HP CEO Says Google-Motorola Deal Could Close-Source Android

swandives writes "WebOS could be an important player in the long run as an open-source mobile OS, because Android could become closed source with Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility, Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman said during a speech at the HP Global Partner conference in Las Vegas. It may take up to four years for the complete impact of webOS to be felt, Whitman said. HP has said it would release WebOS — originally developed by Palm for phones and tablets — to the open-source community. The company bought Palm in 2010 but late last year announced it will not make devices that use the software."

Comments

Of course

[damicatz]

HP has no reason to disparage a competitor for potential market gains, no reason at all. Nope.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't HP have to have an actual product to be viewed as a competitor?

Re:Of course

[damicatz]

HP didn't get the memo.

Re:Of course

[poetmatt]

hahaha. This now calls into question "why?"

as in, why would HP suddenly start making microsoft-esque misstatements and spew FUD about android? Does this mean they have given up? something else? The timing of post-acquisition is curious, unless HP has been making money off patent settlements on android.

Re:Of course

[d3ac0n]

I think that it is more likely that we can chalk this up to just Meg being a little under informed about Android. ("Never attribute to malice what can easily be attributed to ignorance" and all that, dont'cha know.)

I personally LOVE what she's done with WebOS by fully open-sourcing it and putting it on a nice LONG business cycle before expecting gains, but I just think she's talking from a position of ignorance of how Google's profit structure works with Android.

Hopefully this will give her the opportunity to learn a bit more about it and perhaps find things that HP can take from Google's approach that will help bring WebOS back to the mainstream.

As far as I'm concerned, WebOS is still light years ahead of both iOS and Android in terms of UI ease-of-use. It was never really given a proper shot to succeed and deserves a much more significant spot in the market than it's gotten.

Re:Of course

[GameboyRMH]

Microsoft-esque? I don't think MS would make such a statement. "Google's OS could become closed source like the one we offfer! Wouldn't that suck?"

Re:Of course

[Lumpy]

"As far as I'm concerned, WebOS is still light years ahead of both iOS and Android in terms of UI ease-of-use"

As far as I'm concerned, OS2 Warp is still light years ahead of both Mac and Windows in terms of UI ease-of-use
As far as I'm concerned, beOS is still light years ahead of both Mac and Windows and OS2 Warp in terms of UI ease-of-use

as far as I am concerned, XFCE kicks the crap out of all the above, but what wins is what has the software that people want to use. That means that WebOS ls a distant last place because it has almost NO software to iOS and Android.

HP knew that. They know that WebOS is a lost cause because outside of sending TWO free tablets to every single person that claims they will write software for the platform, they will never get to the popularity of the iPad or the soon to be fantastic (hardware wise and OS and apps wise) Android tablets.

I write for both Android and iOS. I will NOT wrote for WebOS unless I am given a FREE tablet and FREE publishing to their store. Why waste my time with a dead before it started tablet? I'm already making money off of the top two platforms.

that's the problem, good luck attracting developers to make the apps that will make people want to use the platform. HP should have PAID microsoft to write the Office suite for WebOS and gave it away free with the tablets and marketed to the Business crowd. They would have had a chance.

Re:Of course

[DamageLabs]

FUD - Fear Uncertainty and Doubt

Most often associated with Microsoft business practices. Not that MS would make such a remark.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you hit the nail on the head. From what I gather its the "UI" that people find the most useful and interesting, which begs the question, why couldn't the same UI be built for android? Or better still, allow Android to support multiple UI implementations and let vendors/users choose.

Re:Of course

[JasterBobaMereel]

You can't close source and open source project, you can only close source a branch of it ...

Once open, open forever ... and knowing Google they would continue both ...

Re:Of course

[d3ac0n]

Well. Glad to know your position isn't coming from one of total ignorance. /Sarc

By the way, publishing to the WebOS App catalog has always been FREE. Just submit it to HP for inclusion and as long as it isn't total crap or spyware/virus filled, they will put it in. Failing that, WebOS still has a robust user community and you can easily have an app published through the community catalog as well.

As far as FREE tablet goes, have you gotten one from Apple or Google (or any android maker) yet? No? Then you are just blowing smoke out your ass and being petulant when it isn't needed.

The thing is that developing for WebOS is so stupidly simple it's almost laughable. Just take your EXISTING Anrdoid or iOS application, run it through HP's FREE app converter to convert it, do a little bug-testing and squashing and you're pretty much ready to go.

Hell, if the small (at the time) Rovio team could convert all of Angry Birds to WebOS from iOS in EIGHT HOURS, I think you can manage it too. Unless you are saying that you aren't smart enough or just too lazy, which, given your generally snotty attitude, might just be the case.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, from Microsoft it would be the opposite. "If even one of your employees ever used an Android phone to call in sick, your entire product range could suddenly become open source".

Re:Of course

[Sponge Bath]

This is more Alice in Wonderland than Microsoft FUD: "Our competitors successful open source platform will be come closed source and fail, while our failed closed source platform will become open source and be the savior of the industry!"

Time to give the hookah back to the caterpillar, Meg.

Re:Of course

[ducomputergeek]

The problem with that fantastic android tablet hardware is that it appears to be on a 90 production schedule. I've been writing an app designed for both iOS and Android tablets. We had one client that was more intersted in the android tablets because they could get usb ports and use existing usb cabled barcode scanners.

Well of the three android tablets we bought last fall, only one is still available. We even talked with a couple manufactures in china and they couldn't garuntee the tablets we orders three months from now would be the same as the ones we ordered today. That means if we were to go to market today with android as our lead platform we would have to sink a lot of money into inventory and hope we sold the devices because there is no garuntee that in six months we can find the same tablets. It's also a pain because we don't want to be in the hardware business. We want to sell the app and related support services for the software.

The appeal of the iPad has been, if one breaks our customer can go to walmart or other big box store today and get another one right then and there. Also, in the past several of our customers had a bad experience with another solution that used propitarty hardware. They view the ipad as off the shelf defacto standard stuff.

Re:Of course

[P-niiice]

WebOS is easy to use, but that doesn't make it something that people actually want to use. Once people get higher-end hardware with Android or IOS, WebOS seems like an underpowered memory. I'd like to see it on a device that tries to compete with the big boys so we can make a better comparison.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, he's blowing smoke out his ass. All that oil-based lube that gets packed up his fudge hole half a dozen times a day? It caught on fire.

Let this be a lesson: always clean out your asshole after buttfucking.

Re:Of course

[postbigbang]

It shows a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of the new HP CEO regarding how open source works from a licensing perspective. If I thought HP might have a wild chance, such an abysmal fail and propaganda lie has dashed that hope against the rocks of stupidity. HP's unsettling recent history isn't over; Whitman has jumped the shark already. Next batter, please.

Re:Of course

[teh31337one]

As far as I'm concerned, WebOS is still light years ahead of both iOS and Android in terms of UI ease-of-use. It was never really given a proper shot to succeed and deserves a much more significant spot in the market than it's gotten.

Ah, I see you haven't used WebOS on HP TouchPad.

Re:Of course

[DdJ]

Just FYI: you can use off-the-shelf USB barcode scanners with the iPad. I have done it. If the barcode scanner presents itself as a USB keyboard, you just plug it into the iPad's camera connection kit, and the iPad then thinks it's got an external hardware keyboard connected. Scans work.

This isn't theory -- I tested it with my own USB barcode scanner. It does work.

Re:Of course

[Lumpy]

Why use barcode scanners? I can scan barcodes from the cameras on the devices. Works great even in lower light.
the customer wanting to use a device just for the sake of using it is silly, did you tell them that the barcode scanners were not needed?

Re:Of course

[silanea]

Dedicated barcode scanners may still be required in places like high rack warehouses where the barcodes are too far away for a camera to reliably pick up. One such place I frequently pick up parts from uses gun-shaped laser scanners so that codes can be scanned from distances up to 10 meters away. Try doing that with your tablet/smart phone camera. Also hardware scanners, in my limited experience, locate and read the codes incredibly fast and reliably. The camera-driven apps I have so far played with on my Android phone take their time and often miss codes if they are recorded at larger angles. They sure have their uses, but in some commercial settings the drawbacks of the camera-driven solutions may well add up to a $ amount in additional work or time that justifies buying hardware scanners.

