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HP cut its losses last month and announced the company's webOS mobile operating system would move to an open source model. On Wednesday, HP released a roadmap detailing the open source future of webOS. The company said it expects the software to be fully open-sourced by September, at which point it will be known as Open webOS 1.0. "HP is bringing the innovation of the webOS platform to the open source community," said Bill Veghte, executive vice president and chief strategy officer at HP. "This is a decisive step toward meeting our goal of accelerating the platform's development and ensuring that its benefits will be delivered to the entire ecosystem of web applications." The second-generation Enyo framework, which debuted on the TouchPad, is now available with a bundle of related developer tools, and HP plans to release additional information nearly every month until September. The company also revealed that the mobile operating system will be moving to a standard Linux kernel in the hopes of attracting manufacturers who are experienced with Linux and Android. HP's press release and roadmap can be found after the break.
HP to Commit webOS to Open Source by Fall 2012
New version of acclaimed Enyo developer tool and source code available now
PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 25, 2012 - HP today began executing its plan to deliver an open webOS by committing to a schedule for making the platform's source code available under an open source license.
The company aims to complete this milestone in its entirety by September.
HP also announced it is releasing version 2.0 of webOS's innovative developer tool, Enyo. Enyo 2.0 enables developers to write a single application that works across mobile devices and desktop web browsers, from the webOS, iOS and Android platforms to the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers - and more. The source code for Enyo is available today, giving the open source community immediate access to the acclaimed application framework for webOS.
By contributing webOS to the open source community, HP unleashes the creativity of hardware and software developers to build a new generation of applications and devices.
"HP is bringing the innovation of the webOS platform to the open source community," said Bill Veghte, executive vice president and chief strategy officer, HP. "This is a decisive step toward meeting our goal of accelerating the platform's development and ensuring that its benefits will be delivered to the entire ecosystem of web applications."
The webOS code will be made available under the Apache License, Version 2.0, beginning with the source code for Enyo.
webOS roadmap
Over the first half of the year, HP will make individual elements of webOS source code available - from core applications like Mail and Calendar to its Linux kernel - until the full code base is contributed to the open source community by September.
January: Enyo 2.0 and Enyo source code Apache License, Version 2.0
