Slashdot Mirror
QNX Now Free For Non-Commercial use
Glytch writes: "QNX is now offering the QNX Realtime Platform operating system for free for non-commercial use for x86 machines. Available installation methods include a Windows 9x executable, an ISO image, and a QNX4 installation archive. Pretty much like Be, Inc. did with BeOS 5." And like Sun has with Solaris, to boot. Would it be that surprising to find Windows soon available "for non-commericial use"?
WINDOWS: FREE (FOR HOME USE) UPGRADE EDITION
This package is intended only for installation on computers where an older, OEM version of Windows has been pre-installed by a PC vendor.
The installation program will scan your hard disk for a valid OEM version of Windows pre-installed by a PC manufacturer. Please note that any attempt to falsify a valid OEM installation will be logged and reported to Microsoft HQ via our CD-embedded transmitter technology. The software will NOT install unless such a valid OEM installation is found.
If you do not have a valid OEM installation of Windows, you must purchase Windows Full Edition at £399.99 per copy.
This is actually not true, yes most UNIX flavors are not real time, however Solaris does have a real time scheduler. While this is not recommended for say nuclear applications it still can be used by many real time applications - and is today. The Solaris scheduler supports three classes: TS/IA - TimeShare / Interactive (User Processes, Windowing System) Sys - Kernel Threads RT - Real time Also as an FYI to the poster who said Solaris is ONLY free for non-commerical use, this is just not true at all. Solaris 8 is free for ANY use as long as you are using it on under 8 CPUs. And this limit is also not really true as we never quote the extra Solaris licenses on E1000K, etc. -sunwhore
Huh? You can download Solaris's ISO images for both Intel and Sparc at the link off the website. Of course it's not "Free" as in speech but it's certainly free beer.
But judging by their past practices, they'll probably snub that idea along the lines of "we own the market anyway and have computer resellers by the balls anyway."
Bastards.
If MS did make Windows free, and Office as well, it would increase their market coverage even more. Then after (say) three years, when they'd erased just about everyone else from the market and moved a serious number of people to ASP-managed desktops with their new free-beer products, they'd start charging again, and charging and charging and charging until they had their pound of flesh taken from about the heart, and the blood, and probably a few vertebrae as well. Else we'll remote-disable you.
Sounds funny but in reality it would be ultimate pain.
All hail Emperor William III, King of the World, Lord of the Blue Screens, Baron of Hackery, Duke DeBug, Purveyor of the Stray Pointer and Leaker of RAM.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
But if Microsoft needed to give Windows away free, if that's what it would take to get people to use it, they would.
They did it with Internet Explorer.
But if people had to pay $20 to buy Internet Explorer, on top of Windows, rather than it not only being free, but being forced into every single Windows install like it is today, do you think it would have gotten anywhere near where it is today?
- possibly because (speaking for myself) i'm more productive in Linux with things like tab completion, xterms [it is a windowing environ, just run a lot of whatever shell you like], and perl...
I'm more productive in windows because of those things too!! And the fact that I can use things like Photoshop (gimp sucks ass). Get a friggin life.There comes a time in every man's life when he must say, "No mother! I do not want any more Jell-O!"
What this is about are operating systems that just don't sell well enough. Since they can't compete comercially with windows and microsoft, they think if they make it free for "personal use" than they can save themselves and make people happy. Welp, it really doesn't make any sense for either parties, they aren't going to make any money, and not many non-commercial users aren't going to use it for their desktop OS. Just give everyone a break and start releasing things under GPL!
Your Momma's so fat she makes emacs look like nano!
Um, would this be the same RTP that QNX offered free for commercial use.....last year? Oh, yeah. It is. Even the front page of get.qnx.com says "Posted January 18, 2001". I.e., they've been offering their RTP for free for quite a while now, and have even updated it once! A month ago. I don't usually rag on /. for redundant or late posts, but they covered this when it was actually news, and it's been literally *months*. That's bad. Real bad.
Except that people won't use it if it's no good. That's why nobody used the free IE 2, and why people who can run IE 5.x shun Netscape/Mozilla.
Cheers,
If you had gone to the trouble of asking how to do this (on any of the numerous BeOS forums), instead of just whining to SlashDot about it, you would have found that it's quite easy to do, without buying anything. To wit:
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I can't go more than a week without MS representatives trying to cram another free copy of some Windows varient down my throat.
Can't see why not. QNX have been doing embedded and thin systems for years. I've seen rugged systems that use it in factories so there's no reason why it shouldn't move burgers.
I Still wouldn't use it?
Would it be that surprising to find Windows soon available "for non-commericial use"? ?
Yes. Yes it would.
spoo
Of course, both BeOS and QNX are being aimed not at the desktop market, but at the embedded/internet appliance market, so this sort of thing makes sense, especially if they're trying to court developers.
Personally, I'd love to see both OS'es get GPL'd, but I guess that's not likely to happen while hell is hot...
Did you have it installed in an image running off of a fat32 partition? If I install redhat 7 onto an image file the disk i/o performance drops off horribly. Perhaps QNX has the same problem.
The best way to accelerate a windows box is at 9.8 meters per second square.
Do onto others what has been done to you.
"Might is right, or The Satanic bible? "
Neither it's a line from a tool song.
I really admire how he twisted a very common phrase and changed the entire meaning of it. When phrased this way the golden rule becomes almost menacing. It's like maryln manson taking "boogie man" and turning into a sinister stalker song.
Ask yourself this. If the golden rule had been stated this way from the start would it affect your behavior towards other humans and how?
War is necrophilia.
"If a billion chinese use your product for free illegally, have you lost anything?
Do you really believe if they all paid, that the price would drop?"
It's not that MS lost it's that we lost. We paid for something other people get for free and that makes us suckers.
If we didn't pay either then MS could not afford to keep making windows and office or whatever else. In a very real sense we pay to subsidize the software the rest of the world uses for free.
So the question is not "Do you really believe if they all paid, that the price would drop?" the question is "what would happen if we didn't pay either?"
War is necrophilia.
They would have no real reason to do that. The only time MS gives away stuff is to put a competitor out of business by "cutting off their air supply". Sinse there is no competition for windows in the home market (they own over 90%) then there is no need to give away anything. Even under a best case scenario of Linux taking 20 or 30 percent of the home market it still wouldn't make sense to give it away because it could not cut off the air supply. Servers on the hand that's a different story. I bet they give away server licenses before they give away desktop licenses.
In the unlikely scenario that MS gives away windows in any segment it would be Good Thing. With a major cash cow out of the picture at least to some degree it undermines their ability to subsidize other programs like IE.
Not that I think it's ever going to happen but it's fun to think about. Can you imagine all the quotes that are out there from Allchin, Ballmer and Gates about how it's communist to give away programs and how free programs are actually more expensive? All those quotes will be dredged up shoved down their throats it would be fun to watch.
War is necrophilia.
It is in most countries. Most people in the US pay for it when they buy hardware. We are the suckers who subsidize a billion chinese who get windows for free.
War is necrophilia.
I have an old 486 at home...
Would this OS make it fly again?
No, i don't like sigs...
-=Canar=-
Working for an OEM, I can tell you the OEM prices are nowhere like 29$. It's more like 20% off the retail price... now maybe huge OEMs like Dell and Compaq are getting those prices, but certainly not smaller shops.
This kind of stuff undermines the GPL and BSD philosophies. Don't get caught up in it.
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
just to let you know in case you don't understand french, your tagline is gibberish or really bad grammar...
While I absolutely love Be, I think this is a little late for QNX. Windows, unfortunately (or fortunately* depending on how you look at ) has most of the desktop market.
Where does QNX fit in the OS schema of things:
Is it a Desktop OS?
A server OS?
Is anyone actually using QNX ?
What can it do, that Linux and Be can't?
Sorry for my ignorance, but maybe someone can help answer the questions...
--
*fortunately, meaning that since 90% of the desktop run Windows, a windows developer can get pretty good sales, if their app is good enough.
Simple Google brand Sucks-Rules-O-Meter test results:
free speech sucks 36,600
free speech rules/rocks 592,000
free beer sucks 59,000
free beer rules/rocks 290,200
so as you can see, free beer sucks more and rules less than free speech, which I think is counter-intuitive since there are rules about free speech and it's quite nice to suck back a cold beer.
"What thou shalt not, I shalt did!" -Bart Simpson
I hate to say it, but "Free" for non-commercial use in reference BeOS 5 is a little misleading.
The "Free" version they give out lives inside of a file on the hard drive, which is the only "drive" seen as native BeOS FS.
As far as I know, there is no way to up this file size, and it's only 500 megs. That's akin to having a boot partition of only 500 megabytes, and if you want any more space you'll have to format a different partition in the native BeOS FS.
There are reasons why you would want to have more room on a native BeOS drive, the least of which is that some applications don't like to (or won't) run on a mounted Fat32 drive. It's strange but true.
If you want to install BeOS on a system as the main OS, you really do need to buy the full version and it actually isn't free. That is, it's just as much commercial software as anything that Microsoft does.
(Someone's going to flame me for this, but as far as I know it's all true.)
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
I find it really amusing that many Linux users will gloat and brag about how Linux is free and so superior to Windows all the while using a pirated copy of Windows which was effctively free to them.
Then end up being pirates and they're still using Windows.
Want to end the Microsoft market dominance? Remove Windows and never look back. If everyone who hated Microsoft did this, that market domination would colapse pretty damned quick.
Hell, at least Mac users don't pussyfoot around with a "Dual Boot." (Unless you count SoftPC or other such software, but...)
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Don't forget that it's a complete GUI OS and GUI web browser. :-)
"Would it be that surprising to find Windows soon available "for non-commericial use"?"
Yes. Solaris, BeOS, and QNX are free for non-commercial use because almost nobody uses them non-commercially anyway. As Win 2000 eats away more of the workstation market from UNIX, the other OS vendors risk losing market share to enthusiasts running Winblows at home. So for them it makes sense to make personal use free.
Microsoft making Winblows free would be idiotic. They still have a monopoly on the desktop market, and will continue to be the most popular desktop OS for at least a few more years. They have no reason to give it away. If anything, they have reason to start charging MORE for it.
I'd like to flirt with it but I dont want it to have a permanent relationship with my partions. I one-nighter if you will...
-he who laughs last, is a bit slow.
journal
rumour has it that att uses this os to power some of their large unix systems.
Umm... isn't this old news. It's been on Slashdot before.
:-)
I thought Hemos was the one in charge of reposting old news
Anyway, it's also been on magazine cover discs: PC Plus February 2001 (#173)
and the (i think) march 2001 issue of Maximum PC and maybe some others.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
"There are no such things as Windows experts as they have all signed a NDA and don't talk about such things"
Oh wow are you an zelot or what? most people dont need the source plus under the BeOS since its kernel is like a micro kernel you can write all the servers you want even replace the entire BeOS aspect of the system if you wanted. Stop bitching about gay pointless shit loke OS. You OS fags make me throw up everytime i hear "oh i wont use that os because its not OS". get a life and fucking think for a second, who the fuck else needs the source except for programmers normal users wont give two shits asshole.
lighten up.
