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HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source

751 points by mikecane 15y ago

firefoxman1 15y ago
This made my day!
hswolff 15y ago
This is a masterful move after the previous mis-steps. Bravo HP! If only I could be a fly on the wall for those discussions of what to do with webOS...
Vaanir 15y ago
It really is going to be interesting to see how far webOS goes with this approach. I'm glad they did this, webOS is a great OS and is really nice to use on tablets.
sjs 15y ago
"under an open source license" is vague. I hope more details emerge soon. If it's a liberal license this could be very interesting. Without a group leading development the project may languish so ideally a competent group, with a vision, decides to run with webOS.
- ConstantineXVI 15y ago
  > "HP will be an active participant and investor in the project" "competent" is up for debate, but they're planning on still running the show.
- freehunter 15y ago
  They did mention they wanted to control the development of the system to avoid fragmentation, so the license may be more restrictive than Android. Full open-source but cannot sell devices with wildly custom builds without HP's approval seems to be okay with me. As long as they leave a clause for being able to legally share your custom homebrew ROMs, they can put as many restrictions on hardware manufacturers as they like.
  - j_col 15y ago
    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.
    - Karunamon 15y ago
      especially with multiple app stores I hope you're not seriously saying that having multiple app stores is a weakness of some kind.
      - j_col 15y ago
        Yes I am.
        Karunamon 15y ago
        Huh. Where I come from, people having a choice as to where they can get their apps is a Good Thing©. Care to elaborate why you think it's so bad?
        4ad 15y ago
        Choice? Some vendors lock you in allowing you to use only their app store.
        j_col 15y ago
        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.
        div 15y ago
        The problem is not having 2 or more app stores, the problem is having 2 or more app stores that are mutually exclusive.
- dave1010uk 15y ago
  It will be interesting to see if webOS's governance is as open as its code. Will its direction and roadmap be as open as its source?
- salem 15y ago
  Agreed, open source does not mean free, or unencumbered. Symbian went 'open source' too.
- wcchandler 15y ago
  They'll probably rely on whomever adopts it -- which will probably (and hopefully) be Apache Foundation. Once that happens, then the conditions of the licensing can be decided by people who have a better understanding of what is going on. Ideally the community will want a GPL or BSD, but HP will probably want a GPLv3, LGPL or Apache.
yoda_sl 15y ago
Interesting solution to their problem with webOS. I am not convinced that open sourcing it without any HP hardware to officially run it or any announcement of partners that will produce compatible hardware will allow webOS to take off. At least this is a potential credible alternative to Android open source model... if some HW folks decide to go with it. [copied from my previous comment on the 'precentral' news]
- dlikhten 15y ago
  Meh... No reason android devices can't be ported to webos.
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    1 huge reason: proprietary drivers.
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      If the driver links to the Linux kernel underneath, porting shouldn't pose a big problem. Oh... Isn't distributing proprietary drivers linked to the Linux kernel a violation of the GPL?
      - jdthomas 15y ago
        Problem isn't so much kernel level drivers, but user space. Or undocumented proprietary APIs to firmware. I suspect it is not a problem for most components. Most phones are just recombinations of the same components. The problem areas would be the radios and possibly the graphics. Check the tear downs of the HTC Sensation and the HP TouchPad .. virtually the same device inside. ;)
mchanson 15y ago
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 that this doesn't change the landscape very much. Totally interesting. Can't wait to see what happens.
- jianshen 15y ago
  Great point. Most of the popular open source projects in the JS space (jquery or node.js for instance) have a person that serves as the voice of the projects. I think if someone from the webOS dev team stepped up to take that role, I'd be a lot more confident in where the platform is headed.
- untog 15y ago
  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...
  - angli 15y ago
    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.
    - rboyce 15y ago
      Don't worry: Android's build of Webkit still has plenty of work before it's good enough to be considered competent. Apple's Mobile Webkit, on the other hand...
- peterb 15y ago
  Why wouldn't Google embrace WebOS? Their business is advertising and this will be as good a platform as any.
thehodge 15y ago
Was half expecting them to donate it to the apache foundation.. seems to be the in thing to do right now
- peterarmstrong 15y ago
  The Apache foundation is turning out to be where large companies send their projects that they acquired through acquisition and never really loved or understood to die. It's kind of the old folks home of the software industry.
  - bad_user 15y ago
    Only if Oracle donated Java or MySQL to Apache, maybe with a change of license like they did for OpenOffice - now that would be something.
    - koko775 15y ago
