Developers get webOS working on Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Android phones are well known for their openness. One simply has to look at the large variety of custom-built ROMs available for Android devices for evidence of the openness of the hardware as well as the software. Developers have achieved great feats such as porting over Linux to Android devices. Recently, according to a post on The Open WebOS Project blog, developers have successfully ported WebOS to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. The developers have also released a video that demonstrates WebOS running on the Galaxy Nexus.

According to Tom King of webOS-Ports, “The Community has been working right along with HP to make this a reality.  With every release of code we have continued to track along and get things working with hardware, as much as possible, till today’s release let us put it all together, Kudos go the WebOS Ports team and especially Morphis, JaMa, and GNUtoo for working to get us to this point.” King has mentioned that the developers are now working on hardware acceleration which will greatly improve the performance and general usability.

Along with the port to the Galaxy Nexus, The Open WebOS Project also celebrated the release of Open webOS 1.0. “Our combined efforts with the community and hard work have paid off, and we are now ready to move on to the next phase together. With this release we have affirmed our commitment to meet our goals and create a vibrant open source community,” says the post.

Now running WebOS!

Martin Risau, SVP of the Open WebOS Project, said that he was, “proud that we did what we said we would do in January. This achievement gives us the credibility to execute our future plans.”

Along with the release of webOS 1.0, the Open WebOS Project has also listed some improvements that are planned for subsequent releases of the OS. These improvements include QT5/Webkit2, Open sourced media and audio components, BlueZ Bluetooth stack, ConnMan network management, and Optimised SysMgr rendering architecture.

Last year, HP, who had acquired WebOS, decided along with Palm to release the operating system under an open source license. HP's CEO Meg Whitman had sent out a company wide e-mail stating that making WebOS open source, "is the best way to ensure the benefits of webOS are accessible to the largest possible ecosystem."

HP had also released their TouchPad tablets for developers of WebOS. HP had offered its TouchPads to the developers as a part of their Developer Device Program, and through the program they provided the developers' coupons. The coupon translates to buying as many as two 32GB TouchPads at the discounted price.