Just give it a higher priority, not the highest priority. ;)
I made the mistake one time in class to set a counter program into realtime in NT, not even the mouse could get enough of a timeslice to register.
the counter sure as hell was speeding along tho
just make sure to set it to high, or +1 or +2, and not realtime
(not sure what priority levels are available in Win9x)
Stop over-analyzing your analizations
What competition are you talking about? Linux? FreeBSD? BeOS? How do you "kill" this competition if they are already giving away their OS for free? A free for non-commercial Windows would just mean people could download the latest MS crap^H^H^H^Hproduct and not be called "pirates." Of course, many people think Windows is "free" with their PC anyways...
--------
-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
================
================
Microsoft is not the answer, Microsoft is the question. The answer is "no".
I mean... Windows NT/2000 use a microkernel architecture... and the microkernel is over a megabyte.
So if a megabyte is a microkernel, couldn't the 60-80k kernels of QNX/BeOS be better described as a nanokernel? A picokernel?
Maybe Microsoft got the 'micro' kernel from the same place they got the 'micro' in Microsoft. There's nothing small about that particular 'Micro' company.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
I dunno, I have several copies for "evaluation and testing purposes". Of course I didn't ask but we all know what a generous individual Bill Gates is. I'm sure he won't mind.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Microsoft could stop charging OEMs for shipping PCs with Windows preloaded, but why? Since the consumer has virtually no choice when buying a PC other than to buy one with Windows (yes Linux, yes Mac, but you know it's true), they don't even think of Windows as costing anything.
And if all the prices of all the PCs in all the stores suddenly dropped by $80, would anyone even notice?
I don't think Microsoft is feeling threatened as far as the desktop is concerned (but we'll fix that!), so there's no reason for them to start giving free access to their cash cow.
-the wunderhorn
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
Sorry GN but:
The only thing that's not appropriate, buddy, is your response and your grammar.
Should read: "The only things that are not appropriate, buddy, are your response and your grammar.
DILBERT: But what about my poem?
You use a cache and 99% of your reads complete in x seconds and 1% in 2x seconds. You don't use it and they all complete in 2x seconds.
What's wrong with using the cache and setting the "deadline" to 2x settings? Or is "too fast a responsive" a problem for real-time systems as well?
How long has sun been truly giving away solaris 8 for download? Last time I checked you had to pay about 80 dollars for the media kit which kinda made it not free. Of course the 80 for the kit which has somthing like 8 cd's is pretty reasonable but if you can download the cd images...
Man, you guys sure are getting slow. I've had QNX running for about a month now, since they offered it for free.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
I had a hell of a time configuring my NIC for use in QNX. What took me 2 minutes to do in BeOS, my first time, and maybe 4 in Windows, just wouldn't take. I tried everything I could to get the sucker running but it wouldn't work. Needless to say, the charm of the OS was destroyed by the lack of connectivity.
With this news, I might go back and try again. At least until the next revision of BeOS comes out again...
Pax Digitalia
Maybe, maybe not. I don't think you can compare BeOS to QNX. QNX is targeted for realtime, embedded work while BeOS was a desktop OS replacement (sure Be is now going to the "appliance" market).
BeOS and QNX are also marketed differently. BeOS was trying to do retail, wasn't working, so they went free and probably didn't lose that much revenue. BeOS already lost, it can't hurt to go free.
QNX isn't retail so they really don't hurt themselves by giving it away since they added the "non-commercial" use thing. QNX doesn't have anything to lose, it can't hurt to go free (with that clause). It may even help if people start hacking away at it. What you use at home influences what you use at work.
A friend of mine always says...
"If Windows wasn't free, I'd use Linux."
--
"I'm looking through you, where did you go?"
Output from Eazel's nautilus installer:
/tmp/eazel-installer.TGAHPL298
g s-en.xml
/tmp/eazel-install.log ...
[root@the-shell eazel]# eazel-installer.sh --server=triggerfish.eazel.com --port=8888
Eazel Installer 1.0
Choosing default texts
debug: found an old tmpdir:
Trying to contact Eazel services, ignore any 404 warnings at the next line
warning: HTTP error 404 "Not Found" on uri http://triggerfish.eazel.com:8888/installer-strin
Choosing default texts
: Eazel Package System - rpm4
d: SOFTCAT host: triggerfish.eazel.com
d: SOFTCAT port: 8888
Writing logfile to
Nautilus-Installer-ERROR **: file eazel-package-system-rpm4.c: line 197 (eazel_package_system_rpm4_query_foreach): should not be reached
aborting...
SEGV (6) -- SOMEBODY SET US UP THE BOMB.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
In the Netherlands you have to pay for the water too.
(-% TwistedMind %-)
If people is starting to use other FREE platforms which give them better performance and security, and we all know that microsoft started a few months ago the war against Linux and the Open Source movement, I won't be surprised if they decide to "fight" using our same weapons (well... just similar to those who don't really understand the difference between Free Beer and Free Speech; not the same).
It would be logic that microsoft won't lose terrain over the PC market... so they would do anything to keep the most computers using their OS (or whatever you like to call windoze).
After all... I have no knowledge of anybody who has bought a license of Windows.
I have to admit that 2 of my 3 computers at home, have Windows installed. But I don't have a LEGAL license... well... I stole a box of windows from my old job (a computer store), but i never mailed the registration form... and i have it installed on 2 computers at a time, and made lots of copies of the CD to give it to my friends!
Why wouldn't microsoft admit that most people use windows without having bought it and they get benefits?
--- "pero toda poesía es hostil al capitalismo"
I downloaded it and put it on one of my desktops about 2 weeks ago.
aztek: the ultimate man
No sig for you!!
It was eMachines, who is nothing compared to Compaq or Dell. And yes, I know that 5- and 10-packs of OEM Windows don't have that steep of a discount.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
OK. so this has been released last Nov from their web site. I got impressed by some dude telling me that while playing mp3s the cpu is idling more than 95% of the time. Dam! It was 90% on BeOS. I must have a look. And it's free too. What am I waiting for? Well, there is a catch 22. I tried getting more than the free CD (you still have to pay $30 for shipping/handling BTW.) I installed on my box, got a couple of hangs because my HW must have tricked the loader. Removed a SIMM, and a USB joystick. Then it booted fine (I had to reinstalled a few times and got hangs from time to time causing the machine to reboot. No network support unless you get a specific 3com card dam it. Don't even try on laptops. I wasted a full evening on a Thinkpad.) Finally, I asked to get more development info. The reason I dedicated one of my HDs was trying to do some real work with it: like developing a driver for a wireless 802.11 card. Yeah right! Bummer. The development system is really slim. So I go to the web site. After dicking around on their support page, I learn that the beta program at the time was open to only registered licensees (they recently changed that but the new drivers I posted by a staff of people working only from Nov to Dec apparently because nothing has changed since last year). So I registered and I bought a book on QNX Neutrino (so much for free documentation too!). Bottom line: maybe I have been spoiled with Linux and *BSD but I ended up giving up writting code on QNX because when you don't have the source code for the kernel , you really have to reverse engineer the proprietary binaries all the time to find out where you get a crash (is it their fault? what is the stupid call supposed to do? etc..) That is the only other way to get the info you need unless you buy a license with support from them. Not worse wasting my time for browsing the Net remotely on QNX, let me tell you. I do it from NetBSD right now and it's really free (I don't have even to buy books to learn about BSD, they're online.) The next thing I wanted was to be able to run QNX on a proto PPC board. Helas, the only "free" version that comes on the CD is for x86 and the rest is not supported unless you shell a few grants to their bank account. Why should I bother with this OS let me ask you? Maybe it's not for me after all. It'll stick with Linux on my iPaq and NetBSD on my dextop. --PPA
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
The question is, and I out of my mind or is this possiable ?
until (succeed) try { again(); }
until (succeed) try { again(); }
am i the only one to know that this is very old news?
Download Solaris 8 (Sparc/x86) "free" from Sun here. They'll even let you download the source for Solaris 8 for free, after letting you jump through some legal hoops. There are restrictions on what you can use either of these for though, but for home use, you should be all set.
-skip
I noticed on 2/2/01, when sunhelp.net mentioned it, and downloaded it (x86 only) the next day I think, to run on a laptop for a little bit (I have no Sparc hardware). So it's been a little while now, but not too long.
-skip
The floppy's available here, I agree, quite impressive. It includes a web server too, as well as drivers and such.
:)
But, I wouldn't just delete said large file. Assuming this is under Windows (I don't think you can run QNX as a file on a Linux/whatever partition yet), you'd want to undo the changes it does to the startup config files- the changes that give you the choice between Win/QNX on boot. So remove it via the "Control Panel," that'll fix it all up nice and tidy.
And I think this has been out "free" for quite some time now- I'm pretty sure I had it running (having freely downloaded it from qnx.com) on a laptop for a little while in the fall.
-skip
Microsoft could most likely make it if they gave windows away to home users. OEMs and businesses would still be paying. Big companies would still be spending out the arse for things like microsoft select and licenses for NT/2000 server.
over all, It's not going to happen since they're making money on home users.
Silly slashdot, sigs are for kids!
I never play with the priorities in Windows. The few times we have here at work, the process takes control of the machine and you can't do anything (since it has the highest priority).
PS. It is a PII-233 where it consumes 100%, also using Winamp. Maybe I just need a new version.
FunkyDemon
If you admire the phrase so much maybe you'd care to spell it correctly?
no sig.
It didn't work because of me using a SCSI-only system. Seems that it is fixed now and I'll be glad to give it another shot.
And a month for getting the "news" on slashdot is not that long, I mean...*who* actually visits the QNX website regularly and cares to report new upgrades?
Oh, and /. *is* my grapevine ;-)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
"A few atoms won't even light a match" - Dr Jones, 1933
"A few atoms won't even light a match" - Dr Jones, 1933
BTW: If you want to turn Windows into a "Media OS" look into the Start command in the a cmd shell (Start /?). Set your winamp, etc., to higher priorities and then you can talk about how you have a media OS.
They changed it just the other day. You can now download it completely for $0.00 USD
1. The group who got Windows on an OEM CD with their computer and still use it whenever they need to install Windows on another machine.
2. The group who pirate Windows or have "donorware" OEM CDs that they got from friends who bought new computers which, in turn, came with their own new OEM Windows disc.
The market implications seem to me to be small, since Windows is not a big retail product. On the other hand, I have seen a lot of MS Office upgrades in retail packaging on acquaintances' shelves. Interestingly, MS Office is much more expensive than MS Windows. I think that making Windows free would, if anything, reinforce the total market dominance which Windows and MS Office already enjoy, but would likely have little additional effect.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
This may be naive, but what kinda gui do they have going for it? Screenshots? I can't find any. Is the gui part of the OS or a completely seperate node? what does this OS do thats so special? Why would I want to use this OS ever? Is it solely for embedded systems?
I remember downloading this a month ago and trying it out. Seems to be everything that BeOS was supposed to be. It even comes with a decent MP3 player.
