LG Releases Open-Sourced Version of webOS in Hopes To Push It Beyond TVs and Smart Refrigerators (theverge.com) 96
LG has released an open-sourced version of webOS that's freely available to anyone that wants to download and poke around the code. From a report: The release of webOS Open Source Edition is meant to act as a catalyst to drive further adoption of webOS beyond LG televisions, smart refrigerators, and the occasional never-to-be-released smartwatch. So, devices like webOS tablets and set-top boxes as pictured in the LG-supplied image above. This is the second time an open-source version of webOS has been released, the first coming under the failed tenure of HP back in 2011. LG's cross-town rival Samsung develops and uses the open-sourced Tizen operating system on a variety of devices including smartwatches, televisions, Blu-ray players, and robotic vacuums.
A decade too late... (Score:1)
I miss my palmOS phone
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Maybe I'll be able to update mine. For whatever reason it's the only smartphone that I kept - box, manual, adapters, and all. I think I still have the water bottle too! And the wireless charging system was fantastic - I bought an extra one for the office. It really was a well designed system - I miss the central email/calendar subscription portal "one-app-to-rule-them-all" design.
It was a great phone. Well, except the GPS never worked. And the keyboard kept writing repeating letters when pressed. An
License (Score:1)
Since neither TFS nor even TFA bothered--the license is Apache 2.0.
Smart TVs... (Score:5, Insightful)
...are stupid.
The "smarts" drive up cost, increase complexity, and reduce your flexibility.
Just give me a great screen with HDMI input and leave it at that. I will decide what smart thing will be hooked up to it.
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Smart devices are for dumb people.
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I will decide what smart thing will be hooked up to it.
Why not both?
Joking aside, the cost and complexity is an insignificant part of the equation given the electronics needed to process and display a modern signal these days. I'm far more worried about security.
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Can you actually access this hardware. It can be open sourced and still locked down.
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Since it's reported that the License is Apache 2.0, it can't be Linux, which is GPL. You *may* be able to put Apache 2.0 code under GPL, I'm not sure, but you can only put GPL software under Apache if you are the copyright holder.
Of course, they could be violating the license, I suppose.
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Since it's reported that the License is Apache 2.0, it can't be Linux, which is GPL. You *may* be able to put Apache 2.0 code under GPL, I'm not sure, but you can only put GPL software under Apache if you are the copyright holder.
Of course, they could be violating the license, I suppose.
Apache 2.0 is not compatible with GPL v2 (the linux kernel is version 2 only), but with GPL version 3 (it would be distributable as GPL).
The webOS sources includes a patched 2.6.35 linux kernel distributed under GPL version 2 only (https://github.com/webos-internals/webos-linux-kernel).
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Yeah, other comments have clarified that it's not the OS that's under Apache 2.0, but only a bunch of user-space stuff...which would probably be useless to me anyway, since I don't want to have anything to do with IoT.
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Since it's reported that the License is Apache 2.0, it can't be Linux, which is GPL. You *may* be able to put Apache 2.0 code under GPL, I'm not sure, but you can only put GPL software under Apache if you are the copyright holder.
Of course, they could be violating the license, I suppose.
Companies with lawyers like Apache 2.0 because of the clauses that say something to the effect "If you sue me, you lose this license to this software".
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They are releasing the code they do own, meaning the code in userspace which, I am not a lawyer, does not constitute a derivative work.
It's a few buildscripts that cobble together a raspberry pi image from upstream Linux sources, of which you'd hope any modifications to the actual raspberry pi Linux kernel source are zero to none.
Open Source,The last ditch effort to stay relevant (Score:5, Insightful)
It did work for Netscape. While the company died, its technology lives on in our Firefox browsers.
However for the most part it is like putting your trash on a freighter and sending it over to a third would country to see if any of those people wants your trash.
Now there was a lot of love towards WebOS and many and was ahead of its time in a lot of features. However the question for today is it worth it, with the competitors over the past decade had improved their products, and what was ahead of its time, is now behind the times.