Re:Of course

[Shifty0x88]

The number of apps made for webOS probably didn't help since Android and iOS had a large head start

Re:Of course

[Shifty0x88]

That and she has no evidence to suggest this other then they are buying Motorola Mobility, which doesn't seem reason enough to closed source some of it or create a new closed source version. Plus they would alienate all of us, that buys their products.... so that would be suicide

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Well. Glad to know your position isn't coming from one of total ignorance. /Sarc

By the way, publishing to the WebOS App catalog has always been FREE

Huh?

In October 2009, Jamie Zawinski said it cost $99 per year to get in the app catalog:
http://www.jwz.org/blog/2009/09/my-ongoing-kafka-esque-nightmare-of-dealing-with-palm-and-their-app-catalog-submission-process/

Later that month he said that Palm announced that free software apps with certain licenses could get in what JWZ describes as a "second-class-citizen app catalog" for free
http://www.jwz.org/blog/2009/10/palms-app-catalog-part-2/

Kudos to Whitman for getting some press for webOS, but considering all I've seen over the last few years, I have to wonder if she's not testing the waters, trying to ascertain the level of public interest in a FOSS version of webOS before spending a few million more dollars in lawyer & developer time prepping webOS for FOSS status (remember how long it took Sun to do anything with OpenSolaris due to IP entanglements?).

What the industry needs is for Mark Shuttleworth to spend some money building FOSS infrastructure for Android AOSP so that one could use something like Cyanogenmod with 3rd-party "cloud" services rather than being stuck with Google's servers. Maybe if HP is willing to open up the server side as well, they could leapfrog both Android and iOS in the minds of FOSS geeks and enterprise managers who, especially in light of RIM's system failures, would feel more comfortable controlling their users' infrastructure themselves.

Re:Of course

[IHateEverybody]

This is FUD pure and simple. And in a perverse way, it's actually a good sign for webOS and HP. HP has gone through four CEOs since it bought Palm and not one of them had ever bothered to spread fear, uncertainty, or doubt about Palm's mobile competitors until now. Is it possible that Meg Whitman actually cares about beating the competition?

Re:Of course

[postbigbang]

Further lowering my expectations of the truth from a CEO (ex- of eBay) at HP. It's sad for any former fan of HP to hear of such high BS from the top spot in an organization once respected for its leadership in industrial acumen.

Re:Of course

[squidflakes]

C'mon, it's HP! Of course they have to hire yet another incompetent with no real knowledge of the business. Meg will really jump the shark when she sells all of HP's current corporate aircraft, gets a loan to buy a whole new batch, then fires a huge portion of the technical staff because the company is just so short on funds!

Re:Of course

[TheRaven64]

Possibly. Companies like Samsung and HTC don't care about Android being open source, they care;

• That it's cheap.
• That they can customise it to differentiate their products.
• That the bits that they don't customise are supported so they don't have to invest developer effort in them. Microsoft's offering is quite cheap (when you consider that Android manufacturers are already paying MS $15/handset for a nebulous patent license) and is definitely supported upstream. The customisability seems to have gone down recently, as Microsoft is pushing to have a consistent UI across different handset, making it harder to differentiate Windows phones on anything other than price and hardware (which is good for Microsoft, not so good for handset makers). With Android, the first two of these are a result of it being open, so if it were closed then this would be a problem for handset makers, while Windows Phone wouldn't, necessarily.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Buuuuuurrrrrn...

From looking through Lumpy's post history, my best guess is he wrote a mapping/navigation app. And it's not free. I think WebOS will be fine without Lumpy, but I'm sure they would be happy to have his program.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Advances in engineering and lower manufacturing costs have revolutionized the vaporware business. Now they can put a few working units in your hands before they abandon a project for greener pastures.

Peripheral interfaces have always been a pain in the ass in the mobile space, because if you're a developer of mobile data collection apps they don't care about you unless you're selling to somebody like Hertz. I remember years ago one of my developers came to me with a PDA that wasn't working with the RS-232 device it was supposed to interface with. He hooked it up to his laptop simulator and all was well, but it wouldn't work with the actual device. After improvising a breakout box with a breadboard and handful of LEDs, I discovered that in the current hardware revision manufacturer had switched from RS-232 signal levels on the serial port to TTL. We and our customers were probably the only ones who noticed.

So the contract you sign with the Devil is you get to use cheap commodity hardware, in return the Devil promises to make no promises.

Personally I don't count on anything that isn't shipping on a lot of devices. I used to deal with that with CF interface cards, but in the modern era if you don't have a PC to dock to I think you're stuck with Bluetooth. On the bright side it's still cheaper than custom building hardware.

Re:Of course

[hairyfeet]

It was the networks that killed WebOS, nobody else. hell they practically give away nice android phones, even Walmart has a nice android offering on their Straight Talk pay as you go line. I've tried friend's straight talk droid, its quite nice and like $129 without a contract. Where HP failed was in royally kissing the ass of the networks, if they could have gotten them to sell the Pre at like $60 with contract we'd see them everywhere, same reason why WinPhone is going nowhere as nobody is offering it cheap.

Re:Of course

[hairyfeet]

Actually you can by simply making sure the users can't run custom code on their device, or do you know a secret way to hack that tiVo? THIS, this right here, is why FOSS don't mean shit in mobile. With PCs you have a handful of bog standard parts and good luck anybody locking you out of the hardware, with phones all it takes is code signing or efuses to make that device a brick unless you do what the OEM tells you in the approved manner. After all, what good is having the code to modify if you can't actually run the modified code on anything but a simulator?

Re:Of course

[ducomputergeek]

We know about the camera kit trick. But the problem with that is:

A) It requires a separate piece of equipment, easily misplaced, knocked offed, etc.

B) It works today, but Apple's been known before to kill such work arounds with software patches down the road. It's far less likely they are going to kill bluetooth on the iPad in the next 18 months...

Re:Of course

[ducomputergeek]

Bingo. The barcodes being scanned are outdoor and often can be in low or limited lighting conditions with dust, dirt, and speed is key. Motorola makes a pretty good ruggedized barcode scanner for the purpose that works extremely well in those conditions. If a little bit of dirt is obscuring the barcode we've found it still reads correctly 95% of the time.

However here's the difference: the USB version is about $500. The bluetooth is about $800. Multiple that over 100 - 150 devices and it adds up...

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, up here in Canada, they were practically giving them away and nobody bought them. I believe for quite some time (months) there was a $10-15 / mo "rebate" on your contract for the first year if you "bought" the Pre (which was free on contract).

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Why wouldn't you use some of the "big name" Android tablets? I believe the Toshiba Thrive has full size USB ports, full size HDMI (not that you need that).

Toshiba's not going to go away any time soon and won't change the existing model. Why would you go with some small Chinese firm making custom tablets?

Re:Of course

[jedidiah]

Perhaps we should just start calling it "Edison-ian".

Re:Of course

[Cytotoxic]

Yup... nobody can run the open-sourced Android on their cell phone.

Well, maybe not nobody... But I can't. 'Cause nobody else bought my phone so they didn't make mods for it. Well, Ok, there is one mod for my phone. Ok, 2. But they aren't Cyanogen. So I can't really modify my device...

Re:Of course

[DarwinSurvivor]

Ok fine, so the phones made by Motorola for Google will be closed source. That's called a BRANCH. Every other hardware manufacturer can still keep using the open source code from before the license change and even fork the project.

Re:Of course

[glitch0]

Man they should really advertise that free app converter!

Re:Of course

[mbkennel]

Funny thing, Samsung's and HTC's customers don't care about Android being open source, they care;
That it's cheap.

Has anybody bought a Samsung or HTC because they liked one's crufty skin better than the others? No.

Re:Of course

[TheRaven64]

I bought an HTC phone, installed Cyanogen, and then reverted to the HTC firmware because the UI doesn't suck as much as the official Android one.

Re:Of course

[Solandri]

I think that it is more likely that we can chalk this up to just Meg being a little under informed about Android.

She's just applying her experience while she was heading eBay. She bought PayPal so they could create a closed auction/payment monopoly, so she figures that must also be the reason Google wants to buy Motorola.

