Sorry folks but this is just HP's way of trying to make a dignified end to an embarrassing episode. The world is littered with operating systems. Without a committed hardware manufacturer there is no economic model that works for webOS developers.
HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
121–130 of 201 posts
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Why hate on Mango? Windows 7.5 has a fantastic UI -- I prefer it to every flavor of Android I've ever seen!
I've been an iPhone user since 2007 and have had every model with the exception of the 4s. I fully intended on moving to Android, specifically the Galaxy Nexus, but after playing with the Mango UI I bought the Samsung Focus S and I'm glad I did. It is by far the best OS I've used on a phone yet! It makes the iOS UI simply look dated (which in all honesty it hasn't changed much since 2007).
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#123Would be great if all the chinese tablets stopped using outdated versions of Android and adopted WebOS. Cheap decent tablets for one-off projects!
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yes, that was true for Meego as well and see where it got them...
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#125Sorry folks but this is just HP's way of trying to make a dignified end to an embarrassing episode. The world is littered with operating systems. Without a committed hardware manufacturer there is no economic model that works for webOS developers.
I'd tend to agree with you. While this is great for the hacker community, the lack of hardware is crippling. I don't see major manufacturers like Acer, HTC, Samsung picking up on this, especially since Windows Phone 7 is already a credible alternative to Android. Better developer tools, excellent UI and Microsoft's marketing muscle.
The only hope is that if Nokia becomes successful (wildly) with the Win 7 platform and Motorola does the same with Android, then as a product differentiating factor, manufacturers like HTC may pick up WebOS. Now, that's a really long shot.
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#126Would be great if all the chinese tablets stopped using outdated versions of Android and adopted WebOS. Cheap decent tablets for one-off projects!
Why would they do that and why would they run a more recent version of WebOS? The Chinese will put the (free) OS with the most apps available, WebOS has a long way to go to get there... Not even mentioning that all the major silicon vendors are shipping with Android BSPs these days..
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I think he was making a joke about how if Java was donated then we all would know that Java really is dying.
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#128I own a Touchpad ($150 sale) and have dabbled in Android development. What I find amazing about WebOS is that the native development platform (not the Enyo javascript/html side) is SDL&OpenGL. This makes porting/developing on any desktop OS very simple and the learning friction very low.
Also I've heard people install native gcc. On my end I've got luajit running there (cross-compiled on my OSX).
Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#129Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source
#130Welcome the decision. But a honest question - has there been any predecessors for a software succeeding after being open sourced from closed? I can think of Firefox but nothing else.