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Peter Tattam Of The PetrOS Project Talks To OSNews
Eugenia writes: "Trumpet Software is mostly known for their Internet communications software package, Trumpet Winsock, which has been adopted by the Internet world back in 1995, at the times where Windows 3.1 and Win95 did not come as standard with full internet connetion capabilities. But the main product these days for Trumpet Software is PetrOS, a 32-bit Operating System, which has the goal to be compatible by all means (binary and API compatible) with Microsoft Windows. OSNews is interviewing the main architect behind the project, Peter Tattam, who talks in depth about PetrOS, and also there is shown an early screenshot of the PetrOS GUI, which is still under heavy development." And it's been (not surprizingly) under heavy development for a while. Building a Windows-compatible OS from scratch surely isn't easy, but from this interview (including screenshots) they're having quite a go of it.
Gee, wouldn't it be funny if they ended up making a better version of Windows than Microsoft?
...I'll procrastinate tomorrow...
It's an interesting goal and everything, but it's a moving target, as far as I can tell.
Every few months I get a new copy of the MSDN library (basically documentation for all Microsoft's APIs), and every time it's a bit different from the one before.
Of course I don't want to tell anyone how to spend their time, but if it were me, I'd spend my energy on building something new, rather than just trying to be compatible with something that'll just be obsolete by the time I'm done anyway.
- In Capitalist America, law violates YOU!
Now that's really innovative!
Usually these people just try and imitate the look and feel of windows,now they are down to copying the whole thing.
I must say very innovative.
...and you aren't running Linux or another proven OS, then why not just use Windows? Sheesh, looks like a business plan shakier than VA Linux's
Is your company running tools written by ma
Thank GOD they don't implement the kernel at the same. One step at a time. :) They'll either swap ideas or learn from each other's mistakes
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
This could turn out to be a reincarnation of the IBM/Compaq scenario of the 80s.
Yet, I wonder which one is technically farther along, PetrOS or WINE?
Aiiiiiieeeieieieieie!
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
I can't imagine why anyone would try to base a company on cloning Windows. So I read the interview.
A) Cheap alternative for desktop users -- users say "they wished they had something better without having to pay big big bucks." Win2k is, what, perhaps $200. PetrOS will have to sell for $50 or less, then.
And it'll be obsolete the moment MS changes an API. Or the moment MS makes MSIE crash when it detects PetrOS.
B) Embedded market -- er, no. The embedded market wants Linux, QNX, EPOC and other OSes. They're either free, hard realtime, or extremely small.
C) Servers -- er, no. If you want cheap, then you choose a BSD or Linux. If you want to be able to blame someone, you choose MS. You don't go out and buy some $50 clone of MS.
D) Clustering -- er, no. Not unless you're just goofing around. Kind of money invested in building a cluster, you don't go pick up a $50 clone of Windows to run it!
While this is a pretty cool project, I simply can't see that it's a profitable one...
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
This is great stuff and I would like to learn more about the scarifices made by this team.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
I hope this guy isn't planning on supporting the wife and kids with this thing.
I can't even fathom trying to go up against a company that has a 15-20 year headstart and literaly billions of dollars worth of resources.
sure, it sounds like a neat project, but doesn't sound like a good business strategy imho
...they chose to use a diaphragm for their logo... hmm...
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
You know back in the day....well not that far back Trumpet was the best connect software rolling around. What did you have maybe 2 or 3 that did anything worth talking about, that you configure and get working with any consistancy? Cammilion and Trumpet where the best, please correct me if I am wrong, and Cam was sad.
Interesting enough with the os that would be compat with winOS that is free. It would seem that the linux community would have done this years ago if for nothing else to put a funnel on the venture capital. If Linux had become 100% comp with windows software, via a deamon or what have you....things could and would be very different in many ways. Then again part of problem with windows is the software, so Linux would end up bringing bugs in...it is kind of catch 22 sale to the devil....
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
D) Clustering -- er, no. Not unless you're just goofing around. Kind of money invested in building a cluster, you don't go pick up a $50 clone of Windows to run it!
You think small, cheap, affordable clustering technology is only useful to businesses that have money?
That's pretty snobby. EXPAND YOUR WORLDVIEW, monkey!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
dalnet is the AOL of IRC, nothing but wannabe scriptiods and pron wanks.
All clueless. That guy should be ashamed of himself.
I found it very interesting that they were using Borland tools. Was this a concious choice to avoid anything Microsoft (understandable) or a testament to the greatness of Borland compilers? (Windows-based compilers...I'm sure there are LOTS and LOTS of great Linux pascal compilers out there...I'm only talking Windows here people.)
What use does this have if in a couple of years no one is using the old code base? It would seem that implementing NT device driver support in the kernel would be vital to this project taking of.
Or am I missing something?
I can't decide if this is the work of a sincere person who is sadly deluded, or a marketing ploy to flog a few more dollars out of investors. It's hard enough getting your foot in the door with a pure desktop operating system that is better than Windows (BeOS, OS/2), much less one whose entire goal is to play catch-up to Windows itself. There is nothing here to appeal to people who already know and like Windows, and it's certainly not going to appeal to people who don't like windows either.
Beyond that, the technical feasibility of it is questionable. Microsoft is well known for making its Win32 API, filesystems, etc, moving targets. It's taken the Wine and NTFS teams a long time to get where they have, and even then they're pretty far from complete compatibility. What makes these guys think they're going to get any closer?
Oh well. I guess it goes to show you, there's always someone trying to ice skate uphill.
If this OS is targeted for servers and embedded devices as the interview points out, I'd give it a go. There are tons of extras heaped on NT that I'd love to get dump. Perhaps it will take a page from the Mandrake install and allow us to install only the components we need through an EASY interface...
Of course we torture people, we need the information --Gen. Pinochet
Help! I want to post a comment but for some reason I cannot login anymore. Every time I enter my nickname and passwd (I asked Slashdot to re-mail it to me to confirm I had the correct combo) into the login boxes, and straightaway it just bounces back to the frontpage without a login. I never had this problem before, and I have both cookies and Referer headers enabled. I know Slashdot's slashcode was updated Saturday 1st September 2001 with the major unpublicised change being it requires your browser/junkbuster to send the Referer header. I won't post off-topic again if I can get a login! Can anyone please say whether there are any known special problems/solutions for logging in to the "new" Slashdot?
.. under PetrOS as they all use undocumented APIs. Lots of them. So Trumpet will either have to reverse engineer core DLLs (which may bring MS lawers upon their as*es) or limit this new OS to documented APIs only (which is obviously a poor choice).
3.243F6A8885A308D313
Sure sounds like a good idea reading about it but it's totally unpractical. He wants to aim for the desktop, which means he's gonna have to go for the average user. Since windows comes "free" on all mainstream PCs today, the average user will never ever have the need to run a windows clone.
Sure, us geeky people will have fun messing around with it, but we already have our joys in running unixes.
Just what we need.. another Windows. But on a more serious note, there's virtually no way that a single company can write a perfect replacement for Windows itself. It's just too large a task and Windows is a wavering and fast moving target anyways. Have these people been asleep during the whole beginning of the Open Source revolution? You can't fight Microsoft on their own turf, but you can undermine it. If they were smart, they'd join up with the Wine people and build a business around that instead. Use a business model similar to Transgaming, except for ordinary / custom applications that people want / need to hold on to as they transition to Linux / BSD.
486 DX processor.
2MB System RAM (4MB recommended).
At least 2MB Hard drive space. This struck me as funny. I understand the point they're trying to make, but does this mean I'd better go out and get that 2MB upgrade I've been looking at for the past ten years for the 486DX I intend to run this on?
"We're well aware of the dominance by the key player in this market - we just want to coexist, not supplant." - Peter Tattam
"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense -- I deserve it." - Jean-Louis Gassée
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana
Much of the MS Software is licensed to run on MS OS's only. If the OS works, MS could sue them for making it too easy for MS customers to break their license agreements.
E) Pissed-off OEMs that are sick of M$'s influence and demands on their products
and
F) Pissed-off gov't offices willing to learn something slightly different and tired of licensing issues/overpriced upgrades
There's room for anything new in this world, so long as it provides a real change.
Emacs: for people who just never know when to
I have no idea whether this project will succeed. If it would only be less costly than Linux, as explained below, I'm willing to give it a try.
