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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."
I can't imagine anything new taking off without a suitable suite of applications for the most common applications, at the very least.
If the Sky OS is falling and no one is around to hear it, does it make a Syllable?
The article misses the point that Operating Systems are just tools that allow us to use programs. And programs are about being able to get useful stuff done.
People still use the Atari ST (mainly the emulator version) to do music, because there are useful applications there.
For the most part, people really don't care what OS they are using, just as long as they can accomplish whatever tasks they need to do.
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.
That being said, what's great about FOSS is that I can build on an existing platform. So if there's a *piece* of the system that I don't like then I can replace it but still build on all the hard work that others have contributed. The plethora of Linux distros is great because you can start with a baseline distribution and tweak it however you want. If you can find enough other people who share your values then you can build up a nice little community without too much trouble.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
I cannot answer for anyone else but I read your post and decided to put in my $.02.
I personally bought BeOS 4 after trying out the bootable demo cd that was available at the time.
When I loaded the demo I went from BIOS to full useability in under 20 seconds, so I thought that was pretty cool.
My BeOS machine was an extra computer at I had laying around. After a few weeks of using the OS and finding I could do mostly everything I did on my windows box(email,websurf,rip mp3s,listen to said mp3s with the wonderful soundplay) I decided to move the HDD into my main computer and dual boot windows and Be. For about a year I used BeOS a majority of the time.
I will admit there was one reason I never gave up Windows totally for Be...games. I liked a lot of the freeware games for Be, mostly puzzle games but none of the mainstream dev houses would port for it. I finally had to give up on Be after OS5 came out and they took more out than they put in. I think I enjoyed it most for the potential it had, probably the same reason I still have and Amiga 500 in a corner that still gets used.
Well, I don't know about doing All the existing one does, but certainly doing Almost all is important.
For instance the reason many people switch to FireFox or Opera vs IE is because either one does ~98% of what IE does for the average user, *plus* much more in the in your face UI area - the area users are likely to notice (The quintessential Tabs and such).
Many home users *could* switch over to Linux today, but it'd be painful. They'd lose a lot - I'd estimate about 50% functionality(Games, Hardware control programs for printers, UPS, etc), and 80% famaliariy(How installation goes, the little differences between OO.org and MS Office).
I figure for any sort of mass exodus to another OS, we'd need to get the functionality to within 95% and the familarity near 80%. That's a long way to go, towards a moving target. I have my doubts we'll ever do that.
However, there's another aspect. At some point, the hassles + price may start to tilt the balance. For instance, I really like eating at Red Lobster, and the price isn't too bad, but I almost never go there. Because of the minimum 30 minute wait, more often an hour. That kind of time will get me to try an unknown restaraunt, or even go to the Outback instead, even though it's totally different.
MS Activation already pisses off a lot of people - I'm lucky because i got a site license from my college, and don't have to deal with a lot of the crap I see posted on the net. Increased DRM, more and more security breaches, and more and more load from the "protection" software + price for them may start to make people willing to change the way they think.
Look at how hybrids are taking off in the US. If you're looking at saving $15 every fill up, many people start to take notice. And start to think, my SUV is nice, but I could be using that $60 or more a month for (Cable TV/New Shoes/New Game/Pay down loan/etc...).
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
"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.
This isn't my first article and no, I'm not new.
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here
Just a small selection. I've written over 20 or so articles. Just do a little Google search before insulting someone, would you?