HP Launches Beta of Open webOS

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

HP Launches Beta of Open webOS

Posted by Unknown on Friday August 31, 2012 @08:51AM from the code-freedom-day dept.

puddingebola writes "HP done gone and released the open source version of webOS. From the article: 'Gone are the days of HP's TouchPad and Palm ambitions, but HP is moving ahead with its plans to make webOS, its beleaguered mobile operating system, live on as open-source supported platform. Today it's launching the beta release... The release will have 54 components available as open source, the blog says, some 450,000 lines of code under the Apache 2.0 license.'" There are two flavors: an OpenEmbedded based version for targeting mobile device (kudos there!), and a desktop build which runs Luna as an application on the desktop (how long until someone writes a rootless version?). More info at the Open webOS project overview page, with source code over at GitHub

31 of 56 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Hardware support? by Hatta · 2012-08-31 09:00 · Score: 1

Since this won't run on Touchpads, are there any tablets out there that will support it? I didn't see a hardware list on OpenEmbedded.

--
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
1. Re:Hardware support? by pavon · 2012-08-31 09:37 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Here is the list of hardware supported by OpenEmbedded. It looks like N800 is the closest thing to a tablet on that list.
2. Re:Hardware support? by pavon · 2012-08-31 09:40 · Score: 2
  
  Oh, and it probably goes without saying, but the N800 doesn't have high enough hardware specs to run WebOS.
3. Re:Hardware support? by sootman · 2012-08-31 13:03 · Score: 2
  
  Huh? From TFA: "Great collaboration continues on the Community Edition with the release of LunaCE. The webOS-Ports team have combined the community efforts into one package and made it simple to install on to TouchPad devices through their Preware software."
  So, what is LunaCE? ("Lunacy" -- cute.)
  
  --
  Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
4. Re:Hardware support? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 13:25 · Score: 1
  
  See WebOS-Ports for build instructions for Touchpad.
5. Re:Hardware support? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 19:13 · Score: 1
  
  It's the Community Edition of Luna -- the display/window management layer of WebOS.
  It's also alpha -- most users should wait for a beta release. (Or the eventual production release, but nobody on /. actually will...)
What does it run on? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 09:07 · Score: 5, Interesting

If it can't run on the Touchpads 1.2Ghz 1GB RAM specs, with a bootloader that is already hacked to support dual boot and other OSes what the hell WILL run it?
VM only? :)
Open Source Platforms Can Succeed... by fm6 · 2012-08-31 09:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

...but only when they have the backing of serious companies whose business models depend on them. (See Linux, Apache.) When a platform is dying because of lack of customer interest (See Solaris, BeOS, Irix), going open source won't save it.
1. Re:Open Source Platforms Can Succeed... by bill_mcgonigle · 2012-08-31 10:21 · Score: 1
  
  When a platform is dying because of lack of customer interest (See Solaris, BeOS, Irix), going open source won't save it.
  The platform may die but any good ideas will live on in other platforms, as code is ported (if the licenses are compatible).
  Even something like BeOS is still kicking because a few hobbyists think its ideas haven't yet been integrated effectively elsewhere.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
2. Re:Open Source Platforms Can Succeed... by Black+LED · 2012-08-31 10:50 · Score: 1
  
  BeOS never went open source, only Tracker did.
3. Re:Open Source Platforms Can Succeed... by fm6 · 2012-08-31 10:52 · Score: 1
  
  Yep, good ideas live forever, if they're not deliberately hidden away.
  I define "success" for a platform as having an active community of users and developers. Being kept going because a few hobbyists enjoy playing with the platform is not success.
  There are people who own and use linotype machines. Hey, if they're having fun, why not? But serious publishers use computers to prepare PDFs that they send to print shops.
4. Re:Open Source Platforms Can Succeed... by spottedkangaroo · 2012-08-31 13:17 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not sure lack of consumer interest was the main problem. webos had a decent following, but there were no new devices after a long time and the only company really selling them was sprint (for a long time) and then only sorta half heartedly. I think the real problem was a lack of *vendor* interest. Had Palm not run out of money and stuck in there long term, I think there'd be a third OS afoot still and I wouldn't be suffering under this shitpile they call Android. I guess Android is alright, don't get me wrong, but next to webos, it's a pile -- particularly if you're a dev. Whatever. It's fully dead now. It'd be a stupid thing to work on unless HP starts making new widgets, but even if they do, they'll fuck it up (see what they did with their tablet? 1billion invested, politics happened, project abandoned). Maybe not quite a billion... but you see what I mean.
  
