From the ‘While I was Eating Lunch’ files:
VANCOUVER. This morning, I watch a keynote from Phil Robb, Director of the open source program office at HP about WebOS.
Robb made a solid presentation about the benefits of WebOS and it’s relationship to Linux. Robb said that WebOS is based on LInux and even includes GPLv3 licensed components. He aded that HP is giving back and comitting code to webkit, node.js and phonegap among others.
Going a step further, Robb said that at Palm the developers of WebOS were blocked by Palms’ lawyers from open source contributions, which is something that changed at HP. In the months to come, Robb promised that enagement with the Linux kernel community would grow as WebOS gets closer to mainline.
BUT that’s not going to happen now is it?
After Robb’s presentation, I went for lunch and when I came back, the news hit the HP is kiling the TouchPad and WebOS.
WHAT?
Yeaah I had to to a double take too. WebOS is dead after billions of investment and after what was likely the best explanation of WebOS and it’s Linux connection that I’ve ever heard. Frankly, I surprised by the timing, TouchPad just hit the market, should it have been given time to succeed?
What about all the users that bought a TouchPad?
Is the Apple iPad the ‘killer’? or is it just mismanagement by HP? LIkely it’s a bit of both. Now it’s an Android vs. iPad battle and I highly doubt that Google will give up as easily as HP has.