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0 pointscommandar14y ago0 comments

>The only thing closed source was the Luna desktop environment.

So the only thing that was closed source was the part of the system that the user directly interacts with. Gotcha.

Andy Rubin's definition of open is the one that a lot of the hacker community can abide by:

https://twitter.com/#!/arubin/statuses/27808662429

It's impossible to do anything similar with WebOS right now.

>I fail to see how your last point proves anything, all points considered.

The kind of people that care about being able to hack on a system want full access to the system. Android provides that. The fact that Android is running on devices that the manufacturers of those devices never intended to run Android proves it.

People that want open devices will generally prefer open software. There's absolutely nothing befuddling about that.

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freehunter14y ago· 2 in thread

  The kind of people that care about being able to hack on a system want full access to the system. Android provides that. The fact that Android is running on devices that the manufacturers of those devices never intended to run Android proves it.

The kind of people that care about being able to hack on a system should care that their device was designed to be hacked on and isn't going to force them to break it. Palm/HP hardware provides that. The fact that Debian/Ubuntu runs with very little modification and Android runs quite readily proves it.

WebOS never realized its full potential due to market forces, but the fact that the hardware still stands and is so easily hackable is a testament to the hardware design. It strikes me as odd that people are so willing to defend Android, in all its general customer unfriendliness at the hands of carriers/manufacturers, but since it's "open source", they're willing to overlook closed hardware and locked bootloaders. The Pre was (more) open hardware with a (mostly) open system, rooted by default with no carrier lockdowns.

Palm even gave directions on their website on how to launch a new kernel, and supported a side-loading market for kernel modifications. And they gave directions on how to unbrick your device should the new kernel fail. Is that not hacker-friendly enough?

commandarOP14y ago

>Is that not hacker-friendly enough?

You're focusing on hardware when everyone else is talking about software. The point is that Android can be made to run on arbitrary hardware because it's open.

> but since it's "open source",

Explain the use of scare quotes. Android is, by every reasonable definition, open source software.

By any reasonable definition, Android as an operating system was more open than WebOS from day one. I can build a complete, working Android system and run Android applications on it if I want. You cannot do the same with WebOS.

>The Pre was (more) open hardware with a (mostly) open system, rooted by default with no carrier lockdowns.

Except you were locked into Palm (and only Palm) hardware by the license. The Android platform is completely portable; the WebOS platform is not.

freehunter14y ago

I didn't intend for that to be scare quotes, I intended for it to sarcasm quotes. People hide behind the open source name even if open source means nothing. It doesn't matter if your OS is open source if your hardware can't be made to boot your newly-compiled version. WebOS, in my opinion, balances base-Linux with open (enough) hardware better than the Android phones with an open source system (except for 3.0) and completely closed hardware.

I'm not talking strictly hardware, though you may be talking strictly software. That may be where the disagreement is stemming from. The point of the article is about the locked bootloader restricting access to the hardware. I'm posing my opinion that Palm WebOS devices were more open than a good number of Android-based handsets, overall. With market support, WebOS could have been the open-iPhone. I put "open source" in sarcasm-quotes because the tradeoff is freedom of your hardware.

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