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SkyOS Now Free (As In Beer)
Beardydog writes "SkyOS, the commercial, alternative OS created almost entirely by Robert Szeleney, became free (as in beer) sometime last month. Alternative OS enthusiasts can be forgiven for missing it, as the website has been largely derelict, and the forums overrun with spam, since the project was halted in 2009. It's not clear from the announcement whether the ISO available is the traditional build, or the version rebuilt around Linux. The post announcing the free version provides a license name ('public') and registration code that must be entered during setup. While it isn't quite the open-sourcing that most followers hoped for, it's heartening to know SkyOS won't be completely lost in the mists of time."
For a blast from the past, check out our old stories about SkyOS.
I wonder if the server is running SkyOS?
Just "gratis for copying" is not enough for not getting lost in the mist of time since it does not help against bit rot: hardware moves on. At some point of time, it will get hard to get devices for this to run on.
So lets help this guy out. The website is slashdotted. If anybody can downlod it and make a torrent. Then post the magnetlink. That would be great. I am just assuming that is a solution. Let the "discussion" begin.
>Android
First, Android is half closed. You have to bring your own bits to the table to make it work. Amazon did it with the Kindle Fire, and Google has Google Play. But basically no individuals are equipped to leverage Android on their own.
Second, every OS has to start somewhere. I can read your words in 1996 and imagine it about the Linux Kernel.
Except it is not open source, abandoned and never took off.
Tomorrow is another day...
You have to bring your own bits to the table to make it work. Amazon did it with the Kindle Fire, and Google has Google Play.
Because an Operating System isn't an Operating System, unless you can get a bundled app store with it...
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Just like MINIX?
Though in 1996 we didn't actually have tons of free operating systems. Linux added something that was missing.
Then again, this release is hopefully nothing serious, other than a way to say that he's abandoned the project and doesn't really care if people use it or not.
c++;
Minix publish their source code under BSD 13 years ago (your link, second sentence). Its purpose was to provide a framework for OS programming. SkyOS is a one guy who wanted to code an OS and get paid for it. Hardly comparable.
Tomorrow is another day...
He WROTE AN OPERATING SYSTEM!?
I thought it was pretty AWESOME when it was just those AMBER BOOKS!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Dont change the fact this OS will slowly die to abandonware unless opened.
Tomorrow is another day...
What does it offer, outside of mundane curiosity, that I can already find at Distrowatch? I can find a lot of random stuff on archive.org to waste time with too.
Give me a reason and a purpose for using SkyOS.
Does the cloud reside in the SkyOS?
From Microsoft of all places. I liked the idea of it and developed into a full OS would have been advanced. It seemed like it would be slower for the stability gains and that why it died.
:(
Legacy Software is quite a problem now with bugs and exploits. I wonder when we will move away from them. It looks to me like all the money hungry corps are moving to closed environments based on the same on crap technology, just locked down.
Such a shitty world we live in. I hope linux gaming takes off. Thats the only thing that kept me Microsoft since 1995. But linux is a legacy product as well
Just cant win.
Were it made free software (as in freedom) it might've interested somebody...
But basically no individuals are equipped to leverage Android on their own.
Applications are the easy bit. See F-Droid. The hard part is getting device drivers for your hardware...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I guess you don't know why AOSP is called AOSP and Android is called Android. That would be because not all of Android is in AOSP, because Android is not completely open.
This would have been great... several years ago. His arrogance of demanding that he would only release the source if only someone fully dedicated to leading the project that was the final nail in the coffin. He never deemed anyone worthy of the position so it fell into obscurity. I think we would be better off if the source had just been deleted and page taken down.
Oh yeah, the reason it died is that he drove away the other developers.
SkyOS underwent many changes after this surge in popularity. Because of significant differences at the source level, Szeleney stopped thinking of what was under development as the fifth version of his operating system, and the name "SkyOS 5.0" was rebranded to simply "SkyOS". A more professional demeanor was taken throughout the project
"professional demeanor" means he started acting like an arrogant asshole.
As the years progressed and the other founding members of SkyOS distanced from the project,
turns out that people dont like to be pushed around by arrogant assholes.
SkyOS isn't an operating system, it's a cautionary tale.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
>> the website has been largely derelict ... the forums overrun with spam ... the project was halted in 2009 ... not clear from the announcement whether the ISO available is the traditional build, or the version rebuilt around Linux.
Sounds great. I'll install it at once.
yes it will. with no development since something like 2009 and none expected in the future... what good is a bunch of compiled bits of an incomplete operating system without the source code and license to do something with it?
So where do I need to go to get this free beer?
For SkyOS, the interface looks way better then Windows 8.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
The last thing I come here to read is that somebody else doesn't care about something. What in the hell can I learn from that? I don't give a damn whether you care or not. If you have something useful to say, then say it. If not, shut the hell up.
Lol! Thanks, I needed a good laugh to start the day!
Way back when, I was on an Alt-OS kick and found out about SkyOS. I was initially excited, hoping it was on the level of BeOS (which I ran exclusively for a time) and paid for the license to run it. Despite having access to unlimited hardware, and following the devs very carefully, I never could get it to run properly, and eventually gave up. Late last year I found a link to it again and saw it had been abandoned. Same really, it had some promising ideas to it.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
That's the most insightful post in this entire discussion. The only thing wrong with it is the stupid fixed font.
... for SkyNet?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It's not our fault if the english language doesn't have two different words to describe two different things.
