Some interesting things Palm related came from the Sprint Open Developers Conference last month; we heard reports of a Pre running on AT&T's network, Palm unveiled their Ares development platform, and Palm engineers showcased the flexibility of webOS by adding code to the Alarm clock app live.
One of the more unusual things (in terms of carrier behavior) to take place over the course of the three day event was a presentation given by the evangelist for the WebOS Internals group: Rick Boatright. Yes, you read that right - Sprint invited a member of the most prolific open source webOS hacking and tweaking group to talk at its event.
The topics in the presentation range from an overview of the community and its rapid rate of growth, their relationship with Palm, tools the enthusiast community have developed, Rick's thoughts on what open source can mean, the importance of community and more. There were also some interesting statistics: there have been 1200 unique users edit the wiki, it took the webOS community 12 days to access the underlying Linux operating system, and there's about a 5% penetration of users using tools like Preware versus a rate of about 10% for jailbroken iPhones.
For those who are unfamiliar, WebOS Internals is a group of programmers and champions of open source who are responsible for the WebOS Internals wiki, Preware, the first video capture program for webOS, an on-device IRC client, hundreds of patches, and much, much more.
The presentation clocks in at a lengthy 45 minutes, and like Ben and Dion's recent interview, is recommended viewing. It's great to how Palm has been embracing the open source community and those who have been stepping outside of the official lines in their work with webOS.
You can watch the presentation here. Here's a direct link to a movie file for Silverlight haters.
Comments
AMAZING!
Before we get all the comments here too ...
Yes, we know you need Microsoft Silverlight (which is not open source) to view a presentation about open source.
Yes, we know that's ironic.
Yes, we know you can't view it on a Pre.
No, the presentation was not recorded by WebOS Internals, it was recorded by Sprint.
No, the presentation is not published by WebOS Internals, it is published by Sprint.
Yes, we're interested if anyone is able to convert it into an OSS-friendly format.
-- Rod
cant hear nothingit sucks
BTW, WebOS Internals is responsible for packaging the 100s of patches into a form that is safe to install, update and remove, but the individual patches themselves are created by many individual authors, not by WebOS Internals (in general - we created some of the patches, but far from all of them).
-- Rod
(applaud) BRAVO PALM!!!
really a good move by palm, showing that they do support the open source community. this is the way to go if you do want your software to be run by the public, you give them the green light and provide some gas for them and the commute will put that gas into good use. especially inviting webos internals to give off a presentation, who in my opinion Webos internals will be the godfather of setting up the webos commute. they have brillitan people working on these patches that the webos users ask for, and how do they listen i say the majority is through forums.
thanks webos internals, and any other homebrew devs, the pre is growing through them and palm
> You can watch the presentation here.
No I can't.
"Silverlight is required to use the Panopto viewer. Please install and restart your browser."
Which is as good as saying "screw anyone not using MS-Windows". (Which includes Pre users).
*Inexcusable*
Perhaps someone can provide a link that doesn't require selling your soul to Microsoft?
I just viewed it on OS X...no souls selling here...of course, I could have just as easily watched it on one of my Wndows machines, too. Don't be a simple minded OS zealot, please.
Watch the name calling. It is hardly being a zealot when I am speaking, factually, as someone who can't watch it. I guess we can cross MacOS off the list. I suppose that is good. I might be over-reacting as a vocal minority; but if the tables were turned and you were in such a position, you might not be all that pleased, either.
*Whatever*
http://files.dwhall.net/screenshots/sodc.png
Totally Doable :P
Kewl... I think
Need the beta moonlight and the moonlight codecs
Trying to get Silverlight (or Mono for that matter) to actually work [correctly], in the real world, under Linux, is often (usually?) a fairly futile affair. Mono (/Moon) is revs behind whatever the current incarnation is. I am surprised it worked for you (didn't for me), but don't be surprised if it breaks soon :)
Not that I have any great love of Flash, but at least it is a single file (not several hundred like Mono/Moon + 57MB), is a current version (10) for all platforms, and something that is likely installed on 99% of all browsers.
In any case, thanks for the info and screenshot. Now see if you can rip the video out and post a theora or 264 or something ;)
I am guessing that ripping and redistributing would be highly illegal but I can give you the direct link to the video.. http://68.142.93.92/a2725/e1/sessions/8fd3135d-9d09-4220-baf4-a723306e0a...
Thanks! Plays great in VLC.
That works perfectly (watching it now)! Thanks!!! Hopefully someone can update the main article with the link.
It is kind of sad only 5% of the users use preware vs 10% Jailbreak for i-phone. Without all the patches the phone is barely functional. I hope the fix the calender soon or some one in precentral comes up with a hack (patch) for placing my old centro calender in pre.
Pre users don't use ms-windows? That's news to me :|
Many do, but many don't. In fact, of all Pre owners I personally know, three of the four use Linux on most or all of their machines.
But if you are posting in response to "(Which includes Pre users)", I was referring to the fact that people using a Pre cannot watch it on their Pre. Not that there are a tremendous number of options for Internet Video on the Pre, but if it were just a fairly-open video file, it could be downloaded and watched. If it were on YouTube, then it could be watched.
This is definitely the area where Palm really has the advantage! I'm so happy to see that they continue to allow developer's creativity by promoting devices and software (Web OS) to the open-source community.