Let's have a close look at the costs involved when running a Linux system.
An important factor in Linux' cost is its maintenance. Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.
Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly. Other unix file systems are much more tolerant towards unexpected crashes. An example is the FreeBSD file system, which with soft updates enabled, performance-wise blows EXT2FS out of the water, and doesn't have the negative drawback of extreme data loss in case of a system breakdown.
The upcoming 'solution' to this, EXT3FS, is nothing more than an ugly hack to put journaling into the file system. All the drawbacks of the ancient EXT2FS file system remain in EXT3FS, for the sake of 'forward- and backward compatibility'. This is interesting, considering that the DOS heritage in the Windows 9x/ME series was considered a very bad thing by the Linux community, even though it provided what could be called one of the best examples of compatibility, ever. When it's about Linux, compatibility constraints don't seem to be that much of a problem for Linux advocates.
Back to Linux' cost. Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally. Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems".
The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost. The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coded tools which have low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification. On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
I could go on and on and on, but the conclusion is clear. Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
Whoa! This guy has guts. Not only is he trying to battle William Gates III he's also named Bill's OS after himself! Even Bill Gates himself wasn't arrogant enough to instill a "BillOS" upon us! Sheesh.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
The difference being: if you violate Microsofts one - they will sue a jail you (if it was some copyright protection one)
But if THEY violate YOURS: they will sue YOU again, since this license ain't worth crap in court.
So no matter what you do - those who lined establishment and law firms with money (that YOU paid them, for products, to start with) - you are fucked, screwed and ain't worth shit.
Sad.
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
You think small, cheap, affordable clustering technology is only useful to businesses that have money?
No, it's useful to companies without a lot of money as well. I imagine they will be using Beowulf or Mosix, though, as the cost for standard software with lots of drivers and available programmers and administrators is $0.00. Heck, even big companies like Shell use Beowulf and Mosix.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Of course, Microsoft are such lousy coders when it comes to seperation of fundamentals and incidentals that this may be technically unachievable, but it's certainly a noble cause.
I tend to agree with you on the cost/benefit analysis, though. But it's certainly a trendy thing to want to do.
..I am POSITIVE I was making this reply to the other thread. How this ended up here..? Strange..
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Also, they aren't planning on opening the code to everyone, so I'm not sure what incentive anyone would have to purchase this OS over a true MS one which it is trying to duplicate. Oh well, my $0.02.
Revelations 0:0 - The beginning of the end.
The two primary objections I see here could both have been raised when Linus decided to write a UNIX clone in 1991:
1. "Nobody could possibly write his own UNIX kernel! It's too huge of a system!"
2. "UNIX has been dying since the mid 1980s. Who would want to start writing a system that will be dead on arrival?"
And what's more, the person who submitted the Slashdot article had the gall to steal the name "Eugenia" from the person who wrote the linked article! It's not just copyright infringement, it's identity theft as well!
I can see many embedded folks who require a W*n compatable OS, but want better company to work with. Not just for price, but service. Often time an embedded product will be spected with a W*n requirement fro the customer to support some legacy application. I just released a project that runs in a DOS box under Win3.1 as an embedded system. I'll let you guess how much support we got from M$
Bill Gates himself wasn't arrogant enough to instill a "BillOS" upon us!
Interestingly enough when I look at "BillOS", it seems like it wants to be pronounced "Billows" - which (if spoken in casual conversation) could be heard as "Bellows".. as in those things that blow!
One thing about Windows, is it really does blow!
A) Cheap alternative for desktop users -- users say "they wished they had something better without having to pay big big bucks." Win2k is, what, perhaps $200. PetrOS will have to sell for $50 or less, then.
And it'll be obsolete the moment MS changes an API. Or the moment MS makes MSIE crash when it detects PetrOS.
you're right. (cough) DR-DOS. (cough)
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
There is no reason this post should be given 0
Woe be on to them, all who rise against poor people, shall perish in a the end. Buju Banton
2. "UNIX has been dying since the mid 1980s. Who would want to start writing a system that will be dead on arrival?"
It seems to me that we expect software to modernize much faster than it actually does. I think it's quite likely NT will be around (and big) in 20 years, while much better software architectures will be hanging on the fringes.
