It sounds like they are contending that they have a lock over all "UNIX-Like" systems, even those with non-encumbered code
I think you are exactly right. Best case in point is their continued statements that their IP is the core of all Unix OSes, including Mac OS X. But Mac OS X is based on BSD 4.4Lite, which has no AT&T/USL code.
Also there are many different kinds of licensing that are ok besides the GPL. The perl artistic license, BSD, X11 community license, etc. I use gnu software under FreeBSD. Does that mean it should be called gnuFreeBSD?
I think you've both missed the point and stumbled upon it at the same time. To most of us, the Artistic, BSD, Apache, and other licenses are all acceptable as they allow us to use, modify, and/or distribute code for free in ways acceptable to us. For many of us, the GNU GPL is the same way. To Stallman, however, other licenses are NOT acceptable (even though he ends up using them apparently) because those licenses don't provide adequate "protection" (and in his writings "protection" varies depending on his issue at the moment: protection from corporations taking advantage, protection from DRM, etc.). The rest of us are more pragmatic.
On the Gnu/Linux naming thing, remember that Stallman's original goal was to create a whole Unix-like OS. His blind spot here is that GNU still doesn't have an adequate kernel after 20 years of work (HURD? give me a break). While his goal is a completely GNU GPLed OS, he seems to be unable to face the reality that GNU still isn't a complete, and people have to add significant pieces to it to make a working OS. Red Hat Linux, Debian GNU/Linux, et al. have to add substantial software from Linus and friends, BSD, the public domain, and other places to make even a minimally working OS. And then you have to add nice things like non-GPLed (or GPLed but non-GNU) software like XFree86, Apache, etc. in order to get an operating system that can get real work done. It's sort of like Steve Jobs's "reality distortion field" effect: Stallman lives in a slightly distorted reality where things that can't be done with GNU software probably aren't worth doing. The rest of us don't have the luxury of such a worldview.
our customers have seen a lot more innovation from us than they have seen from that [open-source] community
Yes, those restrictive, expensive, perpetual licensig agreements you force your customers to sign now would never have been thought of by the free/open source community.
Well, you are missing something small, and SCO is missing something rather large.
OS/400, underneath all the old emulation stuff that the AS/400 monkeys see, runs a *nix-style core that is (according to IBM) more POSIX-compliant than Solaris. I have no idea whether it is like the AT&T/SCO core or whether it is BSDish. I suspect it uses some form of microkernel and thus takes after BSD more than System V.
The thing SCO seems to have missed is AT&T and Berkeley did part ways, very officially, many years ago, and BSDish *nixes like Mac OS X (and the BSDs themselves, of course) have had nothing to do with System V for a long time. Despite what the CEO says, this is indeed a Hail Mary pass, and if they don't win (or IBM buys them out) Caldera/SCO is sunk.
I'm sure grub will indeed build a larger database than most other search engines, since grub (or grub-client, or whatever it's calling itself) has never, not even once bothered to look at a robots.txt file on any web site I've ever administered. This is what webmasters call a misbehaved robot, and it is not something to be looked at with respect.
Also, the OS does allow you to store read-only databases on the Flash, which means you can store applications there.
The OS allows you to store both read-only and read-write databases on the memory cards, just like on a disk drive. But in order to write to a file on a card, you have to use the VFS API rather than the standard PDB access routines. Several add-on programs allow apps that don't support VFS to get read-only access to databases on cards. These add-ons can't provide write access because it would be impossible without causing data corruption on the card. But this read-only limitation is the fault of the application for not supporting VFS. The OS will let you freely read and write to memory cards until your heart's content. You just have to use VFS.
You are right in that apps can be stored on memory cards. But the Application Launcher you're using must support VFS (or you must use another add-on program); otherwise, you won't be able to see the app's icon in your App Launcher!
This looks to me like Palm's plan for remaining competitive against handhelds like Sony's that can add more memory in via memory stick.
This shows a complete ignorance of Palm, PalmSource, Sony, and Palm OS itself.
PalmSource, the Palm, Inc. division responsible for Palm OS, announced this change to Palm OS because it's an important change. The previous 16MB limit was a holdover from older OS versions that ran on the 16/32-bit hybrid DragonBall (68328) processors. ARM processors have no such limitation. This change really should have been in Palm OS 5.0.
