Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by n1 on Tuesday April 08 2014, @07:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the welfare-shelter-for-neglected-code dept.

"Mochi" is a user interface language/library that was intended for use on a (now abandoned) version of webOS for phones and tablets. It has now been released as open source under the Apache 2.0 Licence.

From the announcement:

While we don't have any immediate plans to resume our Mochi work, we would be thrilled to see the community pick up where we left off.

The code is available on git, and a wiki is starting to take shape.

If only all abandonware were open-sourced, what a rich world it would be.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday April 08 2014, @07:29PM

    by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday April 08 2014, @07:29PM (#28391) Journal

    Its crap made for an OS that doesn't exist anymore...how in the world does it make us "rich"? Nobody is gonna spent the time and effort to actively support this thing, other than a casual curiosity I doubt anybody will even notice, and most likely if it reaches double digit a year downloads it'll be a miracle.

    I'm sorry but unsupported crap is unsupported crap, it being code doesn't somehow make it magically not crap.

    --
    ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by NCommander on Tuesday April 08 2014, @07:35PM

      by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Tuesday April 08 2014, @07:35PM (#28398) Homepage Journal

      The flipside of the coin is you never know. Slashcode was dead for years and years (and on life support even before 2009). I rather see abandonedware than things just dropping into the void.

      --
      Still always moving
      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Lagg on Tuesday April 08 2014, @08:50PM

        by Lagg (105) on Tuesday April 08 2014, @08:50PM (#28449) Homepage Journal
        Honestly both of you have a good point. Would mod but no points (this isn't a subtle hint or anything NC. This is not a subtle hint. But yeah, I would always prefer stuff that is abandoned be open sourced. Imagine how many programs and especially the subset of video games would have benefit from that. Look at the awesomeness that came out of ioquake3 and Doom. But those are rather special cases. Stuff like this which is just a bunch of HTML and probably hacky JS and such is not exactly an enriching contribution to the community. But again, better than nothing and it rotting away on a server drive that later gets wiped and tossed.
        --
        http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday April 08 2014, @10:17PM

        by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday April 08 2014, @10:17PM (#28485) Journal

        How EXACTLY is it flamebait to point out obvious flaws in the argument? With Slashcode you can use it to make ANY WEBSITE but with this you are talking about a GUI that is HARD CODED to run on a specific OS that NO LONGER EXISTS.

        So this isn't some video game that can run in a VM or can be converted to another format easily, this is NOT code for a website where you can change a few things and have at least a partially functional website going almost OOTB, its a VERY specific piece of code coded for a VERY specific OS that no longer exists. Now I want someone to explain to me WHY WOULD ANYBODY WANT THIS??? You already have Linux AND Android AND Tizen, you already have KDE and Gnome and LXDE and a dozen other DEs and they are ALL designed for easy porting, so WHY, why would this be in any way, shape, or form better than the alternatives?

        Of course what makes the hypocrisy moist and delicious is how many of the Linux advocates deireded MSFT for putting out the source code for DOS as worthless...and this is MORE worthless than DOS! At least there is a ton of programs that run on DOS, you can count the number of functional WebOS apps on two hands and have fingers left over! At the end of the day source code is not magical pixie dust and just because you have the source to something does NOT suddenly make it in any way valuable...tell me, would anybody here be rushing to praise someone putting out the source for a fart app?

        --
        ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
        • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Tuesday April 08 2014, @10:48PM

          by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Tuesday April 08 2014, @10:48PM (#28503) Homepage Journal

          Moderation rework can't come soon enough :-/, thats the "-1 Disagree" abuse myself and others have been noticing.

          That being said, I get your point; a lot of abandonware is crap, but occasionally, you find grails in the garbage. When we started working to revive slash, it was utter crap; the amount of patching to get to usable should not be underestimated and if it wasn't for the unique circumstances that created this site, there's a very good chance slash would have remained effectively dead as a FOSS project. Furthermore, even reviving abandonware is rare; its similiar to the effort that goes into creating a true fork of a project.

          --
          Still always moving
          • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday April 09 2014, @03:35AM

            by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Wednesday April 09 2014, @03:35AM (#28582) Journal

            Oh I 110% agree that there IS a LOT of abandonware that can be very VERY useful, as just one example those old games from the Win9X era that are hell to get running now, or all those FMV games that were hardcoded to Windows 3.X that are damned near impossible to run. But in this case we are talking about something so specialized its beyond ridiculous and when you are talking about mobile, especially older mobile where every MB was/is precious? You do a LOT of hardcoding to the specific OS, sometimes even down to the specific chips that it runs on just to squeeze that last bit of performance out.

            To make what I think is an apt comparison...MSFT releasing the source for DOS. like this its completely pointless as 1.- MUCH better alternatives are already FOSS, 2.- Those alternatives are designed for ease of porting, 3.- those alternatives aren't coded for an OS that isn't being used anymore. there is NO way anybody is gonna convince me that any development team is gonna decide that taking a half finished GUI for an OS that only exists as a ROM on Smart-TVs would be a better alternative to the literally dozens of FOSS GUIs and OSes already out there, it would be backbreaking effort for absolutely ZERO gains. What makes it even more ridiculous is that with Tizen and Android AOSP and MozOS you already have all the code AND a more modern updated OS its designed to run on right there!