As of today, the newest Microsoft home user OS released still has DOS inside. And how old is that?
Maybe the problem is that no one tries to send a life raft to the poor people trapped in an old OS. Everybody says: Come swim to my new, fancy one, or fuck off. The result is that the old OS lives on.
If Trumpet don't need money fast and have a few years to get the bugs out, they just might build the life raft many Windows users are hoping for. The Windows API isn't changing THAT fast; if you catch up to it as it was 6 years ago, you're doing great! (Very few people dare write programs that break in Win95. I expect it will be 10 years before a significant number of Windows binaries won't run on XP.) I'm not saying compatability will be easy; just that they have plenty of time to do it.
Of couse, I don't expect them to succeed. Trumpet are greedy bastards, they'll run out of money soon, and their closed-source code will just vanish. Whatever. I'm much more interested in WINE anyway, who don't need to write new device drivers (the real eternal uphill battle) and don't need to worry about running out of corporate money. Sure, it seems they're moving forward at a snail's pace, but if in 3 years WINE runs everything that you can run on Win95, it will still be the #1 reason why people will be comfortable switching to Linux.
It definitely will be difficult, but there's nothing wrong with "fighting the good fight"
These guys are going for full compatability with win32 binaries. With all this experience with hacking away at them, could the knowledge they gain be wrpaed into the wine project? I know it wouldn't be the profit minded thing to do, but if the OS goes flop as most people here seem to think so, then why couldn't it be spread around?
P.S. - I'm all for this project. Complete compatability with win32 binaries is a great edge. A fast stable OS that still can run ALL of your programs? Why not?
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
Finally an OS that can be usefull. Maybe I'll try it when the GUI is ready.
From a first glance, 50-70% of these functions are documented, while the rest of them (having rather self-explanatory names) are not. Same applies to user32.dll and other core DLLs.
3.243F6A8885A308D313
To my amazement, nowhere in their FAQ are the questions "Why the hell would anyone want to pay for Windows, never mind a compatible OS" or "Do you plan on being 'bug' and 'Security Flaw' compatible?"
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
hmm.. didn't some people try this a couple years back with DR-DOS and PC-DOS... It didn't seem to work then. .what makes them think it will work now? MS has the market cornered.. they are the first OS most people see.. until you can get PC sellers to start shipping other OSes.. it'll be a losing battle..
The "secret APIs" are not a rumor. Notice the dates on these references, the secret APIs have been in NT all along.
MSFT hasn't hesitated to use the secret APIs either. From the July 10 InternetWeek: Microsoft has historically achieved market dominance by controlling APIs and forcing competitors to write software to Microsoft's APIs, then changing the APIs. "Instead of satisfying their own customers' demand, competitors are busy catching up with Microsoft," said IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky.
From the October 8, 1998 NY Times: And Microsoft, the people added, did what it has always denied it does -- used access to its technology as a powerful lever in business negotiations, by offering Netscape preferential access to the Windows "application program interfaces," or A.P.I.'s, the links that enable other companies' programs to run smoothly on the Windows operating system. By turning down the deal, Netscape, they say, would not have that preferred access to Microsoft technology -- a threat that Microsoft fiercely denies making.
Think about it - can you, using only Win32, write all of the stuff that MSFT provides with NT/W2k? No. Clearly, MSFT keeps APIs to themselves. MSFT wants to allow itself the latitude to write faster, more functional programs than the ordinary developers can write. MSFT has proven time and time again that it will use secret APIs to its own advantage, or to the advantage of selected partners (Executive Software, for example). This practice is certainly bad for the consumer. Secret APIs raise the cost of entry into the NT system software market, which will keep out competitors, raise prices, and reduce choice.
Last time I checked, Win95 is a f**k of a lot smaller than Linux+Gnome, Linux+KDE, AppleOS, etc.
While I'm sure if you stripped Linux down, or went with QNX, you can get something smaller, but out of the box, most things with a GUI are much larger installs than Win95.
Some of you aren't getting the idea. I've read numerous comments of, the api changes day to day to day. What your not getting is, how many development shops change their app each time the win api's change? few to none. I can take my old copy of office that was intended for windows 95 and it will install on WinME and run just fine. All they have to do is clone the win api today. That would mean most of the windows apps written BEFORE TODAY would run on that OS TODAY. That in itself if a massive accomplishment. Wine is great, but for the new user just breaking the microsoft shackles would have a choice. Yes, that choice wouldn't be a *BSD or a Linux distro, but it would be something other than Microsoft. You know what? Once somebody does something once, and they like it. Their more willing to do it again. Granted this isn't an OpenSource effort, but it will benefit OpenSource in the end.
Just my 1-cent
Copying something 10x as complex as Windows, like UNIX, would be even more crazy than this guy. That would be TOTAL insanity. No chance of success. Clearly DOA. Don't even try it.
A good reason to want a "windoze-compatible" thing would be, for example, the absence of an exclusive bootloader license for the OEM : this way, dual boot PCs could be sold by OEM without fear of losing their windoze PC markwetshare. In addition, that's a good point against some Redmond company's leverage on its monopole.
-- javaDragon is an instance of JavaDragon.
> I'm sure there are LOTS and LOTS of great Linux
.. I guess you can now include Kylix in that list.
> pascal compilers out there
Lots and lots? Well, theres Free Pascal and GNU Pascal. I believe theres also a Turbo Pascal-to-C convertor. But thats all I can think of off the top off my head. I wouldn't say theres "lots and lots".
Oh ya
- The REAL Anonymous Coward
Didn't Microsoft build stuff into applications to stop them working with DR-DOS? Why does anybody think they'll do it differently with this?
B) Embedded market -- er, no. The embedded market wants Linux, QNX, EPOC and other OSes. They're either free, hard realtime, or extremely small
o verview.html
Actually, there is quite a market for a small, embeddable OS with a Win32 API. Check out 'ETS' by Phar Lap (now Venturcom), at http://www.vci.com/products/vci_products/ets/ets_
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
What's the minimum software that you'd have to replace in order to de-Microsoft a typical PC?
... a huge selling point. People can write to other API's later as time goes on, like Apple moving to the Cocoa API by just putting it out there, and developers can adopt it as they please. In the meantime, people still have a lot of Win32 apps that they want to use on their PC's, and Carbon apps on their Macs. If somebody wants to replace Windows with Linux in great numbers then getting the Win32 API going might be just as important to their vision of Linux as having the Carbon API and the Classic environment is on Mac OS X. Computers exist to run the apps that are on them RIGHT NOW. To be able to switch to Linux and still use all those old Netscape and SmartSuite and DOS game discs you have from 1997 might be cool for some people. Also, the Enhanced CD's in people's music collections have Mac versions and PC versions. The PC versions are Windows versions. If Linux were to replace Windows tomorrow, then adding support for those CD's would be a priority. Whatever replaces Windows (if anything) would probably have to make that level of commitment to the PC platform's non-Unix past, so why not just enable the stuff to be run natively?
I don't think the average frustrated Windows user wants to stop running IE and MS Office. You don't have to replace those. Users probably like most of their other applications, too. What most people want to stop is that the whole shooting match is dependent on Microsoft Windows. It gets better, or it gets worse, according to Microsoft. Any security in Windows is always open to Microsoft's applications. Features come and go and are reliable or unreliable based mainly on who is currently having their air supply cut off, etc. It's a drag.
One of the nice things about switching from using Windows full-time to using a Mac full-time is that suddenly Microsoft is just another software company. Replacing the core of Windows with something non-Microsoft could give Windows users that feeling that they can really hold Microsoft accountable for their dirty tricks and just switch off the Microsoft software if they want to, without losing their computer's functionality and capabilities. At least you could close IE when you wanted to, and run an Adobe or other app on a non-Microsoft foundation, perhaps with better performance as well.
Imagine a Windows software installer that you run, and after a reboot, the computer functions in basically the same manner, except that it can function with all of the Microsoft apps shut off. They are running a non-MS kernel and certain systems that are acting as a traffic cop or conscience for Windows. You can run IE or any MS app, but they are in their own processes and effectively being contained from any scripting mischief or whatever.
