HP has released the source code of the webOS platform’s core application stack. The company also opened the code of Luna, the webOS System Manager. The code is available for download from the GitHub project hosting site. The latest code drop was announced this week in a blog entry. Alongside details about the latest code, HP also discussed the roadmap of the Open webOS project.

Now that the source code of the relevant components has been made available as open source, HP is working toward a beta release of the Open webOS platform. Unfortunately, Open webOS won’t support existing webOS devices such as the Pre and Touchpad due to the large number of proprietary software components that they require.

"For Open webOS we are aiming for support on future hardware platforms where SoC’s support Linux 3.3+ kernel and where open source replacements for proprietary components are integrated," HP said in its blog post. "Existing devices cannot be supported because of those many proprietary components, including graphics, networking, and lack of drivers for a modern kernel."

Existing TouchPad users can, however, take advantage of the webOS Community Edition, an open source fork of HP’s mobile platform based on webOS 3.0.5. The Community Edition will allow TouchPad users to continue improving the software experience for their device.

Luna, the System Manager, is a particularly significant part of the latest code drop. It is responsible for managing key parts of the platform user experience, such as the card view and launcher. It also hosts the WebKit framework that is used to render Enyo applications.

The current generation of webOS is largely built on top of the open source Qt development toolkit, using the QtWebKit HTML rendering engine. This allows Open webOS to benefit from Qt’s inherent portability; Qt’s Lighthouse system makes it exceptionally easy to bring up on new hardware platforms. As HP explains in its latest Open webOS blog post, the Open webOS platform has been overhauled to take advantage of the latest version of Qt. This will provide some performance and stability advantages.

Although HP doesn’t plan to build its own hardware for Open webOS in the near future, the company is still actively investing in the platform. The latest Open webOS blog post reveals that HP is looking to hire new developers to expand the team that is working on the platform.