HP has just decided to raise WEBOS from death and go the open source route!

[size=13pt]BACK FROM THE DEAD![/size]



HP today announced their plans to contribute the webOS operating system to the open source community. While HP still has not announced any plans for new webOS devices, they are committing to furthering the development of the webOS platform through collaboration with open source developers. In today’s press statement HP CEO Meg Whitman said that by open sourcing webOS, “HP unleashes the creativity of the open source community to advance a new generation of applications and devices.”

HP plans to make the underlying code of webOS available as part of an open source license, allowing anybody from a homebrew developer to a manufacturer to pick it up and make their own enhancements and versions. HP will also “engage the open source community” about the rules of the webOS open source project, and laying out a few promises of their own.

The goal of the project is to accelerate the open development of the webOS platform
HP will be an active participant and investor in the project
Good, transparent and inclusive governance to avoid fragmentation
Software will be provided as a pure open source project

HP also intends to contribute the Enyo application framework to the open source community in the near future. So at least that will have the opportunity to live on.

Notably absent from the press release is any mention of hardware, either from HP or possible partners. The open sourcing of webOS brings to a close months of speculation and hand-wringing about what HP would do with the operating system after former CEO Leo Apotheker cancelled hardware development. It’s clear that HP’s conclusion was that it would cost too much for them to try hardware on their own again, while simultaneously they were unable to find a suitor willing to meet HP’s price and conditions for a sale of webOS.

Source: http://www.precentral.net/hp-open-source-webos-no-hardware-plans-or-partners-announced




So HP is going to open source webOS. What does that mean, and how do they do that? We spoke with HP on this matter and here’s what they had to say.

HP intends to fully open source every component of webOS, right down to its Linux core. They aren’t ready to give a public timeframe for exactly when that open sourcing will happen, because there’s some work that has to be done first. HP noted that there are some proprietary parts of webOS that have been licensed from other entities. Obviously HP cannot go an open source somebody else’s work, so they’ll have to replace those bits with open source components (whether that means they’ll source them from the open source community or create in-house, we don’t yet know).

As for the plan, HP intends to release webOS to the open source community in segments, starting with Enyo in “the near future,” followed by the other parts of webOS. Fear not, for there will be a roadmap published for their open sourcing plans. There are still plenty of details to work out (governance structures and the like), but it's happening.

Lastly, there’s something interesting we’ve observed with the big player in the open source mobile space. That’s Android, by the way. What we’ve noticed are lawsuits over patents. HP told us that they intend to hold on to their patents and will use them to protect developers using webOS. Considering the foundational mobile device patents that HP holds, such as"Integrated Handheld Computing and Telephony System and Services," i.e. “smartphone”, HP shouldn’t have much difficulty defending webOS from the Apples, Samsungs, and Motorolas of the world.

My HP Touchpad!
How i love thee
Be thou ready for serious flashing
And don't forget, Android bashing
With two of thee
Thou can't go out of fashion!

(Just made dat up, lol)

Chai! These guys no dey waste time at all o


WEBOS 3.0 booted on EVO 3D

The webOS homebrew community is making awesome things happen. Enter Ryan Hope (known around Twitter as @_PuffTheMagic_) who brought us amazing things like wIRC and FreeTether. Hope today not so coincidentally posted a trio of photos onto Twitter showing an HTC Evo 3D running webOS 3.0, the version of webOS used on the HP TouchPad. Hope says the work was done three months ago, showing just what the most talented members of the webOS homebrew community are capable of even without webOS being open source.

Now that they’ll soon have full access to everything down to the Linux core of webOS, who knows what we’ll see.