Re:Of course

[rtb61]

Ahh yes, Meg Whitless, a paragon of honesty and virtue. From my understanding the only thing you can rely on when a psychopath makes a statement is, that it will advantage them and disadvantage you.

"Android is a Linux-based operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. It is developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system). "The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) is a consortium of 84 firms to develop open standards for mobile devices. Member firms include Google, HTC, Sony, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, T-Mobile, Nvidia, and Wind River Systems." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Handset_Alliance.

Meg Whitless (note the spelling no one is suing me ;D) is a lying sack of shit who will say anything and everything to advantage herself and screw everyone else including the company she is supposedly working for. Didn't this dill spend more on her own election than any other politician in history because practically no one else would trust her with their money and she still lost big time. The mind boggles at the thinking of the board that hired her.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

It smells more like HP got one of those "oh I am so hurt" phone calls from William Gates the 3rd or a friend of his.

Re:Of course

[Daniel Phillips]

As far as I'm concerned, OS2 Warp is still light years ahead of both Mac and Windows in terms of UI ease-of-use
As far as I'm concerned, beOS is still light years ahead of both Mac and Windows and OS2 Warp in terms of UI ease-of-use

Neither of those is open source or likely ever will be. Chalk it up the "so nearly great but" effect. And don't forget GeoOS from Geoworks while you're at it.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

From my understanding the only thing you can rely on when a psychopath makes a statement is, that it will advantage them and disadvantage you.

Whoa! Now I understand so much more about Steve Jobs!

Re:Of course

[Daniel Phillips]

"Cheat to beat".

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

And most of them run Wince/mobile/phone7. There was an MC9060 that supported some old form of embedded linux, I think it was kernel 2.4.

Re:Of course

[Anonymous Coward]

The devices are built for the job. And companies like Motorola offer very attractive support. http://www.motorolasolutions.com

Re:Of course

[poetmatt]

The UI with ice cream sandwich or the UI from Cyanogenmod? Curious, because I've heard nothing but positive reports about CM9 and ICS's default interface in general.

Re:Of course

[TheRaven64]

CM9 is not out yet. The HTC Sense UI is significantly better than the CM7.1 UI, yet still manages to find myriad ways in which to suck.

Re:Of course

[jseale]

Meg Whitman's spreading of FUD isn't going to help HP one iota. HP buttered their bread a long time ago when they bought Palm and put WebOS on the TouchPad, only to have the TouchPad flop a short time later. At least they still have their printers to keep their biz afloat. WebOS, on the other hand, will probably live on in toys, smart TVs, appliances and cars. Just sayin'.

Re:Of course

[poetmatt]

Really? As a personal anecdotal opinion:

I seriously hate sense. After using golauncher, launcherpro, custom roms, I prefer AOSP to any of the above - mostly because sense is so strongly embedded into the UI that even if you use something else you're still suck with memory guzzling sense components. It's not that sense does or doesn't work, but that it's embedded in android far more than AOSP or touchwiz.

The only part of sense I've ever liked is how they do contacts and the dialer. Bad: launcher, dropdown toggles, lockscreen.

CM9 alphas are being tested in various forms, they do have pictures of the ui and videos ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP1us70sZjo ) and all that.

Except it would be suicide for Google...

[neokushan]

Google doesn't make money from Android OS itself, Google makes money from the sheer volume of Android devices out there. Be it app purchases, targeted ads, search or whatever, the revenue Android brings in comes from everything except the OS. It wouldn't make sense for Google to close source it.

Google is a massive company and if they wanted to make their own phones with their own closed OS, they'd have done it by now.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[blahbooboo]

Point of clarification, google technically makes no money on android (i.e. no profits).

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[hobarrera]

It does indirectly.
More android users = more google-services users = more data income from their real business (including ads, and stuff).

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is a massive company and if they wanted to make their own phones with their own closed OS, they'd have done it by now.

Except Google isn't Facebook, despite what geeks think of Facebook. People migrating away from Google to the inferior Bing (or superior Duck Duck Go), is but a search-box change away. Without a strong Android (and Google+) they don't have great lock in. GMail isn't enough, people even migrate emails (blasphemous, I know) ... but you've gotta be on the social network where your friends are.

Google needed the strong OEM partnerships to make Android a success. What they do with it going forward, well thats anyones guess. I'd wager we'll see exclusive stuff for Motorola, but not for a long long time.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, that has always been the Google game plan, and has always worked.

Others can't wrap their tiny minds around the concept and try to guess what Google will do, but using their own mindset. Hence, the theory that android would become closed source.

We can't really forsee what Google will do, but if they follow the usual pattern, they'll try to make Android completely free, but that freedom defended by them.

Problem is, that once a company establishes a monopoly, no matter how good it's for the user or how good the bussiness plan is, sooner or later things will start to stall.

The ideal solution, would be to keep these little conflicts going, keep the flames of competition alive.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[ducomputergeek]

The biggest threat is if google gets into the hardware business themselves and the other handset makers see this action as a threat. If google gets serious about making their own google branded phones and tablets watch how quickly LG, Samsung, and HTC start releasing phones with other OS's such as windows mobile or adopt another platform (like a webos).

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[Anonymous Coward]

> or superior Duck Duck Go

Ha ha ha. What a crap interface. is it 1980 all over again ?

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[Lunix Nutcase]

Why would it be suicide? They would share the source with their partners in the OHA and them alone. You don't actually think Android is open source for the benefit of the purchasers of the phone do you? If so, you're incredibly naive.

Google is a massive company and if they wanted to make their own phones with their own closed OS, they'd have done it by now.

Except for that pesky little fact that they have no infrastructure or experience in producing phones? So, no, before acquiring Motorola they would most NOT have been able to do that if they wanted to. That's the whole reason why they are buying Motorola so they CAN do so.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[gmuslera]

The problem is not particulary google, but their partners, the device makers that close as much as possible their devices to tie them to their services. That you could jailbreak a phone and put a clean android on it is bad for them, and closing the source to avoid that could be a common request to Google.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[neokushan]

At what point did I say that the OS being open was a benefit to the users? If anything, I said it was a benefit to Google. Whatever perceived benefit the user has is merely a bonus. Even if another manufacturer uses AndroidOS and doesn't go for the full Google experience, Google will still benefit. People will still write apps for their OS, people will still use Google Search and just about everything revolves around the Google ecosystem. About the only people who have ever come close to supplanting Google entirely is Amazon, but even then elements of Google filter through.

And just because Google has no experience internally of building phones, that doesn't mean it couldn't be done. You don't have to buy out a company to do what it does, merely hire a few of the best and the brightest - or even buy out a smaller company, like HTC circa 2008/2009, to do it.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[Anonymous Coward]

Also known as "Cut the nose to spite the face".

As they're releasing other platform based OS phones anyways, you can mean only drop Android, and that makes great sense. "We're threatened by competition from Google's handsets, that's why we'll dump the platform with user and developer base on par with Apple's and leave those fans and devs to Google, just as it wanted".

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[larry bagina]

profit = revenue - expenses.

Android expenses: $400 million for Android, $2-$3 billion for IBM patents, $12 billion for Motorola. Nevermind all the employees working on Android. You might want to include $750 million for admob in there, though that's not android specific.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[swillden]

f google gets serious about making their own google branded phones and tablets watch how quickly LG, Samsung, and HTC start releasing phones with other OS's such as windows mobile or adopt another platform (like a webos).

You can bet Google is going to be working hard to make sure that doesn't happen, because while it wouldn't kill Android as a major player in the mobile phone OS space, it'd cost Android dearly. Google's press releases on the topic so far say they're going to be very careful not to give Motorola any kind of special access to the Android development process, or to give Motorola earlier access to new releases.

That might seem difficult to do, but the fact is that Android development is already quite insulated from the rest of Google. With few exceptions, every Google engineer has access to every line of code from every project in Google -- and Android is one of those exceptions. In fact Android is even more isolated within Google than highly sensitive stuff like the search ranking algorithm. The highly-sensitive stuff is in the main repository alongside everything else, but with controls to limit access, while Android is in a separate repository entirely.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[teh31337one]

Google doesn't make money from Android OS itself, Google makes money from the sheer volume of Android devices out there. Be it app purchases, targeted ads, search or whatever, the revenue Android brings in comes from everything except the OS. It wouldn't make sense for Google to close source it.

