Submitted by SkyOS build 6814 has been released. Among its new features are streaming support, system-wide spell checking, the Mozilla embedded Gecko engine (which is used to create a few applications like a Wikipedia reader), an updated Viewer (file manager), a new theme engine, and more.
never stops impressing me. bravo guys
wasn’t the theme engine already in the last build? Or do I mix something up
Its new. The old one was fairly limited and was a some work to get that little bit done. So now you don’t have to live with “SkyOS” gray anymore
I wager when SkyOs is finally released it will cause a stir in the operating systems field.I congratulate what this small team is doing and remain impressed by the rate they are bringing it all together.
Sort of like a rain drop in an ocean
Never meant big waves but it will cause a stir among geeks and aficionados to know basically a one man team created a project of this scope and magnitude when you have other projects,open source mind you,like ReactOs and Haiku still struggling to make things happen.
I am really surprised to see that SkyOS uses a closed source development model. Anyone knows the reasoning behind this?
I think you are asking for trouble, no offense.Everytime a story of SkyOs is posted it tends to go down this line and gets pretty nasty.If I were you I wont go there.
My *guess* is that a closed source environment naturally allows for a more polished and integrated stack. In open source development you are constantly under a certain level of pressure from external contributors and users to get exciting new developments merged, which can break your focus and require a butt load of discipline to manage.
Not to mention, in this early stage of development it is also possible all the cool ideas would be stolen or ported to Linux and the OS would never get a chance to shine on its own…
It was simpler than that: It was Robert’s project and he wants complete control. It’s his hobby, his code, his choice.
Oh there is a Skyos theme for gnome. I kid you not.
Not to mention, in this early stage of development it is also possible all the cool ideas would be stolen or ported to Linux and the OS would never get a chance to shine on its own…
Now wouldn’t that be ironic! Do you have any idea how much of the userland in this OS is ported from Linux? heaven forbid he would give anything back.
Edited 2007-11-27 01:02
I said “cool ideas” NOT “code”. An OS is more than the product of it’s code.
As for giving back, I’m sure the developer(s) of SkyOS already *are* publishing/distributing source patches to GPL’d works, otherwise they would be violating the terms of the license.
According to the GPL, people buying SkyOS should have access to modified sources that are included in SkyOS.
Since all software is built with factory these days, all patches to default software releases are included in SkyOS (recipes) so basicly all patches are available.
The people complaining about open/closed source should learn some more about the idea of open source software.
As other people said, most if not all projects are happy when yet another OS uses there software.
Besides that, the new features in every build are always a remarkable progress. You can’t say that about every OS.
Sometimes a person just wants to build something on their own, having total control over the way its done.
This is difficult with the OSS model as the fragmentation and forking of code can get out of control. This is perfectly reasonable, and based on the success and community around SkyOS, it’s clearly a workable situation even for an alternative OS.
SkyOS was actually open source up to version 4.0 and subsequently closed by the author.
Up to 3 actually I believe, maybe 2.
The simple story is, the main developer doesnt want the project to stray off his hands in to the wild lands of forklandia.
Sorry, I didn’t knew this was such a hot issue. Personally I couldn’t care less which license an OS uses. After all were all free to choose if we use it or not.
Anyhow I was just amazed it was closed source from a commercial perspective.If you look at tons of examples in the past imo this isn’t a viable business alternative for a niche market OS (BeOS, Zeta anyone?).
How long have you been reading this site? every time SkyOS has news, there is at least 1/2 dozen half witts who come out of their hovel to bashing Robert and his project. Some of us, even those of us who don’t use it, are sick and tired of the same stupid lies being repeated everytime.
Heck, I’ve used this site since 2004 (possibly 2003), before it became a ‘register to post’ site. I’ve seen people come and go. I find it funny that there are people who have still been living under a rock in respects to these projects.
aniruddha -> joined: 2007-11-26
that was his first ever post
Edited 2007-11-27 18:09
Lol, that proves my innocence… :p
Couldn’t agree more, everytime SkyOS is mentioned, someone complain about the license, it’s getting tiring and boring. It’s their OS and they can go what they like with it. I have developed things and released them for free, but I wouldn’t provide the source code, as I like to maintain control of it.
The fact that this project is still alive after this long is amazing in itself. I always look forward to hearing the updates about this project and check the skyos www now and again also.
Open Source Schmopen Schmource. I get tired of the ‘everything for free for ME’ attitude. Anything good is worth paying for.
Yeah. A lot of people seem to confuse “Open Source” with “it must not cost anything”.
Wonder if the same people would be as willing to take a serious paycut (or work without pay) at their current job so that the company they work for can give away their product for free?
it looks really interesting, but it has been in beta testing for what? 3 years?
It’s actually more like alpha, really.
Usually the definition of “Beta” refers to a product that is feature complete, but buggy, or has known issues.
Since new features are being added to SkyOS at every release, it’s certainly not Beta in the normal sense. This is why it’s not out of “beta” yet.
Besides, Wine was in alpha for like 12 years before they released the first beta… go figure.
Actually I would argue it’s more a release candidate by KDE standards…
I don’t think it’s a fair comparison. Wine is an emulator and its developers have to cope with Windows flavours, quirks and changes, in order to make it compatible with tons of software, as well as keep it updated with the host OS. SkyOS is a closed source project and an independent OS. I’d say the SkyOS team have hardware compatibility issues to cope with: drivers to test and hardware to keep updated with.
does this really need to be brought up in every story on sky?
Yes, it has been in beta forever. It is just one guy developing it. It is not vapourware, it is improving at a measurable rate (actually, remarkably quickly) The only difference between sky and all those >1.0 apps in linux is that sky has a closed beta program.
Am i the only one who thinks that the only reason this project could exist is open source. Things like freetype,gcc,gecko,openbfs,cups. I mean you guys should praise them… No wonder they make such a tremendous progress. I just ask myself if all those projects above were proprietary where would skyos be now? The answer is just – it wouldn’t be. You are free to guess the moral of the story.
the guy DID write a kernel and a GUI stack all on his own. That’s nothing to sneeze at, but still, SkyOS IS decidedly FOSS hostile given the fact that it relies so heavily on FOSS components.
SkyOS IS decidedly FOSS hostile given the fact that it relies so heavily on FOSS components
You must be joking… FOSS-hostile, in my opinion, would be something like intentionally using proprietary technologies, formats, and APIs, refusing to give out the specifications, and then maybe use trademarks, patents, and anti-reverse-engineering laws to attack and sue FOSS projects that attempt to reverse-engineer, recreate or, even coexist with the product.
If you believe porting and using FOSS software, including those released under non-GPL licenses, on a closed-source operating system is “hostile” toward those same FOSS projects, then I’m certain there’s a lot of people that disagree with you.
Robert has contributed back to several of the open-source projects that he uses.
Strongly-opinionated, biased people with half-assed “facts” annoy me to no end.
Yeah, I can see where you’re coming from. He’s abiding by the licenses and gives credit where credit is due. He is clearly hostile…
Am i the only one who thinks that the only reason this project could exist is open source. Things like freetype,gcc,gecko,openbfs,cups.
Hey, where would linux be without all those open source projects?
Linux does not have the single right to this software…
It’s the nature of open source to be used in different projects. Be it open or closed source…
Even if SkyOS is closed source, it does not keep changes to open source projects from their creators. Check the different projects and the skyos site, if you want the sources of some of those packages, they are freely available since most of them are just the standard releases (sometimes with only a few minor patches). Those patches are available to people that bought SkyOS so there is no GPL violation there…
Edited 2007-11-27 01:55 UTC
Actually, a minor correction, these patches are available to everyone. If you want the patches just drop Robert and email and he’ll send to you. IIRC he has already submitted patches back to the projects, but a good many of them one could class as useless since the changes are SkyOS specific and thus don’t benefit anyone outside the SkyOS beta testing team.
As for why it is ‘closed source’ right now – does it actually matter? as far as I see, the only people clammering for the source code in this forum are those who know nothing about programming and simply want to ‘give it a try’ rather than anything to do with contribution.
As for the future; its all up to Robert, for all we know he could start selling Intel based machines loaded with SkyOS like what is done with Apple Mac’s. It’ll be great once it gets to the stage of being ready for ‘public release’. As for his reason, I’d say control – opensource isn’t the panacea for all problems, and when it comes to developing user orientated applications that need alot of focus and control, the opensource model isn’t always the best one – sometimes a mixture is (open and closed source components working together).
And, is not the very principle of Open Source?
The fact that the host system is proprietary does not detach from the fact that the Open Source technologies used in userland are great solutions.
Are open source projects on Windows looked upon with the same amount of scrutiny that SkyOS is given? Does Mozilla Firefox not exist in Windows? Is there no GCC in Windows?
Sorry, but I fail to see your point aside from trying to stir up trouble.
“Are open source projects on Windows looked upon with the same amount of scrutiny that SkyOS is given? Does Mozilla Firefox not exist in Windows? Is there no GCC in Windows?”
This comparison is not at all apt. Microsoft doesn’t use Firefox to provide a browser. They don’t use GCC to provide a compiler. Microsoft is not building a proprietary OS with a great many OSS building blocks.
That’s what they are there for, so I have no problem with Robert doing this
But please use a little critical thinking and realize that OSS folks porting their stuff to a proprietary OS is not at all comparable to someone using OSS to build (or fill in the gaps if you prefer) a proprietary OS.
Microsoft would be perfectly happy without Firefox. SkyOS on the other hand would not be perfectly happy without Freetype etc. It’s not the same thing. What Robert is doing doesn’t bother me, but it’s just not the same thing. You can’t dismiss people who are annoyed by it with a comparison that doesn’t fit at all.
This comparison is not at all apt. Microsoft doesn’t use Firefox to provide a browser. They don’t use GCC to provide a compiler. Microsoft is not building a proprietary OS with a great many OSS building blocks.
In fact, the more accurate comparison would be Apple and OS X… there’s GCC, Darwin, KHTML, CUPS?, etc… (I don’t use it, so I’m sure there are other technologies)
Of course, Apple arguably contributes back to these projects as well, just as Robert and SkyOS does.
So you don’t believe that this is a principle of free software? The freedom to do with it what I choose?
Is there going to be a line drawn where I can and cannot enjoy free software because of the licensing terms of the host operating systems? Even when it does nothing more but stand at a disagreement with a few people who hold their cookies a little too tight?
I personally would jump at the fact that these technologies are being embraced, and the wheel is not being reinvented with other proprietary technologies.
Isn’t everyone always bellyaching that Microsoft reinvents the wheel with things like OOXML instead of ODF?
What’s the issue in embracing and implementing an open source technology?
It’s the exact same thing, the only reason SkyOS at this time would not function without these technologies is because it’s in it’s infancy.
It’s naive to think that it’s impossible to implement other, closed solutions. The open source path was just more elegant, and developer friendly. I’m sure with time alternatives will pop up.
That’s besides the point however, the point is that the same bunch of people who take such pride in open source technology are now annoyed because they disagree with the licensing terms of the host operating system.
I think theres a point you reach before it becomes fanaticism, and it’s been reached. A while ago.
Well, I’m interested because it’s a completely new operating system (in the sense that it’s not based on UNIX, AmigaOS, Windows, BeOS, Psion, PalmOS, VMS, CP/M…) and it’s one of those hobbyist things that you wouldn’t think possible these days.
Yeah, the moral of the story is: Roberts project, Roberts rules. If you don’t like it it’s your problem, not his.
Nothing in the licensing of those projects prohibits what he’s doing. I also notice that the projects themselves never whine about this, it’s only hanger-ons and people not actually involved that do.
Yes, you are.
Code like Gecko, CUPS — that’s just copyleft cruft. The meat of the OS, what you pay for, is closed-source software.
You take out the open-source cruft from SkyOS, and you have an operating system. You take out the closed-source code, you have some silly binaries floating in space useless to anyone.
Wait, what? BeFS, GCC and FreeType (To name three) are “cruft”?
Not even Robert would agree with you, I’d wager. If all of the OSS components were removed Robert would have a lot of work to do, not least of which would be finding a compiler that could build everything. He chose to use OSS components because he doesn’t want to do that work, and because they’re good quality.
I can never decide if you’re a troll, or just don’t know what you’re talking about. At the moment I’m leaning towards the later.
Atually, this time, I’m with Almafeta.
His point is that a kernel should be able to boot without most of the userland tools, while, without a kernel, you cannot boot (without some very very clever programming). So you could pretty easily create a skyos that doesn’t rely on freetype/firefox/even openBfs, it may not be so functional, but it would work.
However you could not easily make firefox NOT rely on an operating system.
No, that isn’t his point. Calling critical system components “cruft” is ridiculous.
Edited 2007-11-28 15:40
Why oh why oh why oh why do we have the same sodding argument every time there’s a SkyOS article? To say it’s getting a little old would be a massive understatement.
