Submitted by Pretty big news out of LG – they’re releasing their variant of webOS – the TV and smartwatch one – as open source.
webOS is a web-centric and usability-focused software platform for smart devices. The operating system has constantly evolved, passing through its journey from Palm to HP, and most recently to LG Electronics. Now, we are releasing webOS as an open source project, named webOS Open Source Edition (OSE).
This marks the second time webOS has been released as open source. It’s released under the Apache License, version 2, and there’s instructions for getting it to run on a Raspberry Pi 3.
We are a truly open project. You will see us working in the open like any community member, so you can see what we’re doing in real time. We operate using typical open practices: the Project uses the Apache 2.0 license, is hosted on GitHub, and accepts contributions via a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) approach. As the community grows and individuals and organizations emerge who make significant contributions, it is our intention to invite them into the governance of the Project.
It seems like a truly open project, but at the same time, one has to wonder what this means for webOS’ commercial future at LG. The cold and harsh truth is that moves like this generally mean the end of commercial viability, not the beginning. This isn’t necessarily a problem though – at least this move ensures the code and operating system will continue to exist.
The previous incarnation of an open-sourced WebOS lives on today as LuneOS, though they don’t release all that regularly. I wonder if there will be any effort to integrate the two code bases.
Forgot about the previous Open source effort. I guess That was before I had a webos device. Still not sure if I regret not getting a mobile Webos device. Lot of mixed reviews. The hardware felt cheap too.
More info here: http://www.lgnewsroom.com/2018/03/webos-enters-next-phase-as-global… It looks like there’s more going on than the familiar “wind down”.
LG sells very well, and all of their TVs have WebOS. I’m not sure why you’d see this in a pessimistic light. Just the fact that they exist at this point is good (other similar OS offerings are pretty much dead, like Firefox). So they’re one of the big boys, alongside Google and Samsung. Amazon and Roku are entering the Smart TV market, but the TVs that Alexa and Roku are on are junk.. except the TCL stuff.
Edited 2018-03-21 02:54 UTC
I think this is great news! and it runs on rpi.
I specifically bought an LG smart tv because:
1. it runs Qt (I am biased)
2. it runs other open source
3. I know people that worked on it
I almost worked on webOS when HP owned it, but didn’t want to move
> The cold and harsh truth
Yeah, no. It’s speculation. Seems plausible, but cynicism doesn’t actually ensure truthfulness.