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Operating Systems Software

SkyOS Development Team Quizzed 83

Posted by simoniker from the limit-of-heaven dept.
Hexydes writes "TechIMO recently interviewed the SkyOS Development Team about SkyOS. The developers were asked questions regarding SkyOS 5.0, what a typical development day is like, and why they decided to work on SkyOS, which is 'a free operating system written from scratch for x86 PC's'. Included in the interview are pictures from the most recent beta build of SkyOS 5.0"
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SkyOS Development Team Quizzed More

SkyOS Development Team Quizzed

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  • Stay away from this! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09, 2004 @02:13PM (#8228291)
    SkyOs is just one building block in the construction of SkyNet.

    Once SkyOs merges with .NET, it's Terminator time, baby!

  • Free eh? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Creepy Crawler ( 680178 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @02:13PM (#8228292)
    Something that...

    1: Eats at GPL programs and does not follow GPL
    2: Has no source to examine
    3: No "Open Source" type license
    4: Pissy developers when you mention Open Source

    Real free. Want speech with that?

    • Re:Free eh? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Haeleth ( 414428 )
      It's free as in beer, which is still what the majority of the English-speaking world think of when you talk about "free software". Whether that's good or bad depends on your point of view, but it is a fact.

      As for "something that eats at GPL programs and does not follow GPL" - would you care to back that accusation up, please?
      • The SkyOS team is accused of making the GNU tools for their system WITHOUT providing FSF with patches for compilation.

        Figuring how SkyOS is made for public dissemination (anybody can download/install it), they're breaking the GPL.

        As for references, there's a stir on the SkyOS message boards occaisionally, but the admins delete them. I'm pretty sure they're listed also with the FSF as GPL breakers too....

        • Re:Free eh? (Score:5, Informative)

          by Hexydes ( 705837 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:49PM (#8232823)
          You have no idea what you're talking about. Its sad that you would parade around your claims as if they were facts.

          We have talked to the FSF, and they are perfectly fine with our project. We also talked to any developers whose code we used in included applications, and any ones we were able to contact were also fine with the situation.

          In fact, the ONLY people who have had a problem with things regarding the GPL are a few random users on Slashdot. The FSF is fine with us. Developers are fine with us. 99% of users are fine with us. Why do you have such a problem with our project? We aren't breaking any part of the GPL purposely. Robert accidentally does not have the source for the 4.0 applications available any more (as he uses them to develop to the 5.0 applications), and we've already cleared all of that up with the developers and the FSF. When we release 5.0, we will also be releasing the source to GPL applications.

          As far as the kernel and underlying parts of the system go, 95% of that is code that Robert has written, the rest uses BSD.

          I really wish a few people would stop looking for ways to attack our project.

          • Don't sweat it. I think SkyOS is cool, and it's refreshing to see something more complex than Notepad that doesn't come with a political agenda. The crap you read here is just the Bashdork groupthink in action:

            NOT [L]GPL!!! KILL!! KILL!!!! MY COUSIN VINNY SAID A FRIEND OF A FRIEND OF A FRIEND TOLD HIM THE SKYOS TEAM EAT CHILDREN WITH TABASCO SAUCE!!! OK, MOD ME UP!!!1! NEXT FUD ARTICLE!!! LOOK, SHINY!!! OOOOHHHHH!!!

            Just keep doing what you're doing and ignore the warts - especially here. The warts in th

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • The actual OS contains no GPL code, so we are under no obligation to make the code available under the GPL. The only reason a few people are upset is because we included a few applications that are available under the GPL without making the source available (due to a confusion on our part). As of 5.0, the source for those applications will be made available. Apparently you are quite confused about the situation, if you think that we are "hiding" something because we have chosen not to use the GPL for our o
        • The SkyOS team is accused of making the GNU tools for their system WITHOUT providing FSF with patches for compilation.

          As far as I understand it, this is perfectly valid under the terms of the GPL. All you need to do is allow any recipient of the derived code to have the source. You don't have any obligation to provide it to the person you got it from.

      • Re:Free eh? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by swdunlop ( 103066 ) <swdunlop AT gmail DOT com> on Monday February 09, 2004 @06:24PM (#8231955) Homepage
        It is free as in the bait laid neatly at the center of the bear trap..

