HP to open source WebOS

http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/09/meg-whitman-hp-webos-memo/

Will WebOS gain new life as an open source project? Or it this step a little too late to unseat Android?

heck at this point i think the real thing is can any of them match the iPad ?

so it's a race for second place for all of them  as far as i can tell.

thing is who wants to be  one of 10 all trying to be in second place and winding up in third place ?

i am thinking of all the tab/pad/slates that are out there ....  all chasing the iPad.

16 minutes ago, figuerres wrote

heck at this point i think the real thing is can any of them match the iPad ?

so it's a race for second place for all of them  as far as i can tell.

thing is who wants to be  one of 10 all trying to be in second place and winding up in third place ?

i am thinking of all the tab/pad/slates that are out there ....  all chasing the iPad.

What's wrong with second place as long as your making money? 

@Bass:

Just make it so I can code an app in the OS using XAML and C#.

@SteveRichter:

Is Microsoft planning to open source Silverlight?

3 hours ago, Ray7 wrote

*snip*

What's wrong with second place as long as your making money? 

well look at what happened in the past, if the iPad / iPhone is say 90% of "the market" then will second place make any money to speak of ??

also where will the developers go ?    what's happening even now ?    for example i see a lot of advertising by banks and cable companies boasting that they have iPad and iPhone apps.

*IF* android is mentioned it's a footnote. windows phone is not even on the radar inn the ads.

if this keeps up then soon we will all be developing apps for that os.

is that a good or a bad thing?   I do not know.  just thinking about how this all will play out.,

@figuerres:

WebOS is a phone OS first, tablet OS second.

Android is posed to cream iOS in smartphones (it's already got more marketshare than iOS, and most analysts seem to think it will only get higher in 2012).

So I would think this is more a threat to Android than iOS, firstly they are both based on Linux so much of the same driver code should work, and they are both open source so they are equally easy to adopt and adapt. But I don't necessarily think that will happen, because Android's network effect is just too high at this point.

I do find WebOS interesting though because it uses conventional Linux technologies. Android's userspace outside of the Dalvik runtime is very minimal. While (I'm not 100% sure) WebOS uses stuff like PulseAudio, X11, and clutter behind the scenes. In this way it is more similar to Nokia's MeeGo OS.

21 hours ago, Bass wrote

@SteveRichter:

Is Microsoft planning to open source Silverlight?

I am a desktop programmer. I have no idea.

Do the current generation of tablets and phones have the processing power to run silverlight? MSFT appears very slow in getting into the handheld device app game. Is that because the C#/XAML compiled code that runs on a windows phone device does not get enough CPU and memory to run properly on other handheld devices?

22 hours ago, figuerres wrote

*snip*

well look at what happened in the past, if the iPad / iPhone is say 90% of "the market" then will second place make any money to speak of ??

also where will the developers go ?    what's happening even now ?    for example i see a lot of advertising by banks and cable companies boasting that they have iPad and iPhone apps.

*IF* android is mentioned it's a footnote. windows phone is not even on the radar inn the ads.

if this keeps up then soon we will all be developing apps for that os.

is that a good or a bad thing?   I do not know.  just thinking about how this all will play out.,

Well, Apple enjoys a rather tiny 5% of the PC market, and seems to be making most of the money. The platform has no shortage of developers who are still churning out fresh applications long after the WinPC folk (and their 95% marketshare) seem to have pretty much stopped.

I really don't think WinPhone has to beat come out on top for it to be a profitable platform for developers. 

It won't be easy, but it is doable.

@SteveRichter:

Silverlight is proprietary and only runs on platforms where Microsoft officially released a binary blob for. If Microsoft open sourced Silverlight it could be potentially ported to other platforms.

1 hour ago, Bass wrote

@SteveRichter:

Silverlight is proprietary and only runs on platforms where Microsoft officially released a binary blob for. If Microsoft open sourced Silverlight it could be potentially ported to other platforms.

There are official Silverlight 5 runtimes for both Windows and OSX, which probably cover about 98% of all desktop PCs. If Microsoft really cared about the remainder, they could probably release a version for Ubuntu/Mint and cover about 99.5% of all desktops without having to open source anything.