Who is Going to Buy SkyOS?

An anonymous reader wonders: "With the huge amount of operating systems available (numerous free and non-free Linux distros, Windows, Mac OSX, BSD, etc) who would buy SkyOS? An OS that was once free will now become a commercial operating system with the release of version 5.0. Although 'Porting applications from POSIX operating systems is an easy task', applications will still have to be ported since SkyOS 'isn't based on any other operating system'. This leads me to wonder...is there something about this operating system that I'm missing? Has anyone out there tried SkyOS and why would anyone pay for SkyOS with all of the alternatives out there with tonnes of software easily available?"

Comments

Why?

[spcmastertim]

People buy windows when there is a free alternative. The reason is simple. SkyOS does something very well, and people who need that one thing done well will buy it. Don't ask me what it is that it does well...

Re:Why?

[bcat24]

But that's just the point. People who would use a non-Windows system tend to be a bit smarter (computer-wise). I doubt they'd want to spend money on a system that's incompatable with Windows and Linux.

Re:Why?

[CherniyVolk]

People buy windows when there is a free alternative. The reason is simple. SkyOS does something very well, and people who need that one thing done well will buy it...

Why are people dellusional about what motivates purchases?

People will buy SkyOS becuase there is a cost associated to it. For no other reason, rationale or sentimental, than the fact it has a price tag.

For instance, take a look at a typical edition of Cosmopolitan magazine. Go ahead, flip through it. Don't worry, the chick next to you in line might think it's hot. There are so many advertisements in that magazine, you'll be hard pressed to actually find "content". The publishing house makes so much money off the advertisements, that they could pay people just to accept the magazine yet, it still has a price tag; so much money infact, they really don't need "content" and much of it is "fluff" to appear as if there's something of value other than the advertisements. Why? The Advertisement Firms insist they maintain a cover price, becuase they feel people will not take the publication seriously (including holding any value to the advertisements within) if the work was was for free. Now, to emphasize how much of that magazine is content, rip out every page that has the smallest blatant advertisement on it. Or, at your whim, hold all pages that have any "content" thereon. Doesn't matter, either way it will be pathetic I garruntee it.

It's not much talked about, or doesn't seem so, that one of the largest milestones the Open Source community has is convincing someone there is "value" in a "free" product. Especially, if that individual has been raised in such a capitalistic driven society; they literally can not conclude the possibility anyone could produce a valuable product for free without monetary or material compensation. It's out of their grasp, it does not compute. They default to a conclusion that something must be wrong or lacking if someone is willing to just hand it off on someone else.

Someone will buy SkyOS. Will they be the next Microsoft? I doubt it. But, I know for certain, someone will buy it in high regard and expectation of "quality" becuase sense they purchased the product... that makes the people making it, "professionals". To a Capitalist, ability and capability is soley determined by price.

Re:Why?

[Vellmont]

Especially, if that individual has been raised in such a capitalistic driven society; they literally can not conclude the possibility anyone could produce a valuable product for free without monetary or material compensation. It's out of their grasp, it does not compute


There's this thing that became quite popular more than 50 years ago, and it was given away free! No price whatsoever. It was called television, and a lot of people saw value in it. It had so much value that many people use this service far too much. About 50 years before that the scientists invented something we now radio. It was also, and continues to be free, and many people seem to love it and see value in it. Something like 400 years ago there was a thing called Public Education that was offered for free. People seem to continue to see value in it despite its free status even today! More recently we've invented internet websites, which are largely free.

People readily accept products that are free as having value, and have for literally hundreds of years. The problem that open source faces isn't that the software has no cost, it's simply that the current software is in an entrenched position. For the majority of people, the costs really isn't about the actual software itself. That's fairly trivial. The costs come in learning how to use new software, OS, etc. For a business that means retraining employees, or re-writing software. For individuals that means wasting your time re-learning to do something you already know how to do.

Re:Why?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

People buy windows when there is a free alternative.

There's a free alternative to Windows? But it's only in alpha.

Re:Why?

[enosys]

Look at what happened to BeOS. It had various innovative features and some people were quite excited about it but it was a failure in the marketplace. SkyOS doesn't even seem to have such innovative features. It's not that nobody will use it. It's just that it doesn't seem to have any chance in the marketplace.

Re:Why?

[MrNaz]

And of course, free-to-air television is valued more than pay-per-view, public education is considered superior to expensive private colleges, free radio is hotter than pay-per-song iTunes and nobody ever thought of charging for web content, like, with a two-tiered Internet or anything.

You, my dear naieve friend, need to realize that until the Open Source movement, few things remained free after a) its value was recognised by business and b) a viable model to charge for it was developed. The Open Source community better watch its back, business is scheming right now how to hijack it and charge for it and as impossible as it may seem, they'll try.

Re:Why?

[1iar_parad0x]

Television isn't free -- they sell commercials
Radio isn't free -- they also sell commercials
Public education isn't free -- they use our tax money to support it
Even PBS and NPR require donations.

OSS is actually free. The programmers may get a bit of extra experience that they can leverage into a job. Some even spin their software into a business. However, OSS is essentially free. Truthfully, most of the internet is free because it has deep roots in academia. Scientists and engineers (to a lesser extent) have always valued knowledge for its own sake. Is OSS as user friendly as commercial software. No. Is it as polished. No, but some of the most reliable products are OSS (Apache, Sendmail, the Linux OS itself).

Re:Why?

[Phreakiture]

For instance, take a look at a typical edition of Cosmopolitan magazine . . . The publishing house makes so much money off the advertisements, that they could pay people just to accept the magazine yet, it still has a price tag . . . The Advertisement Firms insist they maintain a cover price, becuase they feel people will not take the publication seriously

There is a counter-example, though.

Many metro areas have a free newspaper. In Rochester, NY, it's City; in Albany, NY, it's Metroland; in Toronto, Ont, it's Eye (IIRC); you get the idea. While not as revered (and certainly not as frequent) as the daily papers, they do get picked up and read, and the advertisements get seen. It doesn't take a cover price to accomplish this.

Back to the matter at hand, I won't buy it. I never even heard of it until this posting on Slashdot. Linux has name recognition. BSD has less so, but it has it. Windows has mad name recognition. Even DOS has a better chance of selling, by virtue of having name recognition. I don't think SkyOS will sell.

Re:Why?

[donscarletti]

For instance, take a look at a typical edition of Cosmopolitan magazine. Go ahead, flip through it. Don't worry, the chick next to you in line might think it's hot.

I totally agree, I absolutely love Cosmo for these reasons.

• Cosmo is full of pictures of beautiful, glamourous and often scantily clothed women.
• Cosmo is full of really filthy articles about doing the nasty.
• Cosmo is full of really filthy articles about female masterbation.
• Cosmo is full of interesting information about women.
• Almost every second week cosmo features an article on women's anatomy, with pictures of exposed breasts and other facinating bits.
• Cosmo is just like a men's "stroke mag" in most ways I can imagine.
• Cosmo can be read by a man in broad daylight, in mixed company and women will admire him for emersing himself in female culture and female perspective, completely oblivious to his motivations, as long as he hides his erection well enough. Wives, girlfriends, mothers, sisters, daughters and every other type of woman in a man's life just seem to not see it. Sure, men might look at you funny, until you show them the double page feature on breast implants, giving you 30 exposed real, large breasts and 10 fake ones to tell apart complete with answers and close ups on the next page (real article, I kid you not).

Cosmo is HOT HOT HOT and women don't get why enlightened men love it so much. Occasionally it has a male glamour shot for the target demographic to admire, which isn't my cup of tea, but it seems to be always tastefully done and never demeaning to the man involved. Cosmo, though obviously female biased in its outlook doesn't have as much latent misandry as other womens publications either, so I can feel good about myself while reading it.

I am so tempted to go out and get a subscription.

Re:Why?

[jandrese]

IMHO, what ultimately did BeOS in was the lack of full POSIX compatability, in particular with the network code. This ment that BeOS users couldn't use the large and growing library of open source software without first porting it over. Even though porting was fairly easy (assuming the application didn't touch the network), it was a lot of work for the end user and the relatively small developer base.

The nail in the coffin was the lack of a decent Web Browser for the longest time. Even back in 1997 the lack of a good Web Browser was just death for an OS. Linux would not be where it is today if Netscape hadn't been ported over to it. The hardware support issues also ment that it didn't install or work correctly when people just installed it on their home machine to try it out. Granted, Linux wasn't perfect back then either (nor is it now), but it was better than BeOS by a fair margin.

Re:Steven King dead at 55

[spcmastertim]

If he is in heaven, would he use SkyOS?

OS is nothing without Apps

[Hoolala]

Without app support, an OS, if it comes in reinforced box and a heavy manual, is at best a doorstopper. The success of a computing platform depends on the success of its OS which in turns depend on the available apps.

What for?

[VGfort]

I used to periodically checking up on SkyOS until about 2yrs ago or so when it they announced they were going to be a commercial OS. I dont have anything wrong with them being commericial, it just lost my interest, cuz I'm not going to pay to check something out. I think most people that are into tinkering around with computers or OSes might be into it, just to see what ideas others are up to. I personally think Syllable, ReactOS and Symphony are more likely to take off than SkyOS.

From a Sky OS Beta user...

[cgenman]

I'm actually rather fond of Sky OS. The interface is great, and the OS hasn't acquired the kruft of a mainstream OS like Windows, Linux, or OSX.

That having been said, it doesn't run on a lot of hardware, and it doesn't run a lot of applications. Their best bet is either selling it En masse to computer manufacturers as an alternative to linux, or putting it on well-designed hardware as an elite os. Maybe work their way in with specialized hardware makers, like Car manufacturers, to build up a following.

I'd also recommend pre-loading it on USB thumb drives, for those who can boot from a USB thumb, to help people get experience with the OS.

Re:From a Sky OS Beta user...

[OmegaBlac]

Their best bet is either selling it En masse to computer manufacturers as an alternative to linux

I dunno, there this little company up in Redmond, Washington that also sells an alternative to Linux and they have been having a tough time breaking the Torvalds/Tux monopoly on the PC desktop. ;)

Re:From a Sky OS Beta user...

[R3d M3rcury]

That having been said, it doesn't run on a lot of hardware [...]

Yeah. A little note to the guys who run the website: Before you expect me to pony up 30 dollars, do me a favor and tell me what hardware is necessary for this thing to run. I was pretty sure it wouldn't run on my PowerMac G5, but I couldn't find any hardware specs to give me an idea as to what it would run on.

Re:From a Sky OS Beta user...

[bjb]

I believe the parent was referring to the idea that he has no idea if his x86-based machine will work with SkyOS. Not all x86 machines are created equal; before the operating system has a chance to abstract away everything into a single API, it has to know the differences between the GPUs, sound cards, network interfaces, IDE interfaces, SCSI interfaces, etc. That is why you have to install drivers for everything you plug into your computer.

If you want an idea of why the parent's question is valid, download a Linux kernel source and look at all the subdirectories for drivers. It isn't trivial to make an operating system that appears to work on anything you throw at it!

Maybe someone will buy OUT SkyOS

[NiteMair]

If you change your point of view - maybe the develop of SkyOS is hoping that another corporation will buy out SkyOS and use the source for their own product(s)... embedded OS maybe?

Right...

[Anonymous Coward]

$30 for a bebeta OS with limited application and hardware support, with expectations of a "community" rising en masse to do the necessary work to make it usable? I wish Robert and Kelly all the luck in the world, while saying that anyone who freely gives away their work to this for-profit enterprise needs to come to work for me.

What gets me about it...

[martinultima]

As a lot of other posters have said, there's not very much software for it other than what they themselves provide, but there's another side of it, too – hardware. If I remember right, last time I saw anything about SkyOS (I will admit it was a while ago) there was very little hardware or software support. Couple that with the high price tag – i.e., any price tag – and lack of publically-available source code, and I honestly just don't see any reason other than the hell of it.

Personally, if there's any "alternative" OS I hope takes off, it would have to be either Linux [insert obligatory reference to Ultima here], or one of my favorite "pet" projects, ReactOS. The nice thing about the latter is that it (will eventually) support the same software running on Windows, so if not the most ideal system – obviously, if it runs the same software, a lot of vendors may not see any reason for an open-source, Linux-compatible, etc. version of their product – at least it (will be) a somewhat practical one than a Linux system. And OpenBSD is totally kick-ass, although honestly I'd say it's probably in exactly the right place right now; those who can understand it can use it, and everyone else can stick with something better suited for them.

DISCLAIMER: I will admit I'm a Linux dev / distro maintainer and there may be some bias here...

Sky-what?

[(pvb)charon]

Once they add decent NETworking capabilities (and rename their product accordingly), I'm sure there's quite a number of people who just can't resist.
charon

I don't think so - at least for now.

[abelikoff]

Taking a casual look at screenshots immediately reveals icons "borrowed" from KDE. Hmm... I don't think those were in public domain. Gods of GPL won't be pleased with it, for sure. With this attitude, I wonder if the entire OS is truly written from scratch and not a single file from any other project covered by GPL was "incorporated." Because if it was, that would be a shame. And it would create significant issues for the SkyOS developers if they try to sell the product.

As for the viability of the project (assuming that it's legally clean) - no, it is not viable. As simple as that. ISVs will not develop software for it and people are confused enough with Windows vs OS X vs Linux - the market is saturated. I'm sure SkyOS will have it's share of dedicated followers and users (all 23 of them) but that's pretty much it's niche.

Re:I don't think so - at least for now.

[Anonymous Coward]

from the web-site:

"...This is the Crystal icon pack created by the very talented Everaldo, used in SkyOS with his blessing. This icon set is also used by KDE for Linux, which is why the icon sets look similar."

Re:I don't think so - at least for now.

[Phil John]

As another posted pointed out it was with the creators blessing, however even that wasn't needed.

The Crystal Icon Set is licensed under the LGPL, so basically, as long as the SkyOS team supply you with a copy of the LGPL license and a written offer of the "source" (e.g. original pngs) they can use them in a commercial application.

There is a common misconception with some people that (L)GPL=no commercial usage. If it's GPL you can still charge (however your clients can turn around and distribute your app for free, so you'll get further charging for support). If it's LGPL you can distribute the rest of your app as closed source, as long as you provide the LGPL license and provide the source of the LGPL'd component(s) in some way for at least three years (you're even allowed to charge a reasonable fee for providing it under the terms of the license).

BeOS was a superior O/S...

[master_p]

...at a time that Windows was not established like it is today, yet it failed to grab an important market share. SkyOS would have to be a truly superior O/S in order to have any success...but that is highly unlikely, because both Microsoft and Apple have tremendous horsepower to back their O/Ses up.

I have no idea how SkyOS operates, but it seems like another O/S based on processes/scheduling/filesystem. Isn't it time to move beyond those? todays needs are much more dynamic than the current 40-year-old O/S model offers.

Re:BeOS was a superior O/S...

[master_p]

The Turing machine may be 70 years old, but the model of processes/scheduler/filesystem is not that old.

Anyway, my proposal is:

1) replace processes with components.
2) replace the scheduler with parallelizing operators.
3) replace the filesystem with collections.

What are components? components are computational units that are maybe composed from other components and that accept an input and produce an output. The difference with processes is that components can be combined at run-time as the result of computation.

What is a parallelizing operator? a parallelizing operator is an operator that defines a) splitting of computations into parallel tasks and b) rendezvous points.

What is a collection? a collection is a set of data. A datum may itself be a collection. The difference with filesystem is that a) data are typed, b) since data can be collections, they can have triggers that notify the environment about changes. An arbitrary number of components can be attached to triggers. Data in collections can be marked as 'persistent'. Indices can be attached on collections for fast data retrieval. Persistence jobs can be modelled as transactions.

What are be the advantages of this proposed model the current model? they are:

1) program creation becomes much more flexible. There are no barriers between co-operation of components like a separate memory space, unless it is really needed.

2) extending applications becomes a trivial task.

3) code is separated from data.

4) the data persistence problem is solved.

5) programs can have database facilities available without cost.

6) software is componentized. Replacing faulty parts does not require replacing whole programs.

7) reacting to data changes becomes trivial.

8) better security since security can be defined at component level.

I would really like to see a pioneer O/S that utilizes some of the above ideas (which exist for a long time) instead of a repetition of the same stuff.

Re:BeOS was a superior O/S...

[Christopher B. Brown]

"Anyway, my proposal is:

1. replace processes with components.
2. replace the scheduler with parallelizing operators.
3. replace the filesystem with collections."

Sounds a lot like a Lisp environment to me... That means that the "components" are actually function references, which can do fairly much anything. The environment then consists of a set of object references, which is definitely like your notion of "collections."

I'm not so sure about the notion of "parallelizing operators;" concurrent programming has always been hard, fundamentally because it's harder to understand nondeterministic processes than those that are deterministic.

I certainly would agree that this is a different approach from the present tendancy towards "Unix everywhere."

The trouble is that bootstrapping becomes problematic. If you build something that is more or less like Unix, then you've got compilers, file utilities, program editors, SCM tools, and all such, "for free." If you build something that is different enough, then there are two choices:

• Your system is built using Unix-like sets of tools, and is target-compiled for the desired environment. You're forever dependent on Unix.
• Alternatively, if you're trying to self-host, then you've got a five year project to build compilers, code management tools, graphical environment tools, and hardware drivers, pretty much all before you get to the real project of building the OS. And you're left chasing hardware compatibility, because the hardware that's cheap and available today will be replaced by new models that won't be 100% compatible a year from now.

That's a tough road to go down...

The A is the C

[Judge_Fire]

There are so many advertisements in that magazine, you'll be hard pressed to actually find "content".

In lifestyle magazines, the ads are often the content. The odd column or feature are nice extras, but fluff.

J

Television isn't free in the UK

[rklrkl]

Ever since I've been alive, television in the UK has *never* been free and I'm not talking about the "obvious" case of advertisements funding the media. In the UK, every household with a television has to pay an annual television license (and several other European countries are similar). This funds the BBC and allows it to run with no advertisements across all its properties (hence why the BBC Website is ad-free for example, though that's about to change with the "international version" I believe).

For a long time, the UK TV license also covered radio as well, but I'm not sure that's the case now (i.e. if you have a radio, but no TV, you no longer need a license). So that's not always been free either. If you really must go on about "free television and radio", please qualify it with the country you're talking about and, of course, feel free to ignore how they aren't actually free anyway (advertisements/sponsors fund them, which ultimate comes out of the public's pocket).

is there something about this operating system ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It does have the befs. The Haiku project recreated the file system of BeOS, and SkyOS beta testers voted to use it, although it hade to be modified to be able to boot it with grub.

It has live queries, and meta data journaling. It also come with an mp3 by Kelly Rush.

Last time I checked it was Say It Ain't So as written by Weezer. I doubt they're paying the ASCAP performance fee.

We of haiku are happy to have SkyOS use our stuff.

This is a joke, right?

[rudy_wayne]

From the "System Requirements" FAQ:

USB Devices/Hosts are currently not supported.
Wireless Networking is currently not supported.
SATA drives are currently not supported (if you have such an option in BIOS, try using SATA->PATA emulation).
Printers, scanners, digital cameras and webcams are currently not supported.

A couple of nice ideas:

[Ayanami Rei]

None of them new though, but well integrated and there by default.

1) An automatic media playback/manipulation framework. Nothing new here (see DirectShow, gstreamer, Quicktime) but it's more transparent, easier to configure they way you want to, it's an OS-level service, and it comes with lots of filters and encoders/decoders out of the box.

2) SQL metabase for your files. Very similar to WinFS or beagle/inotify in style. You write plugins to extract metadata and it indexes it when you make FS changes. And standard widgets to search/query for file dialogs, file browser, etc. Which is important...

3) A decent security context system that seems to be a blend between NT's model and SELinux's model. It uses the ideas of contexts for users, files and processes from SELinux, but it doesn't burden you with complex transformation rules (instead you have trusted right sources (typically the logon manager), inheritance and voluntary dropping of rights). It offers far more numerous rights than NT or SELinux, and you can add your own.

Files and directories can carry security context identifiers, and the system matches them from the least to most specific user identifier that matches for allow or deny (all users, group member, specific user). The default for filesystems that support security contexts is deny, for those that don't (IE VFAT on flash drives), the default is allow.

Again, you can find examples of all of this implemented elsewhere. These guys are trying to take a lot of good ideas and put them all together in a single baseline that is relatively easy to operate and get your head around. Which I have to support.

Would I buy it? Probably not. Not enough hardware support to bother with a new OS. Better to add these features to existing ones.