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HP Launches Beta of Open webOS

Posted by Unknown on 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

7 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. What does it run on? by Anonymous Coward · · 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? :)

  2. Open Source Platforms Can Succeed... by fm6 · · 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.

  3. Runs on whatever you make it run on! by Anonymous Coward · · 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 · · 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
  4. Re:Hardware support? by pavon · · 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.

  5. Re:Hardware support? by pavon · · Score: 2

    Oh, and it probably goes without saying, but the N800 doesn't have high enough hardware specs to run WebOS.

  6. Re:Hardware support? by sootman · · 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.)

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