HP's Tablet Failure: Big Fun for FOSS Fanatics

There may be life yet for the seemingly defunct HP (NYSE: HPQ) TouchPad. The company has discontinued its development of all webOS devices, leading retailers to drastically mark down prices on the TouchPads they have in stock. Some buyers have been able to score one for as little as $100 -- that's $400 off the initial asking price when the device entered the market a couple of months ago.

Those TouchPads aren't necessarily doomed to support a dead-ended OS, either. Open source hackers have launched efforts to port Android to the TouchPad, and at least one effort to port Ubuntu to the device is reportedly underway.

It's not clear whether TouchPads running Android will become mainstream devices -- after all, TouchPads are no longer being made. But at the very least, porting can provide hackers hours of fun, and it may result in a low-cost tablet that can live a long life with a vital and active OS like Android.

"People love to have a bit of hardware to toy around with,"Al Hilwa, a program director at IDC, told LinuxInsider. "The TouchPad is now so inexpensive that people may feel they're not putting much at risk."