        BeOS was free as in beer for personal use, too -- then, when Be's money dried up, the OS was neatly packed up in Palm's back pocket. Sure, there have been a few runs at trying to keep the OS alive, but they are far too disorganized to be of any worth.

        When SkyOS's development team disintegrates, what will happen to its users, and its source code? Forking is a healthy thing for operating systems, from the point of view of its users, because it means the OS will continue to exist, independant of a few individual developers' whims.

        The only actual reason for keeping the kernel source closed is the ego of the developers. It's a cute OS from the screenshots, but anyone who is really looking for a desktop replacement should think long and hard about what happens when this project folds.

  • They don't get OSS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Khazunga ( 176423 ) * on Monday February 09, 2004 @02:16PM (#8228325)
    Robert: The core OS itself is closed source. This way I can make sure that no forks of SkyOS will be made, and that there is always only a single SkyOS distribution. Furthermore, keeping the core OS closed source makes it possible for me to control and change any kernel function as fast as possible without waiting for other developers to checkout/checkin due to different time zones and other considerations.
    Forking, mystified as the big bad wolf in OSS projects occurs only when the project seems doomed. Furthermore, I have no example of a fork that caused a project to fail. I'd like to know the real reason behind not releasing the OS as open source. Surely, it can't be the huge market out there for Yet Another Operating System.

    And yet, on their main page [skyos.org]:

    We are looking for some good software developers to join the SkyOS Software Development team. Their duty will be to port or write some good applications and drivers before our 5.0 release. In order to join the team you must have:

    (...)

    This is not a paid position. There are, however, some benefits that come with it:

    (...blabber about access to dev s/w, duh!...)

    WTF? I didn't know the market was so bad people took s/w positions in exchange for access to toy operating systems. Well it isn't. And you can't get people to work for free while you make all the money. Choose open source or closed source, but play by the rules...

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @02:32PM (#8228509)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • No fork has ever caused a project to fail? Define
      fail. In many cases, esp. if they care about GUI
      giving users choice is abject failure. So for
      instance a big failure of Linux is the user having
      a choice between the looks and feels provided by
      different distros as opposed to one look and feel
      for Windows or OSX. This of course refers to
      system defaults since everyone allows you to
      customize.
      Similar fragmentation exists further down, so for
      instance users do not have ONE WAY of laying out
      their directory structure. N

      • Re:They don't get OSS (Score:2, Insightful)

        by gunga ( 227260 )
        It seems to me none of the examples you give were caused by forking a project. It doesn't mean you're wrong about the problems with to many choices for the end-user.

        You said it yourself:
        > Having one standard is often better.

        I'm not sure having projects fork makes standard more difficult to achieve, even if it seems counterintuitive.
        • You could regard the entire distro war in Lunix as
          a bunch of forks in the sense that they take same
          code and package it to their liking. Sometimes
          even their Linux trees are a bit different. So
          I'd call that situation a fork.
          • Watch your spelling.

            I wouldn't consider different distros using different patchsets to Linux forks. The kernels used by most distros swarm around vanilla - they get upgraded at the same time and have mostly the same code. Often the only difference is which features are applied. A fork would involve having two vanilla Linuxes, each evolving in a different direction, and some core developers going to Fredix while some stay with Linux.

            That's the kernel. Certainly many distros fork, for example Mandrake w

    • Re:They don't get OSS (Score:4, Insightful)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @03:09PM (#8229063) Homepage Journal
      Hey if that is what he wants then that is fine. Part of me thinks that Linux is too big and heavy weight to be a great desktop OS, yet I look at Windows XP and Mac OS/X and think maybe not.
      All I can say is keep plugging a way at it guys but I do not have the time or any compleing reason to help, I am too busy learning my way around the Linux Kernel.
    • >They don't get OSS

      You mean they don't believe the proprietary software is evil?

      I say thank God.

    • Re:They don't get OSS (Score:4, Informative)

      by Smartcowboy ( 679871 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @04:01PM (#8229879)
      Surely, it can't be the huge market out there for Yet Another Operating System.

      How many DIFFERENT operating systems is out there?

      I count all these unix-like as only one because they are not so different and inovative from each other.

      So there are (in no particular order):

      -Windows
      -UNIX and UNIX-like (Linux, BSD, ect)
      -OSX (UNIX-like but don't use X)

      In the somewhat-usable-for-the-desktop market, i think that's all. There is many other specialised OS but SkyOS want to be a desktop OS. Only three...

      And don't count these os that are no longer maintained or don't have a significative market share:
      -Amiga
      -BeOS
      -OS/2
      -put your favorite unknown desktop os here

    • I'd like to know the real reason behind not releasing the OS as open source.


      Isn't it obvious? (wink) It's because they're afraid they might've misappropriated SCO's "intellectual property." (grin) I can already see it... Daryl ranting about "million and million of lines of code misappropriated by SkyOS" after their suit against the Rest of the Planet (TM) goes to pieces.

  • Hm, I haven't tried it yet, and probably never will, but judging from the screen shot with the applications open there are three coloured buttons on the upper right edge of a window. What the heck are these supposed to represent? They sure as hell do not represent my idea of "easy to use graphical interface", as they do in no way represent their functionality... (At least I wouldn't connect any color with "minimize", while a small line on a button can easily be a graphic representation of "moved to taskbar"

    • Re:Minimize, Maximize & Close ? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm just curious to know why the storage place for MPEGs is the /boot area.
    • When you move your mouse cursor over the icons, a picture appears inside of the icon that is more representative of its function.
      • Hm, sounds a bit better, but I still don't see a good reason... I've read a little bit on the SkyOS-Forums now and they say that it will be themeable, so I could get a more intuitive interface later...
      • Having to wave a mouse cursor all over the screen to find out what things do is a bad UI decision in my opinion. OS X does the same thing for their window decorations, which I think is a bad idea, but they do use red,yellow, and green, which sort of helps you figure out what they might do.

        UI elements should immediately convey their intended purpose and function (in most cases) rather than force the user to hilight them before telling exactly what it does. Purists would say right-clicking is bad for just
        • You obviously haven't used OS X or even seen someone use it. I think it is a great idea because once you get used to which color has which function, it becomes very intuitive. A person can associate a color (opposed to text or icons) to an actions is much faster. It's also easier to tell someone without pointing. Imagine:

          Tech Support A: Click the yellow button.

          vs

          Tech Support B: Click the button that looks like 2 squares overlapping.

          Granted, most "close window" icons are the X but what about the mini

      • When you move your mouse cursor over the icons, a picture appears inside of the icon that is more representative of its function.

        Sounds like it was brought to us by the same committee that decided to not "clutter up" the display with underscores letting you know which Alt+letter keys did what; instead, the underscores don't appear until you hit Alt (and how would you know that hitting Alt would have any effect without the underscores to guide you?).

        I'm all for advanced interface development but I do

    • I have actually downloaded it and installed it. It was really just a waste of my time. I downloaded it because all the screenshots they showed were nice and I had a spare box to play with before I put woody (Debian 3.0r2) on it.

      My findings are that the GUI is very basic and not very intuitive. I understand that a lot of work has been put into the project, but it hasn't come very far in a couple years. IIRC, most of the actions were buried in places I wouldn't think to look. I seriously doubt this OS w
      • First of all, if you downloaded SkyOS, unless you are a beta tester, you are using one of the old version of SkyOS (4.0 or earlier). So much has been done since that release, its literally the difference between Windows 3.0 and Windows XP (new file system, new interface, more stable, etc.). So you really gave yourself a poor representation of what SkyOS currently is (or will be at the next public release).

        Second, I really take offense to you saying that we (the developers) have poor attitudes. We have tri

        • I do believe it was the 4.0 version now that you mention it. This was a while back, but I attempted to contact someone in the development team to assist in the devlopment since I am a developer myself. To my chagrin, the response was along the lines of "we don't need any help, thank you." Short and sweet, but at the same time somewhat rude. At the time, I was extremely interested in developing for the project for personal gain of experience and for the benefit of the project itself. My intentions were
          • If it was 4.0, just know that you've basically used a totally different operating system. SkyOS 5.0 is nothing like SkyOS 3.0 or 4.0.

            I can't really say much as far your conversation with whoever you talked to, because I wasn't a part of it. If it was Robert, you would have to remember 1) he is very limited on time and doesn't generally have a whole lot of time for chit-chat (he gets many, many e-mails every day, and tons of suggestions and offers for help), and 2) his first language is not English, so he

  • Team? (Score:2, Funny)

    by saden1 ( 581102 )
    Development Team? I thought it was a one man show!

