prize, however, is Enyo. It's a great Javascript framework, and…

Fantastic news. WebOS > Android

While I agree I really don't see hardware manufacturers adopting webOS. Since webOS is now Open Source it would be much easier for them to adopt the innovations of webOS (particularly interface wise) and use it as a shell on top of Android. That way you get the Android marketplace and the advantages of webOS.

I guess HP could enforce the patents to keep those innovations locked to webOS but it's kind of hard to do that AND promote webOS as an open solution for people to use.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#72

Post by masklinn »

TomOfTTB wrote: post #67
tewolde wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a platform play. Think of it like a casino, HP is the house. It sits in the middle, makes the rules and pockets the mindshare, influence...and maybe some money. Samsung, HTC have been desperate for an alternative to android since the Motorola purchase by Google. If HP does this right, I have little doubt we will see future webOS devices.

If these companies are "desperate for an alternative" why didn't they embrace webOS before? Or why aren't they pushing Windows Mobile? Or, if they want open, why not just fork Android like Amazon and Barnes and Noble? Are you seriously suggesting Barnes and Noble has more technical resources than HTC and Samsung?

> why didn't they embrace webOS before?

Because they could not? The only way they could was to buy it from HP, and that costs money.

> Or why aren't they pushing Windows Mobile?

HTC has WP handsets out.

> Or, if they want open, why not just fork Android like Amazon and Barnes and Noble? Are you seriously suggesting Barnes and Noble has more technical resources than HTC and Samsung?

B&N customizes Android by cutting down on features to pare it down to a tablet, the requirements are... lower.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#74

Post by masklinn »

tewolde wrote: post #39
jpxxx wrote: post #16

Honest question: to what end is this happening? They receive no money from a sale of the project, they still have to commit engineering resources, they lose some level of control over its development and its future,and how is it going to be placed into someone else's aboveboard commercial mobile product if there aren't any guarantees against patent attacks? What is the upside?

This is a platform play. Think of it like a casino, HP is the house. It sits in the middle, makes the rules and pockets the mindshare, influence...and maybe some money. Samsung, HTC have been desperate for an alternative to android since the Motorola purchase by Google. If HP does this right, I have little doubt we will see future webOS devices.

Samsung has bada already, I don't think they've been desperate for much. HTC, yes. I can see Acer, LG and Sony in that latter category as well.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#76

Post by scotu »

freehunter wrote: post #37
sjs wrote: post #5

"under an open source license" is vague. I hope more details emerge soon. If it's a liberal license this could be very interesting. Without a group leading development the project may languish so ideally a competent group, with a vision, decides to run with webOS.

They did mention they wanted to control the development of the system to avoid fragmentation, so the license may be more restrictive than Android. Full open-source but cannot sell devices with wildly custom builds without HP's approval seems to be okay with me. As long as they leave a clause for being able to legally share your custom homebrew ROMs, they can put as many restrictions on hardware manufacturers as they…

I think there's no way to adhere to open source definition and restrict that. And it is a good thing

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#77

Post by smacktoward »

joelhaasnoot wrote: post #33
yalogin wrote: post #23

Isn't it a little too late now? WebOS is way behind in terms of functionality compared to Android and so even someone picks it up they need to spend considerable time and resources to bring it up to par to compete with it. It has to be some company that does not mind waiting and spending the resources. I don't see any one in that position right now. Unless this is purely a move to generate excitement in the developer…

Some of the contact stuff they did in WebOS with Synergy is actually very much ahead of it's time. Android had now caught up to it a bit with ICS and their "People" card. There's also a fairly large "homebrew" community for WebOS with lots of hacks, etc.

> Android had now caught up to it a bit with ICS and their "People" card

Not surprising, seeing as how Google hired the guy who designed the webOS UI, Matias Duarte, to lead Android UI development starting with ICS...

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#78

Post by freehunter »

notauser wrote: post #57
beatle wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fantastic news. WebOS > Android

If they had done this before Nokia bought in to Windows Phone 7 then we might actually have seen a great user interface on Nokia's excellent hardware. Maybe RIM could adopt it instead? They could really use a better UI, plus a platform that actually scales well to tablets. Plus they have a large enough install base that once they get rid of their disastrous programming environment developers might actually start writ…

I agree that Nokia would have been a nice fit for WebOS, but people who don't think Windows Phone is has a great interface for a phone are squarely in the minority.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#79

Post by masklinn »

rbanffy wrote: post #68
mark-r wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The devices exist already, except they're all running Android. It shouldn't take more than a few tweaks to get WebOS running instead. Any HW manufacturer could try it to test the waters, and if they're first it would be good PR.

And support two different software stacks? I don't think many will.

Uh... they already do. HTC has Android and W7P devices. And they released WiMo phones as late as 2010. They even released two BrewMP phones early this year.

Samsung also maintains both an Android stack and their in-house bada. Nokia has WP7 and Symbian (which is itself split into three branches/lines: ^1, ^2 and ^3)

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#80

Post by koko775 »

bad_user wrote: post #54
peterarmstrong wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apache foundation is turning out to be where large companies send their projects that they acquired through acquisition and never really loved or understood to die. It's kind of the old folks home of the software industry.

Only if Oracle donated Java or MySQL to Apache, maybe with a change of license like they did for OpenOffice - now that would be something.

And would never happen. Oracle has a huge vested interest in controlling arguably the most successful universal language and vm platform in the world.

As fantastic as it would be for it to happen, imagining a multibillion dollar company managed like Oracle giving away that much value for free isn't just wishful thinking, it's delusional.

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