Palm Solutions Group, the Palm, Inc. division responsible for making Palm-brand handhelds, has little control over PalmSource, and can only make suggestions about what goes into Palm OS. Sony and Palm SG have about the same amount of influence over Palm OS now. Soon Palm, Inc. will be split into 2 completely seperate companies, and this distinction will be more clear to outsiders.
No version of Palm OS natively uses removable memory as RAM. Memory Sticks, SD, MMC, and CompactFlash cards are all accessed by using the VFS (Virtual File System) Manager API, which has been in PalmSource's Palm OS since version 4.0. VFS treats cards like removable drives, and files on cards must be accessed in a completely different way than databases in main memory. However, there are several programs that allow some directories on cards to be treated like RAM, allowing programs without VFS support some access to files on memory cards. Most of these only allow read-only access, though some work around this by copying the file from the memory card to RAM when it is accessed.
(Although VFS was added to PalmSource's Palm OS in version 4.0, Sony actually came up with most of the original API for its own version 3.5S. And HandEra (then TRG) actually predated both Sony and PalmSource's VFS API with a completely different "FFS" API for the CompactFlash slot on its TRGpro.)
Dude, cousins only exist to be the embarassment of the family. While you are trying to get into a good college or trying to (desperately) find a job, they will be running the family name through the mud by getting arrested for petty theft or appearing on COPS or Jerry Springer. Write them off now so they won't be hitting you up for a place to crash or bail money later.
If you're lucky, you don't have the same last name as your cousins, and you can just pretend you've never heard of them when people start talking about the news story on them on the 10 o'clock news last night.
Yes, yes, I completely agree! Remember at one point the printing press was so revolutionary the Roman church wanted to ban it. But could we have gotten to the point we are today without cheap, widely available books? Cell phones aren't just the latest fad; they are truly useful tools. Sure, not everybody uses them properly, but that doesn't mean they are useless because of that.
Is it simply a matter of keeping up with the Joneses?
I think the most positive aspect of cell phones are that you can keep up with the Joneses, but not in the way you think.
When landline-based telephones started to become widespread, they allowed people to communicate over long distances. You could keep up with Mom, Dad, Grandma, and your friends in another state. But only if they were home. Answering machines partially solved this problem, because you could leave messages, but it isn't the same. Cheap, affordable cell phones have allowed the world to keep in touch much more easily than ever before.
I'll use myself as an example. I live in the Western USA, while most of my family and some of my friends live in the Eastern USA. Most of us work weird schedules; some work 12-hour hospital shifts, some work 3rd shift, others normal shifts. There's no real way to keep track of when someone's available and when they're not. Calling a person's house doesn't mean much; is the person at work, or are they just not home? Call their cell phone. If they can talk, they'll answer their phone and talk. If they can't talk, you can leave a message and know they'll get your message as soon as possible, not when they get home (whenever that is). None of us would ever be able to actually talk to each other without cell phones; we're hardly ever home at the same time.
A lot of people don't like cell phones; they don't like the potential of being bothered every minute by others. That's fine (though if you need privacy for awhile, you can just turn your phone off). But many people enjoy the being able to keep in touch with friends and family much easier. Being able to immediately reach the actual person you want to talk to anywhere on the planet at any time has caused the world to be just a bit smaller. This positive benefit outweighs most of the negatives, IMHO.
It was my understanding that weapons using GPS always have backup guidance systems in case GPS fails (either through enemy jamming or some failure of the onboard GPS hardware).
Exactly. Rather than clone Outlook, or try to make a more usable version of it, Kapor et al. want to create a new, completely different PIM, one that fits people's needs in a way Outlook does not. They believe there's a market for a PIM like that, and I'm in agreement with them. However, I'm dubious of the prospect that the long-dead Agenda is the correct prototype for such a revolutionary new information manager. On the other hand, calling "revolutionary" a program that does things differently than Outlook shows just how far Microsoft has eaten all innovation from the market.
OK, I'm not saying Firefly is a rip-off of this, but there are at least 2 sci-fi "universes" with similar premises: BattleTech and Cowboy Bebop.
In Cowboy Bebop, the guns and western stuff are ultimately a stylistic thing.
