HP Touchpad

How quickly do things change when it comes to HP this year. Just earlier this year they were talking about emulating Apple’s strategy of end-to-end control of both software and hardware where webOS would be HP’s equivalent of iOS. Fast forward to now and under the guidance of the new CEO they are giving it up to the open source community, hoping other device makers pick it up and use it.

The reaction of the technology press has varied from proclaiming this as the beginning of the end for webOS to it being given a new lease on life. If you read some tech sites it seems they’ve covered just about every angle they could think of in this spectrum of possibilities, but I think it’s too early to make solid predictions.

According to HP press release itself this is not about letting webOS die, but about using the power of open source development to revitalize the platform. They intend to “continue to be active in the development and support of webOS”, and want to “engage the open source community to help define the charter of the open source project under a set of operating principles”. They defined these principles as follows:

  • The goal of the project is to accelerate the open development of the webOS platform
  • HP will be an active participant and investor in the project
  • Good, transparent and inclusive governance to avoid fragmentation
  • Software will be provided as a pure open source project

In an interview with The Verge HP’s CEO Meg Whitman certainly gave the impression that they are very much staying involved, but that it’s going to take time for the transition to occur. They are treating the new organization as a big startup with 600 people, 750,000 devices, and a big company behind it.

So it certainly doesn’t seem like they’re just kicking it to the curb, and letting the open source community have its way with it. Talking about good governance to avoid fragmentation even sounds as if they hope to outdo the Android, which has itself been criticized for fragmentation issues, albeit this is a common problem with open source platforms in general.

If there is anything about these news that may herald the death of the platform it doesn’t seem it’s going to be the fact webOS will be open source. Under the circumstances this might be the best thing that ever happened to it. Whether it lives or dies is going to be very much up to the open source community, device makers including HP itself, and the market.

The device makers will be key. All it would take is for a big manufacturer like HTC, which is already supporting multiple competing platforms (Android and Windows Phone), to announce a webOS powered device and it’s got a chance to fly. In 2013 HP could keep the fire alive by releasing new webOS tablets, which is about the same time we will be seeing Windows 8 tablets on the market as well.

So the game is certainly not over for webOS, but there is a lot of uncertainty. If open source projects can be credited for anything, however, it is longevity. So long as there is a community of enthusiasts keeping it on life support, and especially a foundation backed by a big company, there’s a chance of “resurrection” even as much as five years down the line.

This is why calling this a de-facto death of the platform seems premature. It’s too soon to say for both the short term and the long term. In the short term the news is still fresh, and the entire 2012 could be a window of opportunity for device makers to step up, and for the foundation to solidify. In the long term anything can happen so long as it continues to have its adherents.

This would certainly not be the case if webOS remained in-house while HP did nothing constructive with it, or further fumbled it like they did recently.

It has to be said though that open source enthusiasts do need to keep in touch with reality about what exactly does success in the market entail. I’ve seen some defend webOS’s viability in the market by saying there are many ARM based devices out there which webOS can run on, implying that anyone can install it on almost any device out there.

While this is true it makes the assumption that is rather typical of an open source enthusiast, that ordinary users are willing to install operating systems at all, let alone do so on their phone or a tablet. The ability to install webOS on almost any device only helps those enthusiasts themselves, and makes it easier for developers to play with it, but it’s not going to be what brings webOS to market success. That needs a device maker who is going to sell branded devices with webOS pre-installed.

Speaking of quirks in the open source mentality, the new webOS foundation should also strive to avoid the tendency of open source projects to lose track of what matters to the end user and start adding or changing stuff according solely to enthusiast’s conceptions of what’s “cool”. Successful open source projects have a clear sense of direction, and a clear view of what the market wants, not just what the tech-savvy enthusiasts think is awesome.

Here’s to good luck for webOS. It’s good technology. It deserves to live on.