      And would never happen. Oracle has a huge vested interest in controlling arguably the most successful universal language and vm platform in the world. As fantastic as it would be for it to happen, imagining a multibillion dollar company managed like Oracle giving away that much value for free isn't just wishful thinking, it's delusional.
      - icefox 15y ago
        I think he was making a joke about how if Java was donated then we all would know that Java really is dying.
  - nl 15y ago
    You mean like Hadoop and Thrift and Solr and Cassandra?
laconian 15y ago
How cool is this? I bet Touchpad buyers feel even better about that firesale buy. If XBMC is any indication, nothing can reanimate old hardware like dedicated OSS nerds.
megaduck 15y ago
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 works in virtually any webkit-based browser. The biggest problem was the licensing terms: You could only use it on WebOS phones. Now that barrier's being removed. I'm really looking forward to this. Can't wait to dive into the code. :)
- untog 15y ago
  Seconding the excitement about Enyo. This could/should be absolutely huge. Speaks to the level of disorganisation in HP that the blog they link to has no mention of the open sourcing, though. Woops.
  - Stratoscope 15y ago
    There's a blog post on it now. I don't know how much disorganization that speaks to: Maybe the PR person jumped the gun by a few minutes, maybe the blogger was a few minutes late, or maybe they posted simultaneously and then discovered that their blogging platform has a longer cache than the PR wire. :-) I will check out Enyo, thanks (and megaduck too) for the tip!
  - smacktoward 15y ago
    They do mention it in their press release: "HP also will contribute ENYO, the application framework for webOS, to the community in the near future along with a plan for the remaining components of the user space." http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2011/111209xa.html?mtxs=rss-corp-news http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2011/111209xa.html?m...
  - aaront 15y ago
    Enyo is most definitely the best mobile development I've ever done. Clean & simple implementation, and I can use the Chrome dev tools to debug.
siglesias 15y ago
Dumb question, but what's in it for HP?
- gms 15y ago
  PR. They haven't got a clue about what do with webOS, so instead of announcing its shutdown, they 'donate' it to open source.
  - siglesias 15y ago
    And this is worth the tens of millions, if not hundreds, that they would have received for selling it?
    - jaysonelliot 15y ago
      You can only sell if you can find a buyer.
    - w33ble 15y ago
      Selling it to who, exactly?
      - siglesias 15y ago
        Word on the street was Facebook (http://zd.net/psW2NP http://zd.net/psW2NP) and Amazon (http://bit.ly/uSFTVz http://bit.ly/uSFTVz) were interested.
        smacktoward 15y ago
        Not interested enough, apparently!
        av500 15y ago
        both went with Android, and I think they did the right move..
      - cpeterso 15y ago
gms 15y ago
'Contribute to open source'? More like 'dump onto open source'.
- notatoad 15y ago
  whatever. at this point, open sourcing it is probably the best possible outcome anybody could have hoped for. be happy they didn't just say "we're going to lock it in a safe and nobody will ever see it again"
barredo 15y ago
I'm buying my 150€ dev touchpad right now. I was hoping for something like this before committing to the platform.
- zer0her0 15y ago
  I thought they sold out of the touchpads?
jpxxx 15y ago
Honest question: to what end is this happening? They receive no money from a sale of the project, they still have to commit engineering resources, they lose some level of control over its development and its future,and how is it going to be placed into someone else's aboveboard commercial mobile product if there aren't any guarantees against patent attacks? What is the upside?
- unwantedLetters 15y ago
  Well, if nothing else, good publicity. (There might be other upsides, but that must be a fairly major reason)
- jdthomas 15y ago
  Upside: They look slightly less foolish?
- tewolde 15y ago
  This is a platform play. Think of it like a casino, HP is the house. It sits in the middle, makes the rules and pockets the mindshare, influence...and maybe some money. Samsung, HTC have been desperate for an alternative to android since the Motorola purchase by Google. If HP does this right, I have little doubt we will see future webOS devices.
  - TomOfTTB 15y ago
    If these companies are "desperate for an alternative" why didn't they embrace webOS before? Or why aren't they pushing Windows Mobile? 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?
    - masklinn 15y ago
      > 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 down on features to pare it down to a tablet, the requirements are... lower.
turingbook 15y ago
Why not merging with Tizen to be a dominant platform？
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- dave1010uk 15y ago
  As far as I'm aware, Tizen and webOS are both the Linux kernel, X, glibc and other standard Linux distro components with apps built with "HTML5". I guess it wouldn't take much for webOS to be compatible with Tizen.
- masklinn 15y ago
  How do you merge two completely and utterly unrelated projects exactly? And why would they merge WebOS into a project which does not exist and is the latest in a long line of abject failures to yield any result?
  - scriptproof 15y ago
    Tizen = Linux + HTML 5. WebOs = Linux + ENYO or OpenGL. They are not so unrelated.
yalogin 15y ago
