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Syllable's Kristian Van Der Vliet Interview

Posted by Hemos on from the write-your-own dept.

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. "

39 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. It... by BiteMeFanboy · · Score: 2, Funny
    They talk about the feature

    It only has one... somehow I don't think that's going to cut it. ;) THppppppppt.

    1. Re:It... by yomegaman · · Score: 2, Funny

      1. Tabbed browsing
      2. Play Ogg files

      I'm right, aren't I?

      --
      ...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
    2. Re:It... by jared_hanson · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, I was thinking more along the lines of protected memory and capable of running multiple processes. Your thinking of programs again. People should really learn the distinction between an operating system and the programs that run on top of it.

      --
      -- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
  2. Kristian Van Der Vliet by GMontag · · Score: 4, Funny

    With all those syllables, this sounds like a good fit.

    --
    Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
  3. AtheOS is dead? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    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

    1. Re:AtheOS is dead? by d-Orb · · Score: 5, Informative
      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?

      Yes, the same. The main developer stopped working on the project (at least, stopped posting to mailing-lists and the such), and after some time, people decided to fork Atheos to make syllable. It seems most of the former atheos community has moved over to Syllable. Another similar project used the Linux kernel with a BeOS like interface on top, this is Cosmoe. I am not familiar with the latter, though.

    2. Re:AtheOS is dead? by BigFootApe · · Score: 3, Informative
      I think it is/was on hiatus for a while.
      Does AtheOS's previous developer still use it on his home machine?


      As the news says, his dev box broke down and hasn't been replaced (yet) 'cuz he bought an airplane. I think the site server is run at his employer's or something.
  4. Phew by HopeUnknown · · Score: 5, Funny

    I saw the name "Kristian", and for a second there I thought they were talking about a girl! On Slashdot!

  5. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Why? by RevAaron · · Score: 2, Informative

      NeXTSTEP looks quite nice to me as well. A helluva lot different than Motif.

      Plenty of newer NeXT boxes and white hardware running NeXTSTEP or OpenStep were color. Even for copies of NS/OS on b/w machines, NeXT still paid the Pantone color licenses. NeXT was a platform that did many things very well. And when your display is greyscale, you better have accurate colors when you're going to be printing. Heck, back then, a Pantone license was a good idea on a color monitor. Apple's ColorSync existed before the first NeXT cube was released, though.

      And Motif was designed with Windows 3.x in mind. I don't think it's close enough to think of Motif as a knock-off, but there are similarities that make it a bit uncomfy.

      --

      Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
    2. Re:Why? by edwdig · · Score: 2, Informative

      Motif is older than Windows 3.x. PCGEOS was developed at the same time as Windows 3.x, and shipped around the same time. It licensed Motif for its interface, which means Motif had to have already existed before Windows 3.x.

    3. Re:Why? by Pflipp · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, I've used Atheos once long ago and it was themeable, with some default themes derived from Amiga (that's Amiga, not NextStep) and BeOS. I did find the themes to be a little bit too "fat" (compared to Amiga itself, and I never liked the BeOS look -- at least not in Atheos or Linux). So no, I guess they don't try (= intend) to look like NextStep.

      That the looks aren't all that much is another thing, though. But to just discuss taste -- I guess the users must decide here.

      --
      "We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
  6. Commodity Hardware by kalidasa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Commodity Hardware by travail_jgd · · Score: 3, Informative

      "...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."

      Why? At the very least, developers can use freely code from the BSDs with no strings attached. If the OS developers are planning on GPLing their code, they can pull code directly from Linux.

      If using code from either of those OS's is unacceptable (say, the new OS is being written in a different language), the developers could actually read the BSD or Linux routines and use that as a starting point.

    2. Re:Commodity Hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Where is the fun or learning experience in just taking code from someplace else? I think you misunderstand; a large number of hobby OS's are just that, an opurtunity for a single person to hack on the hardware at a low level and learn how their computer works. Most of them are no more than a kernel with a schedular and allocator that boots from a floppy. This is fairly easy to do because the code required to do it is managable by a single person in a sensible time frame.

      If the hardware becomes more complex, the time required to learn how to use it increases. People just wont bother. Have you even looked at the IA-64 programming manual? EPIC (VLIW) instructions sets are not designed to be written by hand, how the heck can a single person expect to write their own OS using a complex instruction set like that?

      Complexity could just be enough to make enough people not bother, and that would be a massive lose.

    3. Re:Commodity Hardware by Deusy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If it was only the hardware that was evolving, then yes this would be the case.

      This is unlikely to be the case. Should it get to the point where the hardware is too many and too complicated for everybody to program for, you'll find generic interfaces to the hardware being implemented in generic assembly languages like table assembly.

      Or perhaps firmware will develop further to ease driver creation.

      There are many areas in which layers can develop to keep developing drivers possible for mortals. The industry isn't going to make things too difficult for itself.

      Ever since the computer industry started, each extra level of complexity has seen an extra layer added to keep software creation manageable, and drivers are no exception.

      Whilst Kristian's fears have foundation, there'll be ways around them even if it's as extreme as hobby OSes having to cooperate on driver development.

      --

      Free Gamer - Free games list and commentary

    4. Re:Commodity Hardware by Bunji+X · · Score: 2, Interesting

      New interfaces are always harder to code for, until standardized drivers become available.

      Yes, but as hardware becomes increasingly complex, drivers, libraries and toolkits will be equally more difficult to write. Even more so if you don't have reference material for the hardware you are writing drivers for, as most OS projects don't have today.

      It is not like standardized drivers appear magically for an OS, except a few select ones with critical mass.

      --
      ---
      The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
    5. Re:Commodity Hardware by kalidasa · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in a while. Do you think that hardware interfaces haven't been increasing in complexity until USB came out?

      RTFA. He's talking about writing operating systems from scratch. Who do you think writes the abstraction layers?

      The point is that as each new hardware interface is developed, it is significantly more complex than the preceding one, and it becomes harder and harder for a hobbyist programmer to comprehend it.

  7. Sounds cool, but... by the+morgawr · · Score: 5, Insightful
    So we have yet another hobby OS with some very good ideas that will never end up going mainstream. After checking the site out, nothing they're doing couldn't be done on top of a BSD or Linux based kernel (with modification ofcourse). This would have solved their hardware problems, and given them a fully working OS to start from, progams and all.

    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)
    1. Re:Sounds cool, but... by jabbadabbadoo · · Score: 3, Insightful
      "So we have yet another hobby OS with some very good ideas that will never end up going mainstream. After checking the site out, nothing they're doing couldn't be done on top of a BSD or Linux based kernel (with modification ofcourse). This would have solved their hardware problems, and given them a fully working OS to start from, progams and all."

      What's the fun in that?

    2. Re:Sounds cool, but... by kalidasa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      So in other words, Linus working on his own operating system kernel was just taking good developers away from HURD, right?

      If we follow your logic, we'll be stuck with Linux and BSD forever. Not that Linux and BSD aren't great, but they are not perfect, and at some point "making them better" won't be enough anymore. You need to have constant experimentation with OSes or you'll never know what's possible (and you'll never replace all those OS programmers with a new generation).

    3. Re:Sounds cool, but... by powerlinekid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Fair enough.
      Well I am one of the developers from Syllable (Syllable-Net team leader to be exact) so maybe I can answer your question.

      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!

      Have you ever played with the linux internals? Or hacked on X or KDE? If you have, you know its a mess. Syllable is a consistent system built on modern ideas. We don't have 20 years of cruft to fight with everytime we need to make a change or add a feature. This alone is worth the effort.

      Now most importantly: Our main developers code on Syllable because its fun. I have a blast throwing ideas back and forth between Vanders, Rick, Kaj, and all the others. If someone has a problem with some specific widget (recently the tab issue in our terminal), we work together to fix it. I don't think any of us are working on this to get rich. For the most part its also the whole "scratch an itch" philosophy. Just because we work on this OS, doesn't mean we'd work on another one. Thats like saying that just because I pirated a copy of Windows that I cost MS $200 because I would of bought it anyway. The world doesn't work like that.

      We have a great community, a great project manager in Vanders and great developers. All of us keep our eyes on the user's needs, not on what we as developers want. As time goes on and more infrastructure is laid down, you'll see Syllable become more mature. Simple things that can be a hassle on Linux (gui consistancy, simple application notification through a central Registra, etc) will be in place.

      Anyway, don't give up on Syllable yet. In the future it will be much different from Linux, BSD, Windows or anything else. Remember we're not even a year old yet (although AtheOS has been around for a while).

      --

      can't sleep slashdot will eat me
    4. Re:Sounds cool, but... by syle · · Score: 3, Insightful
      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.
      I hate this type of arrogant mentality. The whole point of the open source community is that everyone should be able to work on whatever they want, NOT that everyone should be working on Linux.

      Yeah, I know Linux and BSD are great and all, but who the hell are you to judge what these guys should or shouldn't be spending their time on? Maybe you've read too many articles about the RIAA/MPAA, "For every CD copied, we lose a sale," -- "For every developer working on non-Linux systems, we lose a Linux developer." I'm afraid it doesn't work like that.

      I'm not going to bother arguing whether your assertation that they could use a Linux kernel is valid or not, because it's completely irrelevant. If the developers wanted to use Linux, they would. They chose not to. Do you imagine the thought just never crossed their mind?

      We may all be a team in the sense that most open source developers have similar goals, but not in the sense that you can refer to "our current systems" in any meaningful context.

