Why open source is EXACTLY what webOS needs and deserves

By Austin Bradley (@K_Nitsua)

webOS has always been somewhat of a potential dark horse in the Mobile OS scene. The second Mobile OS to arrive since the rise of the iPhone, it was not only seen as a beacon of hope for those unable to digest the notion of switching over to AT&T for the once exclusive Apple device, but it was considered to be the daring leap and risk taker in the mobile sector – a quality those familiar with the matter knew the conservative and cautious Apple never would be.

When webOS failed to garner initial support from Verizon and forced to play ball with the wavering 3^rd/4^th place Sprint in 2009, what began to come into focus was the beginning of a disaster that would destroy the once promising and fanboy favorite company, Palm, once and for all. Fast forward to less than a year later, and one would see that drop in the bucket was the sound of the empty well in the wake of the Palm Pre disaster, the top-contending iPhone, and the advent of Android. 2010, saw the end of Palm, and the lifeboat by HP of webOS.

Still skeptics came out in full force, can HP truly make a mobile device worthy of webOS and compete against the iPhone and the Droids of yester-year? Fast forward another year and $1.2 billion later, and the answer is quite simple: No. HP is a company that has made its name as number one in the PC market by doing one thing better than anyone else – putting stuff together that other people made and selling it at a competitive price.

This same philosophy cannot be replicated in the mobile market, and HP knew this. It allowed the webOS team to essentially keep it current hardware models and simply injected hardware steroids into them. What else was expect for HP to do? HP marketing post-Mark Hurd was downright laughable, and the antics of Leo Apotheker and the silent-launch-launch-post-launch of an overpriced TouchPad showed the world that even in the midst of “scale”, webOS remains cursed.

Now bring it back today and the earth-shattering news of an open-source webOS made official by HP’s new CEO Meg Whitman. webOS continues to prove to be the OS that will not die, and there is a very good reason for that – it doesn’t deserve to die. webOS is an excellent OS and, besides iOS and it’s latest innovations/borrowed ideas, has shown to be a true pioneer and innovator in the future of mobile computing. Don’t believe me? Ask Google and their quick appointment of Matias Duarte less than a month after HP bought Palm to Director of Human Interface on the Android Team – the same Matias Duarte who held a similar position in the inception of webOS back at Palm. Google’s Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich in ways resembles the once considered (and still considered by some) defunct webOS, and is Android’s “catching up” build to the standard webOS has made – whether it be multitasking interactions and notifications, to the less bulky and more simple elegance of an OS interface. Even look at Microsoft’s Mango build of Windows Phone – “Cards”, need I say more?

So let the haters hate, and the trolls troll, and the unbelievers keep believing that we are stuck with two dominant OS’s of iOS and Android – with Microsoft paying its way into the close 3^rd place spot. webOS becoming open source is the shake-up the mobile sector needs. And if the above doesn’t convince you of this then educate yourself with the following.

Android is where it is today for one reason and one reason only – brute force. As an open source agent, Android has trickled its way into all corners of the market, filling in the remaining gaps that Apple left open when it was originally considered a premium product ONLY on AT&T. Yes, webOS could have had a much better chance if it had done a similar thing closer to the time the smart phone mobile OS sector took off – but there was absolutely no way Palm could have done such a move and survive. Google did because it didn’t need to make hardware or sell its OS, since the revenue stream would’ve paled in comparison to how much it IS making off the advertisements its search engine brings in from these mobile devices. Yes, HP could have open sourced it when it first acquired it, but HP DOES have a history of making mobile phones (iPAQ) and most likely wanted to see if it could retain some of its mobile hardware glory once again. Obviously, that failed (with fairly little effort on the part of HP), but now HP has wised up and realized it can do one thing right: open source webOS.

Not very many companies can take a $1.2 billion hit and still take the risk of open sourcing their on-life-support OS for free to other companies to do all the work but keep all the profit. Some may say that this was essentially HP’s ONLY option – give away or show their investors they’ve recklessly spent $1.2 billion and fired the guy (Mark Hurd) who made the decision and had the roadmap to see it through. In the eyes of this writer, HP’s involvement now post –open-source announcement is irrelevant. webOS now belongs to the same open-source community that has built up Linux to where it is today; the same open-source community that gave us MySQL, Apache, and Firefox.

Now that its open sourced, who will do the work? Some may feel that the OEMs are already set in their ways and have selected their favorite OS to work with. Samsung is already making a killing as number one on Android. HTC continues to be second place, everywhere. Amazon and Barnes & Nobles forked Android and are pretending visually not to be using it and avoiding its marketplace. Verizon and Motorola are happy with their robot porn commercials and shoving down “Droid” noises from sea to shining sea. But one upcoming event will once again shake everyone’s cozy nooks – Google’s acquisition of Motorola.

If Palm contributed one other thing to the world of mobile OS’s other than webOS itself, it is the cautionary tale of Palm One and Palm Source. As that is a long story in itself, I’ll just cut to the moral of THAT story – don’t compete against your own licensees. Will Samsung take the chance of being shoved to the 2^nd place spot once Motorola utilizes all the resources they’ll have in their possession once the acquisition goes through? (A scenario Google laughably states will not remotely happen). HTC most likely won’t be thrilled at 3^rd place and Windows Phone, a licensed OS, will look more attractive as an option – but an expensive one for the OEMs.

This is where webOS can shine as the dark horse it was meant to be. Both an attractive OS and now free and open-sourced, webOS can fill this gap, expand its ecosystem, inspiring innovations through competition not only at Android but at iOS and Windows Phone as well, and stand on its own as a solid, elegant, and natural mobile OS for the smart phones of the future. HP has already announced that, although they will make tablets in the future, they will stay away from the smartphone business – paving the way for 3^rd parties to come in and not have to worry about the competing against the OS developers themselves in the market and instead compete against each other.

It’s been a long road for webOS. But I’m pleased to say, when HP pushes the button, webOS will finally be home – whether that home is on the same lane as Android, iOS, and Windows phone or at the local homeless shelter remains to be seen.

For more insight and news to the future of webOS and mobile computing, follow @K_Nitsua on Twitter (http://twitter.com/k_nitsua)