Here's an open source version of webos

Hewlett-Packard has released an open source version of webOS that can be used on legacy TouchPad tablets, the Open webOS project team announced recently. The ‘Community Edition’ enables users to learn how the TouchPad works and how to modify the device.

The code can be used to modify TouchPads in order to let developers learn how the OS works and prepare them to apply that knowledge to Open webOS 1.0 in the future, the team said on their website. Developers can use the Community Edition release to modify the card view, launcher and notifications, among other things.

The source code was made available online for download and can be used under the Apache License, Version 2.0, which is one of the more permissive licences, allowing developers to mix open source code with their own inventions and sell products using the combined code.

The Open webOS team worked closely with the webOS Internals team to release the Community Edition. The release of webOS Community Edition comes in the run-up to the release of Open webOS 1.0, planned for September 2012. The 1.0 release will include modernised technologies to enable developers to port webOS to their own hardware, according to the team. Besides, the September release will allow developers to integrate open source technologies such as the BlueZ Linux Bluetooth protocol stack and the GStreamer open source multimedia framework.