====
Don't they already give away free samples? It's kind of like Joey, the heroin dealer down on the corner. That first blast is nice, and once your hooked into it, blam, your are stealing necklaces on the subway in order to afford NT Bugcheck version 6.35. (go ahead and name me ONE feature you use in Word 2000 that wasn't in Word 6)
Bring back BOB! The only window manager worthy of attention!
PS: Free windows was a joke, so the BSA can Byte my ass. My OS was free!
Yes, but then wouldn't consumers ulimately be paying for it? Or else, maybe they would opt for distributors who do NOT include windows with the pc because they know that they can just get a free handout of Windows 200x LE (Light Edition) from Barnes and Noble right next to the AOL Version 47 CDs...
since a lot of projects like linuxBIOS and real time linux are starting to mature. Why use "somewhat free" when you can have "all free."
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I have to say, I wouldn't have modded this up myself. Not really that funny.
I meant to say that it would be even more unlikely for them to open source it. I know that QNX isn't under the GPL
Nuff said...
Damn hippies!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Blazemail rocks!
Sorry but you seem to have forgotten one very important fact.
Microsoft Internet Explorer is not a seperate product that has been bundled for free with the Microsoft Windows OS.
It is in fact a enabling technology at the core of the Microsoft Windows OS.
please reference various and sundry legal briefs and court cases
</Microsoft MarketSpeak Mode>
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.
You won't see Windows available "for non-commercial use" anytime soon; that's a huge part of their market.
But, more importantly, you won't see QNX on the desktop. In fact, I'd be amazed if you see it *anywhere*, because it really has no place.
QNX isn't a real-time operating system in the HRT sense of the word. And soft real-time operating systems make no sense, because they don't provide any real guarantees! What real-time OS would want to worry about your brand of video card slowing it down?
However, you won't see QNX on the desktop any time soon, either. And if you did, it would involve adding all sorts of ridiculous things that a RTOS should *never* have. Dumber, even, than when MS moved graphics into the kernel and caused 10 times more NT boxes to bluescreen.
So I give up. This announcement is pointless, and Slashdot's coverage of it is, yet again, completely inappropriate. Feel free to download QNX; let me know if you can get it to do anything that's Hard Realtime, though, and I'll be amazed.
In fact, tell me if you do anything besides play with it, and say "gee, that looks really cool; I wish it had some apps", and then go back to your pitiful little slashbot existence. Please, let me know.
Will the real Bruce Perens Please Stand Up
A copy of QNX came on a CD with my copy of Maximum PC, what kind of makes me mad, it they put Linux right beside some of the least heard of, or least useful of OS's. They rated Linux right beside BSD, QNX, and BEOS. So say somebody says, "Heh, I want to try a new OS", but the Linux download is to big, so they get BSD, (note* I know some people like BSD, but its not as easy as Linux for beginners ususally), and they can't even get it installed. There goes Linux, Beos, and any other OS on that Magazine, because they must be just as hard to set-up and run.
Note= This comment was not meant to start a flame about any OS.
Do onto others what has been done to you.
:)
Might is right, or The Satanic bible?
And yes anyone that pays for windows is a sucker. I have seen a computer store toss out oem copys of win98. Why? Because even passing them on for free is a bad thing
Fight censors!
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
As an example, I had the opportunity to tour a couple local power plants. The local coal burning power plant had a digital control setup run by countless Sun workstations running the show, with 25" touch screen monitors all over the control room showing equipment status, power output, etc., and it was all wired together with fiber optics. Pretty amazing high tech control system for such a low tech way to generate power. In contrast, the local nuclear power station just across the way had a control system run by early 1980's vintage hardware, with countless meters and dials and pushbuttons and a few green monochrome monitors in the control room, all wired together with coax cable and analog loops. They had to keep up the vintage equipment because upgrading to something more modern would be prohibitively expensive due to regulatory requirements. (They started construction on the coal plant at the same time as the nuke, and it was up and online while the nuke's foundation was still being poured.)
I hate to sound clueless and naive, but what are real time kernels used for, anyway? I've downloaded a few Windows sound editors that are supposed to allow you to add echo in real time (provided you have a full duplex sound card). They work, but are choppy due to disk writes, mouse movements, etc. Would a real time OS solve this? I downloaded QNX 6 months ago and played around with it for a while. It actually recognizes my Sound Blaster Live card, while Mandrake Linux 7.2 doesn't. Are there any sound editors available for QNX? What other applications need real time kernels? Are there any video editors / recorders?
HMM you just the variable Money equal to God. Are you sure you did not want to test instead?
#include
int main(void)
if ( Money==God )i
then
{
printf ("Win98 is Good, *nix is Bad. );
pub->beer = "$3" ;
}
else
pub->beer = "Free" ;
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Does anyone here really choose to use or not use a product due to a moderate price?
Yes. Actually, you'd be amazed how many people choose what to use based on price. Especially college kids. A few days ago, several of the guys in my dorm (myself included) took a bunch of 486s that our IT department was throwing away, put the best of the hardware in a couple boxes, and now a couple people who didn't have 'puters before have them. Would they like a brand new Athlon system? Sure. But price wins out, and an old 486 is free, compared to an Athlon. They're running win95, because the school had some old licenses/disks that went with those computers, so that's also free to the students. And you'd be amazed how many people are using StarOffice, even for windows, because MS Office is so stinkin expensive.
If you're going to make money out of using someone's software, I think the authors should get something back. For instance, I run a little apache web server simply to serve my homepage and a web based email app I'm developing for my own use. I did not pay anything for this, or for the Redhat OS its running on (hardware costs aside here).
When I do consultancy work, I encourage businesses to make a donation to the FSF, apache etc. Not a huge donation, just to put something back into the system to allow free software to continue. Most businesses see the sense in doing this, after all they want to see improved versions of their webserver / OS coming out, and they want to see them supported. Although no charge is made, it costs money to produce those new versions and provide that support.
