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Why New OSes Don't Catch On
mopslik writes "OSNews has an interesting editorial discussing why smaller operating systems will have a hard time gaining popularity. Familiarity, developer participation, and market saturation are listed as reasons for failure. Although the article focuses mainly on Syllable and SkyOS, I'm sure there are countless other operating systems to which these arguments apply."
This strikes me as one of those "duh...." type editorials. I have a deadline... I have to write *something*... Maybe no one will notice if I write about something obvious.
It is a classic chicken and egg problem. Why would anyone other than a OS hobbyist (by definition a very small number) switch to an experimental OS? I would never switch a family member to a niche OS. When they ask me what I use at home, I may tell them about it, but even if they expressed interest would I not switch them over. The potential for unlimited phone calls is near 100%.
Linux has the luxury of time, broad acceptance over a large geek audience, and the benefit of being one of the first successful open source, collaborative endeavors. Anyone trying to jump start the same thing now is in for astronomical challenges.
Willie
I can't imagine anything new taking off without a suitable suite of applications for the most common applications, at the very least.
If it doesn't support my hardware, well, I'm simply not interested.
TODO: Something witty here...
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Give me a fucking break. SkyOS hasn't caught on because it's closed source and you have to pay for the beta.
Syllable hasn't caught on because they haven't appeared to have done anything of note since the AtheOS developer quit and they forked it.
People who start projects to write a new OS do so for a reason that's less than compelling for the general public. Someone writing a new OS to scratch an itch isn't any reason for me to care about it. If it's something someone's doing to learn, that means nothing to me in terms of running it. If someone's talented enough to innovate something truly novel, wouldn't it make more sense to implement that bit within one of the currently active OS projects? If the idea's got real merit, and can be plugged into the rest of a system that everyone's using (like implementing a new scheduler -- it can be done as a patch to Linux... and if it's really better, it will get noticed and maybe put into the kernel tree).
Going off and starting a new OS seems like a silly waste of resources in most cases.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Maybe not a "hard and fast" rule, but the issue of lack of developers often leads to an OS that has potential, but never matures to a stable usable state. Also, there is a big difference between general purpose OS and special purpose OS.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
If you want develop new OS. Embedded OS is the only way to go. We evaluate them all, ALWAYS. You will NEVER change the desktop OS.
Bill, Steve, Linus and a few thousand others have it covered. But if you wanna change the device interface, go ahead, roll it up again.
I personally choose Linux for many reasons. But if NEWOS works, and fits, and is reliable, and is FREE, I'll look at it and still probably choose Linux. If the device can't take Linux it really isn't my project at this point. But, I would hand it off to another engineer, with my recommendation of the new OS.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Is that once new operating systems come along, in say, 10 years, the current operating systems will be so far ahead that it's impossible to catch up on.
Trying to make an OS is hard enough, trying to make it compatible for the average user is harder still, trying to do this and catch up on 25yrs of technology has got to be just about impossible.
We'd all like to think that quality == success, but luck seems to be the real player.
Trying to dislodge entreched giants when you're the little guy is near impossible...?
Serious, you could have a product 100 times better than Windows, but it would barely see the light of day because Windows is known, trusted (even if wrongly trusted), and has excellent marketing that would squelch your product.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
True that. I look at the AROS project (x86 Amiga, more or less) every now and then, but if I hadn't had an Amiga back in the day, I'd never even know it existed. Lack of advertising is a key reason many alternative OS never come to fruition.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Unless you are a special purpose OS (Embedded, Real Time, designed for certain classes of server etc.) what you really need to gain any sort of user base is applications. Very few people are interested in running an OS that doesn't have applications to do most of the the things they would like to do - and that's harder than it sounds: Yes, most people mostly just use web and email and word processing, but most people also usually have some other small niche application that they want to use as well; To get the broad userbase you need to support all those different small niche applications.
Look at it another way: What OSs have actually managed to gain some level on general support? Windows, obviously, then OS X, Linux and *BSD, and maybe you could throw in Solaris. After that you are into rather more niche material (like AIX, HP-UX, UNICOS etc.) designed for servers and the like. What do those OSs have in common? The ability to provide a wealth of appliations - though they do it by different means:
Windows - through ubiquity and market share: everyone writes apps for Windows.
OS X - by being able to promise application developers a market: Apple has always had a fairly solid hold on the graphics and design market, and enough general use that they can convince developers to write stuff for the Mac.
Linux and BSD - By being open source, and winning the open source market share. That is Linux and BSD are ubiquitous amongst open source developers - it's the Windows of the open source world.
Solaris - Well, it's more filling the niche big server market and any ability to cling to the desktop/workstation is by co-opting open source applications, which Sun have done a decent job of.