For a change, why can’t people comment on the product itself? Just because it’s not open source doesn’t mean we can’t discus the merits / drawbacks to the chosen interface or possible suggestions for future features – or even contribute to the project itself by actually developing some code under SkyOSs beta programme.
Maybe we can’t do that because we can’t try it… Some of us (aka anyone who bought Vista or Leopard) are sick and tired of PAYING to participate in beta tests
So don’t leave comments then. It’s hardly fair to criticize a product you’re not even prepared to try.
The whole paying for betas is an old argument that’s been addressed many times before, but at the end of the day it’s not your product to dictate how it should or shouldn’t be funded.
If money really is the only thing stopping you from actually posting something constructive then how about you wait a little more patiently for the /free/ live CD which has been promised, give that a spin, and then comment?
I, for one, am sick and tired of all the hard work these guys are doing getting completely ignored in favor of petty arguments from the open source community.
Edited 2007-11-27 03:38
Because people are idiots.
Doubtless, the same arguments will be aired, yet, again the next time too. If only cause most wont pay for a beta and without hands-on experience theirs not really a lot else to say. Part of the price it pays for not being ‘open’ in the sense of most other betas of closed source projects.
I care less & less to even bother reading of its ‘progress’. But, by all means, argue amongst yourselves as the rest of us,nevermind the ‘real world’, doesn’t really give a damn, any more.
For a change, why can’t people comment on the product itself?
Okay, I’ll give it a shot!
….
….
Hmmm…
That’s a really nice screen shot? Oh and look! They’ve managed a Gecko port to their C++ API! Isn’t that just lovely for them, just think if they keep it up they’ll manage to get an A++ in there some where. Jolly good of them to bring Wikipedia to the desktop! I say just think of the possibilities–an encyclopedia ANYONE can edit! What will they think of next? What WILL they think of next! I can hardly wait for next month’s regularly scheduled beta release so we’ll all have another screen shot to gawk at!
….
Y’know maybe you’re on to something after all…
–bornagainpenguin (fully tongue in cheek and saying only positive things about SkyOS for a change–now mod me down anyway! >;-)
For a change, why can’t people comment on the product itself?
Okay, I’ll give it a shot!
….
….
Hmmm…
That’s a really nice screen shot? Oh and look! They’ve managed a Gecko port to their C++ API! Isn’t that just lovely for them, just think if they keep it up they’ll manage to get an A++ in there some where. Jolly good of them to bring Wikipedia to the desktop! I say just think of the possibilities–an encyclopedia ANYONE can edit! What will they think of next? What WILL they think of next! I can hardly wait for next month’s regularly scheduled beta release so we’ll all have another screen shot to gawk at!
….
Y’know maybe you’re on to something after all…
–bornagainpenguin (fully tongue in cheek and saying only positive things about SkyOS for a change–now mod me down anyway! >;-)
EDIT: reposted due to improper moderation pushing it off the page…
“Now wouldn’t that be ironic! Do you have any idea how much of the userland in this OS is ported from Linux? heaven forbid he would give anything back. ”
No I don’t, and unless you are coding for the project I rather doubt you have any idea either.
Actually, Robert has been very open about what opensource components he has used and if you want the patches, how to go about getting these patches.
I don’t know why people make assumptions (like the person whom you replied to) simply because Robert doesn’t have a Goodyear blimp riding above his head advertising everything he does.
I don’t need to code for the project to see that Gecko is a port, but alas maybe you didn’t know that.
My comment was a response to the accusation earlier that ideas could be stolen by linux, it said nothing whatsoever about the legality of SkyOS source.
Try to make a point in future please, simple one line flames don’t cut it.
Define “released.”
Really, I comment in a similar fashion on every bit of SkyOS news because the OS looks amazing and I really want to get ahold of it.
One of these days…
Made available.
It’s easy, just join the beta team.
Or you can contribute something to the project. That way it is possible to join the beta-team without paying. That is how I joined
If you just want to test the system, then you will either have to wait for the public live CD or pay for it. But if you can contribute in some useful way then it is actually possible to join for free, free as in no money…. you do have to spend your time
Or you can contribute something to the project. That way it is possible to join the beta-team without paying. That is how I joined
Not anymore. According to his site after giving away 65 free ones only 4 actually contributed.
