Those of you who've followed my writing for a while know that I'm a refugee from the Great webOS Collapse of 2011, and there's still a lot I miss and love about the platform. While I try to write about it as often as I can, the sad truth is there's not a lot of news about the "little OS that couldn't" these days - things are pretty quiet as it marches toward open source. So I'm kind of waiting along with everyone else for that to wrap up this fall. Until then, though, I'm still using webOS somewhat often via my HP TouchPad. Sometimes I even pull the tiny HP Veer out of storage and relive ...

HP decided to make webOS open source back in December 2011 after plans for selling or licensing out the platform didn't work out. However, HP's CEO Meg Whitman still believes in the potential of the ex-Palm mobile platform, with a twist. "We're going to build another operating system that has huge advantages, in my view, over iOS, which is a closed system, Android, which is incredibly fragmented and may ultimately be more closed with

Last month, HP revealed the ultimate fate of webOS, which, instead of ending up locked-away tight in the company's IP vault, would see itself released for the first time as an open source project. Ultimately, that will give dedicated webOS fans that opportunity to continue evolving the operating system, as well as create opportunities for interested companies to manufacture new products based on the platform. Making sure that all its in-house webOS resources are ready to be released to the public is a serious undertaking for HP to bear, and it's going to take some time. Today, the company ...

$1.2 billion was the amount HP spent on acquiring Palm, together with webOS, back in April 2010 and allegedly it's the same amount the company asked for when it tried to sell before killing webOS and turning it open source. According to Paul Mercer, former senior director of software at Palm, there was little hope for webOS from the very beginning. "Palm was ahead of its time in trying to build a phone software platform using Web technology, and we just weren't able to execute such an ambitious and breakthrough design", he added, before saying that "perhaps it never could have been ...

Despite what HP has done to webOS in the past month, those of you out there rocking an HP Pre3 will be lucky to find out that there is an update rolling out to your devices over-the-air. The new webOS 2.2.4 refresh weighs anywhere between 29MB to 9MB, depending on whether your phone is on AT&T, Verizon or in Europe. So what's in the package? A "variety of software improvements", as described by HP themselves, meaning the refresh will likely fix a couple of issues users were having; it's a general bugfix release but nonetheless welcome. Source: webOS Nation

As if today's announcement from HP that it was releasing the code for webOS to the open source community wasn't enough good news for die-hard fans of the platform (and maybe even some of those who never had a chance to check it out, but were always curious), the revelations continue thanks to an interview with HP CEO Meg Whitman and board member Marc Andreessen. This time the news is a double-edged sword, but the important takeaway is that HP is by no means done releasing webOS devices. Whitman confirmed plans for new hardware exist, but there's no set schedule at the moment. That means we ...

What will HP end up doing with webOS and its Palm holdings? After announcing intents to essentially abandon the platform (excluding the possibility of its use in embedded systems, or licensing it out), there's been a lot of speculation over what would become of it. We may be about to find out, as HP is reportedly holding a meeting tonight to make up its mind about webOS. Things kicked-off about half an hour ago, and while we haven't heard of any big decisions being made just yet, CEO Meg Whitman has been quoted discussing the uncertainty HP feels over how to proceed. She cited the need for ...

Samsung is allegedly considering the acquisition of HP's abandoned webOS platform, according to recent reports. HP has killed webOS on August 18 and Samsung has been previously rumored to acquire HP's PC division (which turned out to be just a rumor for now). According to a recent DigiTimes report, Samsung intends to purchase webOS from HP. Samsung has already lured in HP's ex-vice president of PSG marketing Raymond Wah to handle Samsung's PC sales and, according to "sources from notebook players", the Korean phone-maker set an eye out for webOS too. Samsung already has its own mobile ...