Isn't it a little too late now? WebOS is way behind in terms of functionality compared to Android and so even someone picks it up they need to spend considerable time and resources to bring it up to par to compete with it. It has to be some company that does not mind waiting and spending the resources. I don't see any one in that position right now. Unless this is purely a move to generate excitement in the developer community so that HP can at least make a meaningful effort to push it.
- jasongullickson 15y ago
  This may be true assuming that targeting those platforms is desirable. Now if you're in the market to do something new...
- sthulbourn 15y ago
  Android may be further ahead in features, but there's a lot of people who got a TouchPad in HP's firesale who would want extra functionality and now they can add it. I hope a OpenOS project starts soon rather than loads of people rushing to add small bits.
- hugoroy 15y ago
  too late? Why? The iPad is only at version 2, and Android tablets are having a hard time to take off (while the HP TouchPad has been selling very well apparently). Honestly, I am using one, and I have an Android phone (Nexus S) I don't think it's that far behind (and there are other good features I don't have on Android). Disclaimer: I'm right now an intern at HP, but I'm first a Free Software hacktivist and user.
  - angryasian 15y ago
    hp is selling well because they are selling $500 hardware at $100, which a lot of people are putting android on.
    - jaysonelliot 15y ago
      It doesn't matter why they are selling well, what matters is that there are about a quarter million TouchPads in users' hands right now. That's a healthy install base, and makes working on an open source OS for the device a worthwhile proposition. From there, it will hopefully be a virtuous cycle, as people buy devices that can run WebOS because of a healthy developer community.
rbanffy 15y ago
OK... Now, who'll make WebOS devices?
- mark-r 15y ago
  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.
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    And support two different software stacks? I don't think many will.
    - masklinn 15y ago
      Uh... they already do. HTC has Android and W7P devices. And they released WiMo phones as late as 2010. They even released two BrewMP phones early this year. Samsung also maintains both an Android stack and their in-house bada. Nokia has WP7 and Symbian (which is itself split into three branches/lines: ^1, ^2 and ^3)
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
      - rbanffy 15y ago
        Microsoft is probably paying for that, even if it's only by reducing their Android extortion fees.
    - kermitthehermit 15y ago
      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.
zwieback 15y ago
As an HP employee I have something to smile about today.
- absintheslink 15y ago
  Do you remember how?
- hkmurakami 15y ago
  As a former HP intern and someone who laments the company's demise, I too have something to smile about today.
  - laughingfather 15y ago
    As father of 2 idiots, i will laugh for a week.
    - freehunter 15y ago
      Novelty accounts on Hacker News?
dextorious 15y ago
First the laugh at you. Then they copy you. Then they announce they have an X (your product's name) killer. Then nobody cares. Then they open source their product.
xxiao 15y ago
i think it's all about apps these days, probably too late for the game?
gravitronic 15y ago
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.
- malkia 15y ago
  Also I've heard people install native gcc. On my end I've got luajit running there (cross-compiled on my OSX).
  - gravitronic 15y ago
    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.
    - malkia 15y ago
      Never used pygame, but googled and found something - http://thp.io/2011/webos/ http://thp.io/2011/webos/
mikecane 15y ago
It's probably very selfish of me, but I hope for others to also want webOS on one of Samsung's tablets and that a method will be devised to replace Android on a 7 Plus, 7.7, or 8.9 (or all three!). I really like Samsung's hardware and webOS would be killer on it.
agentgt 15y ago
Anybody have a guide on how one might make custom phone using webos? I asked just a while ago on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8450744/resources-on-how-build-your-own-mobile-phone http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8450744/resources-on-how-... (I just know my karma is going to get trashed for cross posting)
- runjake 15y ago
  Your best bet would be to find an existing (probably Qualcomm MSM) ARM-based Android phone with supported hardware drivers and an unlocked bootloader that you really like, and port WebOS to that. Porting WebOS to such devices has been accomplished to small extents in the past by hackers on xda-developers.com. Here's one such example reported on today: http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/9/2624350/webos-hacked-together-for-htcs-evo-3d-a-proof-of-concept-for-the-time http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/9/2624350/webos-hacked-toget... As you likely don't have the fab facilities, any phone you'd build from off the shelf parts would resemble the lunchbox-sized cell phones of the 80s. I built one several years back with a Gumstix board and a GSM module from (I believe) Sparkfun.com. Though it only did SMS and Data, no voice (wasn't interested).
jlarocco 15y ago
Do they link to the project or the code anywhere? All I could find was http://opensource.palm.com/packages.html http://opensource.palm.com/packages.html and it's just the GPLed code they were legally required to release anyway. Anybody know if there's a project page or anything?
- freehunter 15y ago
  They're still working on the license for the code, so it might take a few weeks to get it all out.
veyron 15y ago
Does that mean we will see webos on iPad at one point?
robterrell 15y ago
What about the patents? Scoble said they had patents on webOS. The press release mentions nothing about it.
runjake 15y ago
I suspect that the Enyo framework will be the prime survivor out of this outcome, as it could easily be ported to Android, and perhaps iOS (somewhat).
ramn 15y ago
Awesome news and well done HP. Atleast there will be someone to take it and build it as an alternative to the android. I believe all manufactures should give an option to install WebOs on their devices if the consumer chooses to.
jvandenbroeck 15y ago
Great! I can really see webOs taking over Android on the tablet market imo. it's a much better experience than Android.
robterrell 15y ago
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.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  I'd rather see them push WebOS than WP7, which hasn't proven very successful for them anyway.
zdw 15y ago
Hopefully BeOS will come along with it.
- ConstantineXVI 15y ago
  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.
jmount 15y ago
Sounds like just a ploy to get discount/bribe from Microsoft to switch to Win8.
- cpeterso 15y ago
  HP had committed to producing Windows 8 tablets, even before they killed their webOS tablets: http://www.bgr.com/2011/10/28/hp-windows-8-tablets-arriving-next-year-ceo-says-webos-future-up-in-the-air/ http://www.bgr.com/2011/10/28/hp-windows-8-tablets-arriving-...
- forgotAgain 15y ago
  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.
fa1321 15y ago
maybe hp is planning for a centralized app store. If the new platform flourishes as they envision, then it surely means a lot of money for hp.
forgotAgain 15y ago
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.
- amartya916 15y ago
  I'd tend to agree with you. While this is great for the hacker community, the lack of hardware is crippling. I don't see major manufacturers like Acer, HTC, Samsung picking up on this, especially since Windows Phone 7 is already a credible alternative to Android. Better developer tools, excellent UI and Microsoft's marketing muscle. The only hope is that if Nokia becomes successful (wildly) with the Win 7 platform and Motorola does the same with Android, then as a product differentiating factor, manufacturers like HTC may pick up WebOS. Now, that's a really long shot.
- kermitthehermit 15y ago
  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.
ricardobeat 15y ago
Would be great if all the chinese tablets stopped using outdated versions of Android and adopted WebOS. Cheap decent tablets for one-off projects!
- av500 15y ago
  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..
  - ricardobeat 15y ago
    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-Android-Patent-Licensing-Deal-233150.shtml http://news.softpedia.com/news/Huawei-in-Line-for-Microsoft-... (just hope they don't come after WebOS...)
- shimon_e 15y ago
  What is quiet likely is a Chinese internet business will adopt/fork webos to complete in the Chinese market against android. Which is held back by the Google vs China war.
blntechie 15y ago
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.
- erydo 15y ago
  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.
- buu700 15y ago
  StarOffice/OpenOffice is a major example as well. Java, WebKit, Reddit, Tornado, Cassandra, and probably tons of other projects began as closed source releases/deployments.
mtigas 15y ago
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-3086892 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. :)
snowwrestler 15y ago
Looks like I will be holding onto these Touchpads! Very exciting news.
ricardobeat 15y ago
Will WebOS be able to step aside from the patent wars? If Microsoft and others come after licensing deals like they did for Android that could put nails back in WebOS's coffin.
soapdog 15y ago
Can't wait for FOSS ENYO!!!! =)
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
https://github.com/hpwebos/webos/issues https://github.com/hpwebos/webos/issues
hastur 15y ago
Wow, someone at HP has balls. Very impressive.
suprgeek 15y ago
The race is now officially on to see who can become the "CynogenMod" for webOS :). I cannot wait for a Port of this on some of my Currently Android Only Devices (Nexus One and ASUS Xformer). I will now spend the rest of the day dreaming about dual booting my Tablet into WebOS and Android and all the funky apps that can come with that prospect :)
jonutzz 15y ago
Webos is actually pretty cool. I hope this helps breathe some life into it
jsz0 15y ago
I wonder if we'll reach the point where some SmartPhone/tablet makers start flirting with officially supporting multiple operating systems on the same device either to end users or carriers. I can think of a couple reasons why the carriers might like this approach. I'm sure enterprise IT departments would prefer to have more control to lock down and customize devices. Even if they don't want to switch platforms at the moment it's not very practical to root and install custom ROMs on everyone's device.
jdavid 15y ago
What is HP going to do with Synergy? Can they open source that too? Or will they allow you to take your account to a different platform?
jdavid 15y ago
1st WebOS is better than Chrome OS. 2ndly, WebOS is not just for phone's and tablets. Think TV, Netbooks, Printers, etc.... WebOS is about the cloud, not the devices. It's about sharing data as a user between many cheap devices.