      --

      /syle

    5. Re:Sounds cool, but... by the+morgawr · · Score: 2, Interesting
      It seems a lot of people misunderstood what I was saying (and like I said I could be wrong): Syllable needs to have a terminal emulator, a text editor, a web browser, etc. and a bunch of other generic apps which are basically the same as the stuff that's out there with any given linux distro or a BSD. For their kernel they have to have a scheduler, a VM system, drivers, file systems, etc. 99% of this code could be take from something already out there - leaving the developers to focus on what they seem to what to do: making something more useable then the horrible, inconsistant UIs that plauge open source today. It seems from the website that most of this code was rewritten. This wastes effort because instead of improving on a current VM system or driver, they wrote their own. They can use someone else's code and still have their own project, still have fun, and get more work done.

      That said, the goal of the project seems to be to make a more useable system. Unless I misunderstand the plan of attack, I see no reason they couldn't make a UI (and other extenstions) that works with existing OSes instead of reinventing the wheel on everything else. A compleate OS is a huge undertaking, and I wish them the best of luck, but I don't understand why you need a new OS to have a better UI.

      --
      The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
    6. Re:Sounds cool, but... by Vanders · · Score: 3, Informative

      Ah. Your perception of Syllable is incorrect I'm glad to report.

      While a large part of the kernel has been written from scratch, there is nothing wrong with that. For the effort Kurt put into writing it, we have a kernel with a kernel space ELF loader and runtime linker, written with SMP support from day one, with an efficient micro kernel IPC mechanism. At the same time, he used code from Linux were it was beneficial. The allocator is essentially from Linux for example.

      The terminal emulator (ATerm) was written by the author of AtheOS as well. It is not a lot of code and can be maintained by one person. The AEdit text editor was my very first application for Syllable, so that was hardly a huge time sink. The Web Browser uses Khtml as its rendering engine; way before Apple started on Safari!

      A large majority of drivers come from Linux and X, along with some BSD and even Be Sample Code.

      The appserver, GUI API and associated support applications are all written from scratch, yes. A lot of the lower level stuff is GNU or GPL'd software, we use a version of Glibc and the entire GNU toolchain for development, run Bash as the shell and offer the same basic toolset as Linux (E.g. GNU fileutils, textutils, shellutils, Perl, Python etc.)

      So a large amount of stuff is reused. We only re-write were it makes sense to do so :)

      --
      Syllable : It's an Operating System
    7. Re:Sounds cool, but... by the+morgawr · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Fair enough, I hope you guys are having fun and do well. I've got some question's if you'd bother to answer them.

      Linux internals are very messy. BSD is a lot cleaner, clean enough that researchers chop it up for use in experimental OSes. Why not start from something that works and has solid hardware support? Was it just more fun to do it from scratch or was there a design reson why reworking an existing system or just using large chunks of code wasn't an option?

      I'm no UI expert but the code for X, KDE, and GNOME isn't pretty (and from a user's stand point, the UI isn't friendly). I'm sure that you guys can do a better job. Most people won't get to enjoy the results of your labor though, because your OS isn't compatible with the vast pool of Free and Open software out there. Asking people to take such a huge jump is hard (but not imposible). Why not make a UI to work on top of what's already there? What do current systems not support or do, that you felt compelled to rewrite? What advantages does your design offer over current systems? Can you still display remotely?

      --
      The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
    8. Re:Sounds cool, but... by Vanders · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sadly not. The best I can offer are the Doxygen docs of the GUI API That, the code itself and asking questions on the Syllable-Developer mailing list is the best way to find out how it works.

      --
      Syllable : It's an Operating System
    9. Re:Sounds cool, but... by powerlinekid · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well its not really from scratch. We already had AtheOS which most of us were already part of. I didn't do too much back then, more of just a lurker.
      However, once Kurt abandoned AtheOS it seemed a shame to waste such a promising system.

      From my own experience, I'm the manager of ABrowse our web browser. ABrowse is based off of KHTML which is a nightmare. I'm currently thinking of some drastic changes because I can't keep up with porting the new versions. I don't want to write a html render engine from scratch, but I am seriously thinking of stripping just about all the none render code out of it. So yeah, there is a point where sometimes it is better to start from scratch.

      Well we don't have remote displays yet. However it is rather trivial to add that. As for right now, there are no great advantages over Linux or any of the BSDs. The the other hand, all of our developers listen to the users so any input is appreciated and noted.
      We support just about everything that is posix compliant, so that pretty much covers the GNU tools.
      As for building a system on top of already existant kernel, well thats what cosmoe is. Its the atheos api tuned to run beos apps, running on a linux kernel. Its kind of a kludge if you ask me. Our kernel while rather immature has some nice features. Its SMP friendly and is completely pre-emptive, the former not done by *BSD until recently and the latter being something Linux doesn't truly have.