Even if we used "gratis" or "free of charge", people would still ask which meaning is to be understood when we use the word "free" and using the word "libre" would have other people complain that it's not in english.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Kind of. 1996 was the days of OS2 Warp and Windows 95 which notably wasn't free but easily pirated. Linux helped more in the server space and with the emergence of the BSDs. Open/FreeBSD was kind of the bad boys on the block. Linux was already pretty mainstream by 96, we used to use it to drive our 20 node dial up ISP at the time feeding data from a ISDN line.
It was the earlier parts of the 90's where Linux made its ground. Minux was the best that was out there until Linux came along.
Minix rather ... or for the real pedantic type MINUX
Ohhhh ... I give up :/
Well, as part of ensuring less fragmentation in Android between OS versions, Google has created a huge framework (Google Services Framework) to isolate apps from the OS. GSF is a big, binary only library with system level privileges that ensure it doesn't need to ask for more permissions ever.
Of course, AOSP does not have this, and excepting the few app stores outside of Google Play, apps are few and far between as most developers only post their apps on Google Play and nowhere else.
It's a nearly meaningless phrase to those who aren't intimately familiar with Richard Stallman's political philosophy. Beer isn't free. Free beer is free. "Free (as in beer)" is merely nonsensical.
Not only this, but it's nonsensical to any who are remotely familiar with beer. To homebrewers (of beer, from which homebrewed software gets its name) the the beer is Free as in Freedom. We give beer freely, and collaborate, and share our recipes to create the beer and benefit by improvements on the recipes that other homebrewers make and bring back to us. Like 'Free Software' it does cost something to make 'Free Beer'. "Free as in Freedom, not Free as in Beer" -- Fools, Draconian copyright laws do not protect beer recipes, but software. In every way Beer is more Free than software.
It belies an ignorance about the free beer to use such ignorant statements as a distinction. Homebrew Software?! This software is less free than the Homebrew Beer -- In the USA we are prohibited from selling the beer...
Oh, I forgot... Use this instead: "Free as in Liberty, not Free as in Promotional"
It's almost like one would have to purposefully try to be ambiguous to come up with the other phrase. "as in beer"? what does this even mean? Commerical beer or homebrew, or ancient beer or recipies for beer or actual beer?
Further: This is what you've done:
Free - Having Freedom
You don't define shit by using the term itself, morons.
RMS's ideals are grand, but his communication skills are terrible or just plain trolling.
Who cares? free (as in beer) is a fun way to put it.
Taking architectural cues from AmigaOS and BeOS, its actually pretty attractive. Gobo Linux was another interesting one that should have gotten more attention.
Technically, Qubes is a desktop OS also. However, the hypervisor part of it is also a main UI feature and once a user acclimates to that they still have most of the Linux-isms to deal with.
Its great for techies though!
next article "SkyOS renamed after legal battle" (ref)
No, U!
Free (as in beer) has been in circulation for about 100 years (that I know of). Read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle for more. Basiclly, the etymology is that at bars in Packingtown in the 1910s, there was free lunch, but beer cost money. The catch was that the lunch was so salty that beer wasn't really a choice, hence, TANSTAAFL, hence free (as in beer).
Although now that I think about it, maybe it should be "Free (as in lunch)" instead?
the site appears to be offline just now. Anyone hosting a mirror or repository somewhere?
Does anyone know if SkyOS ever had a "release" on a professionally printed CD/DVD? I can't seem to find actual evidence of this -- only the ability to download/burn a SkyOS Live CD.
Additionally, any non-moron will automatically take it as ,,free as in free beer''.
GP is just a pedantic neckbeard.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
free as in "free beer".
Was it so hard?
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Exactly and notice how the FOSSie faction marks me down without even comprehending I was pointing out there is NO POINT in wasting time with a closed source abandoned hobby OS when you have BSD, Linux, Android, etc.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Unless of course you're the curator of the alternative OS museum.
Both words really do have the same meaning when put in context. As in "this product is free from price" has the same meaning of "you are free to take that with you" and as "you are free to say what you like". But languages evolve continuously over time so that "free" has become a shortcut word to mean "no cost".
What about the word "free" from "I have some free time". Is that "gratis" or "libre"? There may be a distinct meaning to Spanish and French speakers but I think many English speakers would disagree about which meaning is implied in "free time".
To be honest, it is a bit ambiguous. However you should not get your panties in a bunch for a stranger on Internet. It dont matter what I think of you, but I am pretty sure we would have fun getting around a lager.
Tomorrow is another day...
All the beer I personally know I had to pay for.
This term, "free as in beer", needs to die in a fire.
It means the opposite of what it is supposed to mean.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Agreed. This term needs to die and stop being used. All the beer I know I have had to pay for.
The term means the opposite of what it was created for.
It's terrible. It's stupid. It contradicts itself. It needs to be removed from use.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
And it's wrong. It's meaningless and it's misleading.
Go to a store and ask for free beer.
Good luck.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
No. Because that's not what it says.
It doesn't say, "free as in free beer". It says, "free as in beer".
Any non moron who gets beer usually pays for it.
The default state is that you pay for beer.
You are wrong.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Created by Minus Tanenbaum, the Micro Colonel? :)
No. Because that's not what it says.
Are you by any chance mentally retarded?
Any non moron who gets beer usually pays for it.
Yes. That doesn't change the fact that 'free beer' is commonly known from events, parties (maybe not so much in your mum's basement, i give you that.), and, in that context, unambiguously means 'gratis'.
And that is why anyone with at least half a brain understands 'free as in beer' is to be taken as 'free as in free beer'.
The default state is that you pay for beer.
This is completely irrelevant.
You are wrong.
You're special.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!