Slashdot Mirror
SkyOS Now Runs Linux Binaries Natively
Gunder123 writes: "A new (open source in the past, but not anymore) operating system, SkyOS, in its latest version can run Linux binaries unmodified, without the need of a recompilation, enriching its own application base this way. Their Linux emulation layer lies inside the SkyOS kernel, I wonder if there are any GPL violations going on here. Their future plans involve also an emulation layer for Windows applications, pretty much what ReactOS tries to do for the last few years for the WindowsNT model."
"Their Linux emulation layer lies inside the SkyOS kernel, I wonder if there are any GPL violations going on here."
That has to be one of the rudest things that I have seen on Slashdot in years. To suggest that just because some Linux binaries can run on another OS with no evidence is absolutely disgusting.
Of course, even more disgusting is that Timothy posted it, but I think everyone realizes Slashdot has a pretty fucked up editorial policy so I shall not continue.
Think about how that kind of emulation works, you just do system call translation. What on earth code would you steal? This is code that, by design, HAS to be original.
Slashdot's editors truly need to be more careful, and they need to issue an apology to SkyOS for making such an irrational accusation.
That's completely backwards. When writing an emulation layer (I speak from experience...if you ever ran a System V 286 binary on a System V 386 Unix or an SCO Xenix 286 binary on a Systemv V 386 Unix, you were using the emulation layer Darryl Richman, Carl Hensler, and I wrote when we worked at Interactive), you do not want to use actual code from the OS you are emulating. That code doesn't work like your OS works (if it did...you wouldn't need an emulation layer...you'd just need some argument munging and other trivial stuff).
The hard thing about an emulation layer is finding out just what the thing you are emulating does. An emulation layer has to not just follow the written spec (if there is one), but also has to implement the same bugs as the thing you are emulating, and follow the same choices where there was leeway in the spec, or you might break binary compatibility.
When emulating something that is open source, like Linux, you have the documentation you need: the source code. You read it to find out what the real behaviour is, and then implement that in a way that fits in with the way your OS works. It simple is almost never going to be faster to rip the actual code and try to use it.
When emulating a closed source thing like Windows, however, finding out the actual behaviour you need to emulate (remember...gotta match the actual behaviour, not just what the spec says) can take much experimenting and disassembly. It is much more temping (because it can actually save a lot of time), to rip some DLLs from Windows, and cobble together a framework to run them under your system.
So, just from a "what might developer's do" point of view, it is actually more likely a Windows emulation project would use parts of Windows they should not use than a Linux emulation project would use parts of Linux they should not use.
"Free as in speech" means "allowed to do whatever you want with it".
Someone should arrest and jail your High School civics teacher for fraud.
"Free Speech" means speech that is unrestricted. In the context of western civilization is usually refers to the legal right to speak without legal hinderances, particularly with regards to political opinion, though it also covers non-political expressions of a creative, commercial or mundane nature.
"Free Software" may indeed mean "allowed to do (almost) whatever you want with it". But that is NOT what "Free Speech" means.
In regards to software, there are two kinds of "speech" available. The first is the "speech" of actually creating the software. The second is the "speech" of modifying and/or redistributing the first kind. The first kind is a legal and unalienable right. Unfortunately, the second is not an unalienable right, but a granted priviledge. Despite the existance of the first ammendment to the US Constitution, you are not allowed to take the political writings of Richard Stallman and modify them for redistribution. You are not allowed to take the New York Times and republish it as the Yonkers Yodeler.
The right to your own speech is unalienable and protected by law. The right to someone else's speech is not. By equating Free Software with Free Speech, you are asserting that the ability to modify and redistribute someone else's creative works is an unalienable right that should be enforced by law. But that is not how rights work. A right is something that you POSSESS. It is not something that you TAKE from someone else.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned