Submitted by SkyOS has gotten printing support using CUPS. “With the Printer Configuration it is now very easy to add and manage your printers, be it locally connected (USB) or network (Windows, Linux, Samba, IPP) printers. The entire printing system is implemented as a service (like most other SkyOS Subsystems), which can easily be enabled/disabled on demand. With roughly 1000 supported printers the next SkyOS build will enable you to print your favorite documents in various formats.”
Make use of FOSS software to improve their proprietary software without voluntarily releasing any modified software/feedback.
Edited 2006-09-21 15:40
Did you actually confirm that Robert isn’t realeasing the modified CUPS source code, or are you just jumping to conclusions?
Yes, I know. If you “pay” for SkyOS Beta CDROM. It will include all source code for all third-party open source applications.
http://www.techimo.com/articles/i148.html
Edited 2006-09-21 15:58
Awesome, I see you’ve already downloaded the next build and saw that. Are you sure he just hasn’t written a wrapper for his part and left CUPS alone? Then his wrapper is a seperate work and doesn’t have to be released under the GNU General Public License.
sardonic… that approach isn’t legal. The wrapper itself would become GPL and through that everything linking against the wrapper.
Robert don’t have to release the sourcecode to anybody but those who have legal access to SkyOS.
He is a jerk so i don’t use skyos and anyways its UI sucks
Yes, I know. If you “pay” for SkyOS Beta CDROM. It will include all source code for all third-party open source applications.
….which is all the license requires. Nowhere does it state that the src must be supplied to anyone and everyone for free over the internet.
Then someone can take those sources and redistribute them. The GPL isn’t rocket science. Robert is only required to provide the modified code in machine readable form upon request and if you request, he will give them to you.
What exactly is SkyOS? How is it different from Windows and Unix? What problem are they trying to solve? Why should I care?
I haven’t been able to figure that one out yet.
Substantially different threading model?
Broad compatibility across platforms?
System architecture based on reusable components?
APIs that are a programmer’s wet dream?
I don’t mean to dump on SkyOS, but at this point if I have to pay for an OS that doesn’t have a piece of fruit or a 4-color window on it, there’d damn well better be a really fascinating reason to do so, and an OS which just yesterday stapled someone else’s printing architecture into it isn’t convincing.
“Different” != special.
What about the modulariry of SkyOS (the same modularity can be found in Haiku/BeOS, Syllable and the Amigaish platforms – and OS/2) ?
Every so often this exact comment recurs. Which is just puzzling, considering you’re at a *swear* OS News site.
What exactly is SkyOS?
Googling would probably give you a quicker and more succinct answer than waiting for people such as myself to answer you.
How is it different from Windows and Unix?
The above reply could apply here too, but an easy answer is, it’s just not Windows or Unix.
What problem are they trying to solve?
Running software on a computing device ?
Why should I care?
I’ll point you back to the top of my comment, you’re reading an OS News site. If you don’t care about OSes, what the hell are you doing here ?
Why you were given + points, I couldn’t guess.
Edited 2006-09-21 19:57
I think his point is directed more at the fact that they’re actually selling it with its rather limited featureset.
>I think his point is directed more at the fact that they’re actually selling it with its rather limited featureset.
MS sold DOS, and SkyOS is cheaper and more featureful.
DOS was featureful compared to the OSes, or lack thereof, on old mainframes from the 50s and 60s.
Yup. And SkyOS is more featureful than those AND msdos combined
And yet it’s less featurefull than even some of the lesser used alternative OSes, e.g. FreeBSD (not saying it’s bad, just saying not as many people use it as linux).
Well, I believe FreeBSD has more users than SkyOS
I don’t consider FreeBSD as an alternative OS, in the meaning “obscure”.
The *BSD’s are great OS’es with full functionality.
Well, I believe FreeBSD has more users than SkyOS
I know, that was the point.
“””DOS was featureful compared to the OSes, or lack thereof, on old mainframes from the 50s and 60s.”””
IBM was shipping VM in 1966. Don’t let the green screens fool you. It was the UI that was primitive in the 60’s. Not the mainframe OS technologies.
In some ways, like virtualization, PC’s running “modern” OSes are just catching up.
With Multics, in the event that a memory cabinet needed to be serviced, processes using memory in it could be migrated to another memory cabinet, so that the first could be taken off line. Can you yank a stick of memory out of your PC in 2006 without crashing your OS?
Edited 2006-09-21 23:39
Well, what I was trying to reference were the very early computers without an OS, e.g. think punchcards. Of course, I’m assuming those have no OS–I wasn’t around at the time, so I’m just guessing.
“””e.g. think punchcards.”””
You make me feel very old.
I remember clearly back in college, standing in line to hand the sysop the stack of cards I’d keyed in on the keypunch, so that they could be put in the queue to be fed into the System/360. At the end of the “turnaround time” I would get back a printout of my program’s output. (Syntax error!!! Dang!!!!)
Turn around times varied from 10 minutes to 3 hours or so, depending on the volume of students submitting, and how much time the sysop spent chatting, studying for exams, or having one or more of the several lunches they seemed to have per afternoon.
The windows were small and mirrored (and locked!) so that it was extremely difficult to make out what was going on in there.
But I digress.
I assure you that our System/360 was running OS/360.
Edited 2006-09-22 00:25
It’s more of a pre-order of the full featureset, with the added benefit of being able to participate in the “closed” beta program.
“How is it different from Windows and Unix?”
It supports less hardware for one
SkyOS started in the mid 1990’s as a hobbyist operating system. Today, while maintaining it’s hobbyist roots, it has grown into a full blown commercial endeavor.
When compared to *nix/Windows/BSD/Whatever it isn’t much different, in the sense that it is an operating system built to run on the x86 architecture. However, from the file system up to the GUI layer, it is unique; even though it does resemble other operating systems in structure.
Since it is, at heart, a hobby operating system the only problem being solved is simply getting the system to work, even though this task has been accomplished before; and likely will be accomplished again in the future.
Finally, as to why you should care, SkyOS, is your peaceful future operating system.
Well aside from that, there is the unique features (OS-Based gestures for example) of the operating system and the ease of which you can talk to the developer.
Edit: spelling.
Edited 2006-09-21 20:07
Make use of FOSS software to improve their proprietary software without voluntarily releasing any modified software/feedback.
Have you ever asked for the sources?
most packages are currently made with a primitive portage like application which patches and builds apps from source so all necessary patches are included with the skyos CD which is all GPL asks (as long as these applications or libs are not linked to closed source stuff)
If you want them I can just give them to you so no big deal…
if bugs are found during porting, they are reported.
about the driver issue, from looking at the initial ddk and some linux drivers, it seems to me that the skyoskernel-driver interface is much more consistent.
I was just watching the SkyOS presentation videos…I wish my Linux was like that! The index feeder thingie seems to work like a charm, it’s pretty, well-thought..Basically, sweet =) Gotta try it sometime!