HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Well, it appears that HP has finally made a decision regarding the future of WebOS. As mentioned in the article (http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/1...ce-much-of-it/), HP will be keeping WebOS, but making it open-source, while still being the watchdog over all the alterations done to the OS.

Sounds like great news! Hopefully, we will see more WebOS - powered devices in the future.

I have a soft spot for WebOS; to me it always felt like a true successor to Maemo 5. I have bought a HP Veer for my girlfriend some time ago, and she absolutely loves it. WebOS feels very intuitive, even I play around with it from time to time.

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Add a proper GUI toolkit (Qt, EFL, well even GTK) + Python support and I'm in. :)

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Owning a HP Pre 3, I must say that I love the OS, not the fragile hardware.. (sent back for repair at the moment)

Some essentials like SIP and others are missing but the user experience of WebOS is the closest thing to Maemo 5 to date.

The HP hardware platform is can't touch Nokia's finish.

Let's see what's going to be left in the open source WebOS once the 3rd party pattens have been weeded out.
Hopefully it may be ported to all that nice hardware previously wasted to Android.

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Add a proper media framework (gstreamer is there but crippled) and so on. Provide service plugins (there are none in the catalogue). Provide some messaging plugins. Get Opera or someone else to integrate a _serious_ browser, not that even-less-than-basic shite that's currently there (the "advanced" sucks too) And so on.

To me, it doesn't feel or operates in the slightest like a Maemo "successor." If Tizen will look like webOS (scripted GUI and HTML "apps"), good night.

I don't think their community will bring much refinement, for several months now i have the feel they are limited in what they are able to do, what they focus on, and what they want and don't want. It looks almost they are more interested in selling their home-brew apps at some point, and fixing/advancing the OS, and promoting/using open standards instead of focusing on building self-contained "you can but only within _MY_ app" apps, feels like evil communism to them.

I mean, all the open-source packages are provided for how long now on opensource.palm.com? But not much exists, that they were used for by said developers.

Disclaimer: i own an 32GB US TouchPad, and the scene is nothing compared to Maemo/Debian et al.

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Yeap webOS is nowhere near to what maemo was but at least it is a considerable choice for the future unlike android,ios and windows phail

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

I never used WebOS, but can't you just install 'normal' Linux stuff, such as Pidgin, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc?

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

There's optware, where some (console) stuff is available. We speak in terms of about 10 packages, by the way. And: as there's no Gtk+ or Qt or EFL or whatever, nothing else is there. And nobody ported GUI-based stuff to Mojo or Enyo (their Javascript/XML based application framework). There's xterm and an xserver, but they both suck a bit.

All you have is Debian Squeeze, Ubuntu, or Alarm in a chroot environment. Don't even remind me about the issue that the vkb cannot be hidden under Debian chroot and cuts quite some space from the virtual screen there, as it has it's exclusive space...

As i said, it seems nobody cared to do something with the source+patches provided on opensource.palm.com, other than the kernels.

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

If archlinux went natively, could possibly with webos drivers native fremantle run on veer?

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

How about porting WebOS to N900? Anyone interested in that?

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

I'd be down with that!

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

The palm pre and the n900 do share the same hardware. How hard can it be? 0.o

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

javispedro did port an early version of WebOS to the N900, not sure how much functionality he got working. Here is a link to the post which has a link to the YouTube video:

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...6&postcount=30

If you take a look at the whole thread, there is also a link to the Repo where his work can be cloned and continued...

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=44150

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

brb, building the library in Easy Debian.
Somebody should package it -- preenv-libx11fb?

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Well thats quite unfortunate in case you want to modify and reuse already implemented GUI stuff. Well heck even when you just want to reuse you previous programming experience...

I don't mind everybody under the sun developing their own GUI framework but it should be possible to expect the availability of some of the most common GUI frameworks, even in the "there you have it, we don't guarantee anything" state.

There is just no hardware reason GTK, Qt or EFL couldn't run on the WebOS devices.

BTW, found something about Qt running on WebOS:
http://www.precentral.net/qt-app-pla...nning-palm-pre
http://blog.qt.nokia.com/2010/02/19/...-of-your-hand/
Unfortunately its rather old and I haven't found any recent developments during my brief search.

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

I'd be more interested in the reverse: running Maemo bits, even if just chrooted, on relatively modern hardware like the Pre 3.

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

... .... ....

How about creating the most* advanced mobileOS ??
Basically organize a group like the Cyanogen-Mod-Team. A three step process:

First construct the base (from all these spare parts):
-Linux kernel (3.1.4)
-WebOS bits (CSS, HTML, Dalvik)
-MeeGo bits (mobile optimizations, Qt)

Next build a competent UX:
-WebOS/N9 isn't bad, even MIUI is attractive
-But I have something even GREATER in mind already

Finally port it to a very popular (new) hardware to gain traction:
-Nook Tablet/ASUS Transformer/Galaxy Nexus

And let the good times roll!
(Android eat your heart out, mwahahahah)

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

like webos as well, but n9 swipe is the best

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

WebOS is already highly optimized for phones. As an example, the way multitasking is done (cards instead of windows, as it's done in Maemo 5)

The only way I can think of improving WebOS is: overhaul it, making the UI use uxlaunch instead of the crazy, depend-on-several-services-that-are-not-dbus-and-X thing that it has now, and make it use DEB/RPM instead of the inadequate IPKG.

Oh, and a GRID of cards, not a stack of them. Like a hybrid of the N9 and Pre, swiping them away or into view.

Oh, and maybe migrate away from Mojo/Enyo to Tizen HTML5? The two are already quite similar.

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

I see this as a good thing, but yet a very bad thing. I cannot think of many open source OS's that have continued on for a long time in such a niche application - phones and tablets - especially if they decide to go the Nokia route and decide that huge parts of it are too proprietary to be released and do not release the hooks, API's, et al.

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Well... "something is something a bald man said when a single hair popped out...": Somewhat literal translation of a common phrase in spanish when we mean "at least we've got something".
-
Algo es algo dijo un calvo
cuando un pelo le salió

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

If nothing else at least a great majority of people on this forum would love to be able to update their n900 hardware and be able to keep all that maemo 5 goodness on a more up to date device. I definitely would like to be able to do maemo 5 things on a newer, faster device.

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Or at least OPKG for IPKG.

That Luna Manager is so awesome, if you sideload "apps", it's in a need for restart to show them in the list.

/me wants the grid view too. I don't get the stack view, if you are not really seeing what is open after the 3rd or 4th card.

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

i hope itll be ported to the Nokia N900!!!!!!
Even though its alreay done bu javispedro but not fully,

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

IIRC he didn't port the full OS, but the Mojo runtimes for 1.4x something.

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Stupid Nokia, you should do the same for Maemo Closed Source Modules.

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

how about WebMo & WebGo.. :)

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Qt was actually part of webOS (they used it for something internally) but the problem was twofold - that it wass officially off-limits for 3rd party apps, and that it was a fairly old version (4.6.x). Now, if the thing is really open source, it should be fairly trivial to upgrade that version to 4.8 and make it available to all applications (ideally, with a bit more work, through a proper QPA backend).

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Yeah, you hit on 2 major points I was wondering about...

1. Is WebOS now ALL open, or is it like Maemo and Android - sorta open, that is, open except for the parts that aren't? I haven't found a straight answer yet.
2. How hard will it be to fully adapt current Qt for ease of further development?

But overall this has to be a good thing. A (relatively speaking) finished, attractive open source real mobile Linux operating system with some built-in name recognition for the general public. A few million people have seen or at least heard of WebOS. How many people on the street would know what Tizen is?

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

For obvious reasons, stuff such as the SGX driver isn't open source.

As it stands now, all the GPL components of WebOS are there, just like maemo.org. There isn't really much to open other than the UI and Enyo/Mojo.

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Ahem, if that's so trivial how come Diablo is still stuck with 4.5?

(though it seems to be porting Qt to WebOS is missing the point entirely)

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Now, apparently, it'll be 100% open source (obviously excluding proprietary code such as the SGX driver), straight from the horse's mouth.

Who'll use it though? Maemo's a long-time open source project that no other device manufacturer used. Looks like it'll be the same for WebOS, unless HTC and Samsung and LG and Motorola etc. start pumping out WebOS 3 phones to unseat Android.

