Well, you’ve been waiting for the big webOS announcement, and today we’ve made it. This morning, HP announced that webOS will be going open source with the resources of HP behind it. The Developer Relations team is very excited by this announcement and what it means for the future of webOS, and for you, our developer community.
With this announcement, Meg Whitman has reiterated HP’s commitment to webOS as a cloud-connected, scalable platform, while opening up new possibilities for platform expansion and improvement. She has also committed HP to a course of continued improvement to webOS, which means we’re in it for the long haul. Finally, we are committed to good, transparent and inclusive governance to avoid fragmentation of the platform.
Here in Developer Relations, we have the deepest appreciation for you, our developer community. You have helped to bring this announcement about through your passion and commitment, through periods of both promise and uncertainty.
We are committed to you as not only contributors to our app ecosystem, but now to webOS itself. We recognize that there’s a larger open source community of which we will now be a part, and are excited by the future now open to us.
We also know you’ll have a lot of questions, and we don’t have all the answers right now. We will keep you up-to-date on the latest developments, both in the forums and here on the developer blog.
We hope you’ll join us for the next leg of this journey!
Great move, I’m excited about the future of WebOS again!
I was posting this a.m. that HP could: 1. punt/fumble 2. call another time-out 3. try a short pass over the middle 4. go long. My head said 1, my heart hoped for 4.
Heart is happy !!! Thanks All !!! Good’un, Meg !!!
Hi.
Congrats for this decision.
Will you consider an Apache/BSD license in order to ease code re-use with other mobile OS like Android, or GPL instead to enforce source code publication?
Linux kernel will obviously stay GPL2 but I’m thinking about everything else WebOS.
Open Source is always a good thing; and choice of license has a huge impact on the outcome.
We are with you. Thanks.
== me.
I’d like to see WebOs be something for older laptops, especially those with graphics and chipsets that Linux no longer supports. I have an old Dell laptop whose integrated graphics card is unsupported by the more recent Linux kernels. It’s running XP, as Dell provided a special driver for the card that nobody else supports. WebOs could breathe life into that old laptop! I’d probably pay for it.
This is truly a good news for webOS fans. Thank you
Excellent choice, HP. This is probably the best move going forward, because it can get all sorts of people — and organizations — on board. Excited for the future.
This is the right step to go – now let us hope to see some new mobile devices where WebOS can run..
It is pretty exciting to think we could have an option in open source mobile systems, I am a bit nauseated by the current polar situation. Beyond that, I really hope Web OS can lead the way in adhering more closely to the ideals of free open source software.
…
ahem BSD or MIT please!!!
That is awesome news! webOS lives!!!
Great move, I’m really excited that the software will be avalible to the public. Can’t wait to see it be ported to other hardware.
@Etx Agreed, there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel after all.
Please use the GPL for webOS!
Also, please make sure there are no proprietary tools needed to build the OS, or to flash it to a Touchpad or other device
Apache license please!
Huzzah, HP!
Here’s hoping you pick a GPL or at least GPL-compatible license.
I was hoping HP would make webOS open source. I bought a Veer phone when they came out in June, and I really liked the webOS interface, so I was very disappointed when HP canned the phones and the OS looked like it might just be abandoned.
Now it’s got a chance.
I was not a webos dev before this day, but i will definitely have my interest in this platform from now on. Great move HP!
second!
good job HP. Use the patent revenue to fund an open source movement to threaten android, please. In the meantime I’ll keep buying replacement veers on ebay….
Nice. I look forward to seeing the technical superiority of webOS competing on an even playing field with Android.
Awesome! Awesome!!
The next big step is obviously to give us a download link to ISO installation images. I can’t wait to be able to download webOS, just like I download any Linux distro, and install it on my desktop or a compatible tablet PC.
Great news! WebOS just became relevant again. I truly hope that a large community develops and pushes WebOS into the future; it’s a great OS and deserves it!
Repeating what many have microblogged today: Please use the GPL for WebOS, and make sure there are no proprietary build or flashing tool requirements!
Yes! Go for it! webOS has the potencial to be a big OS Project!
This is fantastic!
A couple of other things that would make a very strong statement as to the freedom of WebOS:
1. Release WebOS under a GPLv3 license
2. Commit to WebOS not ever relying on any proprietary software or hardware to run
Ensuring WebOS runs on as many devices as possible with no restrictions will also increase adoption and start a virtuous cycle of contributions to both the OS itself as well as the application ecosystem, which is the best way to grow WebOS and keep it relevant for the future.
Yes, give us the source! Yay!
I was wondering if the Classic Emulator will also be open sourced. I still use it for certain things and making it open source will allow the community to support it.
Fantastic! I can’t wait to play with this. Long live Pal^H^H^HwebOS!
Fred,
I speak on behalf of a small army of tens of thousands of Free (as in your Freedom) Software developers and users.
Android suffers from a lack of open source drivers on devices, tivo-ization on many devices (HTC and Motorola, damn them!), and bastardization by its vendors.
For the health of WebOS and most importantly the people who will actually use it (and in turn, HP and its data-hosting services), it is ESSENTIAL that WebOS is released under a strong copyleft license.
Only the GNU General Public License version 3 will facilitate a healthy WebOS deployment. WebOS (or any operating system) should NEVER be distributed with devices that have the functionality of refusing to function. WebOS devices MUST be sustainable even years after they are released. WebOS should offer certain libraries under the Lesser GNU General Public License to entice proprietary software developers, but maintain a strongly licensed core for the health of the system.