So if you’re interested cough up $30 (less than EUR20) and you can join the beta program… and eventually get V1.0
Edited 2007-11-29 17:51
ALL FOSS parts of the code IS available through his website, with all changes included, so he IS giving back what the license tells him to.
The reason this is closed source is not because Robert hates FOSS, it’s because he wants to keep control of the project HE started and the 30$ that includes the final version and all betas before it goes for things like paying for occasional code ransoms, buying hardware to debug on etc etc. He isn’t ripping anyone off.
and if you read the release notes for each beta, those who paid 30$ are getting much for their investment.
Last time I used it, it lacked a whole lot of drivers. It would boot on my machine, but what good is an OS that doesn’t support your sound card or network card?
But my biggest concern is what happens to the project when Robert gets bored. He’s certainly allowed to license it as he sees fit, but if he ever gets tired of working on the project or, for whatever reason, is unable to continue working on it, there goes any investment users have put into SkyOS. That’s the downside to using proprietary software.
Adam
Agreed. Even if he WERE to open source it right before he gets bored or quits, he’d be the only one intimate enough with the code to understand it. This really is a valid concern, even though it gets dismissed by SkyOS people all the time.
But my biggest concern is what happens to the project when Robert gets bored.
HEAR! HEAR!
–bornagainpenguin
Well, the sooner you enter the SkyOS Beta Team, the most value you get !
I paid 30EUR for SkyOS some 2 or three years ago,
and since then I received more new features/ports/bug fixes/patches through the SkyOS releases (read SkyOS service pack) that I ever had for windows xp or any game.
Besides, if (or when) Robert gets bored…your copy of SkyOS won’t stop working…(strangely, people don’t whine or complain that much about proprietary games, that cost much more than 30EUR,that will be obsolete much sooner than SkyOS, and whose support usually ends after 6 months)….and there are still people who love “dead” oses like OS2 or BeOS (no flame war intended).
On a side note, I can’t wait for more lovely screen shots….for example, to display what the new theme engine is capable of.
Creators, please do impress me with your beautiful inovative designs !
keep up the good work SkyOS Team !
Lakedaemon
Edited 2007-11-27 17:47
Besides, if (or when) Robert gets bored…your copy of SkyOS won’t stop working…(strangely, people don’t whine or complain that much about proprietary games, that cost much more than 30EUR,that will be obsolete much sooner than SkyOS, and whose support usually ends after 6 months)….and there are still people who love “dead” oses like OS2 or BeOS (no flame war intended).
See my earlier comments* and you’ll understand that I have complained about the BeOS. In fact I see it very much as a cautionary tale of what happens when good OSes are unable to live on due to lack of open source code…
–bornagainpenguin
* http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=18856&comment_id=282444
How is that even relevant given that no one knows what Roberts future might involve – for all we know, he is developing a strong foundation, then he might opensource it. If he becomes bored, he might opensource it.
None of us know what is ticking through Roberts mind at this moment so it would be pre-emptive to make assumptions over whether he is suddenly ‘bored’, ‘excited’ or ‘interested’.
I do think the argument of Robert getting bored and thus killing SkyOS is exaggerated, afaik there are already other developers helping him out who has access to the source code and could continue the work should Robert take a timeout or whatever. there’s no denying that he is THE driving force behind SkyOS and that him leaving for an extended period would slow down the project immensily but I find it unlikely that it would be dead. above all, I find it incredibly unlikely that Robert would actually get tired of SkyOS, especially now that all his hard work is starting to bear fruit.
while I look forward to trying the LiveCD, I have no interest in installing SkyOS as an alternate OS, this is because I personally find the open source development model superior, particularly for projects such as this.
that doesn’t mean however, that I don’t find SkyOS interesting from an OS development/technical point of view, nor that I’m not impressed with the work done by Robert and the rest of the SkyOS developers. and it certainly doesn’t mean that I think Robert is doing anything wrong in going the commercial route. his project, his choice.
yes, there are alot of open source components in SkyOS, some of which are essential, others that are non-essential. but they were licenced by the original authors to allow inclusion in propriety software or licenced to allow being shipped with propriety software, so by using such code Robert is doing nothing wrong.
had the authors of the code not wanted their code to be used in this fashion they would have licenced it differently. it’s the authors of the code that stipulates under what conditions it can be used, if you follow those set conditions you are doing nothing wrong.
He hasn’t got tired of coding it yet, and another nice release with some cool features, good job Robert.
I think that “project to stray off” argument is not valid because you can solve it with a proper license. Example – haiku os is a specific distribution, and to call it haiku os it still has to have specific components. You can still sell things with open source license and i bet people will pay you( i would and i never bought a os ). Example – quake3.
Now lets have an mind experiment: remove freetype from skyos – we get ugly fonts. Reimplementing a font rendering is a tremendous task, you also have to be aware of alot of patent mines here. Remove gecko – you make this os useles for like 90% of computer users. No binuils – no bash – have anyone used default shell on solaris? Remove cups – you have to reimplement and reverse engineer all the printer drivers. Remove openbfs – and you have to design a filesystem – and i mean “design” which requires years of experience not something you can do over the weekend. You can do desktop search over the weekend but not design a filesystem. If you want to see how robert desings things – look at the old skyos api which is very reminescent of windows one. Designing an os – this is taught in every cs course. This os is not even exiting to use like macos or beos.
When you click on screenshots i see for example familiar nuvola icon theme which i use in kde. I see a crappy media player ( I wonder how long till the y port vlc ). I mean i browse screenshots and see – blender, kaffee, even the control center looks like kde one. I mean come on, we all learned from microsoft that if you get a proprietary os pill – it will be sweet at first but it will choke you in the end if it becomes popular enough and kills the competition.
“No codecs for you, nope alternative os users. No movies for you to donwload, no itunes store to use, no business documents to edit cause they are all .doc, no source to create alternatives cause it’s all ours, our treasure( gollum voice here). Now pay up slaves!”
Edited 2007-11-27 14:02
Example – quake3.
Now that is not such a good example actually…
quake3 was only open sourced when the successor was about to be released. It had been sold closed source up till then.
But your point is valid, you can sell open source software. Usually this is in a form of added value or services.
Oh noes. Sometimes a serif font might have a funny thing poking down. Surely, this calls for the injection of copyleft cruft.
Gecko was only added this release — and removing cruft like Gecko will not disable legit software like SkyKruiser.
If you need to use a text shell to do any task in an OS, then you have failed in your design.
Like SkyFS?
Firefox was ported awhile ago. The embedded gecko widgets are new.
SkyKruiser? That hasn’t worked on SkyOS since version 4.
SkyFS is based on a heavily modified openbfs so the point remains valid.
And what’s wrong with a shell? You dotn need to ever use the shell on SkyOS or even Mac OS X, but its there for those who wish to use it.
You really don’t have the slightest idea how complex an issue this sort of stuff is, do you?
SkyKruiser, which is based on KHTML, which is Open Source? Oh noes!
Almafeta, we get it. You don’t like Open Source. We don’t really know why and I doubt many people are all that interested in an explanation, but we get it. Now could you kindly stop injecting your pointless and ill informed commentary into every discussion on OSAlert? It would really help.
Edit: Tag soup.
Edited 2007-11-27 15:20
No need to make it personal.
There was nothing personal in that post. You are ill informed: you’ve demonstrated it over and over again. I’m just asking you to stop.
Absolutely agree. Please. Please. Please.
On topic, SkyOS never ceases to amaze me, coding an entire OS is a monumental task!
Font kerning looks really bad in SkyOS, is freetype hinter turned on? Or probably not due to some patent issues?
Say what you want, but the development is moving faster than Enlightenment!
I’m really not sure what to think about people that always acuse SkyOs of not beeing open source.
I think in most cases this kind of people wouldn’t contribute to SkyOs even if it would be open source.
So why are this kind of people so…fanatic ? Is it because they don’t have something better to say, and they need a occupation? Or is it because in there brain is somewhere written: only open source is good, anything else is bad, is evil.
I mean, look for example at “Syllable”. It is open source, it’s extremly fast( booting under 10 seconds), it can be installed on a lot of machines, but still hardly a new developer cares about it.
You don’t like skyos because it’s not open source, who stops you to go to alternatives of skyos (like syllable, haiku,…)?
I know, complaining about something is always easier than doing real work.
Perhaps some of you should become philosophers.
SkyOS is great, It has a lot of potential.
But, those of you are that *Concerned* to what happens to SkyOS if Robert becomes bored are just weirdos.
Robert is under no obligation to open source etc if he decides not to continue development for whatever reason he decides. It is his hobby, his brain-child, his investment.
Why would you be *concerned*? It is a hobby OS at this point. A hobby for Robert and also a hobby for those that choose to develop apps for it. Nobody is making a living developing SkyOS apps, nobodys children are going hungry due to lack of application sales for SkyOS.
Geez….
You havent understood the point, kaiwai. There will come a time where an os is dead because of various reasons ( like the creater has no interest in developing it anymore or publischer out of businnes or in case if windows vista – inferior successor ). Now, if we had a source, we would just fixed it ourselves, if there were any interest, but since we don’t ( like with beos ) people ( in a way )wasted a lot of time and resources trying to recreate it.
I think the point was very relevant because as we move on the hardware changes are accompanied with software changes, if the software is proprietary, it’s dead if it’s no longer updated. Assume robert ist struck by lightning or doesn’t have any interest in developing it anymore. Now where does that leave the devoted users? Have the source = the os can be updated by the interested people( it continues to exist in this software/hardware cycle ) / no source = as less and less hardware is able to run it it becomes a faint nostalgic memory.
Creating a proprietary operating system nowerdays is a step backward. And by this i mean not software in general. Since os’es become more and more complex, they demand more and more resources and components to be functional. And no single entity can hire as much resources as a crowd of interested people can provide for free for the sake of interest or common good or even commercial interest. Even apple incorporates more and more open source technologies like khtml and zfs. And in contrast to that look at microsoft and their open source phobia and how much it hurt for example internet explorer.
Edited 2007-11-27 21:15
Give it a f–king break. Every time there is a damned SkyOS article, you morons crawl out of the wood work and start ranting, however subtly (not very in most cases), about the fact its closed source (gasp! horror!) and not opensource like your precious ‘linux’ or what have you.
Get. Over. It.
Also, stop bitching about them porting GPL software to SkyOS. NOTHING wrong with that. Half the programs have Windows ports, too! Do you cry at night about that?
aaargh!
Back on topic… Good job, guys
I wish it would hit v1.0 eventually. I’ve been thinking about buying into the beta testing program but haven’t had the spare cash. (I’m a part-time working student.. 
)
When I said the SkyOS was FOSS hostile, I didn’t mean that SkyOS actively worked to hinder FOSS projects a la MS. I just meant that they don’t seem to give as much back as, say, Apple (lots of GCC work and bunches of other stuff. Just about everything EXCEPT the actual Mac GUI and the Darwin/ARM, in fact) or Sun.
That said, I’m willing to pay for a quality product, but not to participate in a beta program. Note that for my Windows stuff, I’m still using a (properly paid for legit copy of) Windows 2000. It was a good product, and I bought it, even though it was from a company I hate.
Apple does have more people working on software than skyos so that does not really surprise me.
I can give a few examples where skyos contributed: openBeFS, where robert sent multiple patches to fix bugs. Same goes for samba (http://www.skyos.org/?q=node/528) and GCC (http://www.skyos.org/?q=node/492)
I’m sure there are others…
I myself posted some patches as well.
Sometimes I find it odd that people continue to tout the open source development model as vastly superior to closed source given the major lack of acceptance of open source by the general public. The only true success of open source in the public domain, in my opinion, is Firefox. Almost all open source projects lack an appreciation for the needs of the general public, closed source projects survive on filling that need so of course they’re more fine tuned to this need.
Not understanding the needs of the target audience can hold back so many potentially successful projects. Personally, I think Robert understands these needs better than most.
@bornagainpenguin: Moron. *chuckle* Anyway, you’re showing a sense of humor after all, so you are forgiven. and no, i ain’t mod you down. cracking some joke is ok in my opinion.
@bornagainpenguin: Moron.
GASP! He called me a moron….. BAAAAAAWWWWW
*chuckle*
ooooohhhhh now he’s laughing at meeeeeeee
*snort* hahahahahahahahah *snort*
Thanks distantvoices, it’s nice to see at least one person aroun here gets it. What I still find hilarious is they still felt the need to mod me down despite the way I was careful to only say positive things about the topic. Feh…
But really what are we supposed to do every SkyOS release–every month I mean–when all we get is a screenshot and a change list? That’s all my comment was intended to point out. And all this nonsense about the live cd is just that—nonsense! They’ve been saying the live cd will be ready Real Soon Now for how long now?
It gets to be a bit old seeing this kind of thing here all the time. Don’t they have their own forums to discuss minute changes like this? It’s not our fault their forums are dead from people getting tired of waiting…
–bornagainpenguin