Wouldn't this be a good way for the Linux kernel to get onto more machines full-time? If it could replace the NT kernel and the user could still keep their apps at least
These guys at Trumpet don't seem to look at it as OS and applications and who owns what. If you think of the user's PC, the Trumpet core OS product was replaced by yet another Microsoft core OS product. Now Trumpet is working on new core OS products that replace some of Microsoft's at the user's discretion. Even if they only replace the functionality of Windows 95, then that gives them an instant application base that is very large. Also, they would give Windows developers a reason to stick to core Win32 stuff and make good cross-platform code in order to run in both places, even just for the principle. If you are making subnotebooks or something, why make one with Pocket Windows when you could make a Microsoft-free Windows95-compatible Pentium-class subnotebook that runs real Windows and DOS apps (not all of them, but LOTS) with excellent performance? There are interesting things going on when you can get the Win32 application base or a subset of it without having to build your business on Microsoft.
It isn't free, or very usable as a desktop OS, but as proof that building a Win32-compatable OS is possible, check out 'ETS', at http://www.vci.com/products/vci_products/ets/ets_o verview.html
It's an embedded, real-time OS that provides a portion of the Win32 API: kernel, filesystem, winsock, etc (no GUI, though). It's a good, inexpensive little embeddable RTOS.
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Well there is long-lasting wine project that is capable of running windows apps. It has been developed for many years, but we're still far from running "most" windows apps on linux.
Here is a list from their "competitors" page:
These are the dead or very slow projects. The statistics can be wrong, but usually this is not the case.
There are also "alive" projects. One is twin, but it's slow. Another is odin which was former OS/2-WIN code. But I do not know much about that one.
'nuff said.
I've been following this project with interest for the past year or so. Even had some suggestions via the PETRos discussion groups. I would welcome (and pay for) a small, fast and stable OS on both the desktop and as a server that would run all the Windows apps that my users insist they must have. The lower cost and lower hardware requirements could be very significant in the educational and non-profit markets. And, yes, the linux/WINE option would of course remain on the table. But more choices are always better...
"We must despise our opponent's strategy, but respect their tactics..." - Mao -
It does. They've released version 1.01 and they're selling it for $50 a copy. Whether it's going to be profitable has yet to be seen.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
If you want a true free WIN32 OS then take a look.
Free Unix? Free Windows. http://www.reactos.com
But, I wrote both the original article and the Slashdot submision. So I guess it is a fair use. ;-)
Obviously Trumpet saw what Linux is doing to Microsoft's bottom-line and realized they could go up against the Goliath too!
A 15-20 year head start is nothing if you cannot create a stable system.
I hope they succeed, even if only in a small way. Many MS alternatives are better than none.
Just do not end up like Be, keep on making your winsock product!
Emm, :>), and shampoo that makes your hair shine.
Actually, there ARE some folks who will pay BIG $$ for this -- Fortune 50 companies. For example, I work for a company that rhymes with You & Me that makes peanut butter, coffee, the #1 Laundry Detergent (for those who wash
This same company just recently retired several Access 2.0 apps -- you know, the ones that are 16-bit based, Windows 3.1 vintage . Some serious crimes against nature were performed to get Windows98 to work with them...
Anyway, once you get >10 folks on an application used to cover regulated or validated requirements, they can hold the rest of the corporation's desktops hostage. And where I work, that means >50,000 licenses.
Moral of the story -- change often is the opposite of progress for those who need stability. PetrOS may yet get the last laugh!
Zappy5000
Doesn't Microsoft have a tendency to write license terms that prohibit running their software on non-Microsoft platforms? IOW, I bet you can't run the Windows MSIE legally without a Windows license.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
I spoke to Peter Tattem at a Computer Society presentation in Hobart two years ago. I asked him about his operating system. Here is the dialog I had with him.