Close, but not 100% correct. While the core OS is open source, their GAPPS package (GMail, Google Search, Maps, and soon to be Chrome etc) is closed-source, and OEMs pay Google for access. At even $5 per GAPPS package, I make that out to be more than $1bn

Of course, there are OEMs that don't include GAPPS at all. Like Archos for their lower end tablets, and B&N/Amazon. But that's a different story all together.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[Anonymous Coward]

And in the same way that you just expanded expenses into some areas that some wouldn't expect them to, try the revenue side. It's a much longer list, with bigger numbers.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[neokushan]

Do you have a source for that?

I was always under the impression that GAPPS access (ok, Market access) was dependent on meeting certain requirements, rather than having to pay a certain fee. This is the first I've heard of that fee, however I'm not discounting that it's a possibility.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[Shifty0x88]

Profit: $9.737 billion (2011)
Total assets: $72.574 billion (2011)
Total equity: US$ 58.145 billion (2011)

That should cover the roughly..... $16 billion, no? Not to mention the future income they will receive from all of this

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[teh31337one]

Market is dependant on meeting the requirements. GAPPS is separate, and needs a license. I actually thought the same thing a few months back, before someone corrected me.

http://source.android.com/faqs.html#if-i-am-not-a-manufacturer-how-can-i-get-android-market

http://source.android.com/faqs.html#how-can-i-get-access-to-the-google-apps-for-android-such-as-maps

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[neokushan]

Interesting. Still, although it mentions that GAPPS and Market are licensed separately, it doesn't specifically say that GAPPS requires a fee. It does say that Market access is free, though. Interestingly, all the GAPPS are also available via the market, so where would the incentive be for Manufacturers to pay an additional charge just for the sake of having it "out of the box"?

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for reminding me what a bunch of fucking assholes the Android team members are. Do they still have their own cafe? They've never been a part of Google and never will. Fuck Andy Rubin!

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[Anonymous Coward]

You think so?

I'm sure all the phone manufacturers would jump at the chance to make iOS devices, despite the iPhone. Why would this be any different?

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[Locutus]

you sir are completely missing the point HP was making and trying to use facts and logic. HP is trying to get some value from WebOS and facts and logic do not help them. It really sounds like Meg and clowns were in a meeting trying to figure out how to get people to run to their open source phone/tablet platform and they figured getting them to run from Google/Android was a good option. The slide showed up asking why would developers and OEMs run from Google/Android and someone said, 'if it were proprietary like when Honeycomb was released'. Along comes this drivel about how Google could take Android inhouse because of Motorola Mobility.

You nailed it though but the truth won't help HP. I see them running to Microsoft again and this time, Meg and Steve will drive them into the dirt like DEC was. IMO

LoB

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[Daniel Phillips]

Google is a massive company and if they wanted to make their own phones with their own closed OS, they'd have done it by now.

True. Actually, Google wants to have their cake and eat it too by having an open source OS (skin) with a closed source development cycle. Conclusive proof that at least some Googlers are a little numb in the skull.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[Daniel Phillips]

The biggest threat is if google gets into the hardware business themselves and the other handset makers see this action as a threat.

Google already tried it. It was a commercial flop and they learned their lesson. Just in case anybody does not know what the lesson is, here is a short recap: "stick to your competency".

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[neokushan]

I think Google can get away with the "open but not really open" approach simply because the rest of the Mobile ecosystem (Particularly when Android first appeared) was very, very closed. You basically had Blackberry OS (closed), Windows Mobile (closed), iOS (closed) and Symbian (more or less closed - less-so now, but it's still a bit long in the tooth). All Google had to do was open the door a little bit and they'd be 10x more open than the competition. In the end, Google reaps the benefits of both worlds - it's working well for them so far.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[Daniel Phillips]

Get away with it, yes, but grow as fast as possible, no.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[neokushan]

Even at the implied reduced growth rate, they're still the fastest growing Mobile OS out there.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[Daniel Phillips]

Even at the implied reduced growth rate, they're still the fastest growing Mobile OS out there.

So? It is still suboptimal and increases the risk that the tide could turn the other way. And who needs increased risk? Not shareholders. Not you or me. Worse: risk without reward. Only a stupid person would want that.

Re:Except it would be suicide for Google...

[teh31337one]

Good point. Although there was a time when you couldn't get some of the GAPPS via market.

Come to think of it, you still need to jump through a few hoops to get GAPPS on your device, like faking another device's market profile in your build.prop, or sideloading them on. I think Google filter them from showing up on non-GAPPS devices, and have experienced a few times with the touchpad where the GAPPS never showed up.

And the OEMs probably can't ship it in a fashion where they show up without licensing from Google, or risk getting their asses sued for infringement. Google have to enable each device's fingerprint used in the build.prop IIRC

Could

[Anonymous Coward]

As in Microsoft could become a friendly open source company, but not bloody likely.

The beginnings of Android closed source...

[Anonymous Coward]

were Android 3.0. Chosen "partners" got access to 3.0, and nobody else. If anyone doesn't think this was totally distasteful and a spit in the face of everything Android supposedly stood for is as much a fanboy as all the Apple drones. It will likely happen again for a future version of Android, and in a worse way. Until then, I'll enjoy my GSM Galaxy Nexus...

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that the most popular Android tablet, the Kindle Fire, is a closed source fork of Android....

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[jordanjay29]

Except the Kindle Fire isn't Android, it's just based on Android. There's a huge difference. The end-user doesn't see it, the developer might not see it (or they might, depending on what APIs Amazon feels like creating, changing or removing) but Google sees it and so does Amazon. It's like Red Hat building out CentOS with their proprietary features that cost you money, but benefit the customers who need them. Likewise, the Fire's close integration with Amazon and the Kindle platform will benefit those who want it...and everyone else will either deal with it or root it and stick their own custom ROM on it.

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[SJHillman]

The Nook Color/Nook Tablet also run Android, and I believe it's closed source although I haven't checked to be sure.

Do you have a source saying the Fire is more popular (assuming you mean largest volume of sales) compared to the Nook Color or other Android tablets? Considering how much longer the Color has been on the market, I would have assumed it'd be more popular even though it hasn't been as hyped as much as the Fire.

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[zero.kalvin]

Google don't own Android, the OPEN HANDSET ALLIANCE does, that's one. Second Android 3.0 is not closed source, you can get the source code if you want, the only thing that happened is that Google delayed the release of code for good(bad) reasons.

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's compatible with all Android apps, it just doesn't have Google's Market preinstalled. Not sure how that's a real fork.

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[jordanjay29]

An unfortunate step on the way to 4.0. Likewise, Android 2.0 was never released until later on, and only available on the Motorola Droid (original). The Nexus One shipped with Android 2.1, which was the first OSed release of Android since 1.6.

It happens sometimes that an intermediary step is necessary to get to the next point in software evolution. Still, compared to iOS or Android, WebOS is still an infant software and hardly mature at all. WP is getting there, but it and iOS suffer from being closed source (which hasn't stopped their popularity, though). Android is the most popular open source mobile OS right now (sorry, Symbi-err, I mean Belle) and you can bet that if Google were to close it off, someone would pick it up from the last OSed version and keep going. Maybe slower and with less new features or directions, but it would stay alive.

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[the_xaqster]

I thought CentOS was Red Hat based, not the other way round....

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[Darkness404]

Actually, if Google decided to close source Android (which they won't) I doubt that many manufacturers would stick with the OSS version. After all, they've proved their incompetence in coding their own individual "experiences" which make the phones slower and do nothing for usability. Give me stock Android over Sense/Touch-Wiz/MotoBlur/Etc. any day. Yes, some of the things are novel and yes, Sense is an attractive UI but whenever something breaks or malfunctions on my phone (Samsung Captivate Glide) its generally due to TouchWiz and its bugs rather than bugs native to Android, particularly the lock screen which manages to lag or fail every now and then.

