[gagetbOy]

title says it all I think. I'm unclear how a open source project could be bought.

the fact that their are still license and patents for the os makes me think that reason that no other company will ever put webos on a device is becauses its not really free. Same thing with porting over ui elements like the cards or just type. Because they still have to pay royalties when android is free. Is this accurate? If so how does that bode for the phoenix project will they never be able to sell hardware with webos without hp getting royalties?

can anyone help me figure this out?

[NCCaniac]

Technically the "open source" code was not bought. When LG purchased webOS from HP, they bought the webOS code that HP was using and licensing rights to the patents that underpin webOS. What LG also agreed to do was, as the owner of the non-open source webOS, to continue to collaborate with the community that works on open webOS and to continue to contribute code to that project from time to time as they see fit. Most open source projects that have ongoing development have one or more corporate "sponsors" who actively participate in the community that continues to advance the open source code.

So, LG is agreeing to continue supporting the effort instead of HP. LG is not obligated to do this, so the fact that they are willing to do this as part of the contract to buy the proprietary webOS is positive....at least more positive than if they had said we do not care about open webOS.

[Vity Traff]

Because they still have to pay royalties when android is free.

Microsoft extracts Android tax from Samsung

And for the xxxxxxxxxth times webOS ≠ oenwebos.
Openwebos is under apache 2 license: Apache License - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[gagetbOy]

Technically the "open source" code was not bought. When LG purchased webOS from HP, they bought the webOS code that HP was using and licensing rights to the patents that underpin webOS. What LG also agreed to do was, as the owner of the non-open source webOS, to continue to collaborate with the community that works on open webOS and to continue to contribute code to that project from time to time as they see fit. Most open source projects that have ongoing development have one or more corporate "sponsors" who actively participate in the community that continues to advance the open source code.

So, LG is agreeing to continue supporting the effort instead of HP. LG is not obligated to do this, so the fact that they are willing to do this as part of the contract to buy the proprietary webOS is positive....at least more positive than if they had said we do not care about open webOS.

ok I thought it was something like this but couldn't discern from the press release so they bought the last remaining pieces of webos that couldn't be opensourced, thanks help a bunch

[gagetbOy]

Microsoft extracts Android tax from Samsung

And for the xxxxxxxxxth times webOS ≠ oenwebos.
Openwebos is under apache 2 license: Apache License - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

knew someone was going to bring this up, microsoft claims rights to some of linux and tries to charge everyone for it but they usually only go after the big ones, zte and other small oems don't get taxed.

[Vity Traff]

knew someone was going to bring this up, microsoft claims rights to some of linux and tries to charge everyone for it but they usually only go after the big ones, zte and other small oems don't get taxed.

Didn't know Acer, Aluratek, Coby Electronics and Nikon were "big" Android oem's.
Anyway my point was that open source & "free" software doesn't necessarily exclude patents and other license fees.
Linux is free of charge but Red hat charges for their enterprise distributions.
Openwebos (the open source part of webOS we used to know) is free of charge and anyone can use redistribute and modify it without any trouble as long as he complains with Apache license terms. If an oem wants to use some others HP/Palm IP that are not under the Apache license he has to find an agreement with HP the same way Android oem would do with Google if they want to use Moto's IP.