751 points by mikecane 15y ago

This made my day!

This is a masterful move after the previous mis-steps. Bravo HP! If only I could be a fly on the wall for those discussions of what to do with webOS...

Vaanir 15y ago

It really is going to be interesting to see how far webOS goes with this approach. I'm glad they did this, webOS is a great OS and is really nice to use on tablets.

sjs 15y ago

"under an open source license" is vague. I hope more details emerge soon. If it's a liberal license this could be very interesting. Without a group leading development the project may languish so ideally a competent group, with a vision, decides to run with webOS.

ConstantineXVI 15y ago
> "HP will be an active participant and investor in the project" "competent" is up for debate, but they're planning on still running the show.
freehunter 15y ago
They did mention they wanted to control the development of the system to avoid fragmentation, so the license may be more restrictive than Android. Full open-source but cannot sell devices with wildly custom builds without HP's approval seems to be okay with me. As long as they leave a clause for being able to legally share your custom homebrew ROMs, they can put as many restrictions on hardware manufacturers as they like.
- j_col 15y ago
  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.
  - Karunamon 15y ago
    especially with multiple app stores I hope you're not seriously saying that having multiple app stores is a weakness of some kind.
    - j_col 15y ago
      Yes I am.
      - Karunamon 15y ago
        Huh. Where I come from, people having a choice as to where they can get their apps is a Good Thing©. Care to elaborate why you think it's so bad?
        4ad 15y ago
        Choice? Some vendors lock you in allowing you to use only their app store.
        j_col 15y ago
        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.
        div 15y ago
        The problem is not having 2 or more app stores, the problem is having 2 or more app stores that are mutually exclusive.
dave1010uk 15y ago
It will be interesting to see if webOS's governance is as open as its code. Will its direction and roadmap be as open as its source?
salem 15y ago
Agreed, open source does not mean free, or unencumbered. Symbian went 'open source' too.
wcchandler 15y ago
They'll probably rely on whomever adopts it -- which will probably (and hopefully) be Apache Foundation. Once that happens, then the conditions of the licensing can be decided by people who have a better understanding of what is going on. Ideally the community will want a GPL or BSD, but HP will probably want a GPLv3, LGPL or Apache.

yoda_sl 15y ago

Interesting solution to their problem with webOS. I am not convinced that open sourcing it without any HP hardware to officially run it or any announcement of partners that will produce compatible hardware will allow webOS to take off. At least this is a potential credible alternative to Android open source model... if some HW folks decide to go with it. [copied from my previous comment on the 'precentral' news]

dlikhten 15y ago
Meh... No reason android devices can't be ported to webos.
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  1 huge reason: proprietary drivers.
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    If the driver links to the Linux kernel underneath, porting shouldn't pose a big problem. Oh... Isn't distributing proprietary drivers linked to the Linux kernel a violation of the GPL?
    - jdthomas 15y ago
      Problem isn't so much kernel level drivers, but user space. Or undocumented proprietary APIs to firmware. I suspect it is not a problem for most components. Most phones are just recombinations of the same components. The problem areas would be the radios and possibly the graphics. Check the tear downs of the HTC Sensation and the HP TouchPad .. virtually the same device inside. ;)

mchanson 15y ago

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 that this doesn't change the landscape very much. Totally interesting. Can't wait to see what happens.

jianshen 15y ago
Great point. Most of the popular open source projects in the JS space (jquery or node.js for instance) have a person that serves as the voice of the projects. I think if someone from the webOS dev team stepped up to take that role, I'd be a lot more confident in where the platform is headed.
untog 15y ago
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...
- angli 15y ago
  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.
  - rboyce 15y ago
    Don't worry: Android's build of Webkit still has plenty of work before it's good enough to be considered competent. Apple's Mobile Webkit, on the other hand...
peterb 15y ago
Why wouldn't Google embrace WebOS? Their business is advertising and this will be as good a platform as any.

thehodge 15y ago

Was half expecting them to donate it to the apache foundation.. seems to be the in thing to do right now

peterarmstrong 15y ago
The Apache foundation is turning out to be where large companies send their projects that they acquired through acquisition and never really loved or understood to die. It's kind of the old folks home of the software industry.
- bad_user 15y ago
  Only if Oracle donated Java or MySQL to Apache, maybe with a change of license like they did for OpenOffice - now that would be something.
  - koko775 15y ago
    And would never happen. Oracle has a huge vested interest in controlling arguably the most successful universal language and vm platform in the world. As fantastic as it would be for it to happen, imagining a multibillion dollar company managed like Oracle giving away that much value for free isn't just wishful thinking, it's delusional.
    - icefox 15y ago
      I think he was making a joke about how if Java was donated then we all would know that Java really is dying.
- nl 15y ago
  You mean like Hadoop and Thrift and Solr and Cassandra?

