HP WebOS Being Open Sourced

Apparently HP CEO Meg Whitman has finally decided what to do with its ailing WebOS division: the company is going to open source WebOS and its app platform, enyo.

Needless to say, this is exciting for the open source community.

Open Source Mobile Operating Systems: The Future or Last Ditch Effort?

While there is little doubt that being open source hardly hurt Google’s Android, it does seem to be the trend that operating systems at risk of failure are frequently open sourced. Nokia, for example, released the code for its Symbian operating system, hoping that the open source community could improve it sufficiently to make it competitive again. Meego, which was to be Nokia’s future operating system before it adopted Windows Phone, was an open source collaboration with Intel. You might notice that neither Symbian nor Meego are used much anymore.

WebOS has something that those others didn’t however, and that is a dedicated fanbase who loves its design. The operating system remains popular among some developers despite being effectively dead for ages. If HP can play its cards right, it could make WebOS into a viable operating system that could even challenge Android for dominance.

An Uncertain Future

This move won’t mean much if no hardware gets released to support it. And while HP is promising to continue contributing to the operating system, they made no such claims about hardware support.

No matter how vibrant the developer community is, if HP wants to make this more than a token attempt to salvage a sinking operating system, they need to release hardware. What worries me is that this move might just be a way to appease stockholders angry over WebOS’s failure.

Could Even Benefit Android

In the end, Android might become the main beneficiary to this. By open sourcing the operating system, Android can peek inside and maybe even borrow a bit. Users of other operating systems have long salavated over some of the more unique design choices of WebOS, like its cards multitasking and robust gesture support. We might see implementations of these hit core Android sooner rather than later, or at least get access through third party programs.

Not Much Hope

I’ll be honest, I don’t think this move will bring WebOS back from the grave. It’s aready had two chances to capture the hearts of users, and it has failed (even if it was largely because of horrible hardware) twice.

This time won’t be any different, so we can only hope Android and WebOS benefit from its carcass.

Photo by : HP