Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

hp.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 201 posts

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#191

Post by oakgrove »

akmiller wrote: post #187
bmajz wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, the app ecosystem has not caught up to the system UX yet. A lot of the apps are slower and have fewer features than their iOS/Android counterparts. That seems to be the case with webOS as well. Hopefully, these platforms catch on a little bit to provide a refreshing counterbalance to the app grid UX of iOS/Android.

There are definitely far fewer apps in their app marketplace. However, the core apps that I use quite frequently are there and are just as good as their iOS counterparts (if not better...both Spotify and Twitter I prefer on Mango). There are a few exceptions here for me like 1Password which is not near as good as the iOS version but to be fair they offer it for free on Mango compared to the 15.00 price tag on iOS. Th…

So you're saying you're a "developer" that was using iOS, planned on going to the Nexus and then you just decided to go to windows phone after playing with a Focus S and now after getting your new phone suddenly you're going to start developing for windows phone. Sure.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#192

Post by oakgrove »

rwolf wrote: post #108
hugoroy wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#193

Post by darklajid »

shmerl wrote: post #97
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…

If you are interested in assisting an open source mobile project, why not to give a hand to Mer and Nemo Mobile? http://merproject.org/ http://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Nemo

Honest answer, subjective of course:

- Because WebOS has more real devices out there, and for cheap. - Development for the platform is ~solved~ and nice (including nice emulator images) - I prefer the card view / just type experience to what I know from MeeGo []

: I was a huge Maemo fanboy in the past, got a couple of their shirts and went to their summits. Still own a N810, but it's mostly a clunky music player now. For me Maemo & MeeGo died by now, WebOS is in a state between worlds and might survive (after this announcement) with some support.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#194

Post by fadzlan »

oakgrove wrote: post #191
akmiller wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definitely far fewer apps in their app marketplace. However, the core apps that I use quite frequently are there and are just as good as their iOS counterparts (if not better...both Spotify and Twitter I prefer on Mango). There are a few exceptions here for me like 1Password which is not near as good as the iOS version but to be fair they offer it for free on Mango compared to the 15.00 price tag on iOS. Th…

So you're saying you're a "developer" that was using iOS, planned on going to the Nexus and then you just decided to go to windows phone after playing with a Focus S and now after getting your new phone suddenly you're going to start developing for windows phone. Sure.

What's wrong with that? If the SDK is easy enough to jump in, why not?

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#195

Post by dlevine »

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…

I guess that I'm kind of worried this won't be a good thing (at least for Web OS). Without any concrete plans for upcoming Web OS devices, it is unclear whether HP will actually continue to develop the OS. There aren't all that many devices that can run the current version of Web OS - just the Touchpad and Pre3 AFAIK, and the Pre3 was barely released). It doesn't appear that these are being currently produced or sold. I guess it is possible that Web OS will be ported to Android devices, but the lack of an official development platform is definitely a roadblock.

I'm not sure whether Web OS can survive without both current devices and active development by HP. I'm fairly certain that Open Source developers alone won't be able to advance the platform to the next level, although I'm sure that there is a lot that they can contribute.

With that said, I'm sure there is a lot of interesting technology that can be mined out of Web OS and integrated into other devices.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#196

Post by freehunter »

pessimizer wrote: post #190
freehunter wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

See CentOS; reduce sarcasm.

But is CentOS called "Red Hat"? No, it's called CentOS. With the comment I made, I was saying you wouldn't be able to release WebOS without HP's permission. Just like you can't release Red Hat without Red Hat's permission, so you fork it and use your own trademark.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#197

Post by rwolf »

oakgrove wrote: post #192
rwolf wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

I think it would be more productive to promote the licenses whose values line up with your own than trying to police the language. For my part, I will keep pointing out the ridiculousness of saying "$neologism != $foo, because $blog_post says $nelogism = $bar."

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#198

Post by rwolf »

xyzzyz wrote: post #183
rwolf wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Open Source is not only about access to the source code, just like Free Software is not only about software price. By using these terms inappropriately, you only create misunderstanding and confusion, so please don't. CC licenses are not supposed to be used as software licenses anyway.

I'm not trying to push a viewpoint--I'm trying to describe the current use of a phrase. How I feel about licenses does not change the way the phrase "open source" is used here and elsewhere.

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#199

Post by hugoroy »

freehunter wrote: post #196
pessimizer wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See CentOS; reduce sarcasm.

But is CentOS called "Red Hat"? No, it's called CentOS. With the comment I made, I was saying you wouldn't be able to release WebOS without HP's permission. Just like you can't release Red Hat without Red Hat's permission, so you fork it and use your own trademark.

That's a totally different matter which has nothing to do with what you were talking about earlier. Trademark and Free Software are two completely different things… (unlike copyright and patent law, where the code itself is directly licensed under copyright law and has to deal with patent law; however there is almost never a trademark license…)

Re: HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

#200

Post by j_col »

div wrote: post #185
j_col wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a word: fragmentation. Just look at what Amazon have done with the Fire. Separate branch of Android with a separate app store. Same thing happening to webOS would be bad news.

The problem is not having 2 or more app stores, the problem is having 2 or more app stores that are mutually exclusive.

Is there an example of two or more app stores that are not?
Post reply on HN