--
me: Hi, I hear you're writing an operating system
him: (looking casually to the left to avoid eye contact) yes
me: cool! So, it emulates windows right? Have you heard of Wine?
him: (looks towards me).. Wine is shit.. its bullshit.. so is linux.. that's bullshit too
me: er, but Wine is essentially a windows "emulator" right?
him: yes.. but its shit. its crap
(pause)
me: so.. does it work yet?
him: yes.. i have it booting a console at the moment and i have written the tcp/ip stack
me: does it run any software yet?
him: of course it does!
me: so, it could run word?
him: oh, no.. it doesnt have a GUI yet.. but the function calls are in there
me: so what have you actually run on it yet?
him: well.. the console ftp client works
(editors note: w00t!)
me: ah i see. but why bother writing a windows clone, when you could just write a new operating system, like linux
him: linux is shit. its unstable. its crap. linux is horribly written.. they crash every day at my work
me: what version of linux
him: redhat
me: ooh.. that's wh-
(he buts in)
him: HOW LONG HAVE YOU WORKED IN THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY FOR? I don't thgink you know what you are talking about. Linux is SHIT. S H I T. Period.
me: well, it might be - but why are you writing a windows clone? Do you think anybody will use it?
him: How many years have you worked in the Industry?
me: (lying a little bit) - 4 years
him: yess.. thats why. I suspected so
me: so what language are you writing it in.
him: pascal
(long pause, while I try to keep a straight face)
me: pascal? why how interesting.. i've never heard of it being writting in pascal
him: its not pascal as such. its OBJECT pascal.
me: object orientated pascal? wow.. it would be hard to write an operating system in that. I mean, all unix operating systems are writtin in C - that pretty much sets the standard
him: Unix is SHIT. Do you hear me? Linux is crap. I hate linux. Unix is the worst operating system ever written.
me: well, it might not be good but surely windows isnt any better
him: yes, your right. windows is shit too. I hate it
me: so, why are you writing a windows clone again?
him: how long have you worked in the industry again?! HAVENT YOU BEEN LISTENING TO WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING?
me: oh.. look my drink is empty. I might go get another one.
/me wanders away. makes sure to remember conversation as it will be amusing to repeat to others.
And your point?
The fact of the matter is that OP does allow pointer arithmetic as fullt as C does, and even better it makes you aware that you are doing something yucky when you do it.
... I see here is that emulating the *bugs* in the API's will pose the biggest time waster for these guys.
The fact that they're using Object Pascal will bode to be an even bigger task at that.
So these guys on a little island off the coast of Australia wrote another Delphi compiler (what was wrong with the one that Borland make?), and then rewrote DOS and are going on Windows. Anyone else think that these guys have more enthusiasm than sense, and way too much time on thier hands?
Though this is a good validation of the Object-Pascal programming paradigm (in case you missed earlier posts Object Pascal is not the original Pascal - None of Kernigan's criticisms apply), but as an OS it seems a complete waste of time. It is not free, and thus will never gain mass-hacker support like Linux, and they will never be able to outmarket MS.
As an Ausie friend once said: "Tasmania: where the family trees have no branches."
It seems there is an explosion of OS's - IMHO this is natural, inevitable and a good thing. Any suffienty well-understood area of softare eventually becomes a comodity - almost anyone can do it - barriers to software creation are low, but getting people to care about an new instance is therefor harder.
To work in the market a new entrant must either trade on brand name & familiarity (Apple, MS) or on near-zero purchase price and free ideology (Linux). Petros has neither of these and thus no lever to enter the market.
A cluetrain!!
It's supposed to be a Windows clone, but it can't use device drivers written for Windows?
So somebody installs it on his PC instead of MS Windows and then finds that his sound card doesn't work, he can't print, and his screen is 800x600 instead of 1280x960?
Even Linux, with hundreds of top-notch volunteer developers, has this problem to some extent. But this turkey will not only have fewer good drivers than Linux, it will also arouse greater expectations in users. It looks like Windows and it claims to run Windows software. So Joe User will expect it to support his low-end Lexmark printer and all the other devices Windows supports. He's going to be upset when he discovers it doesn't - and rightly so.
Now there's a blast from the past. Morons.
Lets make a better windows than Windows that can run all Windows programs.. great idea we will be rich!!!!
:)
Anyone remember os/2 ?
How about a OS to run in a VMWare style emulator that can be tossed in with SuSE Pro 8.x that allows Windows programs (read: Age of Empires II) to be run. SuSE pays $5 per copy (or some such amount, since it's "free" for Trumpet), and users get a usable Windows box.
This isn't to say Wine or other efforts aren't worthy, just that this is an alternate "run legacy apps layer" that is very promising.
