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HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

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131–140 of 201 posts

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#131

Welcome 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.

Blender comes to mind. It was opensourced (ransomware) around 2001 IIRC, and it's still a quite healthy project. I'm sure there are other good examples. You might also count open source games relying on id's engines.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#132

HTC 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.

I'd rather see them push WebOS than WP7, which hasn't proven very successful for them anyway.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

It's all about hedging your bets. Until today, android was the only open source platform these companies could use. This gave Google an advantage to define the rules. For example, they could actually start closing parts of the source or giving Motorola preferential treatment.

Google had the sole power to define what an "open" platform was and the rules in using it. Developers, telcos and HW companies now have a second option.

HP may not make a dime from this move, but if the move is cheap and it can cost the competition more to respond, then it is a move is well played.

Lastly, HP is a hardware/software/services company so this move will give it some leverage when dealing with large players in those areas.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#134
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope they manage to do that, and avoid the fragmentation that Android experienced, especially with multiple app stores and no centralised over-the-air update mechanism.

especially with multiple app stores I hope you're not seriously saying that having multiple app stores is a weakness of some kind.

Yes I am.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#135
Not sure what HP's decision-making process was here, but sure looks like the team wasn't ready (or may not have even known if this was in play ahead of time). See comment by Dave Balmer (Senior Software Engineer, webOS Developer Relations):

https://github.com/hpwebos/webos/issues/1#issuecomment-30868...

> Meg's announcement was news to us in the webOS team as well. The HP executive team has been weighing a lot of options of late, but thanks for assuming all us in the trenches are that deeply "in the know", makes me feel warm and/or fuzzy. :)

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#136
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> JS/HTML5 on top of QNX would capitalize on their strengths (more responsiveness over Android) and patch over their weaknesses. We're talking about RIM here, how would web technologies (a game they are still late at) "capitalize on their streights"? Let alone "patch over their weaknesses"?

The PlayBook ships with a recent version of WebKit and all Blackberry 7.X phones contain a WebKit based browser. Starting with the Torch last summer most BB phones shipped with WebKit. The days of the Java based browser on BlackBerry's are over.

Disclaimer: I am part of the WebKit team at RIM.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#137
post #111

Hopefully BeOS will come along with it.

Nope, this Palm (fka PalmOne) that HP bought doesn't own any of the original PalmOS or BeOS assets; they spun them off as PalmSource in '03 (at the same time they bought Handspring IIRC), who got bought by Access a few years ago.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#139
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is worth the tens of millions, if not hundreds, that they would have received for selling it?

Selling it to who, exactly?

"Many" companies were rumored to be interested in buying Palm's patents. I don't know why HP didn't sell the Palm patents. I'm curious to see what the webOS open source license will have to say about the use of Palm patents.
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