laconian 15y ago

How cool is this? I bet Touchpad buyers feel even better about that firesale buy. If XBMC is any indication, nothing can reanimate old hardware like dedicated OSS nerds.

megaduck 15y ago

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 works in virtually any webkit-based browser. The biggest problem was the licensing terms: You could only use it on WebOS phones. Now that barrier's being removed. I'm really looking forward to this. Can't wait to dive into the code. :)

untog 15y ago
Seconding the excitement about Enyo. This could/should be absolutely huge. Speaks to the level of disorganisation in HP that the blog they link to has no mention of the open sourcing, though. Woops.
- Stratoscope 15y ago
  There's a blog post on it now. I don't know how much disorganization that speaks to: Maybe the PR person jumped the gun by a few minutes, maybe the blogger was a few minutes late, or maybe they posted simultaneously and then discovered that their blogging platform has a longer cache than the PR wire. :-) I will check out Enyo, thanks (and megaduck too) for the tip!
- smacktoward 15y ago
  They do mention it in their press release: "HP also will contribute ENYO, the application framework for webOS, to the community in the near future along with a plan for the remaining components of the user space." http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2011/111209xa.html?mtxs=rss-corp-news http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2011/111209xa.html?m...
- aaront 15y ago
  Enyo is most definitely the best mobile development I've ever done. Clean & simple implementation, and I can use the Chrome dev tools to debug.

siglesias 15y ago

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

gms 15y ago
PR. They haven't got a clue about what do with webOS, so instead of announcing its shutdown, they 'donate' it to open source.
- siglesias 15y ago
  And this is worth the tens of millions, if not hundreds, that they would have received for selling it?
  - jaysonelliot 15y ago
    You can only sell if you can find a buyer.
  - w33ble 15y ago
    Selling it to who, exactly?
    - siglesias 15y ago
      Word on the street was Facebook (http://zd.net/psW2NP http://zd.net/psW2NP) and Amazon (http://bit.ly/uSFTVz http://bit.ly/uSFTVz) were interested.
      - smacktoward 15y ago
        Not interested enough, apparently!
      - av500 15y ago
        both went with Android, and I think they did the right move..
    - cpeterso 15y ago

gms 15y ago

'Contribute to open source'? More like 'dump onto open source'.

notatoad 15y ago
whatever. at this point, open sourcing it is probably the best possible outcome anybody could have hoped for. be happy they didn't just say "we're going to lock it in a safe and nobody will ever see it again"

barredo 15y ago

I'm buying my 150€ dev touchpad right now. I was hoping for something like this before committing to the platform.

zer0her0 15y ago
I thought they sold out of the touchpads?

jpxxx 15y ago

Honest question: to what end is this happening? They receive no money from a sale of the project, they still have to commit engineering resources, they lose some level of control over its development and its future,and how is it going to be placed into someone else's aboveboard commercial mobile product if there aren't any guarantees against patent attacks? What is the upside?

unwantedLetters 15y ago
Well, if nothing else, good publicity. (There might be other upsides, but that must be a fairly major reason)
jdthomas 15y ago
Upside: They look slightly less foolish?
tewolde 15y ago
This is a platform play. Think of it like a casino, HP is the house. It sits in the middle, makes the rules and pockets the mindshare, influence...and maybe some money. Samsung, HTC have been desperate for an alternative to android since the Motorola purchase by Google. If HP does this right, I have little doubt we will see future webOS devices.
- TomOfTTB 15y ago
  If these companies are "desperate for an alternative" why didn't they embrace webOS before? Or why aren't they pushing Windows Mobile? 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?
  - masklinn 15y ago
    > 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 down on features to pare it down to a tablet, the requirements are... lower.

turingbook 15y ago

Why not merging with Tizen to be a dominant platform？

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
dave1010uk 15y ago
As far as I'm aware, Tizen and webOS are both the Linux kernel, X, glibc and other standard Linux distro components with apps built with "HTML5". I guess it wouldn't take much for webOS to be compatible with Tizen.
masklinn 15y ago
How do you merge two completely and utterly unrelated projects exactly? And why would they merge WebOS into a project which does not exist and is the latest in a long line of abject failures to yield any result?
- scriptproof 15y ago
  Tizen = Linux + HTML 5. WebOs = Linux + ENYO or OpenGL. They are not so unrelated.

