Looks like HP is going to kill webOS. HP webOS as a part of the Palm acquisition. I sometimes wonder why did HP acquire Palm in the first place?  anyways,  webOS is the new operating system which Palm decided to ditch their OS kernel use Linux as their kernel as Linux has mult-tasking. Since webOS is already based on Linux, they should open source the layer on top. How will this help?
It will make webOS live, there are thousands of applications for the Palm platform which will continue to have moment. Open Source developers can continue maintaining webOS without any cost to HP.
It will give the market a new alternative to Android, where there isn’t really much options today for phone makers. iOS is by Apple only, Symbian isn’t going anywhere and Windows Mobile is a non-starter.
If it gains Momentum, HP could start offering it to their customers. If not people could at-least use the good bits for their applications.
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Also, BeOS.
The killing off of the Pre and TouchPad by HP has little to do with WEBOS and is more about being fashionable and following the crowd. In my opinion WEBOS is far superior to any other OS on a hand held device so I think it would be a crying shame if it were lost to the world.