In the end, every project needs some form of funding to continue. And if you're making money from software someone gave you for free, don't you think its right you should give something back?
-----
Wrong, buddy. I didn't pay a cent for my approx. 4.57*10^78463 AOL CDs that came with IE 5, not to mention a disc I got with my router that has IE 5, Netscape and some other junk on there. Plus, I am sure yu can head over to MS anytime you want and download either IE or Outlook Express as standalones for free with their blessing.
-Zuchinis
Microsoft, as we all know is in the business of making money, not of making software. Today, yes, the Windows OS for the home user is one of their biggest markets but who knows what the future will bring? Some time ago, one of those Microsoft people said that "Free isn't much good to anybody except to the recipient." This, like most statements MS makes to the public was a blatant lie. They give us IE and Outlook Express for free becuase that makes it easy for us to use them....and not use any of the many different and superior browsers and email clients available. Perhaps the day will come when windows itself will be given away for free just so Microsoft can still claim and maintain the userbase, the name recognition, the media domination, and the monopoly that they have cheated so hard for so many years to achieve.
-Zuchinis
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
But with DMA turned off. Then it choked on Photon (the GUI) and ran way to slow to stick around and wait for. So deleted the partition w/ GNU parted and stuck it back in the repair room at school.
my Karma ran over my Dogma
That's what Windows 95/98/ME is, 'for non comercial use'
They're not stable enough for comercial use, of course neither is anything else that microsoft makes : )
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Start Sig: (sp?)
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End Sig.
Yes, this news is old. QNX RTP has been available since mid-November IIRC. I've been using it without problem on two different desktops, and had no problems whatsoever. I was even able to swap harddrives between the machines, without any configuration problems -- and yes, both systems were very different. The RTP is similar to many other *nix, but also different.
Also, this is not QNX's flagship product. The RTP uses the Neutrino microkernel, as opposed to the BSD-based (I believe, but I'm probably wrong) QNX 4, which is the one someone mentioned earlier as AT&T using on their systems. QNX has been used for quite a while in the embedded and medical industries. The floppy disk demo people keep referring to is QNX proper, not the RTP that is is.
--Rob--Rob
-- Rob
Y'a jamais des choses qu'on peut pas se débrouiller ; juste laisse-moi t'aider!
My sig is not jibberish, but rather contractions more often associated with argot. Without any contractions it comes out to:
Il n'y a jamais des choses qu'on ne peut pas se débrouiller; juste laisse-moi t'aider!
Which translates to: "There's nothing you cannot handle; just let me help you!"
--Rob--Rob
-- Rob
Y'a jamais des choses qu'on peut pas se débrouiller ; juste laisse-moi t'aider!
Actually, eMachines sells fairly well. 1999 market percentages for home PC sales:
COMPAQ : 19.0%
HP : 16.1%
Gateway : 15.3%
eMachines : 11.0%
Packard Bell NEC : 7.3%
All Others : 31.3%
(Dell shows up as #1 in the buisness and educational markets, where eMachines doesn't rank in the top 5).
possibly because (speaking for myself) i'm more productive in Linux with things like tab completion, xterms, and perl.
-- "Put on your big girl panties and lift!"
I just downloaded Solaris and it didn't cost me anything. I would suggest downloading Solaris only if you have bandwidth -- the file size is 800 MBs.
It would be surprising, for two reasons:
1. Microsoft isn't looking to increase its mind share or product awareness. Solaris and QNX are products that, once you try them, you might like them enough to include them in your business. I don't think the same can be said for anything from Microsoft, and in any case the odds are pretty good that your business is already stuck with them.
2. The target markets are different. When you market a product like QNX or Solaris, you are marketing reliability and performance, qualities that appeal mainly to commercial customers. Keeping track of and billing non-commercial customers, given their number, is not cost-effective, especially given the mindshare issue (see (1)). Microsoft, on the other hand, targets the non-commercial user as much as anyone. They make an insane amount of money forcing everyone who buys a peecee to buy a license for some version or other of their products. Giving it away makes no sense since they've already got the squeeze on everyone.
Solaris 8 is free for machines with less than 8 processors for any purpose.
(n/t)
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Would it be that surprising to find Windows soon available "for non-commericial use"?
Yes!
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Their case would not have been near so effective if they had been arrested for contesting the State, disappearing into some deserted corner of the country in a labor camp.
V
Seems to me Sun doesn't offer a .iso for download, they don't offer their $20 single-user license pack for personal use, and the closest thing they have now is a 'starter kit' or some such thing for $80
not sure what priority levels are available in Win9x
;)
Now (not yet implimented)
Very Soon (reserved)
Soon (reserved)
Later (default priority for OS)
Much Later (default priority for MS applications)
Epoc Speed (default priority for non-MS applications)
Of course this is just from my own observations. The actual API calls may be named differently
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Consider this.
As you said the golden rule emphasizes that you ought to treat people good no matter how you have been treated. Maybe this gives people the impression that is they treat somebody bad it will never turn around and bite them. For example. If I beat up a good person that good person would never beat me up or seek revenge because he follows the golden rule.
If on the other hand the golden rule is to treat people like you have been treated then it's OK to hit back. The person doing the hitting might not feels so secure that a good person would not retaliate or seek revenge.
If the golden rule was restated I actually think people would behave better because their motivation would change from behaving correctly because of some eternal reward to behaving correctly out of fear. Fear is always a more palpable motivator.
War is necrophilia.
