科技英语新闻:HP keeps webOS software by making it open source

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- Hewlett-Packard (HP) on Friday announced that it is keeping the webOS software alive by contributing it to the open source community.

The company said it will make the underlying code of webOS available under an open source license and will engage the open source community to help define the charter of the open source project.

"WebOS is the only platform designed from the ground up to be mobile, cloud-connected and scalable," Meg Whitman, HP's chief executive officer, said in a statement.

"By contributing this innovation, HP unleashes the creativity of the open source community to advance a new generation of applications and devices," she added.

HP said it will remain active in the development and support of webOS, while the source code will be available for use and improvement by anyone choosing to download it, which means other hardware manufacturers can also use the software.

With the help of the open source community, HP can save development and other costs and the new announcement is expected to result in more layoffs from its webOS team, some analysts noted.

The webOS is a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm which was acquired by HP last April for 1.2 billion U.S. dollars.

In February this year, HP released TouchPad, its first tablet computer which runs the webOS operating system. The device didn't sell well, and HP in August decided to completely shut down webOS hardware business, including TouchPad and webOS phones.

HP then said that it will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.

By keeping the software open source, users of webOS devices will continue to receive software improvements and updates in the future, HP noted.

"As webOS gains traction as an open source alternative in the marketplace, you could see webOS on several different types of devices by any number of vendors. We will explore the viability of putting webOS on devices, just as we do for other leading operating systems," the company said in a corporate blog post.