More often than not, the question arises on OSNews why certain projects or pieces of abandonware aren’t released as open source software. Supposedly, this would speed up development, facilitate the growth of a community, all that jazz associated with open source development. Here are four projects I’d like to see released under a MIT license.4. BeOS
Many who read OSNews regularly probably know that both Eugenia and I have a special place in our hearts for the BeOS. We loved it because it was all-new, fresh, and came with a feature set that other operating systems could only dream of – and a whole set of features that shined due to their absence. Sadly, as we all know, Be, Inc. died due to a combination of business blunders and market circumstances, leaving us BeOS fans in the cold. The BeOS withered away into irrelevance – only open sourcing BeOS could drag it out of it.
So, why isn’t the BeOS number one? Because of Haiku. The project is making massive strides forward, and the first alpha release creeps ever closer. Releasing the BeOS source code under a MIT license won’t be nearly as useful as it would’ve been 5 years ago, but might still help the Haiku project.
3. SkyOS
SkyOS is a massive undertaking, especially taking into account it is mostly written by one man: Robert Szeleney. It started out as a bootloader, but moved away from its roots, turning into an actual operating system, and as the years passed by, the project got ever more ambitious. I’ve personally dealt with the 2.x, 3.x, and 4.x branches, as well as the current test releases, and the progress made is just staggering.
Still, the project appears to be stuck in a perpetual state of ‘testing’. This is of course the team’s prerogative, but it does negatively affect the perception of the project among operating system enthusiasts. While the discussion surrounding SkyOS and open source has always evoked strong emotions, there are, of course, undeniable positive aspects to such a move.
I used be a strong supporter of the closed source nature of SkyOS, but in recent years my position swung to the other side due to an apparent lack of focus and the absence of a release. SkyOS is a great project, with an enthusiastic community, but I think it could be even better.
2. QNX
Just like the BeOS, QNX has a special place in my heart. I used this operating system extensively, and always appreciated how well-structured, stable, clean, and elegant it was. Sadly, QNX Software Systems didn’t care about the three men and a cow who ran QNX as their desktop operating system, and did whatever they thought made business sense: focus on where the money is. It meant the end of the already fragile desktop movement around the QNX operating system.
In September 2007, QSS “opened” the source code behind QNX, but the construction around it is rather messy and is not truly open. As a result, it does not appear as if the desktop movement around QNX is gaining steam again.
Which is a sad thing, as there is so much potential in QNX.
1. AmigaOS4
AmigaOS4 – the untouchable operating system. It is done, it is out there, but in order to run it you either need to buy some classic Amiga with an upgrade board, or buy a modern AmigaOne – the latter might prove to be rather problematic since only three were built, and those who bought those three cling on to them for dear life. In any case, for mere mortals, running AmigaOS4 is nearly impossible.
This is because the AmigaOS is clinging onto an architecture that is increasingly difficult to produce or buy desktop machines for. The PowerPC architecture is quite alive, but not where it matters for the AmigaOS: the desktop (or laptop) market. The end result is that the AmigaOS is probably the most-praised operating system no one can actually run.
Nobody is making any true profits off AmigaOS4. It needs to be open sourced so that the enthusiast community can do what every other sensible company would have already done ages ago: port AmigaOS4 to the x86 architecture. “Just smell some roses already,” Rube told Georgia. I would like to say the same to the companies behind the AmigaOS: stop suing each other, and allow the world to enjoy your once revolutionary operating system. The MIT license is waiting for you.
What are your picks?
QNX is making strides to be really open source, and i gets a little more released every month or so, i think most recently was their network stack (which is just great). But yes. i have a QNX box that i use as a desktop os when i dont want anyone else i know to be able to use my computer (due to fear of a new environment). 6.4 is shaping up nicely btw.
It’s not exactly easy for new users, to setup a “QNX” workstation though, in fact, navigating their site.. it’s hard to even locate “QNX” anymore.
Indeed. They don’t offer the QNX as OS anymore. They haven’t done that for years. You have to download their Development System to obtain their Operating System
I’d toss in a vote for OS/2. It’s one of those Operating Systems that “holds a special place in my heart” due to the superiority of the technology under OS/2 compared to MS-DOS and MS Windows 3.x/9x.
If you don’t happen to know much about OS/2, you should read a bit of history about the Operating System. It’s quite interesting. http://pages.prodigy.net/michaln/history
It would be nice but with so many parts owned by Microsoft in it IBM couldn’t open source it if they wanted to…and they don’t.
You’re right and I was aware of that. There is also the issue of OS/2 having been taken over by Serenity Systems International (eComStation) which further reduces the possibility of it being open sourced.
EDIT: Fixed minor typographical error.
Edited 2008-05-23 00:36 UTC
Sereny Systems has not “taken over” OS/2. They licensed it from IBM a while back but AFAIK the license has expired and they are not getting new sauce from IBM to base eCS on.
So what’s gonnna happen now? Do they actually have the source code?
They probably have the source up until the agreement lapsed which is why eCS 2.x is not based on the latest kernel level from IBM. I guess the agreement still allows them to do that since IBM hasn’t sued.
According to postings from Mensys folks on the eCS technical mailing lists, work is still continuing on the pending eCS 2.0 release.
I don’t think Serenity or Mensys has that much (if any) source from IBM, anyway — eCS has historically been a repackaging of IBM’s original OS/2 client/server binaries with some subsystems being replaced, not directly modified. Kernel patches and such were still being done by IBM folks like S.G. AFAIK…
Don’t hold your breath for IBM to open OS/2. There’s way too much shared licensing and technology with Microsoft for that to happen, even if Big Blue wanted to.
OS/2 died a quiet death, and should be allowed to rest in peace.
My votes are going to IRIX, OpenStep, VMS and AIX… but none of these are likely to be open sourced, unfortunately.
Meh, the only really good thing about IRIX is actually the GUI; the rest of it is pretty so-so when compared to other UNIX’s. As for OpenStep, its too long in the tooth to be useful, but then again, given webkit is out there, it would be great. As for VMS, as much as I would love to see it, the problem is that most of (infact all of) its reputation came from the hardware it ran on. If you moved it to something else (because that is what open sourcing would allow), alot of the benefits would evapourate.
Actually VMS has been ported to Alpha and is now running on Itanium. (It’s called OpenVMS). The hardware is a non-issue, especially after the Alpha port around 6.1/6.2. There is very little about the Alpha hardware of 15 years ago that isn’t as good or better in todays x86 hardware. It could easily be ported to x86-64 (as it has now been already ported to 2 64 bit architectures).
Currently, the last VAX version of OpenVMS is 7.2 and the current Alpha/Itanium version is 8.3
I agree. Most of all I would like open-source VMS and I would place OS/2 to the second place. Why? Because I am already fed up with UNIX variants. What special differences between BSD, Solaris, Linux? You’ll need a microscope to find them. And also a do not like UNIX at all (don’t know, why).
I vote for Symbian and VxWorks…
Nothing is lost for asking
Epoch maybe, but Symbian is still being developed. I have a feeling you knew that though 😉
Isn’t GNUStep an open-source version of OpenStep?
yeah, that’s what I was about to say. It’s not Mach based and it won’t run on 68k black hardware, but it’s the APIs, which is what openstep was all about.
Openstep is pretty much what MacOS X evolved from. So I think you’re right about non opensorcedness!
IRIX and AIX would be interesting, I guess.
VMS was a peculiar little folley I had at University. The file system versioning rocked.
For VMS you can see:
http://www.freevms.org/
True, very true.
Not going to happen. IBM and SGI can’t do it, and they won’t do it. They can’t do it because they don’t own the rights to all the code used in IRIX and AIX. They would have to get permission from and pay money/licensing fees for the code to AT&T/Novel/SCO (Whichever owns it now), and possibly INTERACTIVE Systems Corporation (Sun?), and MIPS for the code, or pay guys to parse through the source and rewrite it –which costs money for no profit return.
They won’t do it because there’s no money to be made from it; only money to lose by devoting resources with no potential profit gain.
There is no money to be made for Apple by open sourcing OPENSTEP. It would cost them money in resources, legal matters, and bandwidth to release it. In exchange they would only get gratitude from a small group of internet geeks –no profit to be gained.
I know for a paltry fee HP provides a hobbyist license for OpenVMS. As far as open sourcing I think HP still has a notable amount of banks and other companies that use VMS. Even after these customers eventually migrate I doubt HP would care enough to open source it. I could be wrong though. Their hobbyist license for OpenVMS is a good step in the right direction.
This is the way business works: by the profit to be gained.
“Nobody is making any true profits off AmigaOS4”… not entirely true… the Amiga Inc. and Hyperion Lawyers are make a tidy profit!
the latter might prove to be rather problematic since only three were built
I believe you mean three different models which incidently doesn’t fit much better because it tells you nothing about the volume of sales of the units, which appears to be the point you are trying to get across.
I don’t have any hard figures but I’ll stick my neck out and say I’m pretty sure they sold more than three units of the A1
I was being sarcastic.
I’m sure they sold 4.
Tom Said :
I was being sarcastic.
Dictionary Says :
1. mocking: characterized by words that mean the opposite of what they seem to say and are intended to mock or deride
So they actually sold -3 units?
I know this is getting silly
I never did figure how to admit defeat gracefully.
Actually I think Thom was being “hyperbolic” rather than sarcastic:
No sarcasm, possibly leaning towards Micky taking/teasing. As in, “I think you know exactly what you are talking about, wannabe geek”.
The easiest way to explain sarcasm.. imangine Bill and Ted speak… anywhere where you would mentally add “not” to a sentence is probably sarcasm.
From the link, which I see you have read carefully (sarcasm):
If you prefer the Wikipedia definition of sarcasm:
So, saying that they sold 3 computers is clearly a hyperbole, that is, an exaggeration, and not stating the contrary of what one means, as in irony and sarcasm.
Your definition of exaggeration is obviously different to mine. I assume they actually sold *more* than 3 computers. Therefore, 3 is an underestimation, ergo poking fun, therefore sarcasm.
I’m British, our entire culture is based on sarcasm and mickey taking… so of course, I really don’t know what I’m taking about and your response makes perfect sense (note the sarcasm..?)
I’m glad we are making progress on the vital subject of whether Thom’s remarks were sarcasm. I’ll tell you something very true, which you must have guessed, about this paragraph in the next (one-sentence) paragraph.
The previous paragraph was sarcasm.
Look, saying that only 3 Amiga computers were is, in my view, clearly an instance of exaggeration, since “only 3” could be replaced by, say, “incredibly, absurdly few”, which is stronger than, say, “very few”, even if the former corresponds to fewer units than the latter. So the exaggeration is not in the actual number of units, but in the strength of the emphasis.