      --

      can't sleep slashdot will eat me
    10. Re:Sounds cool, but... by cpeterso · · Score: 2, Informative


      he used code from Linux were it was beneficial. The allocator is essentially from Linux for example.

      and the design for Linux's slab allocator ripped off Solaris (see "UNIX Internals: The New Frontiers" by Uresh Vahalia).

      --
      cpeterso
  8. Testing, testing, testing by jabbadabbadoo · · Score: 2, Funny
    "What we excel at though is that we are always designing Syllable with an eye towards the end user. "

    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.

    1. Re:Testing, testing, testing by Vanders · · Score: 4, Informative

      Why, then, is Syllable an ugly looking, instable OS?

      Because Syllable is a development, alpha version. Ugly can and will be fixed in time. We inherited the GUI from AtheOS and thats how it looks. Why spend time and effort changing the look of the GUI when the GUI isn't complete?

      Instability is inherent in the development process. Yes, we are very poor at testing before release, but that is because it is alpha quality. I don't have a release schedule, and there certainly are not enough users to form a FreeBSD style release team.

      Release testing generally consists of me trying out common actions for about half an hour after a build. As we finalise and stablise API's we can build automated test harnesses and formalise a testing plan for new releases.

      --
      Syllable : It's an Operating System
  9. Hmm. by teamhasnoi · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Forgive me for asking, but what does Syllable deliver (or propose to) that some other os doesn't? (say linux, openBeos, QNX or *gasp*, windows?)

    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!!!

    1. Re:Hmm. by DrWhizBang · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Syllables featureset is not express in terms of what it can do, but what it will do ;-)

      Syllable does not use X or the linux kernel - it uses it's own SMP and fully preemptable kernel, it's own 64 bit filesyste (with attributes). and it's own alpha-channal-aware display server. It uses a C++ API that is similar to beos. And it is completely free.

      In the end, we expect syllable to be a os that is nice to work with - easy to use, easy to program. Since it does not use X as a display server, It provides its own toolkit. This will help applications maintain one look and feel. Although most posix apps can be ported (a la ./configure, make, make install), Syllable will be most powerful when native apps are written using the fs api's to store/index data, etc. It should compare more to beos and macos x than linux or qnx.

      There are other hobby OSes. Syllable just happens to be reasonably far along (thanks to Kurt Skauen) and seems to have a lot of momentum (thanks to Vanders.)

      --
      Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
    2. Re:Hmm. by Vanders · · Score: 3, Informative

      The Syllable API (And of course, the AtheOS API before that) was often compared to the BeOS API. It is not a clone and there are no plans to turn it into one, but it is certainly similiar. An application is built by deriving from a toolkit of C++ classes, which in turn talk to an application server.

      So it is a lot like OpenBeOS in that respect, except that Syllable has much more development behind it and works now. We are also not trying to clone BeOS API by API; if it suits our purpose we can and will use something completely different (For example, BeOS had a user-space TCP stack. AtheOS and Syllable have always had a modular kernel space stack)

      Syllable is also mostly under the [L]GPL, whereas OpenBeOS is MIT. Apart from the various idological reasons that don't interest me, Syllable can also draw on a large base of drivers available in E.g. Linux. Which is nice.

      --
      Syllable : It's an Operating System
  10. How do you maintain order and good design? by Nicolai+Haehnle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:How do you maintain order and good design? by Vanders · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I understand what you're saying. Yes, over the last few releases bugs have crept in and have been left unfixed. This is partly because the codebase has grown, partly because we've all been very busing trying to fill in the gaps and partly because we're all limited in the amount of time we have to code. So now its time we started to focus on quality a little more, and that begins with making what we have stable. Most of these bugs are only an hour or so's work to fix, but they mount up! Syllable will be a much nicer place to be with the release of 0.4.5 :)

      Syllable is however in development, so new features are still being added. I don't see a problem with fixing old bugs while we add new features :) If we had declared the system stable and then started adding features, then I would agree with you. As it is, these features we hope to have in 0.4.5 have been planed for some time, and are required for the core functionality of the OS. The Registrar is one of these, for example.

      So yeah, while we do not have a definite feature list for Syllable 1.0 yet, we do have a good idea of what is clearly going to be needed now. I've exercised my bonevelent dictatorship and picked the ones that best suit our goals, and I shall be more than happy to accept them into the codebase for Syllable 0.4.5.

      We shall also have a proper roadmap and featureset for 1.0 before we start on the 0.5.x versions.

      --
      Syllable : It's an Operating System
  11. Re:They used khtml before apple. by powerlinekid · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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
  12. Syllable overview by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you are interested in Syllable, here is an overview of Syllable 0.4.4.

  13. Re:What does Syllable offer that Linux doesn't? by Marco+Rossi · · Score: 2

    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