I hope that Hewlett Packard in its governance of WebOS will maintain a publicly visible hardware compatibility list of portable ARM computers and their components and their individual compatibility / suitability for WebOS. As an owner of a Galaxy S2 “Epic 4G Touch” (SPH-D710) I will be visiting the WebOS project site with many questions in mind. Do all of the components on my pocket-computer’s mainboard have working drivers? If not, why not? Is the source code not available? Is the hardware undocumented? If the hardware is undocumented, who designed the chip? How can we get the specs released? Is Hewlett Packard contacting them to ensure they release the specs? Does a volunteer simply need to get the WebOS source branch to compile and test WebOS on the computer known as the SPH-D710? What do the statuses of other devices hint about my own device?
I hope that Hewlett Packard keeps in mind that there are MILLIONS of pocket and tablet ARM computers ready and waiting for a fresh installation of WebOS, and that there is an ARMY of tens of thousands of Free[dom] Software advocates (many of them teenagers you will be able to evangelize in favor of WebOS) ready and waiting to deploy a HEALTHY strong copyleft operating system on these devices.
Lets get WebOS on every capable Samsung phone out there. Lets get WebOS on every “Windows” Phone out there. Lets let loose reverse-engineering wiz-kids on the iPad 2 and get WebOS on that. If Hewlett Packard is treats WebOS like a real open source project, the global community will make the easy-to-use installers for our friends and family to get WebOS on their iPads. Though Apple’s talking heads will bitch and moan, Hewlett Packard will have zero liability for what we do with OUR iPads while capitalizing on the cloud services the influx of WebOS users will be demanding.
With genuine support and leadership from Hewlett Packard, WebOS will be positioned to overtake and replace the bastard Android project within one year.
We are ready. Please empower us.
Great news!
Would be great if it was released under the GPL, including tools for building/flashing etc.
Great to hear! If you want the open-sourcing to be successful please put it on github
Congratulations!
I’d hope that at least part of the code makes it into existing communities like Apache and Mozilla. Its a real challenge opening up such a big project (e.g. Symbian) but I hope it works out for WebOS.
Open Source webOS is a great idea. But it will need devices. Sure, we may see some ports of webOS to BeagleBoard/PandaBoard but if there are no mass market devices in the next months, developers will quickly loose interest. You know what happened to MeeGo?
This is such great news! WebOS has had a really tough time getting itself established, but now we should be seeing some real progress with it. My dream is that we’ll see a product running webOS on open hardware. Now it’s much closer to reality!
I remember trying WebOS and being extremely excited about it in the mobile space. To me, it seemed like a real, viable alternative to the Android ‘psuedo-open’ and iOS closed dichotomy. It was extremely flexible, and developer-oriented. The only issue I had with it was that it was closed source, which I thought would inhibit its future (and well, I’m an idealist).
Now that’s all changed- this is an immensely large contribution that could really give the community a chance to shine in the mobile space, not only on phones, but tablets as well. I always thought WebOS had the most promising mobile experience, and I was sad to think we’d have to come up with alternative on our own. Thanks to HP, we have a brighter immediate future.
This made my day.
Great! Please consider using GPLv3 for the license. More support from the Free software community and respect for user rights would be great!
Under what license will the code be available?
Great! This is an excellent contribution to the software freedom world, but it can be even greater.
What made projects like the kernel Linux very successful is the fact that they used a copyleft license, which created an environment that competing large corporations as well as unpaid volunteers can trust. For projects like this one, forks are expected, but with copyleft licenses, forks will turn into bonuses instead of obsolete, because things that are super awesome on other based versions will be easy to port back into HP’s version.
HP helped drafting the great GPLv3, and hopefully they will use it here.
I think this is a smart move for HP. By doing so, they get to reap the rewards of other peoples labor. They don’t have to spend another cent on webOS development. When the time is right, they can step back into tablet production with an OS that has been kept up to date by the open source community.
Nice move Meg!
Wow, didn’t see this coming at all. Especially from HP.
What a amazing contribution not only to the FOSS community but also the entire world.
If the source can remain completely unbridled and unbranded on release then HP, Palm ?Access? and all the players involved not only have changed the entire mobile phone market. But the world as we know it.
BRAVO!
cool. make it a layer on top of openembedded-core and call it something like meta-webos and be part of OE community
What kind of open-source license are we looking at? GPL would be nice, but I have my doubts that HP is that benevolent…
I made a simple mistake in my comment here and that caused my entire reply to be lost forever. Obvioulsy you don’t consider our comments to be important.
The next big announcemet hopefully will be for a Mono for WebOS.
When are they actually going to release the source?!
This is wonderful news!
My feeling is that the first major uses for the new FOSS webOS will be to build specialist tablets – designed to be used with specific medical, military or industrial applications. Customers who need large numbers of tablets, will be able to send out a customized OS and apps to various hardware vendors for bidding on building and supplying the specialist tablets.
This arrangement is much better than having the bidder supply both the OS and the hardware thus forcing the customer to become a hostage of the successful bidder when new generations of systems are needed.
Good luck…
You need to be benevolent to use GPL when you just announced that you’re going to open source? GPL is the least open of them all… too restrictive… loads of other open source project will not be able to use this wonderful gift…
I vote for turning it over to the Apache Software Foundation. They’re probably the best-suited for taking over stewardship of a large project like this.
Mozilla might be worth talking to, too, given that they’re looking at releasing their own OS. That would mean swapping WebKit for Gecko, though.
This made my day! Hoping to see it ported to new Hardware!
Best Christmas Present this year!