HP offers its webOS to the open source community

Hewlett-Packard (HP) have announced that they are offering their mobile device-oriented operating system, webOS to the open source community.

The company will no longer be investing in the already-beleaguering OS that has seen none or little success at best.

The decision came as a surprise to some technology gurus, as the first choice for HP—in their expert opinion—was to completely discard the operating system that was not even cost effective. However, the tech giants (HP) said in a statement that they will
be supervising their signature OS in the open source community.

Making webOS an open source software means that HP will no longer be investing in the evolution of the software, but it will be open for developers to bestow their tech wisdom in making it better. That is possible unless the developers give back to the community.

Moreover, companies like HTC will not have to pay a single dime in incorporating the OS in their devices. All they will have to do is, download the source code, make some tweaks to it and install it into their mobile devices. In addition, the updated version
will be available to HP mobile devices for free.

However, HP clearly mentioned that they are not intending to get back into the smartphone business but their flagship OS will be used for tablets.

HP is towing the line of Linux and UNIX in this regard. These operating systems are open sourced and various mobile operating systems are developed on their source code like iOS is Unix-based and its counterpart Android is Linux-based.

It was a wise decision on HP’s part to not to hurl into mobile OS market that is already dominated by Butch Cassidy and Sun Dance Kid (in this case iOS and Android).

Open sourcing the webOS might prove to be a win-win situation for HP, as they will not have to invest anymore and developers will assist in the furnishing it into a more exquisite software.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Dec 12 2011. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry