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Should RISC OS be Open Sourced?
An anonymous reader writes "Aficionados of RISC OS are in a dilemma. With RISC OS Ltd, one of the main developers of the OS, in financial trouble, should RISC OS be open sourced? Users and developers say yes, citing the current slow development of the platform in the hands of its owners. However, Paul Middleton, RISC OS Ltd MD, said, 'It is one thing to release software as open source so that people can look at the source code and help sort out the troublesome problems that "many hands can make light work of". It is completely another to simply say that the source should be freely available to anyone to do with as they like.' Paul also had reservations regarding 'the fragmentation seen in the open source world, such as the number of different Linux distributions and end user support nightmare entailed from that situation.'"
You have to choose Paul...
Isn't that what the OS stands for?
*ta dit boom*
Paul Middleton, RISC OS Ltd MD, said, 'It is one thing to release software as open source so that people can look at the source code and help sort out the troublesome problems that "many hands can make light work of". It is completely another to simply say that the source should be freely available to anyone to do with as they like.'
No Paul, it's one thing to have people work for you for free, it's another for them want some kind of compensation for it.
Paul also had reservations regarding 'the fragmentation seen in the open source world, such as the number of different Linux distributions and end user support nightmare entailed from that situation.'"
Same here. I don't think linux will really take off til you can count the number of distros on one hand. One point not mentioned is all of the distros dilute the talent pool too much, too.
For those of you looking for a RISC-like experience under linux, be sure to look at the ROX Desktop. I've personally never used RISC, but I have fallen in love with ROX, using it, along with Xfce, on all of my machines. Together, the make a fast, modern desktop that knocks the socks off the other, traditional desktops
Robert Bindler
A Computer Science student's views on technology.
Whoever owns it can do what they please with it (modulo any contractual constraints).
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Obviously, you've never had to give Microsoft's support line a call...
Just because an OS is being supported in different variations from different companies isn't going to deminish the support options, it's going to expand them.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Since when does having multiple distributions constitue "fragmentation"? Its still the same core OS, just with different packages and installations.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
Open Source: Where old software goes to die!
I thought they went to Computer Associates? [1]
Yes... because... RISC OS is a huge financial success that has launched many big name companies and is all the rage in the computer world... whereas Linux was just a big disaster... errrm...
Open source isn't about letting people see the source so they can work for you for free. It only works because they are getting something out of it too. Who wants to hack on something when you know it's just going to get locked up and you have to pay for the privilege of getting the new version with your changes in?
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
I would say to the RISC OS folks that maybe you could do a Creative Commons license thing with it. That way you could open it and still retain some semblance of attribution and control. Possibly even make a buck off the "officially endorsed" version that rolls in all the user mods, etc. under the same licensing.
C|N>K
Does anyone really use RISC OS? What does it offer that other (free) alternatives don't?
Do you want to spend X amount of time and Y amount of money on Bob's Ultra-leet Linux Desktop (total users: 4)?
Or do you spend the time and money in supporting a distribution with more users?
Which is where the "Linux is too fragmented" claims break down.
Businesses aren't looking at how many distributions there are. They're looking at how much profit there is. Which is why you see Oracle and Red Hat working together.
One neat thing about making it open source is that it will continue to live on forever, even if there is some big hiatus where nobody works on it.
That's the case with BSD -- although the market share is small, it simply can't be killed off (unless all the BSD guys die off). Even RMS admits as much -- as much as it would be nice if the developers all worked on one thing for the common good, there's just no way to kil off BSD and force people to bow down to the Penguin.
Same thing with Dragonfly -- I'd be happy if they could somehow work with the NetBSD folks -- but instead, there is the Dragonfly version of BSD, and there's nothing that I, RMS or Billy Gates can do about it.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
As a victim — sorry, recipient — of an eary 90s UK state education, I have "fond" memories of RISC OS. Indeed, I had never even paused to consider that as late as 1995, single-user (remember the Icon Virus?) cooperative multitasking (Turbodrivers) and non-virtualised memory (Access violation at 0x0084fe3d) still had a welcome place on the desktop. It looked nice and had really good pervasive drag-and-drop, but I'm not sure that there was much advanced stuff under the hood. The much-touted "all in ROM" brought more problems than benefits and made upgrading a pain in the arse. I remember my HP 48 being more stable.
If I keep going I'll spill my beer down my long white beard.
I love RISC OS, got a machine under my desk which runs version 4.03, yes I couln't justify the cost of Select while unemployed, and now... well it's not really worth upgrading it.
I'd love to have the opertunity to tinker with what makes RISC OS tick, and to see things like ADFS supported on linux properly, which can only come though a open specification or open code.
My worry wouln't be fragmentation, usually one fragment dies off, and effort moves to another when it's proved to be better, or not... and if the community splits and works on two diferent things, then obviously the community was split originally and now at least theve both got the OS they prefer. My worry would be no one picking it up and doing anything with it.
Why not just do it and see how it turns out? Not like they've got much left to lose at this point. Besides, the GPL2 doesn't say you _can't_ sell it for money, just that you can't stop other people giving it away.
They could start by making an x86 version. Then we'll see how much YellowTab is really worth.
Are you on crack or something?
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
I'm pretty sure that having a diverse selection of distros is a good thing. It means that there are many strategies being tried simultaneously, and thus more room for growth of computer science as a whole. It may be bad for any individual distribution, or even bad for Linux in general, but overall I think it's worth the added complexity.
Of course, once an area has stabilised and no new ideas are cropping up, then we can start to standardise stuff without doing damage.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
I'm not sure if they should go open source, it seems like a RISCy move.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the fact that RISC OS would be an amazing fit for an ARM based PDA. Add one of those cool laser keyboards and you'd have pretty much a "real" computer with a full gui in only a couple of megs of code. None of the Linux based PDAs are as "lite" and I know for sure WinCe/Pocket Pee Cee isn't as tiny.
Open Source it, I say! I imagine there would be some very interesting projects spun off from the code base.
-Anonymous Coward
They can publish the source under copyright, without any licensing that transfers the copyright to people who read the copies. The GPL is a unique license that transfers the copyright - the right to copy and distribute the received copy - on the condition that the next recipient applies the same restrictions (along with several others that distinguish the GPL from others like BSD, MIT etc). And they can always GPL such a "one hop" copyright license later, if they want the benefits of further distribution of the core technology that makes their marketshare, although they can't go back once committed to GPL. If they really don't have downside to publishing their source, as long as that's as far as it goes, they have no excuse for not just doing it already. Try it, RISCOS, you'll like it.
--
make install -not war
It seems that each distribution becomes a little more flexible when people use these tools / launchpad allowing the differences between distributions to be minimized to a certain extent.
It's a good idea. I was thinking of a meta-distribution where you check off what you want in it and then the program makes it. If the build you are about to make happens to be close to an existing distribution it will tell you so.
If in this meta-distribution you want it to conform to some stand (like LSB) just click that off and it will be sure to include elements that allow the build to adhere to the standard.
Companies that dare support Linux will support Redhat and SuSE and maybe one other, so it's mostly irrelevant that there are millions of other distros.
The talent pool may get diluted, but mostly this isn't the case IMO. You could argue the talent pool for car manufacturers is diluted because there are so many different companies! There are good projects/distros and this is where the talent flock, if there isn't room left due to them being too popular, the talent will go to the next best distro/project. The really talented people start there own projects/distros/companies.
First, it's moot. OK? Not mute.
Second: http://www.iyonix.com/ - RISC OS Desktop computer with USB2, support for a multi-head display system, 10/100/1000 networking.
Do your research before posting about OSes you don't use, mkay?
Third: ah, the laptop issue. I believe laptops come in 2 flavours: x86 and PPC. Would you care to design a third flavour? from the ground up? thought not. The fact that it's an emulated OS is the real moot point. The architecture to run it natively doesn't exist, so they made an emulator. Darned sight quicker than PearPC too. And, as you correctly point out, it's an XP laptop. So it'll run linux too, idiot. As to the price: 2 commercial OSes on one machine costs more than the same machine with only one OS? Surely not!
FBSD is having alot of trouble and controversy with its kernel designs and many users such as myself left. NetBSD is small, clean, and simple, but lacks native java, good smp, and 3d support.
Dragonfly as a fork of FBSD is trying to provide all of that but its very unstable and mess because all of the talent is still at FBSD or swtiched to NetBSD.
I would like a NetBSD/DRagonfly merging. Dragonfly works great smp wise and has all the drivers of FBSD and netbsd could provide the stability of its pkg's that Dragonfly lacks.
http://saveie6.com/
Though I do not use the OS regular anymore, I'm still an active (and paying) supporter of it just because I don't want to see it vanish. RISC OS is a great OS and has a lot of potential. But it needs so much renovation; I hardly believe that a small company like RISC OS Ltd. can do this on its own.
So, to answer the question: Yes, it definitely should be made open source!
I think this would be a great idea. Hell, we could get an x86 port going and then we'd have some real fun! An OS designed for early 90s machines running on my AMD64? Go for it! Linux is a little slow for my liking ;)
Do you see what I did there?
The OP seems to have confused RISC OS Ltd with Castle Technology Ltd, they aren't the same company. It is Castle that are having cash flow problems - there engineering dept. walked out not being paid for some time See http://www.drobe.co.uk/riscos/artifact1461.html
if you're worried about support, the number of supported distros for business in any given part of the world *are* countable on one hand. For example, here I am in the middle of the U.S.A. and I can locally get paid support for RedHat, SuSE and Debian. There might be some other minor player out there, but I've not seen it used by business or government here. What's so complicated about that?
http://www.drobe.co.uk/extra/geminuswideboy-huge.j pg
(Voice of Jennifer Anniston) OH MY GAWD!(/voice) Hasn't this guy seen what open source has done to revive dead/dying systems? Of course, they have to write the GPL correctly, but fer cryin' out loud, hasn't Open Source proved itself as a viable revenue generation model? RISC operating systems would be great for those appliance applications where a full-up OS doesn't fit, like toasters and automobiles, for example. And Oh, by the way, protect the "rights' of those who developed it.
Evil Overlord Rule #86. I will make sure that my doomsday device is up to code and properly grounded.
No, of course it should NOT be open sourced. They should let it die. Yeah, that was sarcasm :-P
I mean... ALL software should be Open Source (more precisely, it should be Free Software) so it could survive for at least as long as its users. The question is pointless!
Try Ubuntu GNU/Linux, it's great!!!
Second: http://www.iyonix.com/ - RISC OS Desktop computer with USB2, support for a multi-head display system, 10/100/1000 networking.
From that URL:
16-BIT SOUND
RISC OS 5 has full support for 16-bit sound and is able to play multiple concurrent sound tracks.
NETWORK STACK
Full industry standard support for a wide range of networking protocols. With TCP/IP and DHCP built in, connecting is easy.
16 million colour support now up to 2048 x 1536 pixels (was 800 x 600 pixels)
Dude... This OS and hardware used to provide you with photo like graphics, with real-time video capture at a time where a fucking PC could just bear CGA. And look at where it stands now ? 16 bit sound? 16million colours? And you think its not deprecated?
As to that machine; I can see that you don't actually own one. Thats not USB 2.0 my friend, its USB compatible and if you take a little effort you'll see that all those supported devices are USB 1.0 downwards compatible.
As to the laptop: sure. It maybe all so casual for you, fact is that they promised a PC running on fullblown RiscOS back then, multiple times, and could deliver nothing more than a frickin' XP machine. You can talk all you want but the fact that they promised a full product and couldn't do better than a emulator says more than enough.
Its mute... Yeah, you think I mean moot. Mute. One text processor, one graphic image program, one picture viewer.. Get real.
At first glance I thought this was talking about RISC/os - an operating system I ran on MIPS boxen before they were bought out by SGI and eventually mothballed. It was an interesting OS - one of the "dual universe" Unices that were both 4.3 BSD and SVR3 at the same time. You could make it resemble and behave like either OS by setting a few environment variables. In that sense it was a rare example of defragmentation in the Unix world.
As his company is going down the chute, perhaps he should listen to the community. Seems like his decisions haven't always been brilliant.
Not flaming, just saying....
Get your own free personal location tracker
as it happens, pkgsrc integration is planned for the next december release.
Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S
Sitting somewhere locked up in file cabinet marked "Because It Can Be".
Nonsense. Although there are very few good measures of distribution usage netcraft shows that there are more web servers running FreeBSD than the other top 3 linux distributions put together. Compare Linux to FreeBSD and theres alot more, but compare FreeBSD against any other single linux distribution and there will not be a lot in it.
I know netcraft only measures public web servers and in all likelyhood FreeBSDs popularity in this area is likely to be from hosting alot of domains on a few huge web farms although this in itself says something about FreeBSD.
As a previous thread said one of Linuxes biggest problems is distribution fragmentation, this rears it's ugly head most often with closed source binaries, most seem only to support Redhat 8, 9 or RHEL. Anything else and you are on your own, in some cases FreeBSD can actually be helpful here, install the required linux compatibility distribution for your binary only app and you are set.
The biggest problem FreeBSD has at the moment is it's appaling Java support, if that problem was fixed properly it would be doing alot better.
The SMP support is adequate and always has been.
Jason.
... sure you wouldn't get as big of a community following but no doubt you would get some help with your product. In my opinion, licenses should be fragemented, but software projects should not.
Find me an alternative to Cerilica's Truism ( http://www.cerilica.com/truism/index.htm ) for any other platform at a similar price, otherwise, it seems to me Risc OS has a unique advantage for people doing commercial print work.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Chapter 11 is not genreallly about giving away what you have. A liquidating 11 is about selling off what you have to maintain your main business core. There is nowhere to go if you have no revenue. One lives or dies by cash flow....
No one here gets out alive
But isnt the hardware development too?
Sure i could be wrong in this case, but i didnt think the hardware was flying out of the R&D labs either and seemed 'behind the times' somewhat.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
And look at where it stands now ? 16 bit sound? 16million colours? And you think its not deprecated?
16bit sound: The same as all standard PC and macintosh hardware sold even today. Some high-end audio boards have 20 and 24bit DACs but the DSPs behind them, on some creative products, were still 16bit anyway.
16 million colours: That's a 24bit pallette. 16.7 million to be precise. The same as all standard PC and macintosh hardware sold even today. I dare you to find a display with a higher number of colours (hint: to my knowledge, they haven't bothered. The human eye has limitations when it comes to distinguishing between even 16 million colours).
"32 bit" displays have an 8-bit transparency channel. It enables hardware accelerated transparencies. It does not, however, give you more than 16.7 million (24bit) colours.
Now, if you had mentioned a weakness in the GPU's hardware-accelerated features, you may have had a point.
RiscOS is a hobby OS like AmigaOS, except that it has some significant use in embedded (legacy) ARM applications. When that dries up, I imagine from people switching to alternatives like embedded NetBSD and Linux, then they are screwed purely because the "more popular" thing is the best business decision for most companies.
In the embedded space RiscOS has many technical merits making it attractive compared to the free alternatives, it's just that unfortunately prosperity and popularity isn't among them.
Nothing irks me more than the "most popular = best" mentality...
http://www.iyonix.com/ :USB2 is now standard on all IYONIX pc models. For upgrades from USB 1 see USB2
Your "shock" that the number of bits (16) in its sound capability (exactly the same as brand new 2005 Macs and PCs), and number of colours (16.7 million/24bit) in its display (exactly the same as brand new 2005 Macs and PCs) still amuses me...
Actually a RISC OS laptop wouldn't be too hard to do. There are a lot of tiny Xscale SBCs that you could use to make an ARM based laptop. It would run forever on a charge and pretty pretty snappy.
The only thing that the XScale lacks to really is an FPU.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Side note: I actually have a copy of Amiga Forever, which is a licensed set of AmigaOS packages and various applications bundled with UAE (an Amiga emulator). I burned a copy of the new release CD a few weeks ago but had forgotten to eject it from the burner in my server. I rebooted said server a couple days ago to upgrade my FreeBSD kernel and left the room for a few minutes. When I came back, I was staring at an Amiga screen. Seems the CD is actually built on Knoppix, and it auto-configures X and then fires up UAE. Freaked me out to find a ghost of my past staring at me at 2:00 AM.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I don't think anybody would deny that the ability to customize a linux distro is a strong point. This is seen the highest level of your distinctions; desktop, server, realtime, embedded, etc. The problem with linux being brought into the mainstream is the fragmentation of the desktop distros. Many linux fans think that they are pitting linux against Windows in an OS vs OS way, but they are wrong. To compete with Windows you have to compete with the platform. If linux distros do not all have the same platforms then there is fragmentation. What do I mean? Well, let's say that I want to develop software or drivers for Windows. I know exactly what platform I can develop that for and be able to easily test and distribute. If I want to do the same thing with linux it is a whole different ball game. Different architectures, libraries, custom compiled kernels, graphics systems, services, etc. This is why fragmentation is bad. The linux world's greatest strength and weakness lies in the fact that nobody is in charge of making the choices to design a standard platform.
How about linspire/freespire?
"Hello 911? I just tried to toast some bread, and the toaster grew an arm and stabbed me in the face!"
Obviously Paul Middleton thinks he can make more money on the software by retaining control of it. But there must be some amount of money for which he would sign away the rights and allow it to be open-sourced. As time goes by, and his company continues to circle the drain and the software continues to lose market share, that amount should decrease.
That we're having a discussion at all indicates that some people think it would be a public good for the software to be open-sourced. If those people start contributing to some kind of trust or escrow account, and convincing their friends to contribute, they will eventually have enough money to exceed Middleton's buy-off price at that time.
Open-source software users should plan future buy-outs and figure out how to make them work. This is a good one to start, because it looks like it will be relatively cheap. But we should win one or two of these, and then start targetting more ambitious cases.
I can't see a lot of obstacles to this working. There needs to be a trustee who administers the fund and makes the purchase, and oversees the open-sourcing of the code, and who is deemed trustworthy by all the contributors. The FSF or the EFF might fill that role, or a new 501(c)(3) could be set up.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
It seems that the OS owners are pretty sure about their product success.
Fragmentation is actually not a good thing, but it happens only to successful products, like Linux, soda drinks, hamburgers and windows.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
You seem to have completely ignored all the embedded devices that use it. Okay as a desktop operating system it is dated. But because it is small, fast, robust and the like it makes a damn good OS for consumer devices. As a result the 21st century has resulted in more copies of RISC OS actually being used than there were in the whole of Acorn's life.
What is Linux, really? Think about it, it's not Gnome, it's not X, it's not even Bash. It's just the kernel. That's all. Linux is a kernel, nothing more. There are things that many distros have, but none of it is required to be Linux. Now think, what is OS-X? It's a kernel, a high level API, a GUI, a file manager, graphics and sound subsystems (consumer and pro), a web browser, etc, etc. All this is part of any OS-X install.
So the problem here is that nearly everything, espically that which a user works with, in Linux isn't fixed. Users can't learn what Linux is, because that can change. I can take a user, sit them down with a Linux distro, and get them farmiliar. Then, once they are ok with it, I can move them to another Linux distro and they'll be totally lost. Why? because everytihg is different. Different UI, differen't programs, etc. Might as well be a different OS as far as they are concerned.
Hell, even goes for the same distro. Most distros have so many options during install you can make them very different. They may prefer Gnome, but will let you use KDE or even TWM if you like. They might prefer Bash but have no problem installing tcsh instead. Most install vi by default but you don't have to and can use just emacs instead.
And so on.
It's a real problem for non-computer people who have neither the time nor the desire to really understand computers, and just want them to work. They can't get around an OS that can be different all the time, they need consistency.
Hell it's even annoying for geeks. RedHat causes problem with what we do at work often because it likes to have it's libraries in different places than most other Linuxes. However there's nothing wrong with teh way it does it, it's still Linux, it's just not normal. Or hell, maybe it is normal, being the largest, maybe everyone else is doing ti wrong. Depends on your perspective. Either way, gets annoying.
That's the problem. Linux is a very basic OS definition. It defines just a kernel. Everything else is optional. That's what draws many geeks to it; the total flexability and customizability. However it DOES lead to a fragmented experience for users. Users are used to an enriched definition, like OS-X or Windows where an OS is not just a kernel, but a UI, and a set of programs. Where there's consistency across computers to a high level because the OS is defined as quite a lot.
The Linux way certianly isn't invalid, but it is fragmented and it's not something everyone wants.
RISC OS was developed by Acorn Computers, who also developed the ARM (The Acorn RISC Machine - It was renamed to Advanced RISC Machines when its development was spun off in to a separate company, ARM Plc.).
When Acorn was asset stripped at the end of the nineties, some of the assets were purchased by Pace Micro Technology. Pace had started life developing hardware for Acorn's BBC Microcomputer but had moved on to, firstly analogue TV set top boxes, and then digital ones.
Pace took ownership of RISC OS as part of the deal with Acorn's dismantlers. It also took ownership of Online Media and its development (Online Media was Acorn's own set top development arm which was researching digital television over IP in the mid nineties. It was an extension of the work they did on the NC. Acorn designed and built the reference platform for Oracle's NC). The product that came out of these purchases was the DSL4000, an IPTV box which is in use all over the world.
Pace licenced RISC OS development 'for the desktop' to RISC OS ltd but retained ownership. This became RISC OS 4. Castle Technologies, who got the rights to sell Acorn RISC PCs on Acorn's demise, independently licenced RISC OS development for X-Scale on their Ionix machine. That is RISC OS 5.
More recently Pace has undergone some rationalisation and it eventually closed the Pace Cambridge office (which is what Acorn's office became). During that rationalisation Pace sold RISC OS to Castle whilst retaining the rights to continue to use it in their own products. This caused a ruckus as RISC OS ltd and Castle fell out. Eventually they made friends and development continues.
RISC OS remains in the ownership of Castle with RISC OS ltd doing the development for all machine's except Castle's and except embedded which is still linked with Pace. So I don't know who's in trouble here but while RISC OS is still in use as an embedded operating system I don't see it becoming open source.
At an Acorn show, I once followed a talk by Paul Middleton about RISC OS, by talking about ARM Linux, which was amusing. Also from what I remember of Paul Middleton (about ten years ago when we cross paths at the local users group and when he was my local Acorn dealer) he doesn't give things away that he can sell so I can't see him being very pro open sourcing RISC OS.
The British equivalent is probably "do a runner and start up in a dodgy tax haven like the Isle of Man or Gibraltar". Let's see if anyone bothers to read this, and if so moderates it flamebait.
Anyway, the point is that neither the original post nor the reply appear to be by people who actually understand very much about business, on either side of the Atlantic. And they've been moderated up, presumably by equally ill-informed people.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
RISC OS Ltd is in the process of completely rewriting RISC OS. When they've finished there won't be any of the code licensed from Castle left. So then RISC OS Ltd will own (their) RISC OS.
No, CA is the dark, wet and dark place underground where good software is being imprisoned after having been kidnapped to die a slow and agonizing death *shudder*.
In the UK, 'Chapter 11' is closer to Administration, temporary protection from creditors. The Administrator's (third party specialist Accountant) job is to seek best value for the creditors. Going concerns generally raise more value than broken up assets, so he will try to do that. If he cannot settle the debts the company is wound-up through a liquidation by an Insolvency practitioner. Brankrupty is a different process for Individuals who cannot pay their depts.
http://www.insolvency.gov.uk/
There were some legal wrangles not long ago about who even owns it and who has a license to develop it for the desktop. I think Castle may have something to say about open sourcing it as I think they actually own the rights to it (IIRC having bought them from Pace who bought them when Acorn or E14 went bust).
RISC OS Ltd was set up when Acorn axed its desktop business (and then went bust) to develop RISC OS for the desktop and then released RISC OS 4 and the RISC OS Select scheme.
In the meantime Pace were using it for set top boxes and things and then IIRC sold it to Castle who had bought the rights to the Acorn name.
Castle then released a reasonably modern machine (new ARM processor with no legacy 26bit addressing support, PCI, NVidia graphics, USB) the Iyonic which runs RISC OS 5 which is sorted out so that it would run on 32bit addressing processors (ARM long ago dropped the legacy support for 26bit addressing).
This led to legal wrangling with RISC OS Ltd and Castle accusing each other of breach of contract. Most people sided with Castle, seeing as they actually have a business which isn't on the verge of bankrupsy and are actually doing something with RISC OS, the notable exception being the editor of Qercus (which used to be Acorn User).
Personally I long ago gave up on RISC OS. It has a fantastic UI and was in its day a supurb platform (which really worried Apple, but Acorn failed to play its cards right and lost any advantage they may have had) but it no longer suits my needs and the OS architecture is frankly antiquated despite various moves in the past to drag it up into the modern world (notably some attempts to introduce pre-emptive multitasking and the Hydra multiprocessor boards).
Still, RISC OS still has its followers (my father included as well as the company responsible for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire who originally at least ran the on screen graphics on RISC OS computers) and the recent hardware is very respectable some of which I have my eye on to run ARM Linux on as a low power small mail and print server for my LAN, but RISC OS is unfortunately a thing of the past.
I do remember at one point they were pretty popular as 'desktops' over in the UK. I even wanted to get an Acorn myself at one point.
I was sort of hoping I was wrong, and they werent fading away slowly. Thats a shame.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
For reference, I wrote the original article which sparked this discussion. Most of what I said has little to do with what's being discussed here. Mostly I advocated open souring parts of RISC OS (or developing free replacements for bits of it) in order to further development. Here's the article:
http://riscos.blog.com/356092/
But it wont be RISC OS, as Castle own the name. Also whether or not the source is the same, the API will be the same, and that is still owned by Castle and will need licencing. If RISC OS ltd are just going completely new then it's definitely not RISC OS and you have to ask, what's the point.
But it wont be RISC OS, as Castle own the name.
That's an interesting fact, but I don't think they would be able to enforce it. The problem is that RISC OS is a generic term describing what the product is (an Operating System for Reduced Instruction Set Computers). Also, the fact that RISC OS Ltd are called RISC OS Ltd suggests that they have at least some rights to the name.
Also whether or not the source is the same, the API will be the same, and that is still owned by Castle and will need licencing.
APIs are generally held not to be copyrightable. This is how come, e.g. wine can implement a version of the Windows API without MS's consent. It might be possible to patent an API, but I don't believe there are any patents in question here.
I've noticed alot of comments generated from this story that Linux is still not ready for the desktop. Put on SuSe or Mandriva and one will find that it is*.
/etc/profile). Magically, an out-of-the-box Linux which can do everything you need; in addition, one can have updated software all the time with a simple install (done every 6 months or a year when many distributions are released).
For a "desktop" user, one of the difficulties is getting upgrades of software and such. Here is the answer: simply obtain and install the new SuSe (used for example). You now have all new, upgraded programs. Everything is included in these "desktop" distributions. Next, have a seperate partition created so when you reformat, your data is readily available to use: no setup required. One can even simlink files to this partition that must be in certain places (e.g.
The one thing I would love Linux to have that would enhance the user experience a hundredfold is a self contained directory for an application AND a large repository of such applications. For example, simply drag the directory to your hard drive and it is installed. Simply delete the directory and the application is uninstalled. No more dependences and headaches. I believe it exists already (IIRC Rox), but there are almost no applications available. Debian packaging system works because it has 15,000 (maybe 20,000 now?) packages, including the most popular ones. A package manager is nothing without a great repository. An easy-to-use system such as this would be the next Linux "killer app."
* To new users, steer clear of Ubuntu 5.10 and Redhat FC4. Ubuntu's Gnome 2.12 has many bugs annoying bugs and is not stable. As for FC4, multimedia is not handled out-of-the-box. Users such as yourself want it to simply work; this is not the case. One must address the issue of repositories, package installation, and dependencies. In addition, FC4 is not stable as well.
This is a completely new insight to me. Could you illustrate this with a few examples?
I think you confuse RISCOS (which to my knowledge was only Acorn and Acorn descended machines) with ARM processors (which show up in PDAs, cell phones, routers, and washing machines). But I could be wrong; references?!?
A .5 GHz XScale would make for a good RISCOS experience. However, a high-powered (battery-sucking) Pentium emulator is likely to run at a workablespeed too. And no ARM, StrongARM, XScale is going to outperform a mainstream x86 in native desktop speed, simply because it was neither designed or taylored for it and did not have the momentum to evolve on the same scale.
More importantly, however, is that an emulator is only software. This is relatively cheap to develop and VERY cheap to produce, whereas any hardware development is quite expensive. You could easily spend you first 50.000 on selecting the SBC that best suits your needs. (not just getting the boards, but invetsing time to study them. Then you need to either port a licensend version of the OS to the new hardware (or emulate RISCOS compliant hardware). By that time , the SBC may not be available any more, spec may have changed, etc. Even on relatively simple systems under high time presure with adequate staff (like in case of tomtom go navigator) this seldomly takes less than a year.
You will have burned close to half a million, sans marketing and you'll probably make less than 100 per item shipped. Ie. this won't work for a market as small as RISCOS. Compare this to any skilled software engineer writing an ARM emulator in a few weeks or months. (Actually, some decent emulators are already available for free.
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Softgun_ARM_Emulator
http://www.skyeye.org/index.shtml
http://www.arm.com/support/ARMulator.html
Nothing irks me more than the "most popular = best" mentality...
Well, there certainly are more important things in my life to irk about than "most popular = best" mentality. OK, I agree on matters like x86 being better than all other architectures simply because it's used predominantly or even because its the fastest (in desktopland). x86 is shite on almost all design aspects. ARM has great design value, as do Sparc, Power and Alpha.
That said, it's also kind of sad to watch what's left of the Acorn/Archimedes/Iyonic community. I guess there ARE some "merits that make RISCOS an attractive alternative", but with close to no life left these merits are getting smaller and smaller compared to vivacious "free alternatives" (Linux, BSD).
On topic of the orig article, what merits does RISCOS have that it would loose if it were open sourced? Or conversely, what companies have found a viable way to profit from its IP and get development back on rails? Or why would anyone without innate affinity to Acorn or its legacy be tempted to switch to it?
Many developers have begged Acorn to open source stuff when they proved unable to further develop it. Given the fringe nature and the hostage on IP, I - for one - moved on.
I think you are over estimateing some of the costs.
I am working on an embedded system that uses an XScale based SBC. It didn't take anywhere near 50k to pick it or to get the personality board made for it so that it worked with our system. Yes we already have orders for several hundred of them so we are talking about a production item and not a hobbyist system.
To be honest I am shocked just how fast the SBC we are using is. I do native compiles on it just to make my life easy when dealing with a bunch of libraries and stuff. It is easy to forget how fast a 400mhz risc chip can be when you are not running XP and or doing a lot of eye candy.
Part of me would love a small light xscale based notebook. Put 4 gigs of flash on it for the system and program files and maybe a small HD for swap and user data. Use Linux of course with a fast window manager and it would be a handy little device. With a terminal server at home you could use it as a thin client for those apps that would be too slow for the XScale. Too bad not enough people would use it. You are probably right about it not being worth it.
It really is a shame that RISCOS didn't follow the ARM chip into the embedded space. It may have become a good option for PDAs and smartphones.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I think you are under estimateing some of the costs. (ping-pong ;-)
Boards with video out, sound, and all the other stuff people take for granted, are quite more expensive than the typical bare kits. You can't spend over 50 (us$) on a laptop "mainboard". And indeed, a lot of cost are in ordering different alternatives and testing how well they fit your needs (this is basically man-hours). Once you've narrowed that to one or two alternatives, you need another bunch of man hours to port stuff and get it working (typically, half a year, 1-3 people). Next comes the hard part: testing and QA, but you could argue skipping this phase since the small userbase cannot justify these efforts. (But things could get messy when this fire back.)
In your case, you just skipped that phase directly to a production environment where hardware gets cheaper and the software basically "works".
btw I totally agree that a simple long batterylife XScale (or multiple StrongARMs) laptop would rock! I'm not entirely sure if I would run RISC OS, though. The UI is good en very fast, but - as mentioned in neighbouring threads - the backend is a bit lacky.
Again on topic with the article, I would not consider buying it unless RISCOS (complete sources) would be free as in "cannot be taken hostage again by RISCOS Ltd., Castle, Pace or any company". I want everyone (including myself) to have free access to it.
"btw I totally agree that a simple long batterylife XScale (or multiple StrongARMs) laptop would rock! I'm not entirely sure if I would run RISC OS, though. The UI is good en very fast, but - as mentioned in neighbouring threads - the backend is a bit lacky."
I never messed with RISCOS, my project is using Linux. I guess you are right about the cost of a laptop mainboard.
Frankly I am getting sick of the clock speed wars. Too much power is being used for useless eye-candy and to cover sloppy coding. The SBC I am using has 128 megs split between flash and ram. Good grief I wonder what I will do with all of it. I am just using a fraction of it now and wonder what future features I can fit into it. Good grief I want a super light notebook that will run for a very long time on a battery. I do need to play doom3 one it or run cad.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The problem today is this:
Making RISC-OS - or even an earlier incarnation free ( as in source ) is the only way to re-kindle what was probably the big-daddy of all OS's and keep its Mid-Life Crisis turning into an Early retirement. Give us the freedom to fork an early RISC-OS release and keep the OS alive. He needn't sacrifice their current liquidator-ware - but let us branch off from some earlier incarnation - no I'm not suggesting Arthur. There are a lot of good coders who had their start in the Acorn world - actually some of the best 'engineers' out there - and a lot of us would be interested in keeping the OS alive. I'm sure that, equally, a lot of other projects would be keen to learn and utilise concepts found in RISC-OS. An idea would be to port it to more current RISC based architectures - like my iBook. :) To start with, let's move it out of ROM-ware. RISC-OS ltd, seem to have some ideological notion that it should live in ROM for all time - let them do that with their own branch. Releasing the source is the only thing which can revive an OS which might dwindle away as closed off, forgotten, commoditised IP.
Then we're right on the same track afterall.
...But I guess the only thing that comes close to these specs is a Palm device with a descent keyboard.
I don't see the point in carrying a 3 kg laptop around if it dies after 3 hours of normal use. That's why, in reality laptops are just a poor man's solution to having multiple synchronized desktops. Poor in that the small keyboards and ergonomically ilplaced screens could easily be replaced by a barebone system (well, a really small one). Laptops are rarely used "in the field". It's a bit like carrying a complete, but downsized kitchen stove on a hiking trip.
I want a laptop that's *really* portable (1kg at most) has no moving parts (who needs a cdrom in the field; who needs a *ventilator*). And yes, I want a laptop that runs for a day or two. I want to be able to take a laptop with me on long trips - unplugged. I want to be able to do some programming while I'm on holiday.
If that means loosing the 128MB videocard + GPU - fine with me. If it means trading a 100GB drive for 1GB solid state - I don't care. Even scaling back from XScale to a 20MHz ARM3 isn't a problem. And as to my final wish - low boot time - that's where RISCOS could have an edge over Linux, even with hybernation.
One of these? I think my dad had one of those. At the time I owned & used an HP28, which allows programming but has an awful keyboard (non-qwerty take a while to get used to). Ran for 100 hours on a couple of AAA if I remember correctly!
IMHO opinion neither has a display that's acceptable nowadays. Even a game console has colour and hi-res. (downside is of course that energy requirements are likely to double...)
I agree on keyboard and one or two usb ports (who needs pcmcia?) and I'd probably prefer bluetooth over 802.11, since the latter consumes considerably more power. You don't need an FPU to speed-up Google earth since the bottle neck is going to be the bleutooth-GPRS/UMTS/EDGE/GSM connection anyway in every cases where it would be useful.
I guess you could just order some stock laptop chassis, w/ keyboard, screen, and even batteries but sans mainboard. Would it be hard to find a small one with no-nonsense design?
Great ideas, now let's start a company!