

Open webOS 1.0 is here - freshrap6
http://www.webosnation.com/open-webos-10-lands

======
co_pl_te
The GitHub repository is at <https://github.com/openwebos/> for anyone who is
interested.

I'm tentatively excited by this. webOS was my 'first love' in modern mobile
operating systems. Though it lacked the polish of iOS and was limited by the
hardware both Palm and HP chose to pair with it, it was ahead of its time in
many respects.

Just think, before the original Droid launched on Verizon, webOS had more
marketshare and mindshare than Android. Imagine what could have been.

~~~
hermanhermitage
I like the approaches of both webOS and Firefox Mobile OS. For sure Javascript
might not be the language one would choose to start with if one was re
envisioning the web today with all the last decades learnings. And perhaps a
fresh start could see lots of the incidental and accidental complexity dropped
from CSS and HTML. But they are what we have today, and perhaps in time
Javascript can align itself more closely to Scheme and a WebCPU element can
come along to allow near native code where needed.

I have difficulty seeing a strategy underlying Google's effort with
Java/Android - I dont see where it fits for a web company. The App / App Store
centric distribution model is a step away from open exchange of information,
and the whole App updating model seems very pre- web. Building up yet another
Java ecosystem for UI seems another miss step like the original MIDP/J2ME
disaster - what is it with Java encouraging non domain experts to implement
libraries and frameworks?. Particularly as the web seems to move farther each
day from Java in the browser.

Also iOS is quite uninteresting to me from an application development
perspective. It has a very 80's feel to it with hard coded apps encouraging
fragile pixel precise layouts. It seems primarily about building a money pump
around a closed eco system. Some elements of the system are beautiful executed
- the whole CoreAnimation / CALayer giving fluid graphics composition for
example. But for the vast majority of throwaway apps the level of effort
needed to implement native Apps - which for the most part are a gluing
together of OS APIs seems like overkill.

~~~
tristan_juricek
Yes. It seems like you could reuse a lot of work from your web application
with something like WebOS.

("It seems" == totally unfounded guesswork).

iOS development seems like more of a temporary stopgap to the eventual rise a
great standardized mobile web platform. Well, temporary meaning "probably 4-5
years or so".

~~~
untog
Agreed. While I totally understand the reasons for going native, it depresses
me to see so many people so enthusiastic about it. We _only just_ got out of
an era where you had to recode significant parts of a web site to satisfy all
the browers.

We can at last write once and use (almost) anywhere... so now we go straight
back to boxed off proprietary solutions.

------
eupharis
Hold the phone. It's Linux based, open source, and apps are written in
Javascript, not Java?

Down with Android. Long live webOS!

~~~
w1ntermute
I don't understand the hatred of Java and love of JS. Is Java not open source?
And isn't Android open source as well? Note that Google apps are not part of
the core of Android.

~~~
ender7
From my perspective, JS is more more enjoyable to use when writing UIs. Java's
strictness is not nearly as useful for UI work than it might be for other
domains, and Javascript's first-class functions greatly simplify event-based
work (which is much of what happens in a UI). Also, JSON is painless to use in
JS, while Java will again get bogged down in its type system -- if you use
JSON as a transport format then yet another plus for JS. Java is great for the
server, but I would never want to write a UI using it.

------
jsz0
I wonder if a better approach would be to rebuild WebOS on top of an Android
base instead? It seems like they are choosing to fight a war they cannot
possibly win. If they want to run on other people's hardware why not build on
top of a very well supported platform? Any rooted phone would have 100% driver
support. Could be easier than installing a custom ROM. At least they would be
able to get a foothold in the market. If my Galaxy Nexus could run the WebOS
UI and continue to run legacy Android apps I would switch over right now. I
know this isn't really the original goal of this project and maybe there are
good technical reasons this would not be possible. It just seems like it would
achieve the same thing in a more practical way. Perhaps they could maintain
both a standalone WebOS and a WebOS/Android version?

~~~
ziadbc
Someone can probably build an app player for android apps, but architecture
wise, what you just described sounds kind of like a custom UI for android.

The rationale for not doing something like this philosophically is that the
underlying point of webos is that it shouldn't feel like a 'whole new
platform' to a web developer, but rather the platform they are already most
familiar with, even more than android, i.e the web.

------
randallu
Might have some pretty major security flaws...

[https://github.com/openwebos/core-
apps/tree/master/com.palm....](https://github.com/openwebos/core-
apps/tree/master/com.palm.app.email#html-sanitizer-function-used-in-the-email-
display-message-view-is-limited-to-remove-only-certain-tags-such-as-script-
iframe-object-embed-more-generic-solution-is-planned-for-post-beta-release)

------
uxp100
I loved WebOS, but part of the key to the gestures, on my Pixi at least, was
the touch sensitive area beneath the screen. I didn't expect that to translate
well to the tablet form factor, though I never tried a touchpad running WebOS.

------
josteink
If (usable) builds come for the Galaxy Nexus, I will be forced to try this out
:)

~~~
j_col
Here you go: <http://blog.openwebosproject.org/post/32477144913/news-flash>

~~~
veeti
Well, about that "usable" part...

~~~
j_col
Need to be patient, porting is a laborious task. This is nothing more than an
early alpha.

------
samholmes
WebOS could do something different and allow for apps to be loaded on the fly
via a URL. Oh wait, that's what a web browser does..Why isn't WebOS aiming to
be a web browser with the ability to cache apps using standardized (or maybe
non-standard if needed) technologies? Then, you wouldn't need a marketplace or
app store necessarily, because users have access to the apps directly off the
web. Not to mention, this will save storage and move towards cloud computing
more nicely. Oh, and think about how easy it would be to transfer an
application from device to another device. WebOS should focus on being just
that, a web OS. This means URLs; DNS is the backbone of the web after all.

------
nilsbunger
Curious, is this helpful to people building web apps or ios/android mobile
apps ?

------
hugh4life
These mobile platforms that use web tech(boot to gecko, webOS, etc) really
aught to wait till ES.Next becomes implemented before they go 1.0. If they
have C++ code extensions, they aught to wait till C++11 is full implemented in
their compiler of choice.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Why?

