HP Opens Up Some More webOS Open Source Treasure Chests

From DailyTech: WebOS is relatively defunct at Hewlett-Packard Comp. (HPQ), but it's not quite dead. While the company reportedly continues to trim the already skeleton crew team of webOS staffers, the company has also continued to do a respectable job offering up open source releases of the webOS API, in hopes that independent developers will embrace the platform.

The company just delivered a host of goodies, including an open sourced version of Enyo 2.0, the web application framework that webOS apps on the TouchPad (along with a handful of apps on the phone) can run on. Enyo 2.0 brings a number improvements over the first version. Most importantly it switches the core JavaScript engine from V8 to JavaScriptCore.

This change allowed HP to also bundle a new and improved open source browser named Isis, which is built on JavaScriptCore and utilizes the QtWebKit layout engine (which in turn is derived from the Qt GUI engine by Nokia Oyj. (HEL:NOK1V) and the WebKit rendering/layout engine from Apple, Inc. (AAPL), Google Inc. (GOOG), Nokia, et al.).

The new web browser is "extremely responsive" according to webOS chief technology officer Sam Greenblatt.

Aside from the new browser, the new WebKit compatibility in Enyo 2.0 allows developers to creates apps for webOS via developing on Google's Chrome or Apple's Safari browsers. The entire Gzipped Enyo 2.0 core takes up only 13.0 KB, allowing developers to create custom redistributables with apps packed in.

Looking ahead, in two months HP will air Enyo 2.1 and the Ares 2.0 interface builder tool for apps -- both free and open source. Then in September HP hopes to roll out "Open webOS 1.0", which it will update all existing devices with. That OS will be freely open to modification and redistribution, making it possible for tinkerers to enjoy dual-boot Android/webOS tablets in the near future.

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