If a new OS (or some of those radical "Let's make Linux ultra standardised and easy like OS X" ideas) comes along it has to be able to attract applications: that means support open source applications for Linux and BSD with only a recompile, or be able to promise a guaranteed decent sized market of users to any potential app developers. The latter is very hard, and the former has the diffiulty of competing with the established Linux and BSDs.
Unless someone manages something truly radical I really don't expect anything but evolutionary changes in the existing OSs from here...
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Did it do what she wanted it to? If so, whats the problem? Although I might be stabbing my own industry in the foot, I am in daily awe of money wasting friends and family that ask my advice on what brand new 64-bit COTS PC they should buy. When I ask what they want it for, it is usually 'oh, you know, Word'. My reaction is usually, go get an electronic typewriter and save yourself £800..
Changing your OS changes everything about your computing environment.
"Everything" is a rather broad statement. When I switched my main machine from Windows to SuSE/KDE, most things worked in nearly identical ways. Click an icon to start a program, drag-and-drop things to folders or applications, even Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V to cut/paste works in nearly all applications. As for the applications themselves, I use OpenOffice.org, GIMP, Firefox... all of the same apps that I run on my Win2K machine at work.
Software installation was a semi-major difference, albeit an easy one to get used to. Manual hardware configuration is a bit tricky, but I rarely change components, so I only have to do it once. The rest was fairly trivial.
This problem has been obvious every since Microsoft started dominating the desktop OS market 20+ years ago, destroying a half-dozen competing (and mostly superior) platforms in the process. Yet people continue to insist that a new OS (or an old one with a few tweaks) can magically get past the no users/no developers/no users paradox just by virtue of being technically superior. A tribute to wishful thinking, I guess.
Gates was given state support as he imposed a horrible operating system on the world and became its richest man as a consequence.
How exactly was Gates given state support? If anything, the Open Source Movement is *based* on state support. After all, most open source work is done in, or with the support of public universities, and students willing to work for free because they have time and money due of their state supported education.
What you're advocating a tax on success, and anyone who can follow basic logic understands taht this does NOT work in the long run. Hell, look today at offshore companies. Companies do it because of progressive taxation. I'd be willing to bet that the US gov't would rake in a good bit more, and inspire more innovation if not for oppressive taxes. Congratulations on your fantastic, world-changing product/service! Welcome to your new 50% tax bracket!
Why did I switch from IE to Firefox? Tabbed browsing, no popups, security. Firefox gave me something that I wasn't getting right then, and I didn't give up anything I was using.
Why do I use Linux for development? To have a rock solid system with fine-grained control of my development environment, and built-in, easy to use tools to automate the tedious parts of the job, like text processing.
Why do I use Windows at home? Because no acceptable substitute exists for playing World of Warcraft, etc.
Why didn't I switch my development machine from Linux to an untried OS? I don't know, you tell me, what does your OS do better than Linux that justifies me abandoning the comfort of having a million-hacker install base I can ask questions to when the box blows up and download software from when it doesn't?
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
If someone's talented enough to innovate something truly novel, wouldn't it make more sense to implement that bit within one of the currently active OS projects? If the idea's got real merit, and can be plugged into the rest of a system that everyone's using (like implementing a new scheduler -- it can be done as a patch to Linux... and if it's really better, it will get noticed and maybe put into the kernel tree).
Speaking as someone who fixed more than a dozen critical bugs in {Free,Open,Net}BSD kernel code over the last 10 years I have come to abandon both my dreams of starting my own OS and having my changes incorporated into my favorite BSD OS. The thing is that when you start fixing bugs which were introduced by some established coder who suffers from the NIH syndrome and this person starts to disrespect and ignore you, the whole community starts following suit and your patches are soon left to collect dust in the PR database. In the end it's all about ego, politics and personal arguments, if they don't like you for some reason your patches will be left out in the cold, even if they would fix some critical problems. When you come up with something innovative and discuss it on the mailing lists they will ignore you or they will argue against your propositions. Then two weeks later you see some committer who never even participated in the discussion commit code which basically implements some of those same ideas which were mocked and rejected by the community. They don't mention you in the Copyright notice, you can't get any credit and they won't commit your code to the CVS source tree. So what do you do? Fork off and start your own BSD? Maybe if you're Matt Dillon. I can't afford the overhead associated with that kind of project and I doubt I'd get more than 2 other experienced developers to join the project. I could get my main ideas implemented within 6 to 8 months, but after that I don't really have a plan for where the project should go. I'd have to play catch-up with the BSD I would use as a basis and after a while they'd incorporate some of my code, but not in the way I would like them to and my project would be dead in less than 2 years.
I have come to hate the politics and the hypocrisy in most of the open source OS communities and I have seen so many talented people quit BSD development for similar reasons that I'm so burned out I doubt I will ever submit another patch or suggestion on how to fix something. Instead I'm just going to spend more time working on the commercial projects. They don't just put food on the table, but the people I do them for also appreciate them and give me the proper respect. Sorry about ranting, I just had to get that off my chest.
So, I think there are cases where that is exactly what is wanted.
Then, you have the case of a purely modular OS - think Linux but where EVERYTHING is a module. There, you have the above benefits when doing specialized work but CAN generalize the system on an as-needed basis when you want to do more.
The problem of software is a bigger concern, but Linux demonstrated via the (now neglected) IBCS system that a kernel can run binaries for other OS'. It would be simple enough to make an OS core that used an IBCS-like mechanism to run non-native binaries at near-native speed. Then, you'd have no problems on the software front, as everything would be runnable.
Indeed, this direction might be easier to digest by the software industry. An OS that could run anything could run their software WITHOUT needing extra developers or expense bar some simple testing.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I think these efforts are great. I realize that everyone here probably already has a bias, but let's not forget about what motivates people - one source of motivation is passion.
If someone were to take an old junker (car) and rebuild it in his/her garage, tinkering a bit here, a bit there, eventually there might be something really worthy to show for it. Even if there isn't, so what? Perhaps the joy is in the process, and not necessarily the result.
Code on Syllable, SkyOS.
Over the years there have been many great OSes that now see little use. NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP, BeOS, and Plan 9 are very nice operating systems. *STEP is the direct ancestor of Mac OS X and brought a lot of new, innovative features to operating systems, such as Display Postscript (predecessor of Quartz), Interface Builder (predecessor of XCode), the dock, etc., not to mention boatloads of innovative software packages (such as Mathematica, Lotus Improv, and the entire Lighthouse Design software collection) and it showed the world how Unix for the masses should be built (which KDE and GNOME still have lots of catching up to do). BeOS has a nice infrastructure (compared to other OSes of the time like Mac OS 8/9 and Windows 9x), and is easy to use. Plan 9 is a different beast altogether compared to the other OSes that I mentioned; Plan 9 takes Unix's idea of "everything is a file" to another level; for example, the window manager supports pipes and filters just like any other traditional command line program. And all of the operating systems can run on any old 486 or Pentium.
What happened to all of these OSes? NeXT was bought by Apple (and didn't release a version of Mac OS X for commodity x86 machines, for obvious business reasons), BeOS's parent company was going through business issues and ended up being discontinued, and Plan 9 is virtually unheard of unless you're an operating systems researcher. All three failed to make a big splash for various reasons. NeXT had the software, a supportive development group and development infrastructure (especially from Lighthouse Design and the Omni Group) and (for the first few years) had the hardware, but the x86+Windows juggernauts and the steep pricing were issues too huge to overcome for a lot of people, which ultimately led to NeXT's near demise (until NeXT bought Apple for -$400 million). BeOS had a nice infrastructure, but it didn't catch on because of Windows's mass acceptance in the marketplace, lack of huge productivity applications (which is caused by a lack of interested developers), and corporate drama. Plan 9 isn't replacing *nix because most of us "geeks" are very content with our beloved Unix (no matter how flawed it is sometimes) and see no need to change, and Plan 9 doesn't have all of the applications that users need (like productivity suites, for starters).
Whether or not an operating system succeeds or not depends on user's acceptance and developer's acceptance. User's won't dump Windows/Mac OS for another OS until it is easy to use, has all of the applications that they need, comes at a reasonable price, and is compatible with whatever they used to use. Developers won't develop for a new operating system until development is relatively painless, comes at a reasonable price, doesn't require having to learn obscure programming languages and environments, and the developers feel like making their applications run on a new operating system would be beneficial to themselves.
That's what happening to SkyOS and Syllable right now. Users from Windows/Mac/*nix see no compelling reason to switch (ranging from ease of use, hackability, and avaliable applications), and developers have no compelling reason to develop applications that will attract a lot of people to the platform (such as a productivity suite). An operating system that expects to be widely used cannot go far without important applications such as productivity applications. And an operating system without a huge amount of developers developing applications for it shouldn't expect to be going anywhere.
"I'd be open to switching my OS if a new OS did everything that my existing OS did *and* added a bunch of new stuff that made the effort worthwhile."
I've took the liberty of adding the emphasis there.
I think that's the crux of the problem, but also the most mis-understood part. That's the part that OS zealots love to mis-understand.
Let me delve into the semantics a bit, just for the sake of making a point. I'm not picking on your phrasing or anything, I'm just explaining _why_ new OSes fail, and why even Linux is of zero interest to Joe Average.