Even then, who'll buy it? Android has a staggering amount of apps while community stuff in Preware is crap compared to what we have in the repos, the games are available everywhere else, and the only thing going for it is that WebOS is nice to use.

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

No, I ran the full OS, except the kernel. And except Bluetooth, telephony.. the usual gang.


IMHO, the only thing I really wanted from webOS to be opensourced is Enyo, and that's exactly the only thing that has been confirmed 100% to be opensource (among other things, and to the best of my knowledge, because HP owns 100% of it, unlike the rest of webOS).

Having Enyo open means that you can run the standard webOS applications wherever you want, including a plain desktop webkit-based browser (this has been done already with Chrome...).

Mojo would also be nice, but it's slightly more tied to the webOS browser, aiui.

The rest of the OS is nice and good-looking, but Meego/Mer is a better distro IMHO. As for Luna, by now people have been doing better things using QML (think how easy it would be to replicate the card view in QML).

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Sorry but that's totally wrong. Maemo contained open source, but it was never an open source project per se, and was never available for third parties to licence either. Nevertheless some manufacturers did re-use some of the open bits like Hildon, and Nokia's reaction was along the lines of "OMG there are going to be cheap chinese devices using our code, what are we going to do" and ended up with closing all the user-facing stuff in Harmattan.

I did. I waited patiently for years for Nokia to make something decent again, and after I saw the closed, locked, crippled and stillborn N9 I opted for the lesser of two evils and spent my upgrade budget on a Pre 3[1]. You know what, it's much nicer than what it sounds like on paper, even before yesterday's announcement.

[1] And a touchpad. And touchstones, cases, capacitive styluses for both. And a bluetooth keyboard. And a couple dozen or so apps. And I still have plenty of cash left over compared to what an N9 would have cost :-p

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Simple - nobody bothered (I told this story a couple of times already). I personally made a 4.7 build nearly a year ago in just a couple of hours, but that (along with my dev env) sadly went down with a disk crash. Didn't have the inspiration to redo the thing as considering the state of the GLES drivers (and, well hardware design in general) of the N8x0, getting a performant Qt platform would require quite a bit of work*

*Trivia: The 25$ raspberry pi runs circles - no, planetary orbits around the N8x0 performance-wise

Depends on what the point of webOS is. To be a web-tech-friendly Linux base (in which case Qt makes a lot of sense), or just a vehicle for web apps (in which case it's no better than Tizen).

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

What is better about the WebOS way of doing multitasking? What is the difference between cards vs little windows? I sincerely would like to know.

I prefer the grid multitasking of Maemo over the Meego way or the cards system.

Edit: What percentage of Maemo is opensource?
And what percentage of Meego? Anybody know for sure? And are the closed bits necessary part or can they be made with reverse engineered?

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Will you be working on this aswell?
If yes, THIS IS GREAT NEWS! :D

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

I completely agree, for the last month I have debating which to buy, a N900 or a Pre 3. Pre 3 has better hardware but an uncertain future. N900 has a better os (personal opinion) but the hardware is starting to show its age. It would be cool for me to get a Pre 3 and see maemo on it. Finally, it seems that a lot of us like webos, so why don't we take it under our wing (maemo community) The N900 was never a commercial success but an underground one. I think the same can be said about the Pre 3.

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

As long as we're comparing pears to tangerines, so does my dockstar that cost not much more than that over a year ago. The N810 however lives comfortably in my pocket and lets me deal with email, IM and ssh on the go so it wins by default ;-)

It's much more GNU/Linux-y than Android for sure, but it was never meant to be a generic Linux platform. For running web apps along with Qt (and whatever else) ones it would make more sense to port Enyo to another Linux distribution than trying to make Qt apps coexist under the webOS UI which is more or less (ok, I'm oversimplifying a bit) a glorified web page running in a full-screen browser window.

Oh, it's better than Tizen simply by virtue of actually existing :-)

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

lol reading this thread i had a slight glimmer of hope of the possibility of seeing maemo on some new hardware ..then i looked at the pre 3 ...16g on board and no sd card ...knew it was too good to be true

Re: HP keeping WebOS after all, making it open-source to the community
 

Why would you think that? It's not Maemo that's being opened!

That's the least of your problems. If you want to attempt moving Maemo (Fremantle I presume) to new hardware you should be looking for something OMAP3-based.