WebOS is akin to BeOS, Amiga, Apple Lisa, Osborn, Sega Dreamcast... Good ideas, just implemented at a time where was too ambitious and people didn't need such features on particular hardware.
Re: Open Source,The last ditch effort to stay rele (Score:2)
The problem back then is still the same today - economics. BeOS and co was great, it just was too expensive at the time especially considering the switch in the ecosystem.
It was cheaper to go to Linux if you wanted to switch ecosystems or stay on WinDOS 95 or 98 if you already have the applications than go with BeOS or OS/2 Merlin on PS/2 which not only did not have the ecosystem, the cost was twice or triple the price of a regular system even though the hardware was well beyond the x86 of the time. SGI had
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A lot of that is "between the ears".
MacOS doesn't have quite the "ecosystem" that windows has, and buying the hardware is more expensive to boot... but even IBM has figured out that the total cost over the economic life of the hardware, MacOS beats windows hands down. And what is it they do, really? Office work. You don't need a gazillion little "apps" to provide one button, or a handful of buttons, to make the thing "go" at every teeny little task. Yet that is what the windows "ecosystem" mostly comes down
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Unfortunately, technology success and failures and if it is ahead of its time or not... Can only be judged in pass tense.
BeOS and its price, just may had been a hit and considered a a great new product, if perhaps only a small number of elements were different. Lets say Adobe decided to ditch the dying company of Apple, and move over its flagship products to BeOS, or IBM still sour about OS/2 may had moved many of its properties (Lotus Suite) to BeOS as a way to snub Microsoft. Or DOSBox and/or DOSEmu got
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It did work for Netscape. While the company died, its technology lives on in our Firefox browsers.
I don't see that as a bad thing. Keep in mind all the niche iterations - Palemoon, Iceweasel, Seamonkey, and so on. None have critical mass, but all benefit from Netscape.
However for the most part it is like putting your trash on a freighter and sending it over to a third would country to see if any of those people wants your trash.
If the alternative is burning it or burying it, and we're dealing with industrial or consumer waste as opposed to food waste or other biohazards, then that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'd far rather some industrious third world people disassemble a curling iron to heat their water or whatever, rather than just assume it's all actual-jun
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WebOS is akin to BeOS
The last fast system in a world of incredibly slow turds? Where can I buy one? But actually I'm going to argue against your premise:
However the question for today is it worth it, with the competitors over the past decade had improved their products, and what was ahead of its time, is now behind the times.
Improved in what way? Samsung is now advertising TVs with quad core processors in order to get their smart interface to run smoothly. That doesn't sound improved, it sounds like it is so incredibly bloated and poorly written than the most basic of functionality needs some serious hardware thrown at it. If WebOS can be more like BeOS it could potentially dominate in this market
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You can buy an unlocked phone and flash it as much as you like. Most people go the easy route and accept a carrier locked phone so they don't have to shell out the cash up front.
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android runs on 54% of devices and Windows 10 runs on 11%. Which do you think is more targeted by spyware?
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uboot, fastboot & mainline support. (Score:2)
Stop giving me a half finished, half documented "open source" operating system that still puts me in your ecosystem.
I just want uboot, fastboot and mainline support.
My current 'HTPC' is a device that I SSH to and run mpv from. I don't want your GUI stack. Just let me write my own stack.
Re: uboot, fastboot & mainline support. (Score:1, Informative)
Stop crying like normal and go develop the full stack then. Itâ(TM)s not rocket science. Use buildroot. There are kernel, gpu and uboot templates for pretty much every arm platform from the last 10 years. It takes less than an hour to download, configure for chosen platform and compile a kernel, dtb, modules, uboot and rootfs from usually mainline sources. If mainline support isnâ(TM)t there it pulls in the oem bsp.
Pleasantly Surprised by WebOS (Score:2, Interesting)
I bought an LG TV about 2 years ago, with the older version of WebOS (2.0), mostly because it was all I could afford. I've been pleasantly surprised that the TV still gets software updates every few months, as do the apps (err ... though the YouTube app is the only one I use).
The TV is still quick and responsive, and plays every video I have on the connected USB drives.