The BattleTech Universe actually directly correlates to events in this show. The Inner Sphere of planets form the Star League, which in turn fights a Reunification War to bring all major stellar nations under their rule. While highly advanced technology becomes commonplace in the rich, bountiful worlds of the Inner Sphere, the outer planets are treated as secondary citizens, and must make do with 20th/21st century technology . This is an oversimplification of just one aspect of the expansive BattleTech universe, but hey, my point is this has been done before, and there's even a certain logic to it.
Oh wow, I had completely forgot about Strange Luck; I loved that show. I liked Harsh Realm too; 3 episodes aired total on Fox. FX eventually aired the remaining 6 episodes in a marathon once, and that was the end of that.
Don't forget The Lone Gunmen. Quirky, yes, but funny if nothing else, and it died on Friday nights after, what, 9 episodes? And wasn't it even Dark Angel's lead in at one point?
Geek-friendly? What exactly is geek-friendly? Pandering to the Slashdot set by putting together a space-themed show so they can sell Dell and Apple computer ads? Scheduling a show on Friday, normally a ratings desert, because the sterotypical geek is single and doesn't have a date for Friday? Whatever. Oh yeah, and the official site's insistence that I download Flash 6 because "It's what Joss would want" really makes me feel the Firefly love.
From what little I've seen about the show, it's hardly original, and definitely is not "ground-breaking, mind-boggling, totally original." First, the characters, as others have stated, are right out of the textbook: rogue (but really a nice guy), pilot, doctor, etc. Even the space hooker isn't original: Battlestar Galactica had those. Secondly, there is simply no way this could be as ground-breaking as Babylon 5. Babylon 5 was an expansive, epic saga written for television spread out over 5 years. I can guarantee Fox has not bought more than 13 episodes of Firefly, and if the ratings aren't astronomical, the rug will be pulled out from under it so fast Joss will get rugburn. Fox can sell ads to Dell and Apple during The Simpsons, and they'll use Fridays to dump more American Idol-like crap onto the teen/pre-teen market.
Now, of course, I haven't seen it yet, and I could be wrong. And even if I'm right, it could still be a good show. But there's no way it can live up to this hype.
Sounds like to me we'll soon have Hyper-Pulse Generators, and we'll have to form a religious techno-cult to administer our FTL communications network. We'll just have to start building BattleMechs so we can defend the network from invaders.
OK, seriously, the whole "faster-than-light" aspect of this is just sloppy reporting. I guess this is the "New Science" covered in New Scientist now.
I love the splash screen. It's Mozilla, he's back and he's breathing FIRE!
And the beast shall come forth surrounded by a roiling cloud of vengeance. The house of the unbelievers shall be razed and they shall be scorched to the earth. Their tags shall blink until the end of days.
--The Book of Mozilla, 12:10
You might want to try by at least getting the right car: a Firebird, preferably an 82-90 model. And, while your at it, you might as well get a Trans Am (KITT was actually a Trans Am), though if you're going to get one of those Knight Rider body kits a Formula will probably work well enough.
The x86 platform has been so successful precisely because it has been so open. It would be ironic if Lords of x86, wcich have derived so much wealth from that openness, were to kill it by trying to close it.
You know, I can't help but remember that IBM was once one of the "Lords of x86." Then, they tried to close the PC with MicroChannel Architecture, and because of that, they fell. Now, they can't keep their PC business going for any length of time. I can only hope history repeats itself here.
This is true for Palm OS 1-4, but isn't true for Palm OS 5. OS 5 runs a completely new, supposedly Palm-originated kernel.
The kernel of Palm OS 1-4 is actually Kadak's AMX. While AMX is a 32-bit multitasking, multithreading kernel itself, Palm's license agreement prohibited multitasking and limited Palm OS to 4 threads. Palm OS, of course, uses 3 threads to handle internal functions, so only 1 thread was ever available to user applications. Palm was prevented from exposing AMX's multitasking/threading APIs, so if you wanted to do that with a Palm OS application, you had to go to Kadak and ask for a license ($$$$$).
Supposedly, OS 5's kernel is brand new, and built from the ground up by PalmSource. The reason it doesn't have support for multitasking yet is because all the existing apps actually run in emulation. When Palm exposes ARM-native APIs in OS 5.5, a lot of new opportunities will open up.
Slashdot Mirror
It sounds like they are contending that they have a lock over all "UNIX-Like" systems, even those with non-encumbered code
I think you are exactly right. Best case in point is their continued statements that their IP is the core of all Unix OSes, including Mac OS X. But Mac OS X is based on BSD 4.4Lite, which has no AT&T/USL code.
Also there are many different kinds of licensing that are ok besides the GPL. The perl artistic license, BSD, X11 community license, etc. I use gnu software under FreeBSD. Does that mean it should be called gnuFreeBSD?
I think you've both missed the point and stumbled upon it at the same time. To most of us, the Artistic, BSD, Apache, and other licenses are all acceptable as they allow us to use, modify, and/or distribute code for free in ways acceptable to us. For many of us, the GNU GPL is the same way. To Stallman, however, other licenses are NOT acceptable (even though he ends up using them apparently) because those licenses don't provide adequate "protection" (and in his writings "protection" varies depending on his issue at the moment: protection from corporations taking advantage, protection from DRM, etc.). The rest of us are more pragmatic.
On the Gnu/Linux naming thing, remember that Stallman's original goal was to create a whole Unix-like OS. His blind spot here is that GNU still doesn't have an adequate kernel after 20 years of work (HURD? give me a break). While his goal is a completely GNU GPLed OS, he seems to be unable to face the reality that GNU still isn't a complete, and people have to add significant pieces to it to make a working OS. Red Hat Linux, Debian GNU/Linux, et al. have to add substantial software from Linus and friends, BSD, the public domain, and other places to make even a minimally working OS. And then you have to add nice things like non-GPLed (or GPLed but non-GNU) software like XFree86, Apache, etc. in order to get an operating system that can get real work done. It's sort of like Steve Jobs's "reality distortion field" effect: Stallman lives in a slightly distorted reality where things that can't be done with GNU software probably aren't worth doing. The rest of us don't have the luxury of such a worldview.
our customers have seen a lot more innovation from us than they have seen from that [open-source] community
Yes, those restrictive, expensive, perpetual licensig agreements you force your customers to sign now would never have been thought of by the free/open source community.
Well, you are missing something small, and SCO is missing something rather large.
OS/400, underneath all the old emulation stuff that the AS/400 monkeys see, runs a *nix-style core that is (according to IBM) more POSIX-compliant than Solaris. I have no idea whether it is like the AT&T/SCO core or whether it is BSDish. I suspect it uses some form of microkernel and thus takes after BSD more than System V.
The thing SCO seems to have missed is AT&T and Berkeley did part ways, very officially, many years ago, and BSDish *nixes like Mac OS X (and the BSDs themselves, of course) have had nothing to do with System V for a long time. Despite what the CEO says, this is indeed a Hail Mary pass, and if they don't win (or IBM buys them out) Caldera/SCO is sunk.
I'm sure grub will indeed build a larger database than most other search engines, since grub (or grub-client, or whatever it's calling itself) has never, not even once bothered to look at a robots.txt file on any web site I've ever administered. This is what webmasters call a misbehaved robot, and it is not something to be looked at with respect.
Also, the OS does allow you to store read-only databases on the Flash, which means you can store applications there.
The OS allows you to store both read-only and read-write databases on the memory cards, just like on a disk drive. But in order to write to a file on a card, you have to use the VFS API rather than the standard PDB access routines. Several add-on programs allow apps that don't support VFS to get read-only access to databases on cards. These add-ons can't provide write access because it would be impossible without causing data corruption on the card. But this read-only limitation is the fault of the application for not supporting VFS. The OS will let you freely read and write to memory cards until your heart's content. You just have to use VFS.
You are right in that apps can be stored on memory cards. But the Application Launcher you're using must support VFS (or you must use another add-on program); otherwise, you won't be able to see the app's icon in your App Launcher!
This looks to me like Palm's plan for remaining competitive against handhelds like Sony's that can add more memory in via memory stick.
This shows a complete ignorance of Palm, PalmSource, Sony, and Palm OS itself.
PalmSource, the Palm, Inc. division responsible for Palm OS, announced this change to Palm OS because it's an important change. The previous 16MB limit was a holdover from older OS versions that ran on the 16/32-bit hybrid DragonBall (68328) processors. ARM processors have no such limitation. This change really should have been in Palm OS 5.0.
Palm Solutions Group, the Palm, Inc. division responsible for making Palm-brand handhelds, has little control over PalmSource, and can only make suggestions about what goes into Palm OS. Sony and Palm SG have about the same amount of influence over Palm OS now. Soon Palm, Inc. will be split into 2 completely seperate companies, and this distinction will be more clear to outsiders.