            And as for the mods? i have noticed that once we hit 4 digits on the users we started seeing the same stuff we saw on Slash, where downmods equal "I don't agree" and we have all seen where that leads, where posters won't speak on certain topics without those that jealously guard those topics downmodding to oblivion. If someone has a different opinion they should DEBATE THE ISSUE and give the community a chance to see the pros and cons of the topic, not hit the downmod on anything that doesn't fit their myopic worldview. That is why I NEVER DOWNMOD unless its an OBVIOUS troll like Ethanol and his "you must be a nigger" posts, because I believe it is NOT the job of a mod to decide the "right answer" to an issue, but to merely keep the trolls from derailing threads.

            --
            ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
            • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday April 10 2014, @02:28PM

              by Reziac (2489) on Thursday April 10 2014, @02:28PM (#29451) Homepage

              With the 4-digit ID here I feel like such a n00b :D I have the same policy, I only mod up (and sometimes mod up posts I disagree with, because I feel they need to be seen to understand the whole comment chain). I think I've modded down all of twice in 16 years, for truly egregious posts. But I've already collected a "flamebait" mod here myself, just for expressing my own opinion (and nothing too contrary at that).

              Totally agree on the attitude issue. I've been looking for a linux I could love, or at least tolerate on a daily basis, since 1998, and it hasn't happened yet. Too many niggling bugs that never go away (my particular pet peeve is how the file managers won't reliably retain settings from one session to the next), and occasionally show-stoppers on otherwise good distros (like the sound that would never work on Mandrake 7.2, which otherwise I liked). It's frustrating as hell, but I no longer have the patience to dumpster-dive after settings and scrounge the net for fixes. I want the damned thing to work pretty much out of the box, with maybe one major config session using the obvious tools, and a few small tweaks thereafter, and I expect it to never, *ever* crash (my Windows setups have been so stable, they've ruined me -- I could count my total crashes across all Win-systems back to 1994 without taking off my shoes). But when I offer a suggestion, or identify a bug (and coders beware -- I can break anything) it's "not needed" or "works for me" despite a mass of reproducible detail. It's no wonder some people refer to it as "opensores" -- cuz so long as these attitudes prevail, the patient will never heal.

              I've been watching ReactOS and hoping for the best there -- cuz, see, that's what linux needs to be successful across a broad range of users (and to stop the broken-update madness): binary compatibility with Windows apps and drivers.

              You know the source for MSDOS5 (or actually an early update heading to 6.0, to guess from the contents) was leaked some years back, right? a curiosity, but not really useful. Amusing for the comments, tho. :) What I'd really like to see opensourced is the MS mouse driver v8.0, the one and only I've seen that's absolutely trouble-free in every environment that will run it.

              --
              And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
        • (Score: 1) by petecox on Wednesday April 09 2014, @06:20AM

          by petecox (3228) on Wednesday April 09 2014, @06:20AM (#28634)

          with this you are talking about a GUI that is HARD CODED to run on a specific OS that NO LONGER EXISTS.

          Is it? My understanding was that it's a JS-based framework that outputs touch-friendly HTML5 widgets.

          enyo, the underlying framework is cross-platform [enyojs.com], so what is specific about Mochi that ties it to webOS - that couldn't be adapted to Android or FFOS with minimal porting?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 08 2014, @08:28PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 08 2014, @08:28PM (#28437)

      > Its crap made for an OS that doesn't exist anymore...how in the world does it make us "rich"?
      > Nobody is gonna spent the time and effort

      One man's trash is another man's treasure. With a billion people on the net, somebody is going to get value out of it. Even if they don't, the cost of its existence is negligible. There is effectively no downside.

      Hell, it might be useful to historians a century from now trying to piece together just what the hell happened during the first 15 years after 9/11. So much of what we do create ends up in /dev/null, every little piece that does survive is going to be important.

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by istartedi on Tuesday April 08 2014, @08:11PM

    by istartedi (123) on Tuesday April 08 2014, @08:11PM (#28422) Journal

    I'm not interested in this project; but now I have a craving for mochi ice cream. Green tea or strawberry... great, now I have decisions to make. Just. Just... thanks a lot.

    --
    Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 08 2014, @09:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 08 2014, @09:14PM (#28462)

    Yeah, webOS is dead. For now. But as more and more people want an alternative to Android/iOS/Windows phones, for security, performance, or other issues, the ability to leverage a tool kit on top of the OS is significant.

    Why is Linux relevant? Because a lot of people still use it. And like it over other OS alternatives. The Linux advantage is: open source, more transparent updates and development roadmap, more frequent security updates, lower resource requirements, "have it your way" and the ability to customize.

    That latter point is huge. There is a whole group of automotive people who love customizing cars, from restorers to hot rodders to tuner car aficionados. Having this tool kit on webOS allows that sort of customizer the ability to "roll their own" for phones, tablets, ereaders, and more. Which makes us less locked in to the offerings of corporate people.

    Linux sat around for almost a decade before it exploded onto the public awareness in the late 1990's with the dotcom era. But the tool kits had to be there not just the bare OS.

    So yes, this is good.

    • (Score: 1) by GoodBookOfTaunts on Wednesday April 09 2014, @02:21AM

      by GoodBookOfTaunts (3804) on Wednesday April 09 2014, @02:21AM (#28563)
      WebOS isn't fully in the grave. It may be a shambling, mutated zombie... but dead? Not quite.

      LG Raises WebOS from the Dead as a Smart TV Platform [ibtimes.co.uk]

      At CES on Monday, the company announced that 70% of all its smart TVs would ship in 2014 with webOS, including all its new Ultra HD (UHD) models such as the 77in and 105in curved UHD televisions. LG believes that webOS will simplify the smart TV experience, something most people claim is currently too complicated - despite 160 million people owning one around the world.