I'm buying my 150€ dev touchpad right now. I was hoping for something like this before committing to the platform.
I thought they sold out of the touchpads?
HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
101–110 of 201 posts
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#102I suspect that the Enyo framework will be the prime survivor out of this outcome, as it could easily be ported to Android, and perhaps iOS (somewhat).
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#103Awesome news and well done HP. Atleast there will be someone to take it and build it as an alternative to the android. I believe all manufactures should give an option to install WebOs on their devices if the consumer chooses to.
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#104"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…
> the license may be more restrictive than Android.
Not necessarily. The WebOS name is trademarked and they can just prohibit its use unless the software adheres to a certain quality goal.
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 d…
> Because they could not? The only way they could was to buy it from HP, and that costs money.
The money saved on software licensing isn't enough to make the difference if these companies were "desperate" for an alternative. As you pointed out HTC is making Windows Mobile handsets right now and it costs money.
(Though again my point on HTC was they'd be pushing WP if they were desperate to get away from Android and they aren't)
> B&N customizes Android by cutting down on features to pare it down to a tablet, the requirements are... lower.
What features has B&N paired down in the Nook? They've restricted the use of some features but they haven't removed anything that I know of. Meaning what they have done is add a shell on top of Android just as any other manufacturer could do.
Even if you buy the argument that it would be harder for Samsung and HTC to adopt webOS feature into a shell you can't argue that it would be harder than switching to an entirely new OS and putting the marketing budget into it to attract development.
If that were easy HP would have done it.
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#106Great! I can really see webOs taking over Android on the tablet market imo. it's a much better experience than Android.
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are other licenses besides the GPL. And you can even make your own license. It's not at all uncommon for open source projects to have a "not for profit" clause attached to their copyright.
I did not point you to the definition of copyleft or the definition of GPL, but to the definition of Free Software. If you read the definition of "Open Source" by OSI, or the DFSG by Debian, they're very similar and clear: the (royalty-free) license includes the right to make derivative work and publish/distribute the modifications. None of the definitions above include "not for profit" clause as valid. If you have n…
Ah, I see, so you can take the trademarked name of any open source project and modify and distribute the software under that name, for profit, and everyone will be okay with it. Otherwise some people will think the vendor looks foolish. I see.
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are other licenses besides the GPL. And you can even make your own license. It's not at all uncommon for open source projects to have a "not for profit" clause attached to their copyright.
I did not point you to the definition of copyleft or the definition of GPL, but to the definition of Free Software. If you read the definition of "Open Source" by OSI, or the DFSG by Debian, they're very similar and clear: the (royalty-free) license includes the right to make derivative work and publish/distribute the modifications. None of the definitions above include "not for profit" clause as valid. If you have n…
None of the groups mentioned control the definition of "open source." I cannot control what looks foolish to you, but the phrase "open source" is tossed around a lot more casually on this site than you seem to believe.
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
RIM has already settled on QNX for its next-generation OS (their tablet runs on it), and I think they just don't have the software/UI chops to handle it either way. I can see WebOS being concurrence/counterbalance to Android and W7P (mostly Android) for other phonemakers than Samsung (who already has bada)
QNX is the underlying RTOS. Application UI is done in Adobe AIR, which is a dead platform. JS/HTML5 on top of QNX would capitalize on their strengths (more responsiveness over Android) and patch over their weaknesses.
>The UI is done in Adobe AIR
I don't think that's true. Adobe AIR is supported for apps but the actual UI is native.
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#110HTC in particular seems to be casting about for a way to stand out in a sea of Android handsets. I wonder if they'll be tempted? But getting webOS up to the level of ICS or iOS 5.0 is going to be a ton of work.