Tizen, webOS, & the Future of Mobile Open Source 94
jfruhlinger writes "When HP announced it would release webOS as open source, it added a competitor to a narrow niche: there's already Tizen, the descendant of MeeGo, which is, like webOS, an open source Linux-based operating system for smartphones. Can they co-exist, or will one come out on top? One built-in advantage for webOS is that already has hardware, in the form of all those $99 TouchPad's being snapped up on eBay."
Abandonware open source (Score:5, Insightful)
This is abandonware. That seems to be a trend. As something becomes unprofitable but still has a user base, it's open-sourced to make the support load go away.
Narrow niche? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think there might be another open-source, Linux-based operating systems for smartphones besides Tizen or webOS, called something like Robot or Cyborg -- not either of those exactly, but something in the same vein...
Re:Narrow niche? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well clearly being the largest install base after iOS is a tiny niche. Just like all the browser installs besides IE is a tiny niche.
Re:Abandonware open source (Score:4, Insightful)
Like openoffice/libraoffice firefox blender?
You are right that making it opensourced will help with the support load, but that doesn't imply that it's been abandoned. Competition is good, and android needs some.
Re:Abandonware open source (Score:5, Insightful)
"The future of mobile open source is pretty much dead at the moment."
Generally, I find that the open-source absolutists who won't even admit the existence of an open-source option unless it is perfect are the ones who end as the biggest Apple fans (Stallman excluded, of course).
Like you, perhaps, I was rooting for Maemo/meego/whatever - I had the 770, 800, and the 810, and I wrote software for them. But face it, Nokia messed up, and there is another open-source mobile OS.
Sure, the google apps that ship on top of Android aren't open-source, but do you really think that Nokia would have kept every piece of Maemo open if it had taken off?
I'm doubtful... (Score:5, Insightful)
Realistically, I see WebOS evaporating as well is Tizen. Android is more than a technology platform, it is a brand. The word 'webOS' does not carry the marketing value that 'android' does. Apple has already set the pace of mobile experience being dominated by one-off applications more than more neutral web interfaces and so you have a significant network effect in play, no company backing means a distinct lack of applications for users and a dead platform.
Even if you subscribe to the theory the mobile market continues to show high volatility and there isn't the signs of insurmountable entrenchment like the desktop market and therefore anything including WebOS has a shot, WebOS is severely handicapped. It comes with the baggage of failing to bail out the once-great Palm, of sucking billions out of HP, and every appearance of being abandoned as a result. A technical advocate trying to get business leadership to recognize the value in the platform and commit to it has very little to no chance of convincing business leaders given the track record.
It's a shame too, ever since I had to go to an Android device, I've found the experience *highly* annoying compared to WebOS.
-The gestures were so nice and smooth and I miss them.
-As a corollary, 'back' was a lot more consistent (in Android, it ends up serving double duty for per-app 'back' and task switching if it thinks it appropriate).
-Same for menus, Android apps are a mess with how inconsistently they deal with the menu button being pressed, and 99% of the time additional content is inelegantly dumped into one 'more settings' button.
-When I switched away and back to an app in WebOS, the interface was just so much more sensible and showing what was going on better.
-When I switch away and back in WebOS, the app was always consistent with where I left it last. In Android, it's a crap shoot. Sometimes the app just continues running in memory and is consistent when I return, sometimes that same app was killed arbitrarily by the OS and doesn't restore, sometimes an app faced with that inconsistency just always forces their piss-poor state restore every time they are backgrounded.
-I could reasonably manage multiple textual conversations in baked in WebOS chat. Multiple chats open concurrently all under a single coherent messaging system. Now if I get gTalk, one app manages it and if I get SMS, something else handles it. If I'm chatting with someone and switch away to look up something and switch back, the SMS app has closed my conversation and I have to find it again.
Re:WebOS is ahead (Score:4, Insightful)
I seriously, seriously doubt that there are viable buyers at this point. I'm fairly convinced HP exhausted that option before open sourcing. Of course, open sourcing is much harder than just closing the whole effort down, so HP is spending money on WebOS for *some* reason.
Re:WebOS is ahead (Score:4, Insightful)
MeeGo and its descendants have been a huge clusterfuck, Maemo has a nice working desktop environment and is the closest to a regular desktop Linux distro underneath. The best thing to do as a next step would have been to bring it even closer to a standard Linux distro, maybe base it on Debian ARM and put Maemo's desktop and apps on top.