After the failure of the HP TouchPad tablet and Pre and Veer smartphones, HP discontinued all of its webOS hardware last year. But the company didn’t kill off the operating system. Instead, HP has started to convert webOS into an open source project, and Open webOS is due out later this year.

Then what?

It’s not actually clear. HP may or may not ever release another device running the operating system, and if HP hasn’t committed to using the operating system how can we expect any third party companies to adopt it as an alternative to Android, iOS, or Windows Phone?

Enter Phoenix International Communications – a team of volunteers interested in picking up where HP leaves off.

The Phoenix team plans to do a couple of things with webOS once the source code becomes available.

First, they plan to port it to run on existing hardware. In other words, not only will you be able to run open webOS on your aging HP TouchPad tablet. But if the Phoenix team has its way you’ll also be able to run it unofficially on the latest Asus, Samsung, or HTC phones or tablets.

They’re also hoping to tweak the operating system and improve on the software that HP offers.

In other words, Phoenix could become sort of a CyanogenMod for webOS.

But the team also has grander goals. Eventually they’re hoping to work with hardware makers to offer devices with custom versions of webOS.

There’s no guarantee any of that will happen. But it’s good to see that there’s at least a small group of independent developers interested in doing something with webOS once HP goes through the hard work of getting it ready to release as open source.

via webOS Nation

Brad Linder

Brad Linder is editor of Liliputing and Mobiputing. He's been tinkering with mobile tech for decades and writing about it since 2006. Brad has also worked with NPR, WHYY, PRI, and AOL.

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