yalogin 15y ago

Isn't it a little too late now? WebOS is way behind in terms of functionality compared to Android and so even someone picks it up they need to spend considerable time and resources to bring it up to par to compete with it. It has to be some company that does not mind waiting and spending the resources. I don't see any one in that position right now. Unless this is purely a move to generate excitement in the developer community so that HP can at least make a meaningful effort to push it.

jasongullickson 15y ago
This may be true assuming that targeting those platforms is desirable. Now if you're in the market to do something new...
sthulbourn 15y ago
Android may be further ahead in features, but there's a lot of people who got a TouchPad in HP's firesale who would want extra functionality and now they can add it. I hope a OpenOS project starts soon rather than loads of people rushing to add small bits.
hugoroy 15y ago
too late? Why? The iPad is only at version 2, and Android tablets are having a hard time to take off (while the HP TouchPad has been selling very well apparently). Honestly, I am using one, and I have an Android phone (Nexus S) I don't think it's that far behind (and there are other good features I don't have on Android). Disclaimer: I'm right now an intern at HP, but I'm first a Free Software hacktivist and user.
- angryasian 15y ago
  hp is selling well because they are selling $500 hardware at $100, which a lot of people are putting android on.
  - jaysonelliot 15y ago
    It doesn't matter why they are selling well, what matters is that there are about a quarter million TouchPads in users' hands right now. That's a healthy install base, and makes working on an open source OS for the device a worthwhile proposition. From there, it will hopefully be a virtuous cycle, as people buy devices that can run WebOS because of a healthy developer community.

rbanffy 15y ago

OK... Now, who'll make WebOS devices?

mark-r 15y ago
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.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  And support two different software stacks? I don't think many will.
  - masklinn 15y ago
    Uh... they already do. HTC has Android and W7P devices. And they released WiMo phones as late as 2010. They even released two BrewMP phones early this year. Samsung also maintains both an Android stack and their in-house bada. Nokia has WP7 and Symbian (which is itself split into three branches/lines: ^1, ^2 and ^3)
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      Microsoft is probably paying for that, even if it's only by reducing their Android extortion fees.
  - kermitthehermit 15y ago
    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.

zwieback 15y ago

As an HP employee I have something to smile about today.

absintheslink 15y ago
Do you remember how?
hkmurakami 15y ago
As a former HP intern and someone who laments the company's demise, I too have something to smile about today.
- laughingfather 15y ago
  As father of 2 idiots, i will laugh for a week.
  - freehunter 15y ago
    Novelty accounts on Hacker News?

dextorious 15y ago

First the laugh at you. Then they copy you. Then they announce they have an X (your product's name) killer. Then nobody cares. Then they open source their product.

xxiao 15y ago

i think it's all about apps these days, probably too late for the game?

gravitronic 15y ago

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.

malkia 15y ago
Also I've heard people install native gcc. On my end I've got luajit running there (cross-compiled on my OSX).
- gravitronic 15y ago
  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.
  - malkia 15y ago
    Never used pygame, but googled and found something - http://thp.io/2011/webos/ http://thp.io/2011/webos/

mikecane 15y ago

It's probably very selfish of me, but I hope for others to also want webOS on one of Samsung's tablets and that a method will be devised to replace Android on a 7 Plus, 7.7, or 8.9 (or all three!). I really like Samsung's hardware and webOS would be killer on it.

agentgt 15y ago

Anybody have a guide on how one might make custom phone using webos? I asked just a while ago on SO: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8450744/resources-on-how-build-your-own-mobile-phone http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8450744/resources-on-how-... (I just know my karma is going to get trashed for cross posting)

runjake 15y ago
Your best bet would be to find an existing (probably Qualcomm MSM) ARM-based Android phone with supported hardware drivers and an unlocked bootloader that you really like, and port WebOS to that. Porting WebOS to such devices has been accomplished to small extents in the past by hackers on xda-developers.com. Here's one such example reported on today: http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/9/2624350/webos-hacked-together-for-htcs-evo-3d-a-proof-of-concept-for-the-time http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/9/2624350/webos-hacked-toget... As you likely don't have the fab facilities, any phone you'd build from off the shelf parts would resemble the lunchbox-sized cell phones of the 80s. I built one several years back with a Gumstix board and a GSM module from (I believe) Sparkfun.com. Though it only did SMS and Data, no voice (wasn't interested).

jlarocco 15y ago

Do they link to the project or the code anywhere? All I could find was http://opensource.palm.com/packages.html http://opensource.palm.com/packages.html and it's just the GPLed code they were legally required to release anyway. Anybody know if there's a project page or anything?

freehunter 15y ago
They're still working on the license for the code, so it might take a few weeks to get it all out.