  • knee jerk (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bcrowell ( 177657 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @07:46PM (#8232796) Homepage
    My knee-jerk reaction to this was, "Aw, gimmee a break, it's closed source? They can't be serious!"

    But it might not be as crazy as it sounds. Reading between the lines, it sounds like they're trying to take this closed-source hobby OS and turn it into a closed-source commercial OS. Slashdotters might have a hard time believing it, but many people are both (a) disgusted with Windows, and (b) scared to attempt Linux. Even if they succeed in capturing only 2% of the x86 market, that's still more CPUs than Apple has! Heck, with 0.2% of the x86 market they could still be quite a big, profitable company.

    The Apple analogy is also interesting, because Apple has already shown how easy it is to write a proprietary OS while taking advantage of open-source tools. This could be digital miscegenation in the eyes of the Stallmanites, but it seems to have worked pretty well.

    Of course, their market would always be limited. Like MacOS X, it's never gonna run the games you see on the shelf at a retail store. But plenty of people have old x86 machines running Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 that they only use for web surfing and e-mail. Those people might balk at the price of upgrading Windows, or the price of buying a Mac, but an OS that Just Works, priced at $60 or something, might be very appealing to them.

    <flamebait> Maybe we should admit that no system based on shared libraries and X11 is ever going to be really easy for a naive user to install and use. </flamebait>

    And let's not forget that we can't fight the Windows monoculture by poo-poohing people who want to create or use an alternative OS.

    • it's never gonna run the games you see on the shelf at a retail store

      I disagree. Most games on Windows are developed on DirectX, OpenGL, or SDL. The last two will become more popular in the future due to the extreme portability of the libraries. OpenGL and SDL can interact directly with the framebuffer bypassing the OS layer for graphics meaning more portability. The only real obstacle is the OS reading the binary formats or the developers writing it with portability in mind. It is not that hard to g
      • OpenGL and SDL can interact directly with the framebuffer bypassing the OS layer for graphics meaning more portability.
        SDL intereacts with DirectX or the Win32 API if DX isn't available.
        see here [libsdl.org]
        If it could bypass the OS it would have to have a driver level component. Something that runs in ring 0 (i.e. at the kernel level).
      • it's never gonna run the games you see on the shelf at a retail store

        I disagree. Most games on Windows are developed on DirectX, OpenGL, or SDL.

        Maybe you're right, although the game developers would, e.g., have to decide it was worth their while to print "Sky OS" on the box as a system it runs on, and to offer support. (If they can't be bothered to support Mac Classic or MacOS X, I have a hard time believing they'd support SkyOS.)

        But in a broader sense, what you're saying is an example of a valid res

      • Hmm... seems to me that more development is done with DirectX nowadays, since it seems to track what each round of graphics cards can do without having to resort to a billion different extensions. Regardless, there are a ton of little issues that crop up every time you try to make something like this portable, and without a decent market share, the $ burned just might not justify the karma earned. Also... please remember that Loki went bust.

    • Re:knee jerk (Score:2, Informative)

      by True Grit ( 739797 )
      I don't have a problem with someone working on an alternative OS, but I still have to agree with the earlier poster that I seriously doubt this OS will get anywhere as long as its closed source. They can do whatever they want, my only "problem", is just why does this OS get more coverage than Syllable? :)

      Its the open and decentralized nature of Linux that allows it to succeed so well. Linux's success so far relies on one thing really, *drivers*. Linux supports a lot of hardware because hundreds of peopl

      • Re:knee jerk (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        >>>"So until they open-source their project, I can't see SkyOS as ever being relevent or interesting, because as long as they remain closed-source they will *never* attract enough developers to make it a viable OS. Sorry, but thats really the bottom line for me and thousands of others, never mind that, after Windows, and the subsequent enlightenment by Linux, I and many others won't spend even 5 minutes on another closed-source OS.

        That's because you're short-sighted. Who says that the SkyOS team

          1. That's because you're short-sighted.

          You know, most people at least manage to say a few on-topic things before they get to the business of personal insults, yet this is your very first sentence. So, you were just tired and wanted to cut to the chase? :)

          1. Who says that the SkyOS team has to write drivers for their OS? Of course they have to to get the ball rolling,

          I believe the second sentence answers the question of the first sentence in the affirmative. Indeed, "of course". :)

          1. Wow, I didn't know y
  • Apparently the OS has accelerated openGl support. What cards does it support?

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