After swinging in all the directions possible with webOS in past six months, HP today announced that they will make webOS open source. HP announced:

HP plans to continue to be active in the development and support of webOS. By combining the innovative webOS platform with the development power of the open source community, there is the opportunity to significantly improve applications and web services for the next generation of devices.

“webOS is the only platform designed from the ground up to be mobile, cloud-connected and scalable,” said Meg Whitman, HP president and chief executive officer. “By contributing this innovation, HP unleashes the creativity of the open source community to advance a new generation of applications and devices.”

This basically means that HP tried selling the webOS but wasn’t able to find a buyer, so they went for the second best option of making it open source, rather than calling Palm buyout their biggest mistake. Beginning today, developers and customers are invited to provide input and suggestions at Palm’s website.