The webOS operating system – developed by Palm, acquired by HP, licensed to LG Electronics, and sold to Qualcomm – now has an official open-source version optimised for the Raspberry Pi.

The new OS has been launched by LG but is an independent project, with its own website and name: webOS Open Source Edition, or webOS OSE for short.

According to the webOS OSE website:

webOS is a web-centric and usability-focused software platform for smart devices. The operating system has constantly evolved, passing through its journey from Palm to HP, and most recently to LG Electronics. Now, we are releasing webOS as an open source project, named webOS Open Source Edition (OSE).

Open source webOS for Raspberry Pi

The initial offering is fairly basic, with only a few apps built in. However, you can develop your own apps using IoTivity and iotivity-node.

Despite the v1.0 release number, even getting webOS onto your Raspberry Pi is tricky. You need to be running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 64‑bit to compile the source code, for example, as no pre-built image has been issued.

This is despite the Raspberry Pi 3B being the only recommended system for webOS OSE. Helpfully, forum user Vipeax is hosting a webOS pre-built image for download. Also, visit webosose.org for details of webOS OSE, and how to contribute.