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[markkezner]

It's not a real fork. It's more like regular Android with a Amazon's home screen app and their other apps\services pre-installed. Same open OS, same API, just with some closed source apps facing the user.

If they went around changing the API and the OS behavior, breaking compatibility, then we'd be in fork territory. I don't see a good reason for them to do that; it's in their best interests to be compatible with existing and future Android apps. If they wanted to make such a fork they would have.

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

WP is getting there, but it and iOS suffer from being closed source (which hasn't stopped their popularity, though).

Reminds me of the joke about a mouse and an elephant walking in the desert, when the mouse looks back it says "We sure throw up a lot of dust, don't we?"

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[jordanjay29]

Ugh, where's the mod points when I need them. Insightful and funny, good sir!

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[DuckDodgers]

Android 4.0 is open source, full stop. Google can make Android 5.0 or 6.0 closed source, but they can't retroactively close anything that's already opened. So in that sense particular versions of Android might be closed, but Android itself will still be open. If you don't like what your manufacturer ships on your device, put your own build on it.

But in any event, competition in the open source space is great.

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[aesiamun]

CentOS is a rebuild of RedHet Enterprise Linux. Oracle Linux is a rebuild of RHEL as well.

RedHat Linux is actually a start from scratch distro according to all documentation I have ever seen.

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[ZombieBraintrust]

The Kindle Fire doesn't include the Google Market. It is not a product endorsed by Google at all. It is what Android would look like for everyone if Amazon took over.

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[Shifty0x88]

Does TouchWiz still have the problem with the lock screen, not actually locking?

I agree, I really wish I could get the HTC Sense source code, but according to their user agreement I have to wait 3 years to even "request" the source code. No word or mention of if I will actually get it or not though =(

Wish I had Ice Cream Sandwich, then I could get Chrome too =D

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[mounthood]

Google don't own Android, the OPEN HANDSET ALLIANCE does, that's one. Second Android 3.0 is not closed source, you can get the source code if you want, the only thing that happened is that Google delayed the release of code for good(bad) reasons.

Be fair: Google is the creator/author of Android and they could release a new version under any license they want, from GPL3 to proprietary. That doesn't mean it's a valid business concern, and it doesn't make WebOS more attractive, but it could happen ... just like MS could release their phone OS under the GPL.

Re:The beginnings of Android closed source...

[Darkness404]

Yes, occasionally you'll press the lock button and... nothing. Or you press it and the screen goes off so you put it in your pocket and take it out later only to find that it never really locked in the first place... Its like it locks then decides to unlock itself in like 3 seconds. Overall its a great phone and I love it, but if it ran stock Android (especially Ice Cream Sandwich!) it would be so much nicer, plus, more customization. I suppose eventually there will be a nice Cyanogen mod ROM for it I'll put on there. At least AT&T lets you remove some of the bloatware which is a positive. Android has the software and the hardware but OEMs and cell companies decide to screw it all up... Plus, it makes basic instructions a pain, what is called one thing in Sense is called something different in stock Android, still something different in TouchWiz, still different in MotoBlur and even then things change between versions of those...

Close-Source Android

[n122vu]

Can they even do that? In order to close-source it, wouldn't they have to remove the Linux kernel and basically rebuild the OS from scratch to keep from violating the GPL?

Re:Close-Source Android

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all. Android 3.0 is closed source. 4.0 is open source again, but nobody knows exactly what was part of the 3.0 that Google's customers, er select-OEMs, got for their tablets.

Re:Close-Source Android

[dave420]

Android 3.0 is not closed source. You can go check out a copy if you want. They held off releasing their changes back to the public because it simply wasn't up to scratch, due to the rushed nature of moving to 3.x. Everyone knows exactly what part of 3.x that was given to the manufacturers, as you can get your own copy yourself.

Re:Close-Source Android

[paintballer1087]

This is incorrect. Google released the source code of 3.0, however they did not create tags for the Honeycomb releases. All of the code is in the history. This was done to try and get a handle on fragmentation, and to keep people from putting a tablet only OS on a phone. ICS is basically a more polished Honeycomb, with the phone portions of the OS included.

Citation: http://www.techspot.com/news/46260-source-code-for-android-30-and-40-released.html/

Re:Close-Source Android

[Kjella]

Linux is the only piece that's GPL licensed, the rest is Apache licensed - not to mention fully written by Google so they're copyright holders and can relicense at will. So if Google wanted to they could have a tivoized phone with not a whiff of source for anything but the kernel out by the end of the day. Nothing stopping them but of course they can't take back what they've already licensed so others would just fork from the last Apache release.

Re:Close-Source Android

[poetmatt]

I thought (not an expert in apache licensing) that apache would simply let you change the license downstream, not remove it from the existing stuff?

Re:Close-Source Android

[jordanjay29]

That's a misconception. They would still need to provide the source for the Linux kernel (although there are plenty of proprietary commercial products that use the Linux kernel and don't publish their source code) but anything they built on top of it could be closed source. It's like publishing the blueprints for the basement of a structure, and then building a skyscraper on top of it with only the contractor and owner aware of the true floorplans of the building, and never the building's occupants or visitors.

Re:Close-Source Android

[n122vu]

I see. Thanks for clarifying that.

Re:Close-Source Android

[bondsbw]

Changing the license of existing code does not affect those who have copied/derived/distributed/etc. under those terms. So long as someone out there is mirroring the code, you are essentially correct.

Newly derived code may be changed by the copyright holder, since nobody has it and can claim to be licensed to it. The next release of Android may be closed since the changes were never released under open source. It doesn't change the fact that you can distribute the old code, or modify that code on your own to make it more like the new version or compatible with the open APIs for the new version.

(IANAL and all that. This is my understanding of open source in general; I don't know about the particulars of the Apache license.)

Re:Close-Source Android

[Kjella]

Not entirely sure what you're aiming at, the Android platform = the Linux kernel + Android-specific code. Google is the copyright holder of all the Android code, so they can pick any license they want. If Google had accepted third party contributions under the Apache license, then yes they'd be bound to use it under those terms. However, it doesn't contain any copyleft clause like the GPL, so they'd still not have to give any source code. If you want the oversimplified version, Apache is prettty much BSD + patent grant. Like BSD code you can use it in pretty much anywhere, but the code will still be under an Apache license.

Re:Close-Source Android

[T.E.D.]

If they own all the copyrights, they can. However, they would indeed have to remove anything GPLed they don't own the rights to, and the existing released Open Source version would still be out there. Nothing at all would stop anybody from forking off the latest Open Source baseline. Hardware vendors would surely do that. So, not really, no.

Re:Close-Source Android

[CrixDev]

(First post on Slashdot, LOOOONG time lurker :) They would not have to remove the Linux kernel, and they would be required to rewrite the GPL parts of the Android source code. WebOS was a proprietary OS built on the Linux kernel. Lots of companies request for their kernel changes to be adpoted in later versions. I read somewhere that by Linux kernel 3.3, all Android drivers will be included. Source anyone? :)

Re:Close-Source Android

[Daniel Phillips]

Linux is the only piece that's GPL licensed, the rest is Apache licensed - not to mention fully written by Google so they're copyright holders and can relicense at will.

I guess that's a fairly massive exaggeration.

Re:Close-Source Android

[Daniel Phillips]

Google is the copyright holder of all the Android code, so they can pick any license they want.

I think you have a wildly wrong idea about how much of the shipping OS is "Android code".

Re:Close-Source Android

[rdnetto]

So if Google wanted to they could have a tivoized phone with not a whiff of source for anything but the kernel out by the end of the day.

Most Android phones are tivoized, since the kernel is GPLv2.

Logic

[Spad]

How is there any causal relationship between Google buying Motorola Mobility and close-sourcing Android? How would it in any way benefit Google to close-source Android? Even if they did, why would anyone use webOS as a replacement? Finally, how is HP still going with people like this running it?

Re:Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

HP's CEO is babbling wildly because his company is in the middle of what you might call a "Kodak moment". If you still have HP stock, I'd advise you to seriously consider that you might not be competent at stock-picking.

Re:Logic

[gorzek]

Whitman's full of shit. Google has no reason to close the source of Android since Android itself is not a sold product and Google seems to have no interest in turning it into one. The only reason Android has become so popular is because it's free and open source. It saves the manufacturers money.

