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HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

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Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#141

Post by warthogkernel »

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…

megaduck, you can already dive into parts (well the non-compiled bits) by taking the webOS doctor apart (it's just a jar).

The WebOS Internals team is happy to accept any patches which are then made available to users with Preware.

So you don't have to wait to get started and we would love more hackers joining the effort. We are also usually available on #wosi-dev on IRC.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#142

Post by ricardobeat »

av500 wrote: post #126
ricardobeat wrote: post #123

Would be great if all the chinese tablets stopped using outdated versions of Android and adopted WebOS.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..

It's just an idea. Not depending on Google's release schedule for updates, better performance (maybe), easier development, customization. The versions they ship with (1.6, 2.1) leave out thousands of apps anyway.

Android is not free. Maybe some makers are not paying for licenses yet (like the big players are), but they are on target: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Huawei-in-Line-for-Microsoft-... (just hope they don't come after WebOS...)

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#143

Post by kermitthehermit »

forgotAgain wrote: post #121

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.

I would say the former CEO of HP was some kind of trojan horse meant to kill the company.

I am pretty glad that the new CEO, along with all those involved, decided to do this. People love the platform, devs like, other companies couldn't wait to get their hands on it and a lot of users have said the platform has very nice UI.

So, I'm not ready to say it's just something to "save face". It's their chance to open source something, build a healthy ecosystem and provide a 100% open source alternative for Android.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#145

Post by gravitronic »

malkia wrote: post #128
gravitronic wrote: post #56

I 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).

oh that is awesome! I want to set it up with pygame and a keyboard as a quick "would this make a fun tablet game" prototyper.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#146

Post by sciurus »

freehunter wrote: post #91
hugoroy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, obviously you haven't understood what free software is http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

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.

The open source definition and free software definition both prohibit a "not for profit" clause. What is something that you consider to be an "open source project" that has such a clause?

http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#147

Post by kermitthehermit »

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.

It's still Linux under that software stack. The rest of it shouldn't require that much effort, provided the sources for the stack are 100% open and there's a healthy ecosystem.

If people in the community created cyanogenmod and hundreds of other custom ROMs for all kinds of devices, they will also be able to do this with WebOS. If enthusiasts can port WebOS easily to a device, a company should encounter no issues when doing such a port.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#148

Post by mrhlee »

siglesias wrote: post #13

Dumb question, but what's in it for HP?

Just a guess, but this lets HP achieve the two things they've wanted in trying to find a buyer: allow webOS to live on in new hardware made by other company, and still allow HP to use webOS in their new printers. Although this is just a rumor, I don't doubt they'll come out with webOS printers since they've kept announcing it ever since Mark Hurd was CEO when Palm was purchased. Not sure how webOS printer sales would translate to the bottom line for HP, but I'm curious to see and use such a printer (I currently use the Pre 2 as my mobile phone).

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#149

Post by mortenjorck »

freehunter wrote: post #78
notauser wrote: post #57

Earlier 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…

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.

I see what you did there.

But yes, it's great that two things came out of Nokia+Microsoft: Microsoft finally has a really solid mobile hardware partner, and Nokia finally has a well-designed operating system.*

*That they care about. Shed a tear for MeeGo Harmattan.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#150

Post by gurkendoktor »

nailer wrote: post #98
masklinn wrote: post #69

Earlier 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.

When the Playbook was launched, you could develop both AIR and HTML5 apps. All their other SDKs have been in beta ever since.

HTML5 apps are apparently wrapped in AIR internally, and maybe that's what made my app more laggy than in iPad Safari. But HTML5 app dev is nothing new for RIM.

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