HP Finally Outs Open-Source Version of WebOS

Last week, Hewlett-Packard (News - Alert) released an early open-source version of its WebOS mobile operating system, allowing outside companies and programmers to use it however they want. Considering HP hasn't had any luck with the OS since acquiring it in 2010, this is a very positive way to handle the situation, as the company could just bury it forever.

Indeed, some digging has found that HP may not be planning to deal with WebOS directly anymore, since the number of employees working on the mobile OS has declined steadily since December when the company announced its intentions to make it open source. In December, 600 employees were working on WebOS and last week, HP declined to say how many were still working on it. According to a number of employees' LinkedIn profiles, however, as few as 90 employees are currently working on WebOS.

Meanwhile, many of those who previously worked on WebOS at HP have since moved on to work at Apple, Google (News - Alert), Nokia, Sprint, Qualcomm, Intel, Microsoft, Lab126 and Barnes & Noble.

HP can hardly be blamed for wanting to move away from WebOS. The company's TouchPad running the mobile platform lasted only seven weeks on the market in 2011 before HP abandoned it due to weak sales.

It may seem strange that HP announced WebOS would go open source back in December, but nothing has turned up until last week, but Enda McGrath, director of worldwide developer relations at WebOS, has stated that the platform has taken so long to become an open-source product because its proprietary parts had to be replaced with open-source code.

Even though HP may not want much to do with WebOS anymore, the company still has high hopes that opening the software up could make it a hit on mobile devices, sensors, security devices and even robots. Hey, it worked wonders for Google's open-source Android (News - Alert) OS.

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