HP has reached a major milestone in its efforts to open source webOS. They have released a beta of webOS.
This latest update is quite major as HP has released two development environments for webOS, one for desktops and the other for embedded systems. The code for both is available on GitHub.
The desktop version includes instructions for installing the prerequisites and compiling Open webOS on Ubuntu Linux. You can then install and even run webOS and webOS apps on Ubuntu! Unfortunately only a 32-bit Ubuntu environment is supported as of now.
- Open webOS running as an app on Ubuntu
The alternative option for embedded systems builds an Open webOS system image, and boots and runs that on Qemu. You can also build an ARM version of Open webOS for mobiles. Unfortunately their build time estimate is 8 to 20 hours due to the large size of the download, so you might just want to wait till someone else releases images for you phone.
In September HP will have more announcements to do with the future of Open webOS.
You can find out more about about he opened components and the roadmap of Open webOS here.
