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LG Releases Open-Sourced Version of webOS in Hopes To Push It Beyond TVs and Smart Refrigerators (theverge.com)
LG has released an open-sourced version of webOS that's freely available to anyone that wants to download and poke around the code. From a report: The release of webOS Open Source Edition is meant to act as a catalyst to drive further adoption of webOS beyond LG televisions, smart refrigerators, and the occasional never-to-be-released smartwatch. So, devices like webOS tablets and set-top boxes as pictured in the LG-supplied image above. This is the second time an open-source version of webOS has been released, the first coming under the failed tenure of HP back in 2011. LG's cross-town rival Samsung develops and uses the open-sourced Tizen operating system on a variety of devices including smartwatches, televisions, Blu-ray players, and robotic vacuums.
It did work for Netscape. While the company died, its technology lives on in our Firefox browsers.
However for the most part it is like putting your trash on a freighter and sending it over to a third would country to see if any of those people wants your trash.
Now there was a lot of love towards WebOS and many and was ahead of its time in a lot of features. However the question for today is it worth it, with the competitors over the past decade had improved their products, and what was ahead of its time, is now behind the times.
WebOS is akin to BeOS, Amiga, Apple Lisa, Osborn, Sega Dreamcast... Good ideas, just implemented at a time where was too ambitious and people didn't need such features on particular hardware.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
A lot of that is "between the ears".
MacOS doesn't have quite the "ecosystem" that windows has, and buying the hardware is more expensive to boot... but even IBM has figured out that the total cost over the economic life of the hardware, MacOS beats windows hands down. And what is it they do, really? Office work. You don't need a gazillion little "apps" to provide one button, or a handful of buttons, to make the thing "go" at every teeny little task. Yet that is what the windows "ecosystem" mostly comes down to.
In fact, I'd wager most office workers --properly trained-- would be more productive with a VT100, as it saves them from uglying-up their output using comic sans or what-have-you. Or fucking off watching youtube all day, or whatever it is they do. So providing them with a system that doesn't bluescreen as much and needs fewer calls to the helldesk to keep going is already a big win. Meaning that the cost of staying in the windows "ecosystem", while not normally very visible, is really quite high.
Which in turn is an indictment of linux-on-the-desktop: Its cost of ecosystem membership comes in the form of a high skill level that most people simply don't have. And don't want to have, for the windows marketeering told them they don't need to. But anyway.
Cost of ecosystem membership is pretty real, but at the same time its perceived cost is headology. redmond still wins, ha ha.
...are stupid.
The "smarts" drive up cost, increase complexity, and reduce your flexibility.
Just give me a great screen with HDMI input and leave it at that. I will decide what smart thing will be hooked up to it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
You're confusing "smart appliance" with "manufacturer's internet/cloud-connected appliance."
The problem isn't that the device is smart. Smart in this context just means it knows what it's doing, or what is going on around it, or what it's supposed to do.
The problem is that the devices as typically implemented today are taking your data outside your LAN to the manufacturer and any other entity the manufacturer shares it with, while at the same time exposing a considerably wider attack surface to the black hats.
Every device you listed there could benefit you via local integration with home control software.
Every device you listed there has zero good reason to go outside your LAN - you could be contacting a safe server on your LAN from the WAN to see what they're up to, should you want/need to do that, rather than channeling everything through the manufacturer's servers (which also brings a near-certainty of lost support at some random time based on their finances and product cycles.) Or you could keep all interaction with them within the LAN, which is the minimum attack surface choice, and, I would suggest, the sane choice.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.