It’s alive! It’s alive! Well, it’s not exactly Frankenstein…but something interesting anyway. It’s HP’s mobile OS a.k.a., webOS. In a rather surprising move today, HP declared that the company will keep on contributing for the webOS platform while also turning in into a fully open source project.

Here’s what HP CEO Meg Whitman has to say about this move…”HP will make the underlying code of webOS available under an open source license. Developers, partners, HP engineers and other hardware manufacturers can deliver ongoing enhancements and new versions into the marketplace.

HP will engage the open source community to help define the charter of the open source project under a set of operating principles:

• The goal of the project is to accelerate the open development of the webOS platform
• HP will be an active participant and investor in the project
• Good, transparent and inclusive governance to avoid fragmentation
• Software will be provided as a pure open source project“

So, I guess all other people who managed to snatch the $99 HP TouchPad are suddenly feeling awfully lucky!

HP