[dokha]

when i heard about open webos i assumed its gonna be exactly the same except tll be open, until i came across this Open webOS: What It Means | Pocketnow
speifically this part

If you nodded off there for a second, the upshot is this: the UI of Open webOS strongly resembles the webOS we all know and love, with its distinctive cards-based multitasking and bottom-anchored dock. The foundation, though, has been replaced.  Whereas Palm’s webOS was built on a custom Linux kernel, Open webOS, according to the platform’s new home at openwebosproject.org, “operate[s] using typical open practices: the Project uses the Apache 2.0 license, is hosted on GitHub, and accepts contributions via a Certificate of Origin approach.”

the highlighted part concerns me, i dont get it..what does that mean to users like me? and why did they do that in the first place?

if the foundation changes then the experience must have changed too ..

i really dont want anything changing if its not broken.

[bluenote]

You will still be able to use the current version of webOS on your current devices.

For the new openwebOS, they had to use code that was free in place of some of the bits that HP paid other companies to use. Wait until you see what it looks like before you get worried. You may like the improvements more than you are upset at the changes.

[dokha]

You will still be able to use the current version of webOS on your current devices.

For the new openwebOS, they had to use code that was free in place of some of the bits that HP paid other companies to use. Wait until you see what it looks like before you get worried. You may like the improvements more than you are upset at the changes.

thats good to hear

[geekpeter]

the foundation changed in this case just means replacing propriety intelectual code that other companys own which HP/palm had to use/licence and change into freely availably alternatives as HP/palm couldnt just release another companys code to the masses for free as thats kind of against the law.

[laoh]

At this point, isn't Open webOS a watered down version of webOS b/c a lot of the code has been stripped out?

[eblade]

Several components of webOS have not (yet?) been made open source, but much of what makes the system work has been.

It's not merely a removal and replacement of formerly proprietary code, the basic components that make up Open webOS have been significantly upgraded, for example, the TouchPad used Qt 4.6, I think, and Open uses Qt 4.8 (i know 0.2 increase doesn't sound like a lot, but in Qt 4 terms, it's years of development), it uses a much newer QtWebKit, hundreds of packages are much much newer and using a lot fewer custom bits outside of the bits that actually make it webOS.

Upgrades are still happening, as you can see if you follow the development branches, much work has been done to convert the system to work in Qt5, and to rebuild a lot of bits that were engineered in ways that don't really even make sense to anyone anymore.