I reactivated my Palm Pre, because I figured, “Hey, HP is releasing Open webOS next month, so I can have my favorite mobile operating system back”. Except no, I cannot.
HP has announced that Open webOS won’t, in fact, run on any existing devices. If you’re rocking any version of the Pre, Pixi, or Veer, you’re screwed. If you use a TouchPad, your best hope is the Open webOS Community Edition, a side project devoted to existing users, or as HP puts it in a recent blog post:
“For Open webOS we are aiming for support on future hardware platforms where SoC’s support Linux 3.3+ kernel and where open source replacements for proprietary components are integrated. Existing devices cannot be supported because of those many proprietary components, including graphics, networking and lack of drivers for a modern kernel (but of course, there is the Community Edition for those interested in improving the TouchPad).”
Considering that HP owns all of the previously-mentioned proprietary goodies, that’s a bit of bibble-babble right there. It’s less a matter of “cannot” and more a matter of “will not.” HP simply won’t devote manpower beyond a certain stage, and it’s also likely not risking open sourcing any particularly juicy bits. The main reason this baffles me is that while the aforementioned Linux 3.3kernel is a good basis, there’s not exactly a lot of hardware that can run it. This means HP is developing a software platform to run on nothing?
Realistically, HP is likely looking at a licensing deal for the OS. I’m almost certain we’ll see some of the highly dedicated webOS homebrew community manage to get this on a ton of devices in one form or another. However, it’s yet another example of HP treating an ever-dwindling group of end users as toilet paper. We hope and we hope, and we get nothing. Far smarter are the webOS users who long ago ditched the platform. While people like myself make do with an OS that’s great in many ways but has not kept up to date on advancements, webOS users have moved on to operating systems that develop at rapid paces.
I’m not throwing out my TouchPad any time soon, but I can now say that “ability to run Open WebOS” is no longer a requirement for my next phone.
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