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Yes, I know. If you "pay" for SkyOS Beta CDROM. It will include all source code for all third-party open source applications.
http://www.techimo.com/articles/i148.html
Edited 2006-09-21 15:58
I haven't been able to figure that one out yet.
Substantially different threading model?
Broad compatibility across platforms?
System architecture based on reusable components?
APIs that are a programmer's wet dream?
I don't mean to dump on SkyOS, but at this point if I have to pay for an OS that doesn't have a piece of fruit or a 4-color window on it, there'd damn well better be a really fascinating reason to do so, and an OS which just yesterday stapled someone else's printing architecture into it isn't convincing.
"Different" != special.
Every so often this exact comment recurs. Which is just puzzling, considering you're at a *swear* OS News site.
What exactly is SkyOS?
Googling would probably give you a quicker and more succinct answer than waiting for people such as myself to answer you.
How is it different from Windows and Unix?
The above reply could apply here too, but an easy answer is, it's just not Windows or Unix.
What problem are they trying to solve?
Running software on a computing device ?
Why should I care?
I'll point you back to the top of my comment, you're reading an OS News site. If you don't care about OSes, what the hell are you doing here ?
Why you were given + points, I couldn't guess.
Edited 2006-09-21 19:57
"""DOS was featureful compared to the OSes, or lack thereof, on old mainframes from the 50s and 60s."""
IBM was shipping VM in 1966. Don't let the green screens fool you. It was the UI that was primitive in the 60's. Not the mainframe OS technologies.
In some ways, like virtualization, PC's running "modern" OSes are just catching up.
With Multics, in the event that a memory cabinet needed to be serviced, processes using memory in it could be migrated to another memory cabinet, so that the first could be taken off line. Can you yank a stick of memory out of your PC in 2006 without crashing your OS?
Edited 2006-09-21 23:39
"""e.g. think punchcards."""
You make me feel very old.
I remember clearly back in college, standing in line to hand the sysop the stack of cards I'd keyed in on the keypunch, so that they could be put in the queue to be fed into the System/360. At the end of the "turnaround time" I would get back a printout of my program's output. (Syntax error!!! Dang!!!!)
Turn around times varied from 10 minutes to 3 hours or so, depending on the volume of students submitting, and how much time the sysop spent chatting, studying for exams, or having one or more of the several lunches they seemed to have per afternoon.
The windows were small and mirrored (and locked!) so that it was extremely difficult to make out what was going on in there.
But I digress.
I assure you that our System/360 was running OS/360. ;-)
Edited 2006-09-22 00:25
SkyOS started in the mid 1990’s as a hobbyist operating system. Today, while maintaining it’s hobbyist roots, it has grown into a full blown commercial endeavor.
When compared to *nix/Windows/BSD/Whatever it isn’t much different, in the sense that it is an operating system built to run on the x86 architecture. However, from the file system up to the GUI layer, it is unique; even though it does resemble other operating systems in structure.
Since it is, at heart, a hobby operating system the only problem being solved is simply getting the system to work, even though this task has been accomplished before; and likely will be accomplished again in the future.
Finally, as to why you should care, SkyOS, is your peaceful future operating system.
Well aside from that, there is the unique features (OS-Based gestures for example) of the operating system and the ease of which you can talk to the developer.
Edit: spelling.
Edited 2006-09-21 20:07
Make use of FOSS software to improve their proprietary software without voluntarily releasing any modified software/feedback.
Have you ever asked for the sources?
most packages are currently made with a primitive portage like application which patches and builds apps from source so all necessary patches are included with the skyos CD which is all GPL asks (as long as these applications or libs are not linked to closed source stuff)
If you want them I can just give them to you so no big deal...
if bugs are found during porting, they are reported.
about the driver issue, from looking at the initial ddk and some linux drivers, it seems to me that the skyoskernel-driver interface is much more consistent.





