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Syllable's Kristian Van Der Vliet Interview
Andreas Louca writes "OSNews.com has a nice interview with Syllable's Project Leader, Kristian Van Der Vliet. Syllable is one of the teams that raised off the ashes of AtheOS. They talk about the future of Syllable and the current status. "
It only has one... somehow I don't think that's going to cut it. ;) THppppppppt.
With all those syllables, this sounds like a good fit.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
No, really. I must have missed this. What happened to AtheOS? When did it die? Why? When was this?
Wasn't AtheOS the OS that was all being done by that one guy and had the amiga-like GUI with the nice c++ API? If that's the one i'm thinking of, is this a big mark against the single-benevolent-dictator software development model that AtheOS was the shining example of, or a mark for because the project got so far before the guy wandered off for whatever reason?
Well, at the least, this explains why I suddenly stopped hearing about AtheOS after so much noise was made about it..
Does AtheOS's previous developer still use it on his home machine?
-super ugly ultraman
I saw the name "Kristian", and for a second there I thought they were talking about a girl! On Slashdot!
A nitpick:
This OS looks really cool, but I just want to know: years and years since LiteStep or AfterStep or Windowmaker or whatever the first attempt to make "a NextStep-like window manager", and the "open source community" still can't seem to produce a GUI that doesn't look exactly like a less-stylish version of NeXTStep.
I guess that isn't *bad*.. it's just funny.
Besides this, though.. I am firmly convinced that "open source" is going to go nowhere until the Community realizes that everyone except you absolutely HATES the way that Motif looks. No, saying "it has skins" is *never* an acceptable answer. If your product, out of the box, has that faux-3D, Motif/NextStep/Netscape 4 look to it *anywhere*, people will not want to use it.
The most interesting part to the interview is where he starts talking about the difficulty in coding for modern hardware interfaces; he suggests that as easier-to-code interfaces like PS/2 and the floppy are rplaced with harder-to-code interfaces like USB, the end of the hobby OS may be at hand. As the barrier-to-entry for coding OSes for commodity hardware grows larger, doesn't that suggest that the opportunity for new robust OSes to evolve to compete with the established players (not only Windows, but OS X, the other BSDs, and Linux) may not exist in the future? Is it possible that the evolution of the OS may be choked by the evolution of the hardware?
For Open Source and Free Software to succeed people need to stop making "yet another peice of software written from scratch". The strength of having the source is that you can modify it for your own use (like syllable is doing with the GNU tool chain) and not have to re-invent the wheel. The argument of "what's out there isn't good enough" doesn't fly either. You have the source to fix it and make it better!
While this seems like a cool project, it is taking away developers who could be adding the same great features and abilities to our current systems. Then again, maybe I don't understand what they are trying to do.
The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
Why, then, is Syllable an ugly looking, instable OS?
Oh, he explains that later on:
"We are very poor at testing before we release things, [...]"
So good luck with your OS, Mr. Van Der Vliet.
To "raise from the ashes" ("raise off the ashes" would be an acceptable alternative way to say this, since "off" and "from" are in this contxt synonyms) is an expression meaning that one thing has died, and another thing has arisen in its void.
The expression is a reference to the mythical Phoenix, which would periodically die and burst into flames, and a new Phoenix would be born among the ashes.
In this case, the implication is that AtheOS died in flames, but Syllable was born among the metaphorical "ashes", and is now some kind of reincarnation or successor to AtheOS.
"To Raise from the Ashes" is a trademark of Phoenix BIOS Technologies, incorporated. For more fun facts about the mythical Phoenix, you can visit your local library and read J.K. Rowling's excellent documentary in book form, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", to be released in just four days.
Judging from the screenshots (isn't that the way we all review an OS?) this offers nothing new.
50% troll,
50% insightful.
Honestly...if an OS looks THAT similar to the Linux, OSX, and Windows, can it really offer enough to justify its existence to anyone other than its developers?
Give me something really new...Plan9 new...for a desktop OS, and I'll pay attention.
I would love it if all the 'hobby' oses, combined forces and worked on one thing, like openBeos (soon to be renamed ;)
I am not biased, either.
OpenBeos High School Football RULEZ!!!
I've been lurking on the AtheOS/Syllable mailing lists for a long time now. For a time I had the feeling that, given enough time, Syllable could really become a great operating system, because people were thinking in terms of clean design, looking at the big picture.
In the last few days, there has been an explosion of activity on the mailing list, and maybe it's just my pessimistic self, but I think the focus has shifted away from clean design to features. If this trend continues, and Syllable falls victim to featuritis and coding without the big picture in mind, it'll simply end up as yet another operating system.
Do you agree that this is a problem? If so, do you think it will be possible to keep this trend in check or even reverse it?
This isn't offtopic really. People made a big deal about Safari, but ABrowse (my current beast of a project) has been using KHTML since around 98-99. I'm currently working on the update so our render engine can be more compatible.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
Nope.
In another word: POSIX.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
If you are interested in Syllable, here is an overview of Syllable 0.4.4.
I disagree. GUI's are not easier to learn its just easier to move from one GUI OS to another. So you can go to from OSX to WinXP with little hassle. However going from MS-DOS to BASH(or whatever shell) takes more effort.
-- I don't buy it, I grow it.
I think the reason people made a big deal about Safari is because it is a commercial product from an established company that used an open-source framework that they themselves didn't develop: a win for OSS, not a loss for those of you who already knew about and used KHTML.
Excellent point :). However I do remember the big deal about "oh they're using KHTML and not gecko", etc. Where the topic got away from Apple and into the merits of KHTML verse Gecko. Oh well, you're probably right.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
However I do remember the big deal about "oh they're using KHTML and not gecko", etc.
I think that was just because folks expected them to use Gecko: Gecko seemed more mature, and they had hired one of the fellows working on Chimera, a Gecko browser for OS X. At first it seemed like an insult to Gecko, but that is in part because noone was really paying much attention to KHTML. So you still get points for using KHTML before Apple; but it doesn't seem so surprising that everyone made a big deal out of Apple using it.
Now, here's someone who is motivated to learn how to write a "better" OS. And it's his time (and the others corresponding on the project) so how does this "take away" anything?
Consider: the entertainment industry "loses" Billions of dollars each year to people who don't buy music and don't visit theatres to see movies they "found" elsewhere. Buw we all know they lose nothing at all, right? fact is, the industry makes tens of Billions worldwide in profits each year... so where is the loss?
It's in the same place as all those programmers "lost" to duplicate projects. Yeah, it's stupid how many text editors there are out there - but it's a project every programming student has to tackle in their first year of classes; everyone has to learn, and they have to learn somewhere.
Whose to say where the next great desktop is gonna come from? Do you really expect it to come from Redmond? If so then you got nothing to complain about, because they got all the programmers they need and have no trouble finding more.
And, if you think otherwise, then you still got nothing to complain about - because all that "duplicated effort" is creating a mountain of source for some ingenious twelfth grader to hack together into the next neXt... just as soon as she learns how it all goes together...
Very weird.
Do you want her?
- Marco
I'll tell you what's wrong.
It's you. Because you're writing under AC and I hate it very much! It's kinda lifeless, too.
So please take care of the problem. OKAY??????
BYE!
- Marco