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"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 dev
by 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 agoThey 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 agoI 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 agoespecially 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 agoYes I am.
- Karunamon 15y agoHuh. 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?
- freehunter 15y agoIt is when vendors lock out the public app store in favor of their own (Kindle Fire).
- scotu 15y agoI think there's no way to adhere to open source definition and restrict that. And it is a good thing
- freehunter 15y agoThere certainly is. The source code is free and open, but the license to distribute your changes for money is not. There are many licenses like this, especially when copyrights are involved.
- hugoroy 15y agoWell, obviously you haven't understood what free software is http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
- freehunter 15y agoThere 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.
- hugoroy 15y agoI 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 not for profit clause or non commercial or alike, it's NOT free software or "open source". (It's "freeware" or "shareware" or whatever.) If you make your own license with such a clause, no one will consider it free or "open source." You can call it that way, but you'll just look foolish believe me.
- freehunter 15y ago
- rbanffy 15y ago> the license may be more restrictive than Android. Not necessarily. The WebOS name is trademarked and they can just prohibit its use unless the software adheres to a certain quality goal.
- dave1010uk 15y agoIt 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 agoAgreed, open source does not mean free, or unencumbered. Symbian went 'open source' too.
- wcchandler 15y agoThey'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.