That said, if HP opens webOS, I would be happy to see that. It's actually a good mobile operating system and it's a shame it's gotten so little attention. Even if it doesn't end up being used for phones, it would be a good choice for tablets and other mobile devices.

Re:Logic

[d3ac0n]

HP already has opened WebOS. Did it about a month ago.

Re:Logic

[jordanjay29]

It's just fear-mongering. HP hopes it will drive people away from Android and into their waiting arms. Except...if someone were to leave Android for an OSed mobile platform, I can think of Symbian/Belle or MeeGo/Tinzen as better alternatives than WebOS.

Re:Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

you might not be competent at stock-picking

Neither may you be, given that you don't know that the CEO of HP is not a man...

Re:Logic

[Andy Dodd]

The only reason I can think of is Motorola's tendency towards closed-ness (for example, locked bootloaders on nearly all devices)... But Google is buying Moto, NOT the other way around. The most likely result is the exact opposite of Whitman's claims - Moto devices may finally be reasonable propositions for people who want to ensure that there is some control of their device in their own hands, as hopefully Google will put an end to Moto's bullshit bootloader-locking practices.

What's really annoying is that Moto blames it on the carriers - however the Milestone had a locked bootloader (despite being a generic SIM-unlocked GSM device) and the Samsung Droid Charge has an unlocked bootloader (despite being on Verizon, the carrier Moto blames for pushing locked bootloaders on them.)

Re:Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't know? Meg's a tranny. Didn't the masculine facial features and Adam's apple give it away?

Re:Logic

[Svartalf]

No they haven't. They made a promise to open it and have opened PARTS of it- but they haven't opened it a month ago.

Re:Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect. The only reason why Android has become so popular is because of the Google brand. For a very long time was a mediocre POS. It took several years to implement JIT in Dalivk, even though they said it wasn't needed when they released the first version. Pretty much every other platform is still years ahead. Take a look at Harmattan, much much better than Android and, what's best, not created by the Google hypocrites.

Re:Logic

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

Yeah. A day without Meg Whitman is...uh...a pretty good start.

Hey!!!

[hymie!]

Hey!!! Everybody!!! Look at me!!! I'm relevant!!! Over here!!! Look at meeeee!!!

Re:Hey!!!

[Sponge Bath]

[Sponge Bath takes picture with Android phone and posts to endangeredspecie.com] *click*

Derived Projects

[Anonymous Coward]

If Google 'close-sources' Android, there will always be other projects that will carry on open sourcing their (derived) versions.

Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

Linus might close course Linux at some point. He might. You don't know.

Re:Also...

[Anonymous Coward]

He can't even if he wanted to since Linux is licensed under the GPL and he does not own the copyright to most of the code. He only owns the copyright to some of the code and he that code is by now derived by other people's copyrighted GPL code.

and HP knows this how?

[Nyder]

Seriously, how does HP know this? Why is this news?

HP doesn't know shit, it's saying what it wants, to keep it's stocks prices from jumping.

Are we doing End of the World Predictions also?

Re:and HP knows this how?

[Merk42]

Are we doing End of the World Predictions also?

We have been for some time, it's December 21st of this year.

Re:and HP knows this how?

[Shifty0x88]

Are we doing End of the World Predictions also?

We have been for some time, it's December 21st of this year.

Oh no! I'm so scared!

Re:and HP knows this how?

[Maritz]

It's fascinating that the Maya and Sumatrans knew so much more about astronomy than modern civilisation. Truly boggles the mind.

They are not even aware on the marketshare

[Nikademus]

"Apple's iOS dominates the mobile market, but it is also proprietary, creating a void and an opportunity for webOS to flourish as an open-source OS, Whitman said."

Last time I looked, IOS was third behind android and symbian.
Looks like they know the market and where they head.

Re:They are not even aware on the marketshare

[danbob999]

Android outsold iOS worldwide by 2:1 in Q4 2011, which was a record quarter for Apple with the iPhone 4S launch.
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1924314

iOS, however, now sells more than Symbian for the first quarter in history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_operating_system#Market_share

Re:They are not even aware on the marketshare

[RocketRabbit]

It's not really fair to say Android outsold iOS, when the vast majority of Android devices are given away with the plan.

Re:They are not even aware on the marketshare

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such thing as "given away with the plan"

A device sold for $0, is still purchased. you pay for it by paying an inflated cell phone bill for months/years to come, or you pay out the remaining device balance to cancel the contract (unless you have the choice to return the phone, in which case they still rented it to you and will sell it used for a profit)

I love that consumers honestly think they're getting something for free. Keep it up!

Re:They are not even aware on the marketshare

[pseudofrog]

It's "not really fair" because some Android phones are cheaper? Is this a serious argument?

Also, you do know that the iPhone 3GS is "given away" with a phone plan, right? Should those be removed from comparison as well? Further, how do you know that the "majority" of Android phones come with $0 price tag, which, as we all know, isn't actually free? Samsung is doing rather well, and most of their phones aren't exactly cheap.

Re:They are not even aware on the marketshare

[Shifty0x88]

I think what he was saying(and I could be completely wrong, it is know to happen), was that it may not be recorded as a sale, therefore would not be part of the number since the phone itself was given away for free.

Re:They are not even aware on the marketshare

[Anonymous Coward]

He might have better plausibility if he'd say "but it's just number shipped, not sold!" (implying they are shipped to fill the shelves and don't make it into users' hands)

"Free phones with plans" are still sales, it's just that carrier buys it from vendor and resells it to customer on credit.

Re:They are not even aware on the marketshare

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple are more than welcome to make budget phones and compete, but if they did, they'd decimate their status symbol sales and their marketing image.

Re:They are not even aware on the marketshare

[Anonymous Coward]

Your definition of vast majority and my definition of vast majority are very different. To me it means more than 50%, but I haven't seen a single carrier with more than 2 FREE Android based phones. Those are probably refurbished 2 year old models running android 2.2 with no option for upgrades.

The VAST majority of real carriers sell Android devices for $100 to $300 with a contract and the requisite 'limited data plan'. And if you are like me, you don't want a contract so you end up paying $600 for a phone that is made by Motorola (owned by Google) that won't even get an official ICS upgrade. DAMN YOU MOTOROLA! Thank you CyanogenMod!

Re:They are not even aware on the marketshare

[R3d M3rcury]

I suppose we should also stop counting iPhone 3GS sales because they're given away with plans from AT&T.

Thanks for playing.

Re:They are not even aware on the marketshare

[RocketRabbit]

Sure. Remove the free iPhone 3GS, which is about what, 20% of the total iPhones sold, and remove the free-with-plan Android phones, which are what, 92% of Android phones that go out the door.

Why not?

And besides, Samsung is only doing well because they are slavishly copying Apple to the point of using the same icons.

Re:They are not even aware on the marketshare

[Anonymous Coward]

...remove the free-with-plan Android phones, which are what, 92% of Android phones that go out the door.

Where are you getting this number from?

And besides, Samsung is only doing well because they are slavishly copying Apple to the point of using the same icons.

1) Not really
2) So what?

Re:They are not even aware on the marketshare

[RocketRabbit]

It's really pathetic when you are so afraid to waste your karma that you post anon.

You should do more stuff like this with your real login: @======D --:::;;;)):.

What is he smoking?

[lcam]

Clearly CEO of HP has been taking the wrong medication. No wonder WebOS flopped. Now he want's to open source it so he can compete, that's not enough!. Maybe he should contribute an open hardware design that runs WebOS so people who want control can pick up a soldering iron and a few components and put together smart devices that have WebOS running on it. That would be neat.

Re:What is he smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

She, Meg Whitman, Former CEO of Ebay and candidate for Governor of CA

Re:What is he smoking?

[d3ac0n]

The CEO of HP is Meg Whitman. A Woman.

Also, the old CEO, Leo Apotheker, did screw up and cause WebOS to flop. That's part of why he was fired. That and his crazy statements about getting out of the PC market borked up HP stock prices and caused the stock holders to lose BILLIONS in value in a single day. (That'll get anyone fired.)

Re:What is he smoking?