Also, several years ago, my Dad needed a copy of DOS... it was for a terminal computer that sat in the corner of his office doing a single task. Guess what? DOS was unavailable. I FedExed him one set of 5 1/4" disks, they were bad, and I sent him another - those were good. He was willing to pay $100 for a copy of DOS (the program was ancient, and didn't load under Win95. If I was at the keyboard, I might have been able to configure it to, but I wasn't). This *does* fill a niche for all those 286s running PFS in churches and back rooms. And yes, they do exist.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
- Borland Kylix is freeish (a stripped-down version an be used for free if your target app is GPL'd or similar), and is Object-Pascal, Delphi & therefor great.
... yet.
- FreePascal is free, but not great
- Standard pascal bites and cannot be great unless it is extended like Object-Pascal.
Trumpet software seems to be on a mission to reienvent an entire 18-wheel truck, so they built an Object-Pascal compiler, but it isn't free and doesn't target linux.
& that's just about it, I'm afraid.
It just so happens that my real first name (and internet no-no but this is important) happens to coincide exatly with the name of the OS in question in the above slashdot story. Does this mean I have to pay royalty fees everytime I need to submit a university thesis for publication? Seing my name trademarked was rather shocking... and I think my own time to realise just how far this crazy game has gone....
If this project is ever completed, and there is enough money left over to do some really good marketing, these guys have a real chance.
I was at the bookstore the other day(I go there a lot), and for the first time ever I saw someone else looking at the Linux books. I noticed he was holding a "Linux for Dummies"(or linux for complete idiots of whatever) book, so I asked him if/why he was giving Linux a try. His answer? Windows XP!
Yes, Joe Blow (aka Joe Sixpack) was giving Linux a try because Windows XP pricing, licensing, forced registration, etc was plain ridiculous, he said.
This Joe Sixpack may have been a bit more computer saavy than average, but not much. He's mostly just a gamer, and he was impressed with the game selection on Linux now so wanted to try it out. He plans to hold onto win98 to play games for a while, but he DOES NOT want to buy XP.
A cheap, windows compatible OS would be a good alternative for this guy and many others.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Probably about the same place that there is a
If, as you say, they, the PetrOS developers, can pull off a $50 OS compatible with Windows then they have SUCEEDED!
Most companies and home users (not we techies) want this kind of option. They WANT a second source for software. Competition will force MS to do a better job and with better efficiency (and probably with a lower price).
The PetrOS folks have somthing WINE does not, focus. They HAVE to provide the compatibility. Else, they cannot SELL the OS and make a living.
Since the developers are not in the US it is more difficult for MS to squash them. Though, I would not put it past MS to buy them out.
And NO, it will not be obsolete if MS makes a change to the APIs. MS themselves cannot afford to make such far-reaching changes to their APIs since their own legacy apps (previous versions of IE, Office, Games, etc.) MUST run on Windows. Otherwise, MS loses ITS own monopoly. MS is also business results driven, so they will be the last to shoot down their own apps. That's where all of the MS bloat has came from - they could not re-write. They had to keep all the layers and further layer more legacy compatibilities on top of that.
Lets look at Linux, everytime I upgrade the OS I have to upgrade a myriad of applications as well.
MS specifically wanted to avoid this since they knew that people could not afford to buy the OS AND all new apps everytime an upgrade happened.
Until Linux becomes "stable" and does not require everything else to be changed, upgraded, and re-compiled, every time there is a change in OS level, then it will not be used by end users and corporations for the desktop.
92% of desktops are Windows so that is the market PetrOS is targeting, NOT servers, NOT clustering, NOT embedded. This is called business acumen. They need to make a profit, not just sit around and play with techie toys. 99% of the world is not free, but must make a profit to survive.
As far as I can see, they have the best of both worlds, the ability to potentially make a profit from this, and they get to play with the techie toys they create. Potentially, they can also say someday, "We built a better product than MS, which runs MS programs, runs MS compatible apps and games, costs less, gave MS a run for their money, and has made us a profit."
If it were open source... I'd LOVE to tinker around with something like this. Im stuggleing to get around in Linux, but am a master at windows (is there such a thing?). To have an open source windows clone would be heaven for people like me!
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