No. Because they made more than 3 AmigaOne borards capable of running AmigaOS4. It can never be an exaggeration to say there were only 3, uless they made *less* thatn 3. But, to be honest, you believe what you like 😉 However….
Another dictionary defines as:
End of discussion 😛
By royal decree of his majesty memson
You are missing one essential feature of exaggeration: its purpose, which is to emphasize or overstate. The laconic definitions provided by your undisclosed sources assume, as you do, that the magnitude in question increases in the same direction as the strength of the corresponding statement. That is true when the meaning you want to convey is something like “many”, “much”, “big”, and so on. When the meaning is “few”, “little”, “small”, etc, the strength of the statement grows contrary to the value of the magnitude.
If you search “exaggeration” in wikipedia it redirects to the “hyperbole” entry, which is quite explicative and includes some examples:
Take the examples and try to fit the Amiga example here. Which of the following would fit best?:
“they sold 3 computers (few)”
“they sold 3 computers (many)”
“they sold one thousand trillion computers (many)”
We both agree that the third option is fair and square exaggeration, but that’s not the statement Thom used. The second option is absurd, people never use a smaller figure than the actual one to emphasize how big it is (I’ll get to understatements below). The first option is also similar to the wikipedia examples, because it is an exaggeration, not an understatement. The corresponding understatement would be something like:
“they surely sold more than 3 computers (many) ”
Again, it’s an understatement because it states something along the lines of what you mean, but ridiculously weaker. It is true they sold more than three units, but much more could be said.
If you take Thom’s statement to mean “they made so few units they could be counted on one hand” and propose as the opposite of that statement “they made more units than one could count on one hand” then Thom’s use of sarcasm fits even with your cherry picked definition.
Here’s another:
1: a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain
2 a: a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual
– Merriam-Webster
About BeOS and AmigaOS4: have you ever hear about Haiku and AROS?
Yeah, that’s the point. Imagine where Haiku would be if they didn’t have to recreate the entire OS from scratch?
RISC OS would benefit from being released under a proper open source licence – the whole “RISC OS Open” thing is more shared source than open source, meaning that a lot of people won’t touch it even with a very long stick, and rightfully so.
Meanwhile, the “big” players in that small scene fight to hold onto their share of the diminishing value that the software has, with the day fast approaching when the only way you’ll be able to run it will be under emulation on a platform that the most ardent defenders of RISC OS despise without question or further consideration. In other words, a diminishing group of people doing themselves no favours and complaining that there are fewer in their ranks every year.
So…somebody needs to show them recent Amiga history as a wake up call?
There are far, far more important operating systems than RISCOS that I would like to see opened first. RISCOS is a bit played and more of a curiosity than anything worthwhile these days.
There would be a certain amount of value of releasing the BeOS source code under the MIT license, but at this point, it’d be worth far more as a form of documentation of what BeOS 5.03’s behavior is expected to be, as opposed to likely being able to be reused. There are a number of undocumented API’s in BeOS 5.03 that’d be nice for getting old applications that no longer have source available to run, but other than that, there’d be little practical use for the code. Haiku at this point is different enough under the hood that it’d be far more effort than it’s worth to attempt to reuse any non-preference code. For example, Haiku has mmap and an integrated VM/filesystem cache, something BeOS never had, and there’s a lot of hardware Haiku supports that BeOS never did, partially because it didn’t exist when BeOS was still sold legally. The Haiku USB stack appears to be more complete at this point than BeOS 5.03. Yes, the VM subsystem is still missing some key functionality (hence it is still definitely fair to call it “pre-alpha” which is also why there’s not an officially-supported LiveCD available yet) but it’ll get there, and unlike BeOS, it won’t puke with > 1 GM physical RAM (sometimes less, depending on the machine).
There’s one thing that’d be greatly appreciated by at least a few people, though: it’d be great if the hardware-accelerated OpenGL stack that was being worked on before the “focus-shift” was available to reuse.
The only two I think that matter, from the perspective of the desktop, is QNX and AmigaOS. Why? because it is already 99% of the way ‘there’ to being an ideal desktop operating system. *NIX world, there is still wrangling with standards over how the different desktops interoperate, HIG’s and so forth.
QNX and AmigaOS already have those laid – thats not to say they’re perfect, its just that what needs to happen is very small compared to the challenges infront of *NIX right now. QNX’s main problem, I’ve found is hardware support and a lack of a community port and maintain applications from the opensource world (Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.).
Amiga is the restriction to a certain piece of hardware; don’t get my wrong, I understand the business model they’re trying to achieve, but the fact is, Mac OS X never really loss critical mass. Amiga OS has loss critical mass, and the only real way to make it a vibrant and attractive platform for third party developers and hardware companies, is to rapidly expand it via making it accessible for all.
How should that work? opensource it firstly, then secondly, find a hardware company and work with them; personally, I”d go Lenovo, work with them, find out what their next product range will include, work through lenovo with third parties to get specications, and basically turn lenovo’s PC’s into the ‘defacto Amiga’ – thus, Lenovo absorbs the risk associated with the hardware business thus leaving Amiga Inc safe.
Thom:
Why would you prefer the projects you mention should be released using the MIT license?
Why not BSD, GPL or LGPL?
MIT or other “who cares” licenses are a good way to avoid arguments?
Edited 2008-05-23 01:56 UTC
For people not willing to cooperate or those who intend to unimaginatively outsmart the giver this is a very strong requirement. But I guess your intention was to invoke intelligence and social awareness, so I tried to contribute in this spirit from another angle
despite it being very old, i’d love to see A/UX being open source ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/UX )
yes! A/UX was an awesome OS! Apple did a really good job with it.
SkyOS seems fun. But, well, didn’t find how I can play with it.
I second Irix. A port top x86 would rock, too. But until then we http://www.5Dwm.org
Windows 2000 deserves mentioning, because it was Microsoft’s magnum opus; it included all of the stability of what would later become XP without sacrificing logical UI design. Opening Win2k would allow support for modern hardware (Wifi, x64 optimization, and usb drives specifically) to be backported, while on the UNIX front it could prove beneficial for some OSS projects (Wine specifically). Maybe a few security holes could be fixed as well.
Hello,
The issue with OS4 is that there’s been other companies who make hardware which can run the OS (Genesi and the EFIKA), and even an unreleased port to the PPC Mac Mini, but Amiga Inc. seems to always find a way to guard this product like the crown jewels. They would rather cut off their own nose to spite their own face than give the few customers they have left what they want.
Sadly, the work the Frieden brothers did for AmigaOS will probably never be truly acknowledged, and will sit in some file cabinet somewhere. If it was released under the MIT license, there would be a significant amount of development as the OS was and is so friendly to development.
SkyOS is just an amazing piece of work. I personally haven’t run it, but it’s got a strong following and an incredibly large amount of apps for one primary developer
.
BeOS, I believe, would also benefit highly from being open sourced. Unfortunately, as we learned from Zeta, and the comments that the representative from ACCESS left here, it’s not going to happen unless someone pays a lot of money. Bernd Korz, had he gone through with his promise to release the source he had, would have almost single-handedly destroyed Haiku by “tainting” developers. Haiku is an incredible project, and I think it will succeed without the BeOS source code, and because the developers are motivated to do things the right way, and in the spirit of the original OS.
Windows 2000, which did have at least two 64-bit ports for the Alpha and Itanium (I saw the Alpha port at PC Expo at the Javits Center in 1999 running SQL Server 2000 64-bit), would also be incredible to open source. However, people would find out how to run newer Windows apps on top of it like Office 2007, IE7, and DirectX 10, and this would kill Microsoft’s upgrade cycle business model
. I think that the ReactOS/Wine combination will eventually provide a great alternative that’s better than the original by design.
There are other OSes which would also benefit from Open Sourcing, namely RiscOS (since ARM chips are incredibly common), MorphOS (see AmigaOS), and Tru64 UNIX/Digital UNIX (there’s some decent clustering technology in there, and HP has essentially abandoned the OS).
I liked the AmigaOS point most of all. It’s probably the one OS which can be open sourced with the least cost, and probably will never happen due to current management at Amiga, Inc..
The Programmer has a right to his own work.
Can you not let these people alone so they can continue doing what they enjoy doing, without your uninvited authority.
They might, but we are free to talk about what we wished was the way we want it.
There are a few older operating systems that have fallen off which could be opened source. I know it’s a bit corny but Apple should release the old ProDOS operating system to the open sourced market.
I would also recommend Tandy to release TRSDOS. That would be pretty good if it could be retooled and modernized.
ProDOS (and its 16-bit version GS/OS), would be cool for hobby projects based on 6502/65816 chips, but for Z80 projects, TRS-DOS pales in comparison with CP/M, which is already open source…
GEOS or even PC/GEOS would be a nice one to see, IMO.
I’d pick Linux. Never did like the restrictions of GPL.
3…2…1…
A million+ GNU/Linux users are playing their violins because you don’t have the freedom to steal
0..
Okay, I’ll bite. Why not, it’s a nice day outside.
There are no restrictions to the GPL.
That’s right, you can do for yourself with GPL software anything you like. Only when you publish (modified) versions, there are certain restrictions. See it as the “cost” of the software to acquire it.
But if there was no license at all, you’d have same thing: copyright, something that exists *by law*, that protects any “intellectual property” regardless license, unless it is explicitly specified. So the GPL already grants freedoms beyond copyright law.
(I know, it seems most people are unaware that even if you don’t give your work any copyright notice or license whatsoever, it is still protected by copyright laws in most countries.)
In the mean time you can use GPL software for any purpose freely, from compiling your own clone of The Sims, to controlling computers that can fire nuclear warheads, to downloading adult content off the innerwebs.
BSD has restrictions too, when you publish modified works. Don’t pretend it does not.
The only software license that seems to have no restrictions at all seems to be “Public Domain”, which is sort of the “denial of any license”. Now how many software projects use that license?
I apologise in case I have destroyed anybody’s illusions.
Can you shoot a gun in a crowd and say: “Here’s a piece of lead folks, make good use of it”? To shatter another illusion, there is a question of responsibility.
Think: “There are people everywhere, and they do not give me the freedom to hurt them?”
Sure, MIT/BSD and GPL both have restrictions only when you publish modifications. (I think most people posting here know that already.)
His point, I assume, is that the GPL is *more* restrictive because it restricts which sub-license you may use. At least that’s why I never did care for it either.
MIT/BSD still says you gotta include the disclaimer and copyright notice, etc. Fine. But you can sub-license the software using other licenses, whereas with GPL it *has* to be sub-licensed under GPL. No exceptions.
Although many people pretend not to.
Sure, but that’s the deal. People work on GPL’ed software in the hope of being able to use derivative works. If you use those people’s work, you have to play by the same rules. If that’s “more restrictive”.., well I guess it won’t kill anybody. It’s still lightyears ahead in giving freedoms to users and redistributors than any proprietary license.
There’s no technical difference. Both licenses require the use of compatible licenses. A “sub-license” doesn’t exist.
There’s a freedom that GPL gives you and BSD does not (or rather, cannot): the guaranteed freedom to use improved, derivative versions of the software you’re now using, in the future.
Edited 2008-05-23 18:54 UTC
“BSD has restrictions too, when you publish modified works. Don’t pretend it does not.”
The only restriction I see in most BSD-licences these days are that you have to include the copyright notice(with source and/or binaries), and that you can’t use the author or organization for promotion.
Now, let’s be honest. That’s a lot less restrictive than GPL.
Not that I’m bashing GPL! It is a licence that garantees that software based on GPLed stuff *stays* open source. (That’s a wonderfull thing.) So… you do not have the freedom to make non-free software from it. No matter how inmoral you may consider it to produce non-free software it is still a restriction to not be able to use GPL as base for non-free software.
BSD and GPL have different strengths and weaknesses.
BSD is definetely the most free, but only GPL attempts to garantees freedom regarding software based on that software.
For the record I’m getting real tired for the “GPL versus BSD” thing. They are both great licences for different use and they both definetely have a place in this world!
True.
There’s nothing wrong with a nice debate or flamewar now and then. But it’s simply inaccurate for anyone to state that BSDL is more free than GPL.
GPL is simply free in a different way than BSDL.
GPL guarantees future freedom and unconditional availability of source code for published works, BSDL gives more freedom of choice with regards to binary or source redistribution – including the freedom to not give others the freedom of using your source code. That’s not measurable in the sense of “what’s more free?”
You can’t let one person swim a hundred meters and let another run a hundred meters and then decide who’s the fastest.
QNX for sure. I’d love a stable and mature microkernel based system that is open to exploration. Minix3 is a step in the right direction, but it’s neither stable nor mature, and hasn’t made a release in a while.
OpenVMS. It’s time for it to live up to it’s name ;^)
I already got my wish for a free and open source Solaris, and my only real issue with it is a maddening lack of man pages. I don’t want to have to be online to find out something about a system I’m unfamiliar with.
Indeed.
A stable desktop micro-kernel OS would be interesting. Maybe even get a GNOME port on top of one of them(QNX or Minix.)
Yeah, /that’d/ rock. A really quick and spiffy micro kernel operating system with a pitifully slow, clunky, GUI on top of it.
Loads of potential held back by pissing contests over licensing and the socialist agenda of throwing the word freedom around while loading down with pages of legal mumbo jumbo and the rampant fanboyism of naive idealists.
I’d love to see linux released under the MIT license. It’s free in the first place, why the devil does it need more than that? Even better, just public domain the damned thing… Like sqLite.
As I keep saying, if you are going to give something away – FOR **** sake JUST GIVE IT AWAY.
Edited 2008-05-23 04:36 UTC
there is nothing ‘socialist’ about the gpl as it is a voluntary arrangement that free people choose. Many companies are making a lot of money with linux and other gpl apps and will continue to do so as long as they are useful. It is restrictive but closed source is even more restrictive and nobody says it is ‘socialist’ even though you can’t do whatever you want with the software that you bought.
What would be socialist is if a government forced people to use GPL software whether or not the software is useful to the free market.
Well said, deathshadow! Great to see that there is another fan of public-domain out there.
( and to those who say “there is no such thing as
public-domain”, I’d reply – “Please explain the existence of SQLite and a number of P.D. Forth implementations…” )
One OS that I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread yet is Plan 9. I’d like to see a public-domain clone of that. It’s incredibly elegant (at least “under the hood” – I’m not a big fan of its GUI).
The *really good* thing about public-domain is that if you’re writing code to be released as PD, that code/algorithm *only needs to be written once*, and
*anyone* can then use it.
I have a great deal of respect for the Forth community (although I haven’t used Forth much myself). As I mentioned, there are a number of PD Forth implementations, which is great! Good to see a particular group like that creating and promoting PD code.
Edited 2008-05-23 07:44 UTC
You know, people would take you seriously if you would strengthen your arguments with a gun. Not that your arms are really that long…
Your “logic” is flawed. What’s your definition of “giving away”? You can’t “give away” software. You can’t “give away” ideas. You can’t “give away” code. You just make sure it’s “out there”, and the GPL is one way of doing that.
“Giving away” in the sense you seem to understand it is like “giving away” a material object, like a cookie, that only one person can eat and then it’s gone. If you give away a cookie, it’s rather silly to want to decide how the receiving party is going to eat that cookie. Maybe the receiver wants to destroy the cookie, look at the cookie, poison the cookie, or give it to yet another person. Maybe a person you hate.
You have to take these sad potential uses into account before you give someone a cookie. You can’t attach a license to the cookie. Obviously, it doesn’t work that way with software. You don’t build a working software development model on giving away cookies.
For your information, the MIT license does not “give away” anything either. It still demands the user to respect the license.
A licence is a patch to try fix human flaw.
Here’s some software I’m giving away in the true sense.
http://camendesign.co.uk/?200805241404
I have used 3 of the 4 OSes that you suggested, and i do agree.
I once found a not-so-legal torrent of SkyOS, and i had followed it’s development for several years now, and i was tempted to get it… and i did.
this was pre beta 5 i think, imagine about 3 years ago, and i was VERY impressed.
If Robert DID make it MIT, i can see so much extra development going in to it, well, i can imagine Linux get shoved to the side, on my desktop at least, and possibly for a few more users.
QNX i tried back when it was on a singly bootable floppy demo, and i liked it! a year ago i tried to find the demo again… but all i got was massive amounts of Fail.
BeOS…. Ah, How i relied on you when i had a sub-par PC that not even Linux could save, and you did.
BeOS MAX that was, a hacked version of the “demo” version that eventually become it’s own free-standing liveCD with HDD installer. (Hint: Go to BeBits.com and find it)
All three of them Great OSes, all in all, and i agree. MIT it, and watch the development fly!
Thom,
Haiku license is already an “MIT” license.
“We generally only accept contributions governed by a free license (cf. the FSF’s definition of free software), ideally Haiku’s license (also known as MIT license).”
Link: http://www.haiku-os.org/development/faq#acceptable-licenses
Edited 2008-05-23 06:23 UTC
Haiku != BeOS.
My first UNIX system was one of the early versions of SCO Xenix System V for i286 and it was really shocking on those days seeing a number of people working with a simple IBM AT with just 512KB of memory.
So my wish is I’d like to see the source code of one of those SCO Xenix systems, althought I’d prefer the i386 version.
Unfortunately it was a licensing nightmare back then. Parts were ATT, parts were Microsoft, and then it was licensed out to hardware vendors.
The original Xenix was a Microsoft product. MS then sold it off to SCO.
The Tandy version was even more icky, license-wise.
Definitely gets my vote. All other OS could learn a thing or two from its multitasking implementation.
But chances are near 0 since a lot of MS technology is built into OS/2.
BeOS had impressive responsiveness on PC hardware, QNX has interesting real-time properties.
But exactly why AROS or SkyOS would be interesting?
Amiga at the beginning had no memory protection, does AROS have it now?
I’m not especially eager to use again an OS without memory protection!
As for SkyOS, I don’t know much about it, has-it interesting properties?
SkyOS is interesting in the way BeOS was, it’s very fast to boot and extremely responsive.
I have a license for the beta and update whenever there’s a new release but the article speaks the truth. They need to put their foot down and do an actual RELEASE at some point, preferably sooner rather than later.
I agree entirely that AmigaOS should be open sourced, the current situation is absolutely farcical..
They are trying to make money selling a small niche product, which is never going to work… The Amiga platform has been like that ever since Commodore went under, a small number of software companies trying to wring a few cents out of the ever shrinking Amiga community by selling trivial tools that were free/standard on other platform… For instance, it was possible to buy a “finger” and a “telnet” client for the Amiga.
All this did was render the Amiga an unaffordable platform for using the internet, which drove masses of users to other platforms.
And now the situation with OS4 is even more ridiculous, development progressed at a snails pace, the resulting OS is artificially tied to a very limited set of hardware that isn’t even being manufactured anymore, was only ever manufactured in small quantities, and if you can find used hardware on ebay or such it costs more than when it was new. And this hardware is now horrendously obsolete by today’s standards, yet costs more than high end kit. And all in the name of “preventing piracy”…
They seem to forget that piracy made the Amiga a successful platform, Piracy made Microsoft successful, when you’re small piracy brings you a user base that you wouldn’t have otherwise. Who exactly is going to spend $1500+ to try an unknown OS they’ve never seen before?
They don’t even enable you to run AmigaOS on a generic PPC system, old macs are fairly cheap these days, if it weren’t for their stupidity AmigaOS could have many more users than it does now. Some die hard Amiga fans simply cannot afford the hardware to run OS4, some people are just curious about trying it, some people (myself included) used the Amiga years ago and would be more than happy to play with a modern one, but not pay more than a modern high end apple system for an outdated second user machine with no warrantee, support or parts availability.
As it currently stands, they’re never going to make any money from AmigaOS, it will just wither away and be forgotten.
What about the monetary compensation for the work that people put into that software ? They have to pay the bills, too.
DG
Let me give you two stories and see which one has more potential for compensation. Take operating system A, which is in a dying mode, meaning there is almost no new adoption and most people are retiring it. QNX might be in this camp, as a lot of companies look to embedded versions of Linux. Amiga OS 4.0 is in this camp as well. It’s difficult to find and you either need to shuck out $1500 for a G3/G4 based system or happen to have hardware from a defunct manufacturer. Sure, you can sell a few copies here and there, but really, it’s just a matter of time before it’s not worth keeping the lights on.
Operating system B, seeing the writing on the wall, goes open source. I would argue one big reason Solaris went this route is to stay relevant in the face of Linux (especially with Sun selling x86 hardware). By going open source Sun still makes revenue of Solaris by selling 1) support contracts, 2) services and 3) their systems to run Solaris. That could apply to Amiga OS 4 in the following way: 1) Hyperion sells services to hardware vendors that wan to ship OS 4 as the O/S, 2) Hyperion sells the official “distro.”, 3) Hyperion offers paid support contracts to end users and 4) Hyperion offers developer training and support. This would even be more lucrative for QNX, since it’s mainly used by embedded developers that need support to port to various architectures and board packages. Essentially, for QNX, you’re trading any per unit license fees for annual fees so QNX developers to care about your particular development problem.
There is also a value in free. For example, if OS 4 goes open source and is wildly successful, someone may step in to buy Hyperion, and thus the developers would get compensated. Or, in the case of QNX, someone may step in to buy QNX. The very real danger, however, is that the underlying OS is more myth than actual value, in which case no one will really use it (open source or not). In that case I doubt the product/company would fold any faster.
Solaris and QNX are business oriented. Solaris is in server business and QNX is (was) in embedded systems. That model could work for them. What about Amiga OS. It is a gaming platform. Selling support and education does not work. It is more likely that some big name, like Sony skim the cream by building their own platform on top of it.
Amiga OS is a Operating System, can be used for the same thing as any other OS. Maybe in the past it was better system for games, but that by no means makes it ‘a gaming platform’.
I asked mr. McEwen a this question during a Q&A about a year ago.
40) How do feel about making Amiga OS 1.0 to 3.1 Open Source?
Not going to happen.
http://amigaweb.net/index.php?function=view_news&id=773
Edited 2008-05-23 12:14 UTC
There were something along the lines of a few thousand amigaone’s made btw, and they all suffer from one bug or another.
Hi,
I’d hate to see good OS projects like QNX and SkyOS go open source, and then end up forked into oblivion. That’s what Linux is for… 🙂
Ummm… I have yet to see a fork of linux. I’ve seen branches but never a fork. Any project on top of Linux that gets forked is a whole other thing, most of the projects are opensource but they are not Linux specific. So if you can elaborate on what you meant that would be great.
I’d hate to see good OS projects like QNX and SkyOS go open source, and then end up forked into oblivion. That’s what Linux is for… 🙂
A project going open-source means it’s going to be forked into oblivion? :O Wow…I guess GIMP, FireFox, Sunbird et al are all just figments of my imagination
Or did you mean just OSes get forked into oblivion, not apps? I guess I imagine ReactOS, Haiku et al then :O
Nah, seriously. Linux is the kernel and it is not getting “forked into oblivion”. All the distros ship with the same underlying Linux kernel (version number may differ though), they just apply any distro specific patches to it. Different distros on the other hand don’t mean they are forks of anything. A distro is a premade collection of software packages and configurations. Since tastes differ so much and Linux can be used for so many different uses that also explains why there are so many distros around.
1. Windows XP
The Operatring System with the most programs, drivers and users.
2. QNX
The real time system.
3. BeOS
The still very nice Operating System.
Because 1. and 3. I am also looking steady at the ReactOS- and Haiku-sides and mailinglists.
Risc OS should be open sourced
Risc OS was open sourced….. http://www.riscosopen.com/content/
-ish.
That would make a much bigger splash.
I suspect that a code dump of Windows would end up in a scenario much like Netscape did. It would be too intimidating for many developers to takcle at first. After spending a year or so trying to work with what was there, those who were up to the task would likely decide to rewrite large sections of it, throwning out all the old cruft and ugly stuff. And in several years time have something back on par with the functionality that the original code base had. From there, they would be in a better position to actually improve upon that.
I remember when Netscape announced that they would be open sourcing their code. I saw a lot of comments about how IE was toast. Some people seemed to think that things would proceed at the “Speed of FOSS” and that it would happen quickly.
Huge code bases with much historic cruft, created with by and for programmers in a traditional closed environment, take some time and care to get off the ground.
But just look at the results. Firefox actually HAS lived up to the promise of the original Mozilla dump, finally.
i dumped Mozilla / Netscape a long time ago because it was too bloated, and went over to Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox.
Anyway, no one wants to admit defeat ad open up a product that they spent YEARS if not DECADES developing, JUST to have to open it up for it to survive. A lot of commercial Dev.s then just cant see how they can keep on paying the bills if it is opened up, so they stubbornly keep there pride and let a great idea die.
Pride, it kills mode good ideas that what you know.
and the mozilla foundation makes a lot more money than all of these closed source OS companies (except for IBM and OS/2)
After 10 year, yes. But now I’m hearing rumblings about how messy the FF code base is in comparison with WebKit. Apparently it takes about the same amount of time to get good as it does to get crufty.
but mozilla started out crufty when the code was still in the hands of Netscape/AOL.
David Baron explained the problem here back in 2003
http://dbaron.org/log/2003-01#l20030109
Mozilla will also argue that better compatibility with websites is important and that requires more complexity and the XUL/XPCOM is important. Look at all the popular extensions for firefox that many can’t give up.
Yeah A/UX seemed nice…
Oh and Desqview/X that was funny !
Desqview/X! I had that! found it online, had to have QEMM installed, but it brought a good bit of life to an old 386 i had!
That was actually my first intro to the xwindows i think…
ah, nostalgia…
OS-9. I’m not talking about the last version of pre-Unix MacOS. I’m talking about a cool real-time multitasking OS for M6809 and M68K CPUs. Given the good free VHDL implementations available of both the 6809 and the 68000, a good free multi-tasking OS for them would be nice.