[lcam]

Yeah I picked up on that after clicking submit. No edit function on slashdot. :/ I guess corporate politics or players in the HP corporation hasn't been on my focus list. My stereotype of male CEO's in play here.

Close sourcing Android is as left field and idea as HP getting out of the PC market. Probably won't get anyone fired though.

Re:What is he smoking?

[MickyTheIdiot]

No... she is just learning from HP history and emulating the clear-thinking leadership skills of Carley Fiorina!

Re:What is he smoking?

[Sponge Bath]

the old CEO, Leo Apotheker, did screw up and cause WebOS to flop. That's part of why he was fired.

And before that was Mark Hurd, who fired 10% of HP and resigned after "inappropriate behavior" (investigated for sexual harassment)

Before that Patricia Dunn resigned for illegally obtaining private records in an attempt to prevent board level leaks.

Before that Carly Fiorina was forced to resign after failed products and mergers, dismal performance and snuffing the last remnants of the HP way.

HP seems to be a dumping ground for the worst CEOs, and Meg Whitman is no exception.

Re:What is he smoking?

[CohibaVancouver]

Also, the old CEO, Leo Apotheker, did screw up and cause WebOS to flop

While he did screw up mightily, WebOS would have flopped mightily regardless. Like the way the desktop market belongs to Windows and Mac (with some bit players like Linux), the tablet market belongs to iOS and Android (with some bit players like Microsoft). WebOS was doomed regardless.

Re:What is he smoking?

[Vairon]

How would HP, a hardware company, make money by allowing other people to make their hardware for them without paying anything in return?

Re:What is he smoking?

[NeutronCowboy]

To Hurd's credit, he was in the process of turning around HP. He at least knew how to run a tech company, especially one that was floundering about. I'm still on the fence about Meg, considering that it's really hard to see how much of Ebay's success she was actually responsible for. But it's not looking good.

Re:What is he smoking?

[lcam]

They manufacture higher level the components.

Not everyone is up to playing around with a soldering iron, so there is still space for selling complete devices.

None of the above is really going to make any money, but will likely generate interest; a marketing ploy. HP needs to contribute something that is worth people paying money for and as to date they don't have that in the mobil sector.

The biggest problem with being a CEO is they are required to have a vision for their companies future. In some cases a vision of innovation that works when a company is struggling; Steve Jobs' reality distortion fields are largely adopted by the mainstream with the idevices that turned Apple into what it is today. Google, Samsung, HTC and others are following along. Diving into that market as the late entry contestant requires some sort of competitive advantage. HP seems to be holding an empty hand.

Google's OS is interesting because it's free and open source so hobbyists can play with it (to a certain extent). People buy it because it's cheap or because people around them create hype about it for one reason or another. HP is late to the open source table as well, what real incentive to people to play with WebOS instead of Android?

Google and Apple all have other related interests like the iStore, AppStore, Search and related activities. HP has nothing like that either.

Till now, HP hasn't really contributed anything new, if they do develop a sustainable business model for this market, it will require an innovative idea or a competitively priced product/service package along with enough marketing to get them a seat at the table. At the moment they have neither. They have a CEO brainstorming scenarios in the mobil OS market.

Without competitively in the market, are you claiming they are entitled to earn any money at all?

Re:What is he smoking?

[Anonymous Coward]

and caused the stock holders to lose BILLIONS in value in a single day. (That'll get anyone fired.)

Stephen Flop is still the CEO of Nokia.

Re:What is he smoking?

[poena.dare]

Leo sold me a freakin' sweet $99 ebook reader, so he's alright with me!

Re:What is he smoking?

[keefus_a]

That's an awfully presumptuous statement. One might have said the same thing to several generations of mobile manufacturers. After all, there was Palm and Windows Mobile. Then along came RIM. Who could have predicted the extraordinary collapse of Blackberry just 5 or 6 years ago?

I think people too often underestimate the instability of the mobile market. There was at one time a very compelling reason to stick with any given mobile OS because of the investment that was made in purchasing apps. Now, most of the important pieces are moving to "the cloud" which effectively removes the OS tie-in. All a developer needs is a GUI and perhaps a little bit of local storage for almost any non-game app.

To say WebOS was doomed, I think, gives users too much credit. There are plenty of brand loyal folks out there that won't be convinced of anything that doesn't fall in line with what they already believe. But for the most part, people just want the "best" device which is up to the marketing. That's where WebOS failed; they went with a creepy ghost woman who did here best to imply all of the capabilities of the OS instead of showing off how much more usable the OS is in a productive capacity. Palm had plenty of brand loyal people in the business community that they shoveled aside in favor of the consumer market. Had they gone straight after RIM instead of trying to compete with Apple everything would be different.

In other words, they weren't "doomed regardless." Hell, they weren't doomed at all until marketing failed.

troll / link bait

[IGnatius T Foobar]

This is just trash talk from a competitor who failed in this particular market sector. Why even bother repeating it, other than as link bait?

Right...

[Darkness404]

Right, because the Google flagship phones (Nexus One, Nexus S, Galaxy Nexus) have been some of the most closed phones... Oh wait, they are some of the most open devices out there, far more open than the Droid you bought on Verizon or the Atrix you bought on AT&T...

If HP really wanted an open source mobile OS why didn't they quickly release the source to WebOS? Heck, why didn't they actually make decent phones to go with WebOS? Like the Veer? Tiny, dimensions that make it nearly unusable, no software keyboard, no microSD card slot, proprietary charger, not even a headphone jack! Along with a tiny 910mAh battery. The OS was never really the problem with the Pre, Pixi and Veer, the problem was Palm (and later HP) could never make hardware that actually worked well and couldn't convince third parties to make WebOS devices. HP neither could get WebOS to the masses like Android (and Windows Phone 7) or make a single great smartphone like Apple.

Re:Right...

[d3ac0n]

Actually, the hardware was ALL Palm.

Basically every design we saw come out of HP after they bought Palm was a Palm design that was already "in the pipeline" and ready to release. So we never actually got to see any "HP" hardware designs, it was all leftover Palm designs until Apotheker committed professional suicide by shutting down the mobile division and threatening to shut down the PC division.

Honestly, as soon as Mark Hurd got pushed out as HP exec I knew that Palm was in trouble. Apotheker was a "Services" guy, never a "Products" guy. the CEO generally sets the company course, so I reluctantly predicted that he would not do much with Palm. Sadly, i was proven right (Although I really wanted to be wrong.)

The sad irony about is that if HP had REALLY invested in Palm and spent some real money on R&D and marketing, they could have had a winner on their hands. In the end, they still "Spent" the money by losing market value and stock price, only they lost more there than they EVER would have spent on Palm if they had pursued it. So stupid.

Here's hoping Whitman is able to bring WebOS back. I'd love me some WebOS on some fresh new hardware!

Re:Right...

[Darkness404]

But even then, it was HP's fault they released the Veer and not the Pre 3 which was vastly superior in every way. It was almost as if HP was trying their hardest to kill WebOS. They sink a lot of money into buying Palm, then they randomly decide not to release phones that were already produced (Pre 3 in the US) and then they get rid of the rest of their already produced tablets at cost. And without a real reason. Now HP comes back and says great things about WebOS after it already killed it off in more ways than one.

Re:Right...

[Lunix Nutcase]

Right, because the Google flagship phones (Nexus One, Nexus S, Galaxy Nexus) have been some of the most closed phones... Oh wait, they are some of the most open devices out there, far more open than the Droid you bought on Verizon or the Atrix you bought on AT&T...

Because companies can never change their minds or change direction, right? No, companies never do things like that. This isn't saying Google will do it, but it's extremely naive to think that they will forever continue to do what they do now.

Re:Right...

[Daniel Phillips]

Now HP comes back and says great things about WebOS after it already killed it off in more ways than one.

To tell the truth, the fallout discussion has had the side effect of getting me interested enough to try out some experimental coding for a WebOS device. Is there anything practical to pick up that would not just be a doorstop 6 months from now?

The HP Visionaries

[sl4shd0rk]

"hey lets buy a flailing company and then sit on the technology long enough for itnto become uslesss and then sell it all at cost"

I wouldnt trust the HP visionaries to predict the current weather righ now let alone the tech market.

