OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/26597/Group_aims_to_build_new_smartphone_running_webOS Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Mon, 20 May 2013 21:18:28 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Awesome! http://www.osnews.com/thread?544620 http://www.osnews.com/thread?544620 This is amazing news... up until now webOS was the only one of the Linux-based alternative mobile OSes in development (the others being Firefox OS, Jolla Sailfish and Tizen) without any actual hardware announced. This changes that. Which is awesome. Especially considering that webOS is the only one of the four that actually has a mature UI stack that's already proven to be awesome on real devices, I think it could have a real shot at a comeback, *if* it can just get the hardware support worked out. Mon, 10 Dec 2012 23:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Moochman) Comments Phoenix? http://www.osnews.com/thread?544622 http://www.osnews.com/thread?544622 Don't they remember the trademark problems of Phoenix->Firebird->Firefox? (with Phoenix BIOS maker in this case) Mon, 10 Dec 2012 23:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zima) Comments RE: Awesome! http://www.osnews.com/thread?544627 http://www.osnews.com/thread?544627 I'm with Thom on this one. WebOS and Maemo are the two mobile operating systems that I love best and, although I really want to see them grow, I feel there is no future for them. A late 2013 timeframe to get to the point we were a few years ago seems flaky at best.

The only thing that _might_ save them, _if_ they can make the hardware, would be a compatibility layer that allowed Android applications to run unmodified. This, of couse, is doable, but requires a bit of an effort.

Another path would be to just follow another route and allow WebOS to be installed on current Android phones. Then the hardware part would not be a problem and they could "release early, release often", using enthusiastic users' current phones as testbeds. I don't know why this approach is often ignored. Tue, 11 Dec 2012 00:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sodki) Comments RE[2]: Awesome! http://www.osnews.com/thread?544669 http://www.osnews.com/thread?544669
I don't know why this approach is often ignored.


Lack of specs? Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (moondevil) Comments RE[2]: Awesome! http://www.osnews.com/thread?544674 http://www.osnews.com/thread?544674 Several of the Android manufacturers are concerned that there is no real alternative to Android available to them... Given that WebOS and others are also Linux based it should be relatively easy to build devices which can run any of these platforms with minimal effort. One piece of hardware, one set of kernel and drivers, and several different userland stacks. Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bert64) Comments RE: Phoenix? http://www.osnews.com/thread?544675 http://www.osnews.com/thread?544675 At least Phoenix is a fitting name for anything WebOS related. Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (MOS6510) Comments Re: http://www.osnews.com/thread?544684 http://www.osnews.com/thread?544684
The only thing that _might_ save them, _if_ they can make the hardware, would be a compatibility layer that allowed Android applications to run unmodified. This, of couse, is doable, but requires a bit of an effort.


Quoted for truth. The most annoying consequence of various OS makers announcing that "our appstore has X thousand apps" is that it gives people (and pundits) the illusion good app ecosystems can be built easily. Unfortunately.. not.

Just look what it took for Android to get an app ecosystem that isn't crap. Hence, any open source OS that isn't entirely HTML5 based (aka Firefox OS) needs to have an Android compatibility layer. And since the thing is just a modified JVM and some C libraries (for native code produced by the NDK), what is taking them so long? My guess is that those alternative open source OSes want to have "their" ecosystem that is different from Android's, aka they want to compete with Android instead of working with it, which is why those OSes don't have many chances (unless they provide said Android compatibility layer, of course).Edited 2012-12-11 11:29 UTC Tue, 11 Dec 2012 11:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kurkosdr) Comments RE: Re: http://www.osnews.com/thread?544692 http://www.osnews.com/thread?544692 Sailfish and BlackBerry 10 both include Android app support out of the box. BlackBerry requires the apps to be packaged, submitted and certified separately for the BB store, but IMHO that makes sense since otherwise there's no ensuring that half the functionality won't be broken due to missing OS hooks. Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Moochman) Comments RE[2]: Awesome! http://www.osnews.com/thread?544713 http://www.osnews.com/thread?544713 So what do you think of FirefoxOS and Tizen ?

They'll both have products in the market early next year. Tue, 11 Dec 2012 18:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Lennie) Comments RE[3]: Awesome! http://www.osnews.com/thread?544724 http://www.osnews.com/thread?544724
So what do you think of FirefoxOS and Tizen ?

They'll both have products in the market early next year.


I'll believe it when I can actually buy the products. Personally I think that Tizen is just hype and that FirefoxOS might be actually fun for a feature++ phone, but these are just my gut feelings without any factual basis. Tue, 11 Dec 2012 22:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sodki) Comments RE[4]: Awesome! http://www.osnews.com/thread?544725 http://www.osnews.com/thread?544725 How is Tizen hype ?

If I'm not mistaken Bada is actually pretty populair in Asia. Tizen is meant as it's replacement.

And Tizen has an API-compatible layer for Bada or something along those lines. So you can easily port existing Bada applications.

So Tizen is also in the same feature++ phone corner as Firefox OS.Edited 2012-12-11 22:38 UTC Tue, 11 Dec 2012 22:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Lennie) Comments RE[2]: Phoenix? http://www.osnews.com/thread?544854 http://www.osnews.com/thread?544854
At least Phoenix is a fitting name for anything WebOS related.

Zombie OS would be a much better fit. From a distance it looks promising and alive. But it is just a shuffling rotting body. And it just won't stop moving. Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Fergy) Comments RE[3]: Phoenix? http://www.osnews.com/thread?545002 http://www.osnews.com/thread?545002 Reminds me...
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=evilentity (AKA Undead Linux)
http://ubuntusatanic.org/news/about/ Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zima) Comments