  --
  Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
5. Re:Open Source Platforms Can Succeed... by anomaly256 · 2012-08-31 13:58 · Score: 1
  
  FYI BeOS didn't 'die' due to lack of customer interest, it died because it's competitor (Microsoft) bought it out and decided to discontinue it. Irix is still used in some places.. yes, scary I know but it's true. And we only wish Solaris was dying.
6. Re:Open Source Platforms Can Succeed... by fm6 · 2012-08-31 15:14 · Score: 1
  
  Your history is way off. MS never bought BeOS. (You're probably thinking of the lawsuit Be filed against MS, claiming anticompetitive practices.) That was Palm, and they bought BeOS long after Be had basically gone out of business. The intention was to make it into a replacement for PalmOS. When I interviewed for a job at Palm (2005, I think) and I asked what they were doing with BeOS, people tended to groan and talk about how stupid that acquisition was.
  Irix only runs on SGI MIPS systems, which are no longer made. If you've seen anybody using it, they've got an old SGI box they haven't gotten round to replacing with something modern. I suspect that most of these are old SGI supercomputers, which will probably continue to be used for a long time.
  I'll say it again: a platform isn't successful just because a few diehards and hobbyists can't or won't stop using it. It needs to be the basis for a serious ecosystem of users and developers.
7. Re:Open Source Platforms Can Succeed... by blahbooboo · 2012-08-31 15:14 · Score: 1
  
  To clarify. I mean a palm pre.
8. Re:Open Source Platforms Can Succeed... by fm6 · 2012-08-31 15:17 · Score: 1
  
  And why were there no devices? Usually the answer to that kind of question is "no market for them".
9. Re:Open Source Platforms Can Succeed... by spottedkangaroo · 2012-09-02 00:58 · Score: 1
  
  Usually. But in this case, Palm just ran out of money. If they had been able to persist, they'd have gained market. Look how long it took Android to come up. It's up now, so there's more devices. It was *not* like that initially. Personally, I didn't think they'd ever succeed, especially at first. But look at them now. Palm would have done the same thing. Hell, even HP would have done the same thing, if that CEO hadn't gotten fired. The new management at HP abandoned the platform after they fired the guy that bought Palm (Hurd)
  
  --
  Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
10. Re:Open Source Platforms Can Succeed... by fm6 · 2012-09-02 05:08 · Score: 1
  
  Palm just ran out of money.
  
  At which time they were taken over by HP, which tried to keep WebOS devices alive, but couldn't get people to buy them.
11. Re:Open Source Platforms Can Succeed... by spottedkangaroo · 2012-09-02 08:10 · Score: 1
  
  You didn't quote the whole thing. I also said it takes time to develop a market share and that they gave up long before they tried because of a CEO change.
  
  --
  Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
12. Re:Open Source Platforms Can Succeed... by fm6 · 2012-09-02 08:38 · Score: 1
  
  For whatever reasons, they failed to develop customers. If you think that's the fault of bad management, I'm not going to argue. The fact remains that the platform ain't commercially viable, and making it open source isn't going to change that.
13. Re:Open Source Platforms Can Succeed... by spottedkangaroo · 2012-09-02 14:23 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, definitely. I just wanted to blame management and bad fortune, not webos. The platform is dead, I agree on all counts of that. I quit developing for it and tell customers on a monthly basis that I have no interest in updating the apps -- though I offer to help, help fork, or help publish if they wish to take on the code. But I don't think the half-hearted year-or-so they gave it (with no decent hardware releases) was enough to say that they couldn't develop a customer base. They got about as much as you can expect for a slow beginning in a market where iPhone/Android are the only two thoughts a customer thinks. It coulda worked if Palm had a billion dollars to throw at it like the other two giants. I doubt HP was capable of doing it even if Hurd had been able to stick around. But Palm maybe could have done it. Maybe.
  
