[richiemoe]

I work in IT, but I know my limits and have no intention on learning how to deal with this code. Therefore, when the official open source version is released, do you think people will be making money off of installing WebOS onto phones for people?

I personally would pay someone to do it for me on a specific phone if i can't buy it with WebOS already on it.

I hope i'm not repeating any other threads...

Thanks,
-Rich

[samab]

Just because webos is open source, doesn't mean you can do much with it.

By the time webos is open source, all the new smartphones will have LTE chipsets (which you don't have the radio codes and they are always under proprietary license), will have new GPU (which you don't have the driver codes and they are always under proprietary license)...

[kigmatzomat]

Closed/proprietary license doesn't necessarily mean undistributable. Several GPUs have closed source licenses on their drivers but the binary driver can be freely redistributed. I suspect that the ODMs have at least binary Linux drivers for all their major product families given the number of Linux-y phones, routers, gateways, and appliances.

The problems come when the kernel changes and is no longer compatible with the driver and the public can't recompile it. That essentially means no more kernel upgrades for that phone. That's irritating but every device hits a point of obsolescence.

I would expect that most drivers for Android phones are closed but distributable and probably compatible with the WebOSOS linux kernel. Even if the drivers aren't distributable by HP or the WebOSOS tream, it's quite possible that if you purchase an Android device you can pull the drivers off the device before you install WebOSOS. Or install WebOSOS over top Android, leaving the drivers in place. Or install WebOSOS next to Android but changing which OS boot. Odds are one or more of those scenarios would be completely legal.

Depending on the details of the Android license, the Android LTE network stack could even be borrowed en masse.

As for future GPUs, well, WebOS hardly uses the GPUs now. (sigh)

In other words, it's too soon to say "it'll never work."

[samab]

Android's radio stacks have always been under proprietary licenses.

Even if end users are allow to grab a proprietary GPU driver binary, much like how you can download an ATI driver off the ATI website --- you can't make money off of it. You want to redistribute the Adobe flash player, you better get a license from Adobe.

We are talking about a dozen different hardware drivers for every handset --- from accelerometers, to the digital compass, to the sensors for the touch screen, to the bluetooth radio... And they come out a new phone model every 6 months.

By the time that Webos is open source, Android would hit 5.0 --- webos is going to feel like windows 95.

[sketch42]

I work in IT, but I know my limits and have no intention on learning how to deal with this code. Therefore, when the official open source version is released, do you think people will be making money off of installing WebOS onto phones for people?

I personally would pay someone to do it for me on a specific phone if i can't buy it with WebOS already on it.

I hope i'm not repeating any other threads...

Thanks,
-Rich

ignore samab.

Yes you would be able to charge for an install


-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities

[samab]

ignore samab.

Yes you would be able to charge for an install


-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities

Ignore what?

Every single smartphone has a different combination of sensors for accelerometers, touchscreen, digital compass and all made by different component manufacturers and all the drivers are under proprietary licenses.

Even if you manage to find all these drivers and you are willing to use these drivers contrary to the licensing terms --- by the time you manage to find all these drivers, a new crop of smartphones would already enter the market and all your potential customers would have moved on to newer gadgets. In 6 months, you are going to play with a LTE phone with Android 5.0. In 18 months, you are going to play with a phone with 40 bit Cortex A15 cores (instead of 32 bit Cortex A9 cores) with Android 6.0.

Sure you can ignore all the laws, all the licensing terms and set up a service and charge a fee --- but who would pay for such a service?

[Rnp]

ignore samab.

Yes you would be able to charge for an install


-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities

X2


Best Regards...

[sketch42]

Ignore what?

Every single smartphone has a different combination of sensors for accelerometers, touchscreen, digital compass and all made by different component manufacturers and all the drivers are under proprietary licenses.

Even if you manage to find all these drivers and you are willing to use these drivers contrary to the licensing terms --- by the time you manage to find all these drivers, a new crop of smartphones would already enter the market and all your potential customers would have moved on to newer gadgets. In 6 months, you are going to play with a LTE phone with Android 5.0. In 18 months, you are going to play with a phone with 40 bit Cortex A15 cores (instead of 32 bit Cortex A9 cores) with Android 6.0.

Sure you can ignore all the laws, all the licensing terms and set up a service and charge a fee --- but who would pay for such a service?

You are not discussing the point of the OP.

He simply asked if there will be a service available where he can pay someone to port webOS over to a phone.

The answer is certainly . Yes

He did not ask if it would be possible to port webos to every phone in existence , which is the question you seem to be answering.

There will be some phones that will be easier to port to than others, and some not at all.

But the OP wasn't asking that.

When webOSinternals gives a guideline of what is required for a port, those questions will be answered.



-- Sent from my Palm Veer using Forums

[kigmatzomat]

Sure you can ignore all the laws, all the licensing terms and set up a service and charge a fee

This is covered by decades-old, established legal precedent from the early Linux days. You can't charge for the software when the license dictates it cannot be sold BUT you can charge for physical media, a handling fee to cover loading the free software onto the physical media, and the shipping of said media. I.e. Slackware can be downloaded for free or you can pay someone else $5 to download it, burn it to CD and mail it to you.

Installation of the software is a service, separate from the distribution. It is perfectly legal to charge for installing free drivers; Best Buy does it all the time.

I would expect that only a handful of models would be supported by such a business at any time. After all, WebOS has had no more than 2 "current" phones at any time (Pre/Pixi, Pre+/Pixi+, Veer/Pre2, Pre3) in the past.

I'd be fine with having ONE WebOS phone available on Sprint that was on more or less current hardware. Compared to a Pre-, the original Evo would be a massive hardware upgrade.

