News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by freehunter on Friday December 09, 2011 @02:24PM (#3335149)
They did mention they wanted to control the development of the system to avoid fragmentation, so the license may be more restrictive than Android. Full open-source but cannot sell devices with wildly custom builds without HP's approval seems to be okay with me. As long as they leave a clause for being able to legally share your custom homebrew ROMs, they can put as many restrictions on hardware manufacturers as they like.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by rbanffy on Friday December 09, 2011 @03:56PM (#3335567)
> the license may be more restrictive than Android.

Not necessarily. The WebOS name is trademarked and they can just prohibit its use unless the software adheres to a certain quality goal.

Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by av500 on Friday December 09, 2011 @05:08PM (#3335845)
Yes, that was true for Meego as well and see where it got them...
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by ra on Saturday December 10, 2011 @02:05AM (#3337168)
Like Red Hat is trademarked, which lead to CentOS.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by scotu on Friday December 09, 2011 @03:05PM (#3335336)
I think there's no way to adhere to open source definition and restrict that. And it is a good thing
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by freehunter on Friday December 09, 2011 @03:07PM (#3335355)
There certainly is. The source code is free and open, but the license to distribute your changes for money is not. There are many licenses like this, especially when copyrights are involved.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by hugoroy on Friday December 09, 2011 @03:13PM (#3335379)
Well, obviously you haven't understood what free software is http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by freehunter on Friday December 09, 2011 @03:17PM (#3335399)
There are other licenses besides the GPL. And you can even make your own license. It's not at all uncommon for open source projects to have a "not for profit" clause attached to their copyright.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by hugoroy on Friday December 09, 2011 @03:22PM (#3335432)
I did not point you to the definition of copyleft or the definition of GPL, but to the definition of Free Software. If you read the definition of "Open Source" by OSI, or the DFSG by Debian, they're very similar and clear: the (royalty-free) license includes the right to make derivative work and publish/distribute the modifications.

None of the definitions above include "not for profit" clause as valid. If you have not for profit clause or non commercial or alike, it's NOT free software or "open source". (It's "freeware" or "shareware" or whatever.)

If you make your own license with such a clause, no one will consider it free or "open source." You can call it that way, but you'll just look foolish believe me.

Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by rwolf on Friday December 09, 2011 @04:06PM (#3335612)
None of the groups mentioned control the definition of "open source." I cannot control what looks foolish to you, but the phrase "open source" is tossed around a lot more casually on this site than you seem to believe.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by oakgrove on Sunday December 11, 2011 @12:53AM (#3339397)
You have no idea what you are talking about.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by rwolf on Sunday December 11, 2011 @08:52PM (#3341870)
I think it would be more productive to promote the licenses whose values line up with your own than trying to police the language. For my part, I will keep pointing out the ridiculousness of saying "$neologism != $foo, because $blog_post says $nelogism = $bar."
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by freehunter on Friday December 09, 2011 @04:02PM (#3335598)
Ah, I see, so you can take the trademarked name of any open source project and modify and distribute the software under that name, for profit, and everyone will be okay with it. Otherwise some people will think the vendor looks foolish. I see.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by nailer on Friday December 09, 2011 @04:52PM (#3335795)
You're paraphrasing the parent, and seem to be confusing Open Source (which is a class of licenses) with trademarks.

You're right, HP still control the trademarks. But for a license to meet the Open Source Definition, there can be no 'non-commercial' restrictions.

So selling 'Foo' (derived from WebOS) is fine.But using the WebOS trademark isn't.

Just like Oracle distribute and sell support for 'Oracle Enterprise Linux' - 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux' is a trademark that belongs to Red Hat.

Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by pessimizer on Saturday December 10, 2011 @12:22PM (#3337937)
See CentOS; reduce sarcasm.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by freehunter on Sunday December 11, 2011 @06:13PM (#3341454)
But is CentOS called "Red Hat"? No, it's called CentOS. With the comment I made, I was saying you wouldn't be able to release WebOS without HP's permission. Just like you can't release Red Hat without Red Hat's permission, so you fork it and use your own trademark.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by hugoroy on Tuesday December 13, 2011 @09:20AM (#3347523)
That's a totally different matter which has nothing to do with what you were talking about earlier. Trademark and Free Software are two completely different things… (unlike copyright and patent law, where the code itself is directly licensed under copyright law and has to deal with patent law; however there is almost never a trademark license…)
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by sciurus on Friday December 09, 2011 @06:24PM (#3336136)
The open source definition and free software definition both prohibit a "not for profit" clause. What is something that you consider to be an "open source project" that has such a clause?

http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by rwolf on Friday December 09, 2011 @07:11PM (#3336303)
That's a good question. I thought Zed Shaw had licensed lamson under those terms, but I see nothing about that on his github right now.

While I can't find a use in the wild, an example of a license I would consider to be: * open source * prohibit for profit use is: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

You are welcome to say that creative commons is not open source (many people whose opinions I value highly feel that way), but it is commonly described in those terms (or at least it was when it first came out while I was in college).

Also, here is a plug for the world's greatest license (I'm tragically not affiliated with the author): http://davispj.com/2010/02/19/agpl-not-awesome-gpl.html

Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by xyzzyz on Saturday December 10, 2011 @07:18AM (#3337472)
Open Source is not only about access to the source code, just like Free Software is not only about software price. By using these terms inappropriately, you only create misunderstanding and confusion, so please don't.

CC licenses are not supposed to be used as software licenses anyway.

Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by rwolf on Sunday December 11, 2011 @08:54PM (#3341877)
I'm not trying to push a viewpoint--I'm trying to describe the current use of a phrase. How I feel about licenses does not change the way the phrase "open source" is used here and elsewhere.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by j_col on Friday December 09, 2011 @02:48PM (#3335273)
I really hope they manage to do that, and avoid the fragmentation that Android experienced, especially with multiple app stores and no centralised over-the-air update mechanism.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by Karunamon on Friday December 09, 2011 @04:52PM (#3335796)

  especially with multiple app stores
I hope you're not seriously saying that having multiple app stores is a weakness of some kind.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by freehunter on Friday December 09, 2011 @09:34PM (#3336706)
It is when vendors lock out the public app store in favor of their own (Kindle Fire).
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by j_col on Friday December 09, 2011 @05:28PM (#3335939)
Yes I am.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by Karunamon on Saturday December 10, 2011 @12:29AM (#3337024)
Huh. Where I come from, people having a choice as to where they can get their apps is a Good Thing©. Care to elaborate why you think it's so bad?
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by 4ad on Saturday December 10, 2011 @06:33AM (#3337425)
Choice? Some vendors lock you in allowing you to use only their app store.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by j_col on Saturday December 10, 2011 @06:45AM (#3337438)
In a word: fragmentation. Just look at what Amazon have done with the Fire. Separate branch of Android with a separate app store. Same thing happening to webOS would be bad news.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by div on Saturday December 10, 2011 @08:34AM (#3337532)
The problem is not having 2 or more app stores, the problem is having 2 or more app stores that are mutually exclusive.
Re:HP to Contribute webOS to Open Source by j_col on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @04:10AM (#3351164)
Is there an example of two or more app stores that are not?