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HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

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151–160 of 201 posts

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#151
post #113

Sounds like just a ploy to get discount/bribe from Microsoft to switch to Win8.

Mentioned in followup interviews to this announcement was that they would be doing Windows tablets in 2012 and new webOS hardware in 2013. Perhaps new webOS tablets would be their fallback if the market rejects Win8 on a tablet.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#152
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Never used pygame, but googled and found something - http://thp.io/2011/webos/

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#155

Earlier 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.

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

That's a good question. I thought Zed Shaw had licensed lamson under those terms, but I see nothing about that on his github right now.

While I can't find a use in the wild, an example of a license I would consider to be: * open source * prohibit for profit use is: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

You are welcome to say that creative commons is not open source (many people whose opinions I value highly feel that way), but it is commonly described in those terms (or at least it was when it first came out while I was in college).

Also, here is a plug for the world's greatest license (I'm tragically not affiliated with the author): http://davispj.com/2010/02/19/agpl-not-awesome-gpl.html

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#156
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…

Nokia switching to an open-sourced WebOS would never have happened. They already had a beautiful, slick and usable operating system, and at least some kind of a strategy of bootstrapping it into a viable ecosystem (using QT on Symbian as the incentive to develop for QT on Meego).

It's still hard to say whether the decision to basically can Meego and bet everything on WP7 was the right one. But at least there was some kind of a case to be made on WP7 having a larger potential ecosystem, and Microsoft being willing to give Nokia huge bags of money. For WebOS it would have been a case of downgrading in every important sense. No real eco-system, no in-house experience, no other company backing it, no real technical advantages over Meego.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ha, I didn't see what I did there until you pointed out what I did there.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#160
post #20
post #7

I'm really interested to see if this means WebOS would compete with Android in a meaningful way. Google puts a lot of work into outreach/support/evangelism to handset makers and I think also carriers. Android's big because of being open, but also because of all of the efforts Google is making. HP is not really known for being reliable lately in their strategic direction... My prediction (for all that is worth) is tha…

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we end up with people making a compatibility layer between the two somehow. Without a major backer, WebOS won't ever be a big deal. But if you could run Android apps on the WebOS UI...

That's possible, but I think that the more likely scenario is the opposite - WebOS apps on Android. With a competent Webkit environment on the phone and Enyo open sourced, it seems possible, simple even.
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