RISCOS Ltd have today announced RISC OS Six on the Glasgow leg of their northern road show. RISC OS Six is built from a completely 26 bit / 32 bit neutral source, and the move away from the RISC OS 4 brand is because 'RISC OS 4 has always been linked with 26 bit computers'. The name RISC OS Six is also said to have been chosen due to links with Advantage Six. ROL 'hopes that everyone will soon see the advantages of RISC OS 6'.
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Member since:
2005-07-06
Member since:2006-09-07
Member since:2005-07-06
I know, but it would be nice if they would redo riscos enough to give it more modern features like that and create a simple VM to run older apps in. But, the hardware probably isnt beefy enough to run the new OS + loads of older apps at the same time. who knows. Nice thought though.
Member since:2006-09-03
Member since:
2005-08-28
Are Castle Ltd. in on this, or will there STILL be two different versions of RiscOS with divergent feature sets?
The article seems to say RiscOS Six is a new version of RiscOS 4 and doesn't mention Castle or Iyonix or RiscOS 5 (though its presence is inferred from the fact that they aren't calling it Five)
Member since:2006-09-07
Member since:
2005-09-28
Member since:2006-01-16
There isn't an open source version of RISC OS, so this announcement cannot affect it.
What has been announced is a shared source initiative for certain limited parts of RISC OS 5. Right now there is no published license, and it seems also that no code has been released. The elements of the OS that have been announced as part of the initiative are not sufficient to build a working OS.
RISC OS Ltd., who are responsible for RISC OS Six, are not involved so far with the RISC OS Open initiative.
Member since:2005-09-28
My mistake, the release doesn't meet with the most common definition of 'open source'.
However, the FAQ is vague on the subject of exactly what will be released. They announce a first phase of releases that would not be sufficient to build a complete OS but they do state that they will release more of the source tree as time goes on.
Statements such as "We are doing this because we believe that RISC OS is a valuable technology which should be available to the widest global audience possible."
hint that it may one day be possible to build a complete OS.
I wish that the site would answer the question "Will the released source one day be sufficiently complete to allow people to build a complete OS?" but I think that they are avoiding making any such commitment at this time.
Member since:2005-07-13
I understand it's their intention that the full OS will eventually be released, but that it is happening in stages. According to a recent article "RISC OS Open are reportedly working flat out to get the whole operating system out within the next 12 months"
See the link from here: http://www.osnews.com/story.php/16232/RISC-OS-Six-Photos-Features
Whether or not this will happen is another matter. In other comments, it's been pointed out that they're not going to announce a timetable for fear of it not being met, and that some parts of the OS include proprietary bits that might make it harder to get it released.
I agree it would be nice to have a definitive answer to your question, but personally I'll be pleased when the first code starts appearing!