F-U-D

[asserted]

hey Meg, can you spell F-U-D? that's right, good girl!

Shut up, Meg.

[Severus Snape]

HP feeling sorry for themselves because WebOS failed? Anybody who has the slightest understanding of Google's business model will realise they don't care who is running Android, they want everyone to be using it and will give it away for free to achieve that. Google doesn't make money through licensing, they are an advertising driven company and that's where Android's revenue comes from. It's there for them to build a bigger profile of the consumer so they make more money through their core business.

not likely but...

[slydder]

... I happen to have one of those tablets from HP here in the office (due to development contracts that we had with HP) and would like to be able to make use of it again. However, I'm not willing to bank on it. I mean javascript on the desktop. ouch.

Googorola's first bite

[muon-catalyzed]

HP has no reason to disparage a competitor for potential market gains, no reason at all. Nope.

No fear Googorola will taste some fruit (company) soon enough.

Closed by fragmentation

[Anonymous Coward]

The same reason why the 1%(TM) of people using Linux fight over Gnome/KDE/Unity/Flavor of the month (Mint flavor this month, Cinnamon flavor next month). Android will be fragmented to death. I don't have an android, I have a HTC phone that claims to be android compatible but will not run Jellybean/Kop Kops/Liquorice/Meringue in the future and I will have to get another phone or jailbreak (aka rooting) which is what being "open" was supposed to avoid. Meanwhile Steve Jobs is laughing all the way from his $100 billion cash grave.

Re:Closed by fragmentation

[MickyTheIdiot]

It's dying? Has netcraft confirmed that?

Translation: burn rate

[Anonymous Coward]

"It may take up to four years for the complete impact of webOS to be felt, Whitman said.": Translation - we're pretty sure we can keep the whole thing from imploding from our terrible-ass business decisions for at least a couple years.

closed source?

[trum4n]

Maybe they will fix the damn bugs if someone pays them to do it.

plain old fud.

[Anonymous Coward]

fud. reasons?

That's what she said...

[rickb928]

...since she's trying to 'sell' WebOS. To anyone. For nothing. Just to stay the least bit relevant in that market.

Aren't most implementations already closed?

[elrous0]

Most of the phones Android are used on already throw their own UI's over Android and lock down the bootloader anyway, right? Since we already have to jailbreak them, this will just be something else to jailbreak (and it will be jailbroken).

Re:Aren't most implementations already closed?

[Vairon]

I've owned 2 android phones so far and both of them has had unlocked bootloaders. Of course both were made by Samsung.

'Could' is not a news item.

[Anonymous Coward]

Any article that states 'could' is pointless. You 'could' fill a bath with chocolate and swim in it, IBM 'could' start selling cars...etc... pointless speculation. When we gonna get some real news around here?

ho8o

[Anonymous Coward]

users of NetBSD more. If you feel the same operation what they think is list of other and as BSD sinks

What about the GPL?

[pimpsoftcom]

You guys are all forgetting that the gpl is in play and TFA is crap. The only reason google has been able to hold off on source as long as it has on some versions of android is because most open source people dont have the balls to hold them accountable and force the issue. But that does not magically mean there is no GPL or that they do not have that legal obligation. Motorola would ALSO have this obligation, they CANT close source android because its just Linux with some patches.

Posturing?

[ggendel]

[sarcasm]This kind of posturing is nothing new and it's wonderful to see how people can still post responses so rationally.[/sarcasm]

The open source plan put in place by HP is quite refreshing. They have a reasonable time frame to replace all the proprietary pieces with open source ones to get it all out there. They have embraced the homebrew community and made them part of the open-source direction and I wish them well.

Personally, I'm excited about the proposition. WebOS still comes in top in customer satisfaction polls, imagine that.

Re:Posturing?

[Anonymous Coward]

WebOS still comes in top in customer satisfaction polls, imagine that.

Yeah, I heard both guys who bought WebOS devices are pretty happy.

Customer satisfaction means nothing when your platform is somewhere in the <1% "Others" slice of the chart.

Four years?

[PPH]

What's that in HP CEOs?

HP and "open source?"

[Guppy06]

How about opening up an operating system that actually matters, like HP-UX?

Kindle not closed source

[ZombieBraintrust]

Kindle Fire isn't closed source. Amazon has to release the source to the changes they made to the OS. The only thing closed source on the Fire is the Apps. Here is the source for all the Kindles if your interested: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=200203720&tag=5336653508-20

Nook Color/Nook Tablet not closed source.

[ZombieBraintrust]

Nook Color/Nook Tablet are not closed source. B&N has published its source code changes to th OS. The apps are closed source.

In Other Obvous News

[Anomalyst]

Corporate suits clueless about technology and FOSS. Incapable of figuring out how to use the turn signal of a leased foreign luxury car.

Disagree

[DaMattster]

I think the HP CEO has leapt to a conclusion without really thinking through the scenario. The short answer is, no, this will not cause the Android platform to become a walled garden. It made perfect financial sense for Google to aquire Motorola Mobility because it gives Google absolute and complete control over a hardware set with which to continue to develop Android. The advantages are numerous as Google can really create a first class operating system with direct access to the hardware layer. By developing the hardware and software in tandem (yet keeping the operating system open source) the product will simply improve by leaps and bounds while giving third party developers even more power. Google is mostly an open source company and operates as such anyhow.

Mod Parent Up

[Shifty0x88]

If I had mod points I would mod you up!!! Informative!

OMG!

[miltonw]

Google could develop nuclear weapons and start a war! Google could start stockpiling and hoarding gold! We must stop them! (Buy HP products)

Oh HP Says so?

[tthomas48]

You mean the HP that had product placement on Project Runway for 2 years that you couldn't buy in the stores, then did a massive partnership with the show at the same time it decided to jettison all the products it was promoting? That HP?
Because the only two things I'd listen to them for advice on is how to make printers or slowly become irrelevant.

Anything "could" happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's with people making announcements about things that "could" happen. YAWN. I myself "could" wake up with my dick black and 10" inches long. Anyone can make "could" announcements, talk is cheap. But make a definite "this will happen, mark my words" prediction, then maybe I'll take you serious, AFTER you get three right in a row.

Closed Source?

[Hordeking]

Maybe I'm stupid, but since Android is already open-source, wouldn't someone just fork off the last open version?

Whitman?

[Anonymous Coward]

...CEO Meg Whitman said during a speech...

Isn't that the same sillly bitch who was hired to fuck-up eBay?

best comment I read elsewhere

[mbkennel]

Rutger Hauer has really been letting himself go

CEO spreads FUD about competition.

[Anonymous Coward]

News at 11.

Haters Gonna Hate

[vga_init]

I recently bought a Touchpad, so I use WebOS. I quickly discovered that WebOS is not just a toy operating system like I thought it might be; it really works, and I actually use it. There is vibrant user development for it, it's ridiculously easy to hack and customize, and I have full root access to the Linux base. It only took me minutes to unlock everything and install the power utilities I wanted. The UI is just as good as enthusiasts have been saying it is, with an unparalleled window management and multitasking experience. The included system applications work very well (e-mail client, chat client, calendar, contacts), and synergy integration was painless to setup and works without a hitch; it took about a minute to be fully synced with my Google account, no need to customize settings on the e-mail client or anything like that.

WebOS seems to shine on devices with larger screens and that can spend more power on keeping the apps and services running (as of yet it lacks push messaging). That means it would be an ideal fit for netbooks/laptops/nettops/desktops with touchscreens, and it also is a nice fit for a tablet. On handsets, Android seems to have a clear advantage in the mobility arena, but the fact that WebOS and Android can fill different niches is vital to WebOS.

I definitely plan to continue using WebOS, and I fully support HP establishing it as an open source project as well as pledging continued support for the system. WebOS is alive and it still has plenty of places to go before it's time will end.

??? WOW!

[stevenfuzz]

Am I missing something in this article? Does Whitman try to explain WHY acquiring Motorola Mobility has anything to do with Android becoming close sourced? This just seams like a senseless out of nowhere statement. She might have well have said that Android was changing it's name to Mr. Poop OS, or Apple was going bankrupt. It seams like it would be pretty fun to just make stuff up to get people interested in your crap-happy OS.