I don't think you mean literally "if the _OS_ did the same things". The OS taken by itself does actually very little, and is arguably the least important thing on a computer. The OS just loads and runs the applications, and provides some standard libraries and widgets. No more.
It's _easy_ for an OS to provide basically the same functionality of the OS itself, or close enough. Writing a loader, scheduler and some widgets is _easy_, and indeed half the games out there basically come with their own implementation of all three. Anyway, very single alternative OS so far had no problems doing the same things that Windows does. Yet they failed. Because that's not really what matters. You can do only so much with _only_ the OS.
I think what you really meant is "if I could get the same functionality out of my computer", which actually means the applications. E.g., you don't edit your digital photos with the OS core, and not even with MS Paint (that's an app, though), you use some program like PaintShop Pro, Photoshop or, if you're a masochistic cheapskate (yeah, I am one too) with the Gimp.
That's really what you need to do everything you could do with your old OS: an equivalent of the applications too.
That's the real entry barrier in the OS market. Writing a loader, a scheduler, a GUI and exporting some of that as libraries, is the easy part. But that doesn't even come close to letting you get the same use out of your computer. Also providing an equivalent to all the thousands of applications and games that exist for Windows, that's the hard part. That's where they fail.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Your father is right. After all - the computer is supposed to be the "one" doing the work.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The writer didn't put his thinking cap on. People use new OSes all the time. Think about all the gadgets techies (and even non-techies) buy every couple years and how many different OSes are involved:
Chances are these are using OSes (sometimes very new) that people didn't use before the purchase. So what? The article seemed to focus on the desktop which is fine but that is only one OS out of dozens that people use every day. The desktop is arguably the most complex in terms of user interaction which leads it to be the something that people probably do not wish to keep remastering. I'm comfortable using several different desktop OSes and I still don't like to change my day-to-day computing environment. While the core of the issue from a user perspective may be a technical one at the convenience level the real issue is probably a marketing one. Plus, the licensing agreements between companies like Microsoft and Dell make it very difficult for another to get a foothold in the marketplace.
The end result should be that you don't know what OS in your desktop the same way that most people don't know what OS in their mobile phone, PDA, or mp3 player. It should be transparent and a non-issue for users. It should just work -- no matter what it is.
Speak truth to power.
Anyone else find it ironic that OSes like SkyOS depend on OSS software, in fact most screenshots are showing OSS software in use, yet the developer refuses to share his code for the OS with the world?
Regards,
Steve
I'm just saying I think there is some serious overestimation as to how much Office contributes to Windows dominance.
I'd say (well you come across this way) you think it's 85% of what keeps Windows dominant.
I'd say it's more like 40%. You can run MS Office on Mac OSX and Linux(with crossover office) today, and there is no mass exodus. Also, about every office program I've seen, OO.org, Lotus SmartSuite, Etc... can open and save Office formats, not perfectly, but about as well as different versions of Office. And that's been true for over a decade also. Still no mass exodus.
I maintain that while Office is important, it is not more than one leg of what keeps Windows propped up. Removing Office won't get people to switch.
Because you still haven't addressed games, consumer hardware, ActiveX intranet apps, Exchange schedule management etc... The list goes on.
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
* It's used by an office suite that is free as in beer, yet there is also a commercial variant available
.doc for the most part. .doc is used in every office suite and other non-word processors as an export option.
.doc isn't the default but it is an exportable option in every word processor
.doc is/will be, there's not a problem. It might not be ISO-standard but it is defacto-standard.
.doc.
So is
* It's used as default format by different office suites (OO and KOffice, hopefully Abiword will join in a couple of years)
So
* It's an ISO-standard (= great for government contracts)
That is the only advantage, if you can call it that. As long as the format is published, like
* It's also a standard that will not change with every version. That's the biggest advantage.
You mean how Microsoft office can save as either a format compatible with 97/2000/XP or the newer 2003 format? A format that spans three versions and 5 years doesn't sound like such a big change to me.
* It's available everywhere, not just on the latest versions of Windows. It's also available on older versions of Windows, Linux, MacOSX and Solaris
MS Office is available on the two established commercial platforms - Windows and Mac OS. There are compatible office suites on avery other major platform. While they may not all be free, most are decent priced. Hancom Office, Ability Office, Corel Office, Star Office, etc.
* It's used by OO which is pretty good backwards-compatible to MSO
OOo is pretty good backwards-compatible to MSO using
Free software won't save the world. MS Windows, MS Office, and every other piece of evil software isn't going anywhere.
http://en.hancom.com/products/hancomoffice20.html
http://www.ability.com/index.php?ln=us