[Mikey47]

This is covered by decades-old, established legal precedent from the early Linux days. You can't charge for the software when the license dictates it cannot be sold BUT you can charge for physical media, a handling fee to cover loading the free software onto the physical media, and the shipping of said media. I.e. Slackware can be downloaded for free or you can pay someone else $5 to download it, burn it to CD and mail it to you.

Installation of the software is a service, separate from the distribution. It is perfectly legal to charge for installing free drivers; Best Buy does it all the time.

<snip>

He was talking about ignoring the licensing on the closed source drivers that would have to be used, not the open source code nor the legalities of charging a fee to do something with that code.

[richiemoe]

I've always focused on my strengths and paid someone else for things i don't accel at. Simple business. Basically, if i wanted WebOS on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, would anyone be willing to install it on the phone for me and make sure it works for a reasonable price?

i understand there could be some glitches. there are glitches on Pre2 and were on my Treo755p. sorry if it seemed like an open ended question. i meant it to be very simple. :-)

Thank you everyone for posting though! there are a lot of things involved in the process that i had no clue about.

[samab]

You are not discussing the point of the OP.

He simply asked if there will be a service available where he can pay someone to port webOS over to a phone.

The answer is certainly . Yes

He did not ask if it would be possible to port webos to every phone in existence , which is the question you seem to be answering.

There will be some phones that will be easier to port to than others, and some not at all.

But the OP wasn't asking that.

When webOSinternals gives a guideline of what is required for a port, those questions will be answered.



-- Sent from my Palm Veer using Forums

You are simply stating that there is a possibility that some ***** will ignore all conventional wisdom and start a business with questionable legality, with questionable technical do-ability and with basically zero customers. You are basically counting on one nut who buys one particular phone model in the future, is lucky that all 9 planets line-up in a straight line at the same time that he got all the drivers he needed, ignores all kinds of legal issues and post a website charging $20 to do this service ---- and you are lucky to have that exact same phone model as that nut.

I am simply stating --- don't be an ***** to even try to start such a business.

Maybe I am dating myself --- but this is like the episode where Seinfeld told Babu that it was a good idea to start a Pakistani restaurant.

[samab]

I've always focused on my strengths and paid someone else for things i don't accel at. Simple business. Basically, if i wanted WebOS on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, would anyone be willing to install it on the phone for me and make sure it works for a reasonable price?

You are talking about webos with a qualcomm chipset and a Galaxy Nexus with a TI OMAP chipset. You can go and read the interviews from HP executives about the "potential" of licensing of webos to other handset manufacturers 3-4 months ago --- they said it right out that it's impossible because webos has a million tiny hardcoded things to make it run efficiently on a qualcomm chipset. It would take eons for HP to extend these hardcoded stuff to other chipsets --- and that's when HP still has all their engineers.

Microsoft windows mobile is basically hardcoded to qualcomm chipset as well --- so much so that Nokia had to ditch their long-time preferred chipset supplier and Nokia had to use their mortal enemy's chipset (qualcomm).

[sketch42]

You are simply stating that there is a possibility that some ***** will ignore all conventional wisdom and start a business with questionable legality, with questionable technical do-ability and with basically zero customers. You are basically counting on one nut who buys one particular phone model in the future, is lucky that all 9 planets line-up in a straight line at the same time that he got all the drivers he needed, ignores all kinds of legal issues and post a website charging $20 to do this service ---- and you are lucky to have that exact same phone model as that nut.

I am simply stating --- don't be an ***** to even try to start such a business.

Maybe I am dating myself --- but this is like the episode where Seinfeld told Babu that it was a good idea to start a Pakistani restaurant.

whatever the case , where there is money to be made.. It will be


-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities

[eblade]

samab, charging someone or accepting money to perform a service is -completely- different from the distribution of software. Even in the case of distribution of software, so long as you have a license to distribute it, even if it must be distributed "FREE", in most places, you can at least charge for the media and cost of shipping/delivery.

You're not even talking about the same -sport- everyone else is, let alone the same -game-. Your arguments are completely irrelevant to the original post, as well as most of the replies to your arguments.

[Mikey47]

whatever the case , where there is money to be made.. It will be

I think this is the only answer the OP needed.

[samab]

samab, charging someone or accepting money to perform a service is -completely- different from the distribution of software. Even in the case of distribution of software, so long as you have a license to distribute it, even if it must be distributed "FREE", in most places, you can at least charge for the media and cost of shipping/delivery.

You're not even talking about the same -sport- everyone else is, let alone the same -game-. Your arguments are completely irrelevant to the original post, as well as most of the replies to your arguments.

My arguments are completely relevant as the OP subsequently posted that he posted the thread because he wanted to see if someone would say --- provide a service to put webos into the Galaxy Nexus which uses a different chipset than the current webos handsets.

And you have HP executives telling their own employees in the all hands meetings that it is impossible for HP to try to license webos to other handset manufacturers because they use different chipsets. This is HP themselves with the source code, with 600 employees and have the money to pay the licensing fees for all these drivers on different chipsets.

Sure maybe someone will be successful in booting webos on a Galaxy Nexus, but it wouldn't be any good because none of the codes will be optimized and you are going to have a 2 hour battery life.

[sketch42]

Sure maybe someone will be successful in booting webos on a Galaxy Nexus, but it wouldn't be any good because none of the codes will be optimized and you are going to have a 2 hour battery life.

and therefore someone will charge for it


-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities

[samab]

and therefore someone will charge for it


-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities

And by the time you optimize the codes for that particular phone, Samsung would have released a newer phone.

[samab]

whatever the case , where there is money to be made.. It will be


-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities

Guess what is the first thing webos geeks did with the open source codes?

They port enyo apps to the Android platform. They ain't coming back.