No version of Palm OS natively uses removable memory as RAM. Memory Sticks, SD, MMC, and CompactFlash cards are all accessed by using the VFS (Virtual File System) Manager API, which has been in PalmSource's Palm OS since version 4.0. VFS treats cards like removable drives, and files on cards must be accessed in a completely different way than databases in main memory. However, there are several programs that allow some directories on cards to be treated like RAM, allowing programs without VFS support some access to files on memory cards. Most of these only allow read-only access, though some work around this by copying the file from the memory card to RAM when it is accessed.
(Although VFS was added to PalmSource's Palm OS in version 4.0, Sony actually came up with most of the original API for its own version 3.5S. And HandEra (then TRG) actually predated both Sony and PalmSource's VFS API with a completely different "FFS" API for the CompactFlash slot on its TRGpro.)
You are not ready for immortality.
Dude, cousins only exist to be the embarassment of the family. While you are trying to get into a good college or trying to (desperately) find a job, they will be running the family name through the mud by getting arrested for petty theft or appearing on COPS or Jerry Springer. Write them off now so they won't be hitting you up for a place to crash or bail money later.
If you're lucky, you don't have the same last name as your cousins, and you can just pretend you've never heard of them when people start talking about the news story on them on the 10 o'clock news last night.
Oh wait, maybe that's just me...
Agreed! 2010 is great and all, but a job in 2010 doesn't help me pay May 2003's rent!
Reuters has picked up the LA Times story, and Yahoo! News has a reg-free version here.
Yes, yes, I completely agree! Remember at one point the printing press was so revolutionary the Roman church wanted to ban it. But could we have gotten to the point we are today without cheap, widely available books? Cell phones aren't just the latest fad; they are truly useful tools. Sure, not everybody uses them properly, but that doesn't mean they are useless because of that.
Is it simply a matter of keeping up with the Joneses?
I think the most positive aspect of cell phones are that you can keep up with the Joneses, but not in the way you think.
When landline-based telephones started to become widespread, they allowed people to communicate over long distances. You could keep up with Mom, Dad, Grandma, and your friends in another state. But only if they were home. Answering machines partially solved this problem, because you could leave messages, but it isn't the same. Cheap, affordable cell phones have allowed the world to keep in touch much more easily than ever before.
I'll use myself as an example. I live in the Western USA, while most of my family and some of my friends live in the Eastern USA. Most of us work weird schedules; some work 12-hour hospital shifts, some work 3rd shift, others normal shifts. There's no real way to keep track of when someone's available and when they're not. Calling a person's house doesn't mean much; is the person at work, or are they just not home? Call their cell phone. If they can talk, they'll answer their phone and talk. If they can't talk, you can leave a message and know they'll get your message as soon as possible, not when they get home (whenever that is). None of us would ever be able to actually talk to each other without cell phones; we're hardly ever home at the same time.
A lot of people don't like cell phones; they don't like the potential of being bothered every minute by others. That's fine (though if you need privacy for awhile, you can just turn your phone off). But many people enjoy the being able to keep in touch with friends and family much easier. Being able to immediately reach the actual person you want to talk to anywhere on the planet at any time has caused the world to be just a bit smaller. This positive benefit outweighs most of the negatives, IMHO.
If they're going to embed electronics in tires, I wish they'd start with tiny pressure gauges
Several cars already have tire low pressure warning systems. I know the Chevy Corvette has had such a system for the past decade, at least.
It was my understanding that weapons using GPS always have backup guidance systems in case GPS fails (either through enemy jamming or some failure of the onboard GPS hardware).
Exactly. Rather than clone Outlook, or try to make a more usable version of it, Kapor et al. want to create a new, completely different PIM, one that fits people's needs in a way Outlook does not. They believe there's a market for a PIM like that, and I'm in agreement with them. However, I'm dubious of the prospect that the long-dead Agenda is the correct prototype for such a revolutionary new information manager. On the other hand, calling "revolutionary" a program that does things differently than Outlook shows just how far Microsoft has eaten all innovation from the market.
OK, I'm not saying Firefly is a rip-off of this, but there are at least 2 sci-fi "universes" with similar premises: BattleTech and Cowboy Bebop.
In Cowboy Bebop, the guns and western stuff are ultimately a stylistic thing.
The BattleTech Universe actually directly correlates to events in this show. The Inner Sphere of planets form the Star League, which in turn fights a Reunification War to bring all major stellar nations under their rule. While highly advanced technology becomes commonplace in the rich, bountiful worlds of the Inner Sphere, the outer planets are treated as secondary citizens, and must make do with 20th/21st century technology . This is an oversimplification of just one aspect of the expansive BattleTech universe, but hey, my point is this has been done before, and there's even a certain logic to it.
Oh wow, I had completely forgot about Strange Luck; I loved that show. I liked Harsh Realm too; 3 episodes aired total on Fox. FX eventually aired the remaining 6 episodes in a marathon once, and that was the end of that.
Don't forget The Lone Gunmen. Quirky, yes, but funny if nothing else, and it died on Friday nights after, what, 9 episodes? And wasn't it even Dark Angel's lead in at one point?
Geek-friendly? What exactly is geek-friendly? Pandering to the Slashdot set by putting together a space-themed show so they can sell Dell and Apple computer ads? Scheduling a show on Friday, normally a ratings desert, because the sterotypical geek is single and doesn't have a date for Friday? Whatever. Oh yeah, and the official site's insistence that I download Flash 6 because "It's what Joss would want" really makes me feel the Firefly love.
From what little I've seen about the show, it's hardly original, and definitely is not "ground-breaking, mind-boggling, totally original." First, the characters, as others have stated, are right out of the textbook: rogue (but really a nice guy), pilot, doctor, etc. Even the space hooker isn't original: Battlestar Galactica had those. Secondly, there is simply no way this could be as ground-breaking as Babylon 5. Babylon 5 was an expansive, epic saga written for television spread out over 5 years. I can guarantee Fox has not bought more than 13 episodes of Firefly, and if the ratings aren't astronomical, the rug will be pulled out from under it so fast Joss will get rugburn. Fox can sell ads to Dell and Apple during The Simpsons, and they'll use Fridays to dump more American Idol-like crap onto the teen/pre-teen market.
Now, of course, I haven't seen it yet, and I could be wrong. And even if I'm right, it could still be a good show. But there's no way it can live up to this hype.
Sounds like to me we'll soon have Hyper-Pulse Generators, and we'll have to form a religious techno-cult to administer our FTL communications network. We'll just have to start building BattleMechs so we can defend the network from invaders.
OK, seriously, the whole "faster-than-light" aspect of this is just sloppy reporting. I guess this is the "New Science" covered in New Scientist now.
I love the splash screen. It's Mozilla, he's back and he's breathing FIRE!
And the beast shall come forth surrounded by a roiling cloud of vengeance. The house of the unbelievers shall be razed and they shall be scorched to the earth. Their tags shall blink until the end of days.
--The Book of Mozilla, 12:10
What killjoy universe did you come from? Mechs are cool!
I'm turning my Sunbird into the Knight 2000.
You might want to try by at least getting the right car: a Firebird, preferably an 82-90 model. And, while your at it, you might as well get a Trans Am (KITT was actually a Trans Am), though if you're going to get one of those Knight Rider body kits a Formula will probably work well enough.
The x86 platform has been so successful precisely because it has been so open. It would be ironic if Lords of x86, wcich have derived so much wealth from that openness, were to kill it by trying to close it.
You know, I can't help but remember that IBM was once one of the "Lords of x86." Then, they tried to close the PC with MicroChannel Architecture, and because of that, they fell. Now, they can't keep their PC business going for any length of time. I can only hope history repeats itself here.
This is true for Palm OS 1-4, but isn't true for Palm OS 5. OS 5 runs a completely new, supposedly Palm-originated kernel.
The kernel of Palm OS 1-4 is actually Kadak's AMX. While AMX is a 32-bit multitasking, multithreading kernel itself, Palm's license agreement prohibited multitasking and limited Palm OS to 4 threads. Palm OS, of course, uses 3 threads to handle internal functions, so only 1 thread was ever available to user applications. Palm was prevented from exposing AMX's multitasking/threading APIs, so if you wanted to do that with a Palm OS application, you had to go to Kadak and ask for a license ($$$$$).
Supposedly, OS 5's kernel is brand new, and built from the ground up by PalmSource. The reason it doesn't have support for multitasking yet is because all the existing apps actually run in emulation. When Palm exposes ARM-native APIs in OS 5.5, a lot of new opportunities will open up.