  --
  Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
Runs on whatever you make it run on! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 09:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's an open source project based on a Linux kernel, so it will run on whatever the community (we/you/them?) decides to make it run on.
Even though I didn't use it for that long, I actually found the card-based UI absolutely brilliant, and I long for it when using anything else. It just makes so much sense versus lame hacks like the "recent apps" in ICS. For that one feature alone I would keep webOS alive myself if I could.
1. Re:Runs on whatever you make it run on! by spottedkangaroo · 2012-08-31 13:22 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  The cards worked better because I knew what I wanted running and what I wanted closed. Android seems to close the things I'm using and leave all this shit open I don't care about. I use google maps like once a month, and facebook next to never. Why would I want them running, but want ICS closing shit I'm trying to cut and paste between? Happens constantly and I have no control over it because in android users are considered too stupid or lazy to manage what apps they want open. In webos, when I'm done I close it and when I want it open, it stays open. That's brilliant. the only way the android way would really work very well is if it had a human intelligence managing what apps should close and what should stay open. I would gladly volunteer for this, if I could, but I can't because android got it wrong.
  
  --
  Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
2. Re:Runs on whatever you make it run on! by udippel · 2012-08-31 22:32 · Score: 1
  
  Sure cards are better from any educated point of view. In principle.
  But that's not the question. The question is about the availability, the licence and most of all the devices to run this thing on. I have ICS on my tablet, but that doesn't make me a fan-boy. Show me a download location from where I can get firmware for my device and I will gladly download and try.
  See, this is why WebOS is just vaporware, sorry. Okay, I compromise: I have root on my ICS. Where can I download a version to run from the root command prompt?
  What next is it that you want me to do? HP is in some trouble, has never played really nice with the FOSS community, went out of the tablet business by selling under-priced tablets. Plus, HP was always in the business of selling their hardware together with software, and vice versa. What are they up to now?
Dumbest Company of the Century by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-31 09:26 · Score: 1

Ok, so the firesale price wasn't sustainable, AT THE TIME. But what about 1 year from now. Do you believe they couldn't produce tablets for less than $50 and have everyone be a customer?
1. Re:Dumbest Company of the Century by longbot · 2012-09-01 03:46 · Score: 1
  
  Whatever happened to the video game console industry model of selling hardware at a loss initially, but making a profit at some point into the lifecycle? People like to complain about the "anemic" hardware in the TouchPad, but it's embedded hardware, they all have some drawbacks. I love the hell out of mine, I only wish I'd been able to buy more than one at that price.
  
  --
  I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it! --Longbottle
Re:Meh. by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2012-08-31 09:38 · Score: 1, Troll

Display thine bosoms unguardedly, or discharge thineself from these premises forthwith!

--
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Spanish slang problems by fyi101 · 2012-08-31 10:11 · Score: 1

The webOS GUI is interesting. Too bad the project's name sounds like spanish slang for "testicles" (huevos). I suggest a name change to "kohOneS". At least it'll sound intimidating to iOS and Android fanboys.
1. Re:Spanish slang problems by Spaseboy · 2012-08-31 14:20 · Score: 1, Informative
  
  Seriously, did you fail high school Spanish or just jack up your Google translate? "Huevos" means "eggs". It is as much slang for "testicles" as "nuts". The word is "idiom" which is not the same as slang at all.......
  
  --
  "I don't want more choice, I just want nicer things!"
  -Jennifer Saunders as Edina Monsoon
So, HP is... by Webs+101 · 2012-08-31 10:19 · Score: 1, Funny

...opening a can of webOS?

--
"Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward
Wrong target by symbolset · 2012-08-31 18:44 · Score: 1

Maybe the PC is the target platform.

--
Help stamp out iliturcy.