I thought I was going to be disappointed I couldn't afford an Android TV, but am not. So good luck LG.
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I think we might be the only two people (even here) that would want that. Hell, I'll even take BACnet!
I would also like to know compressor amps and either interval data or cycle time or something to help "smartify" energy consumption. Extra bonus for a register you can write to as a short-term demand response mode.
Viewing the information in a browser isn't the end of the world... just more crap to parse. The idea of the cameras in the fridge makes a few things interesting with a more robust system... but
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I've implemented that... But on a set of walk-in refrigerators and freezers, not on a home refrigeration system. We did this after someone left the door open, causing $2500 in ice cream to melt overnight...
In my case, though, it's implemented with one-wire sensors and a one-wire to SNMP gateway. (So yes, the refrigeration units are monitorable via SNMP, and show up in my NMS,,, I'm that kind of geek...)
Not everything needs an OS. (Score:4, Funny)
Why would you want your Vacuum Cleaner on the internet? All it really has to do is suck.
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Microsoft Vacuum Cleaner 1.0 - finally a Microsoft product that doesn't suck!
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Thank you for stealing my joke. :) [youtu.be]
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lol, you're joke.
Unless you were saying it in 1990, not your joke.
And that an evolution from the IBM Joke.
Old geeks (Score:2)
Unless you were saying it in 1990, not your joke.
And that an evolution from the IBM Joke.
...and you forgot to mention something about your lawn..
And Dianne needing to get away from it.
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Why would you want your Vacuum Cleaner on the internet? All it really has to do is suck.
Imagine how much more it will suck if it doesn't work due to a ransomeware infection!
Palm could have been a contender, then Apotheker (Score:1)
The Palm Pre is still my favourite phone.
Handier, more ergonomic, better than all the enormous phablets manufacturers force on the sheeple nowadays.
Then HP killed it.
Android style lockout Open Source (Score:2)
Is it locked down from the user? If so who cares.
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I think it's not the OS that is locked down, but rather the hardware. At least that what other comments cause me to think. Personally, I'm still wondering what use it is. An OS for a refrigerator???
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Oddly I find WebOS on my LG OLED 55" to be extremely useful, no more XBMC for me. The built in DLNA player is awesome, full 4K streaming with full codec support, my Raspberry Pi's wont do that!. I stream HEVC and x264 all day long w/o issue. When I try to do the same on my Samsung with Tizen, nope, garbage, no DTS support :(. So I have to resort to Plex on Tizen which works ok, but it is missing one key feature, "Auto Play Next", which oddly WebOS has built into its player!
Here's the actual problem (Score:5, Insightful)
You're confusing "smart appliance" with "manufacturer's internet/cloud-connected appliance."
The problem isn't that the device is smart. Smart in this context just means it knows what it's doing, or what is going on around it, or what it's supposed to do.
The problem is that the devices as typically implemented today are taking your data outside your LAN to the manufacturer and any other entity the manufacturer shares it with, while at the same time exposing a considerably wider attack surface to the black hats.
Every device you listed there could benefit you via local integration with home control software.
Every device you listed there has zero good reason to go outside your LAN - you could be contacting a safe server on your LAN from the WAN to see what they're up to, should you want/need to do that, rather than channeling everything through the manufacturer's servers (which also brings a near-certainty of lost support at some random time based on their finances and product cycles.) Or you could keep all interaction with them within the LAN, which is the minimum attack surface choice, and, I would suggest, the sane choice.
Requires Ubuntu . . . (Score:2)
The build procedure is tailored to Ubuntu14.04 LTS 64-bit.
I'll be looking forward to a virtual machine image or a LiveDVD version.
It's not Android (Score:2)
The problem with these OS'es is that they don't have any apps. If I run Android on my television I can run gazzilion apps and games for every possible scenario imaginable and I can expect that they will be supported for some time.There is a problem with support for all these third party systems. I can expect that for example Netflix will be supported for a very long time on Android given the user base. But the chances that Netflix will be supported in webOS for the version on your TV in the next 10 years is