This distro of QNX is only free insomuch as you have a need for a Pentium-only compilation - which effectively rules out its use on anything less, such as, oh, say - embedded applications. In other words, this would make for a good development/testing system, on higher-end processors, but for anything else (say a non-commercial embedded app, like an MP3 player or something), from what I understand this distro is worthless.
If I am wrong, please - somebody - let me know about it. I would rather be told I was wrong, and shown the proof, as it would mean a lot to a project I am involved in (check www.phoenixgarage.net for more info) that uses an AMD 5x86/133 cpu (basically an overblown 486)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Whoa. Thanks for the cutting edge news. I never knew it was free, thanks for telling me /.!
He said as he dusted off the CD that's been sitting on his desk the last five months.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
What, you guys actually pay for it?
Seriously though, QNX being free is quite nifty. If you install RtP on your desktop, you find that QNX is quite fast, has most of the features of Linux, and looks *really* nice. The programming interface is also pretty nice, while its not OO, it is "orthagonal" whatever that means. The main reason I don't use it more often is because the filesystem sucks serious ass. We're talking 4-5MB/sec on a Maxtor disk that gets 27MB/sec average reads on XFS. While the GUI is incredibly fast (maybe faster than BeOS's, its kinda subjective) but the 1/4 speed filesystem really kills it if you're trying to untar something or browse big directories.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Umm, what do you think that 256MB file called .swap is for? Either way, BeOS does whip QNX on several fronts, like messaging througput (1/2 of system-memory speed for large messages), filesystem througput (and features), media interface, etc, but QNX beats BeOS in terms of GUI features, networking features, cool Plan9-like namespace features, etc. Having used both, I'd have to give the nod to BeOS, but QNX is quite good, if they'd ever get a decent FS.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Dude, this is the new economy. What makes you think that you need to have people pay you for your products? Everything is free man. Mind share is the only thing that counts, getting people to use your stuff is even better than showing a profit. The only thing that you really need to sell is overpriced shares in the company. People are going to keep bidding up your stock price forever.
Oh wait, that was last year. Sorry.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
"We are the suckers who subsidize a billion chinese who get windows for free."
If a billion chinese use your product for free illegally, have you lost anything?
Do you really believe if they all paid, that the price would drop?
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Being "free" hasn't exactly invigorated the BeOS scene. I doubt QNX will fair any better.
Competition in the OS market is dying rapidly, and interestingly enough, due to the natural process of standards adoption. Almost everything of interest in an OS these days is the result of implementing support for a well-known standard, from POSIX right through to HTTP and XML.
During the "Windows Refund" thing, it came out that Microsoft was charging OEMs as little as $29/copy for Windows. The difference between that and the retail price is primarly the cost of support (which the OEM has to bear to get that discount).
As cheap as PCs have become, that thirty bucks is not a significant factor in the cost from the OEM's standpoint, especially in terms of the support costs. If it was, you'd see them shipping Linux or Solaris or some other alternative.
Now if Linux was actually cheaper to support in a home user situation, you might see the tables turn.... But that will never happen, so forget I mentioned it.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Windows for non-commercial use?
Excuse me while I change my pants. I pissed myself laughing so hard.
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My standard test is to run an MP3 then try doing something. On windows, it uses 100% CPU so even scrolling in the web browser causes it to skip. On Linux it also uses 100% CPU, but I can scroll without skipping. Opening an archive causes it to skip however.
What do you have : A 386-33? I'm currently playing an MP3 (I presume you mean audio) in Winamp and it is consuming 0% CPU time (obviously it's consuming something but not enough to register). And of course if you really want your MP3s not to skip set the multitasking priority on the app to AboveNormal or High (you can code this into the shortcut)
At least this time it was not done twice in the same day.
Not as surprising as a version of Windows that was solid enough for commercial use...
"Would it be that surprising to find Windows soon available "for non-commericial use"? "
Yes. Unlike Be, Sun and QNX, Microsoft makes quite a bit of money selling software like Windows to home users for "non-commercial" use. Mom and Dad aren't going to run solaris, but they'll probably run win98. Don't forget, money=god
Isn't Windows already free for non-commercial use? I mean... effectively, not legally.
------
The one announced as being released free at Slashdot on the 26th of April 2000?
-----
Get QNX For Free
Posted by jamie on Wednesday April 26, @08:59AM
from the no-PIII-required dept.
TomRitchford writes: "QNX is about to start distributing their real-time OS for free downloads for non-commercial use at get.qnx.com. Right now it's 'Real Soon Now,' but you can sign up and they'll send a free CD to the first 5000 to request it." The operating system's concepts will look familiar to anyone who knows unix, but its design makes it better for older (Intel-compatible) CPUs, and situations where stability and predictability are more important than unix's cornucopia of applications and features.
-----
Then it's actull avalablity annouced on September the 25th 2000?
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QNX Realtime Platform Now Available
Posted by Hemos on Monday September 25, @05:30PM
from the yet-another-os dept.
A reader writes "The QNX development platform is now available. It's available in three versions: the Windows-based self-extracting installer, the ISO image and the QNX4 install archive" You can also get it from QNX's site itself.
-----
This posting today is a little redundant... I've seen on my IRC server of choice a #qnx channel thrive then die in the time between the launch story post and this one.
The QNX RtP free annoucment was pretty big news. It's a bit dodgy that this managed to slip though the net as news again.
You see, if they started giving windows away for free then their revenue graph would show a very steep decline. This screems "Get the hell away!" to shareholders and investors which decreases the value of their shares which puts the company in a pretty terrible position.
It's probably a strategy that they've considered but because of what I stated above, it's impossible without generating an alternative source of revenue that's as large (or preferrably larger) than the OEM sales before they start giving windows away for free.