Palm continues to remain the company at the forefront of current and future devices we live our daily (even minute-by-minute) lives with. Ever since they INVENTED THE SMARTPHONE, and even before (when I used the Palm5000 for my daily contacts and calender events), they remain the bar to top for all other technology companies.
Even though I'm a holder of APPL (Bought @ $9, by the way) I just wish the iPhone didn't take off as quickly as it did and those 'everyday Joes' knew what they were missing.
Great work Palm!
I like this idea. Letting those that are not concerned with administrative calls and hearing the voice of the people to speak for this platform. Palm made a great platform and now letting the people make it they way they wanit it!
Very fun to see this being presented through sprint
um. Update mojo. Release the APIs. Thank you.
Make no mistake, Palm is playing the Web OS internals card very VERY well. Not only is it allowing fantastic patches which personalize the Pre, thus making users become more personal with their Pre, but it also allows us users to take the load off of Palm. 1000 heads working together to better WebOS is better than even a team of advanced experts coming up with patches. Kudos Palm, it is because of WebOS internals that I am still with Palm. The ability for Palm be "ok" with this is a huge benefit.
I am new to the pre I just downloaded the hombrew apps a couple of days ago . I updated and lost everything but my contacts is there and easier way to up date without going through all steps again?
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WE KNOW IT IS IN SILVERLIGHT. SPRINT DID THAT NOT US COMPLAIN TO SPRINT.
Direct video link (without the powerpoint) at
http://tinyurl.com/rick-at-sprint-vid (windows media) <
The power point is at
http://tinyurl.com/rick-at-sprint-ppt
(Link to google docs version of ppt. If you don't like google docs ask for it to make a ppt for you. )
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I was really hoping for some comments about my presentation and not about Silverlight or sprint's decision to use it.
BTW, the REASON they used it was so that they could sync the video with the powerpoint.
Yes, yes, there were other ways to accomplish that. TALK TO SPRINT.
Now, please pretty please, back to discussing the presentation.
Thanks
Rick Boatright
Since I was supplied a link I could actually watch (through actions in the comments- which is a good thing, BTW), I watched it!
And I enjoyed it too.
I hope the presentation opened up some minds and answered a lot of questions to an audience that might not really understand the concept of open source, open communities, developer interaction, and other types of innovation. It is openness and flexibility that will keep Palm/WebOS alive since there will be no dearth of touchscreen, multipurpose phones on the market.
I'm as far from being a developer as there is but this is exciting and I am 100% confident that it is going to lead to a great ecosystem.
Thanks everyone for all you are contributing
When you talked about open source not necessarily meaning free it reminded me of so many discussions I have seen with people who *refuse* to pay for software, especially if it is open source. People don't seem to realize that you are paying for the developers time and not the code involved. Open Source code must be available and one could download, compile, and package it up if they chose but it is much easier for most to pay a small nominal fee to have someone else do it for them. Like you said in your presentation, most developers working in large communities get back much much more than they put into it and that only benefits the end user in the long run. One day most of the old school open source zealots will be weeded out and this discussion will be mook. The problem with society today is that once you give away something, It becomes expected.
Great presentation by the way. It usually takes alot for me to sit through 45 minutes of video but I was able to focus on the whole thing so kudos to you.
Palm truly is the "Anti-crApple" company as several weeks back, there was an app denied for "using unapproved API's" and the Palm Dev guy Chuq came out and said, "use it as a homebrew app for now" which is absolutely amazing. Then you have the alternative.
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking-illegal
But yep, Apple's the bestest company in the whole wide world.. *rolls eyes*
;)
I find it extremely hard to believe that 10% of iPhones are jailbroken.
Why is that so hard to believe? It's not as if unlocking the iPhone is particularly hard with all the hackers that have attacked it since day 1, and there's a lot of techies out there who own iPhones (like, the IT guy at my job who is just too busy with actual work to pick his apart).
Now, if you had said 20 percent, I'd call you a liar. But 10 percent for a phone with such a large amount of owners is easily in range.
I don't know. 1 out of every 10 iphones is jailbroken? I think 10% seems really high also. Not sure where they are getting their statistics (not saying it is wrong, just hard for me to believe).
Keep in mind, the iPhone has been on the market in various incarnations going on three years now. This has given plenty of people time and numerous opportunities to play with their devices.
Every single iPhone and iTouch owned or used by a coworker above the call center (I can't account for the call center) in my company is jailbroken and patched multiple times. I manage both the Sprint and AT&T accounts for my company--I do everything but pay the bill--and the first thing most people ask me when they get an iPhone is "How do I break it?"
Jay Freeman tracks the unique id of each phone that is jailbroken with one one of the core team tools.
That databases gives him the ability to know with some certainty.
My 5% number, on the other hand, is a wild ass-ed guess based on logs at webos-internals.
It might easly be 1 or 4%
Looks like you answered my previous question before I got to your posting.
Oh dear, bad link for the powerpoint.
Sorry about that.
http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ddpk538d_26g2tbsbht
Rick
Doesn't appear to be a Powerpoint at all. Looks more like presentation from a collection of very nicely formatted, cross-platform, no MS-Powerpoint-required pages! Even works on the Pre (although barely- bottom controls missing can't size it quite small enough)- imagine that.
Nice! Thanks
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