More Info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS-9
Let me start by saying that my Mac SE running OS 6.0.3 on my desk holds a special place in my heart. I like to boot it up now and then and write. It’s bare bones, simple, uncluttered interface is a breath of fresh air compared to the jumble of today’s UI’s. It’s elegant, simple and classic. It is, however, largely useless outside of games and MacWrite. Even if Apple open-sourced Mac OS version 6, it would still be as useless for doing day to day work. My MacBook is much better as a platform.
I realize my attachment to classic Mac OSes is nostalgic and not practical. What makes an open source project popular is its value to people. I don’t mean to be flame bait, but I just don’t see the value in running OS/2, especially since as much as it was advanced in some respects it was totally retarded in others. I used OS/2 in graduate school and thought it was okay. It was better than Windows 3.1. The best part was the SOM Objects library (which might be worth porting out) and VisualAge for C++. The presentation manager API, IMHO, not so great. I really can’t comment about using Amiga OS, which I have no experience with (besides AROS). However, I doubt there is much new or interesting software for Amiga OS 4 as compared with Linux, Mac OS or (gasp) Windows outside of ‘classic’ games.
QNX is an interesting candidate because it does have practical value. It’s competing against embedded Linux (it’s largely an embedded OS). In that sense open sourcing it would make sense in the same way open sourcing Solaris made sense. It keeps the OS relevant in the face of Linux and makes it easier for developers to adopt it in their projects. Open sourcing for something like QNX makes a good bit of business sense. It’s easy to find embedded x86 SOCs that are essentially shrunken x86 desktop systems. Developing and debugging on Linux on your desktop PC and just copying to your embedded target of choice makes development much easier. As opposed to having to run a cross-compiler, move the application to the target platform, and then start your debugging.
I think HP/UX and AIX would be interesting candidates to open source, however, I don’t think there’s much developer interest in yet one more open sourced Unix. OpenVMS would be an interesting open source operating system. First, it’s not just another Unix. Second the clustering technology might have value if it found its way into Linux or a BSD variant. I think VM or z/OS might be interesting if it went open source. Again, it’s not a Unix, it has fairly efficient virtualization. The downside is most IBM z/OS customers probably don’t care if it’s open source meaning IBM doesn’t care if it’s open sourced. I also doubt too many open source developers are going to be that interested in participating on an O/S that’s essentially the big brown panel truck of operating systems. But for z/OS and OpenVMS the underlying O/S is only part of the picture. The real value in these systems comes in their transaction monitors, associated compilers, and application monitors. Without those they are little more than ‘interesting.’ There may also be significant issues in open sourcing these additional systems.
The other quest is what do you run on these systems? Amiga has some interesting games, but for the most part it would be ports of open source projects that exist on other operating systems. Let’s say HP decides to Open Source OpenVMS and it gets ported to x86. As a hobbyist I might find that interesting. As a business owner, I’m more than happy running Apache on Solaris. I doubt I would change the underlying O/S just to run Apache. None of my clients would be interested in OpenVMS (the same people who edit a CSV report produced from the database and wonder why the database wasn’t changed). In fact, with too many open source systems, there may not be enough interested developers to go around. Open sourced OpenVMS might still wither on the vine if it’s one of 27 newly open sourced commercial products.
Going back to the original article. I think BeOS should be open sourced because the company that owns it is just sitting on the goods and letting them rot. As good human beings, release the code and maybe its value will show up in other projects. Amiga OS 4 might be able to get some market and mind share if it went to x86. Frankly, I think everyone involved in that cluster-f**k is trying to protect their potential profits as opposed to making actual profits. SkyOS – might make more progress if more than one guy worked on it. QNX is open sourcing because they understand it will be a Linux world in embedded space unless they stay relevant. Outside of that I’m not sure there’s sufficient interest in open sourcing yet another Unix like HP/UX, Irix, AIX, Xenix, A/UX …. Maybe some non-Unix operating system (other than ReactOS) would be interesting, but they’re pretty boring. (Okay, VMS has empire).
Now that would be an interesting project.
They could call it GNM – GNM’s Not Multics!
That would be interesting, but there were features in Multics only possible because the hardware had unique instructions. I think it might have been a CDC 6600, but that could be handled in an emulator.
Multics was Open Sourced, you people need to keep up with current news.
http://web.mit.edu/multics-history/
Actually, Multics HAS been open-sourced already: http://web.mit.edu/multics-history/
Current efforts are focused on building an emulator that can RUN Multics (the massive, even-bigger-than-IBM mainframes needed to run Multics aren;t exactly common) and following that, producing a working binary.
How about in order to garner “COPYRIGHT” status the author/company has to submit the source to Congress for safe keeping until such a time as the copyright expires and then can be liberate to the public? It makes no sense that source code enjoys protections associated with both COPYRIGHT and TRADE SECRET laws. It needs to be one or the other for the betterment of society.
This is the best post in the thread right here! Pity that the only ones who will see it are those continuing on in the sarcasm flame war…
–bornagainpenguin
I am surprised no one mentioned this one. Since its a research os, it will never be taken to the point where it could be used seriously, but there are 3 (AFAIK) open source projects with similar ideas that do want to produce something that will be used seriously.
Can’t think of anything other then Be getting open sourced that would be more helpful.
I believe that OS/2 should also be considered in this category. The OS code could still be of great value even if made publicly available today. Senetery Systems has made great effort with eComstation but the OS has a great deal of problems with drivers.
I heard of a petition for signed by many to IBM but has resulted in a failure. If Microsoft and IBM could reach an agreement, I beleive the OS could be of really great value.