You may say that .NET is probably this strategy but I would disagree there as well. .NET (Whistler specifically) is the strategy that they are using to get into the ASP market. See, if microsoft just left the desktop OS market to go into the ASP market then the above would also happen (no more OEM sales->decline in revenue->share holders screem->company in deep shit). This is where whistler comes in. They have to charge money for whistler so they don't lose the revenue from pc sales while they switch to an ASP model. It's a pretty smart move business-wise.
--
Garett
"Would it be that surprising to find Windows soon available 'for non-commericial use'? "
Yes. Not only surprising, but profoundly shocking. Deeply disturbing. It would destroy my already tenuous grasp on reality.
Especially unlikely considering what they've said recently about the GPL.
QNX is a great OS. We've been working with it in our computer labs trying to come up with a good web browser that doesn't have to use a HD (we are using it from the CDROM). For those of you who haven't seen QNX, they have a complete OS + web browser running on a 3.5" floppy. Pretty impressive, IMHO.
It is a nice OS, also, because it doesn't create extra partitions. There is a large file that it stores under a directory (the image file) which is loaded on bootup. So if you ever decide to 'uninstall', I believe you can just delete the file.
Great OS. I hope to see more for it and its good to see that it is free now.
-Frijoles-
Would it be that surprising to find Windows soon available "for non-commericial use"?
Yes. It'd be an incredible event. MS has used its OS as its main tool for leverage over OEMs, hardware manufacturers, etc. The second it becomes free for 'home' use (or whatever), OEMs don't have to ship it anymore, which means they save a bundle of cash, and aren't tied into restrictive trade agreements with MS anymore, since everybody can just pick up a free copy of Windows for non-commercial use. Heck, I bet you could probably get free copies of Windows for just shipping costs from everywhere. Giving up its main means of leverage would be ludicrous.
And as an aside: The REAL reason why BeOS, QNX and others are free for 'personal' use is simple. They are the hunters, going after the market leader. Not necessarily everywhere, but certainly in certain niches. Not everybody wants to use BeOS, but for people who deal with media a lot (MacOS, IRIX?), it could be an alternative. And look, those people can run BeOS for free, at home. Wonder if they'll want to use it at work as well?
Solaris is another thing entirely. Yeah, it's semi-free (I think Sun still charge $50 or so for 'media costs'), but the reason why Solaris was made free for personal use is because Linux is destroying any kind of 'personal/home' UNIX base there ever was. If you want UNIX at home or just to try for a small, non-commercial server.. hell, xyzBSD or Linux are ideal choices. If Solaris is free, though, some people might reconsider. And if you need the much-hyped 'enterprise OS features' that both Sun and MS claim Linux/xyzBSD don't have, Solaris has a 'big-league' image.
In the end, it's pretty simple: why would they want to give it away? BECAUSE THEY HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE. VERY few people were actually BUYING BeOS or QNX for personal (ie non-commercial) use. Solaris was a different thing in academia etc. but the big money is with servicing contracts and hardware anyway. QNX is a purely professional embedded platform so far. So NOBODY has anything to lose from making it free for non-commercial use - rather the opposite: they entice people to try it, and ideally to use it in professional situations, where Sun/QNX/Be *will* get money.
Now, look at it again: Why would MS ever dream of making one of its cash cows free? They only have to lose. They've been able to *raise* the price of their software - over the last 10 years, the only part of a computer that's become more expensive is the OS, namely WindowsXYZ!
Windows for free. Good lord. What next, RMS agrees to work for the MS PR division?
Alex T-B
St Andrews
I remember BeDope posted the following back when BeOS went free. I thought you might like to read it...
Folks were arguing about whether "free like beer" was any good compared to "free like speech". Be Dope researches composed a scientific test to answer this question once and for all.
Be Dope CTO, Dr. Doxie, took her staff to a local computer show armed with several kegs of beer and hundreds of copies of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which guarantees the right to free speech.
The results were surprising and conclusive.
"Fully 99 out of every hundred people chose Free Beer over Free Speech," reported Doxie. "In some cases, the subject would begin stressing the importance of free speech, but all the while they'd be eyeing the free beer. In most cases, the free beer won in the end."
"We spent many hours in the lab testing both beer and speech," said Sakoman. "Those who consumed free beer reported feeling satisfied and sometimes 'buzzed'," said Be, Inc. COO Steve Sakoman. "Those speaking free afterwards rarely reported any benefits, and in fact would sometimes complain of a dry mouth or scratchy throat."
--
This message brought to you by Colin Davis
Colin Davis
Sun now offers compressed ISO images for download, as mentioned in another comment. No charge, just a simple license.
From The official FAQ:
No, it's not GPL, but not everything of value in the world is released under the GPL. Get over it.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
If Windows ever goes free for home, or any other type of, use, I am sure their will be a great outcry on Slashdot and maybe in the justice department about how Micro$oft is destroying competition by giving its product away for free.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
When I first read this, I thought, as probably most of you did: "Yeah, right! Forget it!". But then, I gave it a second thought: after all, Microsoft already does provide some free software, IE being an oustanding example.
The question is: why is IE free? I guess the answer has something to do with crushing a certain competitor, combined with the fact that Microsoft can afford to provide IE free of charges.
Now, what if the competition on the OS front starts to threaten Microsoft? We have seen that recently, they have changed their stance towards Linux, considering it a serious threat...
So, given the above, and considering that Microsoft would still make money on commercial licences, and of course on their other products, does the "free for non-commercial use" Windows idea still sound stupid?
Another question I'd like to raise: if Windows does become free (let's say for any use, to broaden the topic), what would the consequences be?
I code, therefore I am.