veyron 15y ago

Does that mean we will see webos on iPad at one point?

robterrell 15y ago

What about the patents? Scoble said they had patents on webOS. The press release mentions nothing about it.

runjake 15y ago

I suspect that the Enyo framework will be the prime survivor out of this outcome, as it could easily be ported to Android, and perhaps iOS (somewhat).

ramn 15y ago

Awesome news and well done HP. Atleast there will be someone to take it and build it as an alternative to the android. I believe all manufactures should give an option to install WebOs on their devices if the consumer chooses to.

jvandenbroeck 15y ago

Great! I can really see webOs taking over Android on the tablet market imo. it's a much better experience than Android.

robterrell 15y ago

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.

nextparadigms 15y ago
I'd rather see them push WebOS than WP7, which hasn't proven very successful for them anyway.

zdw 15y ago

Hopefully BeOS will come along with it.

ConstantineXVI 15y ago
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.

jmount 15y ago

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

cpeterso 15y ago
HP had committed to producing Windows 8 tablets, even before they killed their webOS tablets: http://www.bgr.com/2011/10/28/hp-windows-8-tablets-arriving-next-year-ceo-says-webos-future-up-in-the-air/ http://www.bgr.com/2011/10/28/hp-windows-8-tablets-arriving-...
forgotAgain 15y ago
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.

fa1321 15y ago

maybe hp is planning for a centralized app store. If the new platform flourishes as they envision, then it surely means a lot of money for hp.

forgotAgain 15y ago

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.

amartya916 15y ago
I'd tend to agree with you. While this is great for the hacker community, the lack of hardware is crippling. I don't see major manufacturers like Acer, HTC, Samsung picking up on this, especially since Windows Phone 7 is already a credible alternative to Android. Better developer tools, excellent UI and Microsoft's marketing muscle. The only hope is that if Nokia becomes successful (wildly) with the Win 7 platform and Motorola does the same with Android, then as a product differentiating factor, manufacturers like HTC may pick up WebOS. Now, that's a really long shot.
kermitthehermit 15y ago
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.

ricardobeat 15y ago

Would be great if all the chinese tablets stopped using outdated versions of Android and adopted WebOS. Cheap decent tablets for one-off projects!

av500 15y ago
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..
- ricardobeat 15y ago
  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-Android-Patent-Licensing-Deal-233150.shtml http://news.softpedia.com/news/Huawei-in-Line-for-Microsoft-... (just hope they don't come after WebOS...)
shimon_e 15y ago
What is quiet likely is a Chinese internet business will adopt/fork webos to complete in the Chinese market against android. Which is held back by the Google vs China war.

blntechie 15y ago

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.

erydo 15y ago
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.
buu700 15y ago
StarOffice/OpenOffice is a major example as well. Java, WebKit, Reddit, Tornado, Cassandra, and probably tons of other projects began as closed source releases/deployments.

mtigas 15y ago

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-3086892 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. :)

snowwrestler 15y ago

Looks like I will be holding onto these Touchpads! Very exciting news.

ricardobeat 15y ago

Will WebOS be able to step aside from the patent wars? If Microsoft and others come after licensing deals like they did for Android that could put nails back in WebOS's coffin.

soapdog 15y ago

Can't wait for FOSS ENYO!!!! =)

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

https://github.com/hpwebos/webos/issues https://github.com/hpwebos/webos/issues

hastur 15y ago

Wow, someone at HP has balls. Very impressive.

suprgeek 15y ago

The race is now officially on to see who can become the "CynogenMod" for webOS :). I cannot wait for a Port of this on some of my Currently Android Only Devices (Nexus One and ASUS Xformer). I will now spend the rest of the day dreaming about dual booting my Tablet into WebOS and Android and all the funky apps that can come with that prospect :)

jonutzz 15y ago

Webos is actually pretty cool. I hope this helps breathe some life into it

jsz0 15y ago

I wonder if we'll reach the point where some SmartPhone/tablet makers start flirting with officially supporting multiple operating systems on the same device either to end users or carriers. I can think of a couple reasons why the carriers might like this approach. I'm sure enterprise IT departments would prefer to have more control to lock down and customize devices. Even if they don't want to switch platforms at the moment it's not very practical to root and install custom ROMs on everyone's device.

jdavid 15y ago

What is HP going to do with Synergy? Can they open source that too? Or will they allow you to take your account to a different platform?

jdavid 15y ago

1st WebOS is better than Chrome OS. 2ndly, WebOS is not just for phone's and tablets. Think TV, Netbooks, Printers, etc.... WebOS is about the cloud, not the devices. It's about sharing data as a user between many cheap devices.