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Is that such a bad thing?

Yes it is bad thing, just look at E-17 ... oh wait a minute, we are not talking about the pop band right?

Edited 2007-10-31 20:19

Yup, SkyOS is set to move out of beta phase by year's end but not to a public release. Most of the new features are there and stable now there are some apps Robert wants to port/code and some love for the default UI.

Please review your comment and replace SkyOS with your OS or application of choice and reread.

When is anything ever finished? If Microsoft was finished with windows, they wouldn't have invested millions into windows update, if apple was finished with the iPhone why did they just release the 1.1.1 Firmware? Hell they just put out Leopard and its in the same state as it was in beta. When is a product final? When they ship it? when the stop supporting it? Does it really matter? Each piece of software has its own development style.

I hereby deem your comment irrelevent.

Isn't TeX finished ?

TeX is "frozen" which means that development stopped
and only bug fixes occur now (has been decades since a bug was found in TeX).

Yet...new varaint of TeX are being developed :
XeTeX supporting unicode
(it is at version 0.997...don't know if there will ever be a version 1.0 : it has been between version 0.95 and version 0.997 for a few years)

and LuaTeX (the future of TeX) supporting :
_unicode
_with integrated Lua
_ with revamped internals (that can be overloaded) and callbacks

Actually in Beta version

AS for myself, I don't use TeX anymore as I need Etex features or unicode.
For now, I stick with XeTeX but I'll switch with Luatex some time in the future...

My conclusion is...finished products like TeX are "dead" (cause we want more, limits are frustrating) however great they are...

I quite agree, this does seem somewhat like that ever elusive e17 (at least I see their website is running). Personally I think the SkyOS development should have either gone open source, or sought funding to hire a larger R&D staff to actually put out what they wish to put out; a commercial product. Sadly I fear that this may just end up going the BeOS route.

Well, this depends how you define a release. SkyOS Builds are released every few months and development (alpha) builds are released every few weeks. There will be nothing like a SkyOS v1.0, just a steady flow of builds, with roadmaps defining the coverage of each build.

There will also be a change in the release naming scheme and roadmap definition, which will be announced soon.

>>>>When is anything ever finished?
>>Isn't TeX finished ?
Well, an OS will definitely never be finished. If it is finished, this just can mean that development has stalled and the project is dead.

Edited 2007-11-01 11:47

Well, this depends how you define a release. SkyOS Builds are released every few months and development (alpha) builds are released every few weeks. There will be nothing like a SkyOS v1.0, just a steady flow of builds, with roadmaps defining the coverage of each build.

This being the case, can we stop calling it "news" every time SkyOS releases another monthly?

--bornagainpenguin

The posts about SkyOS are news.

Each release/beta build brings (many) features and a few people (including me) want to read about it.

And if you don't care, nobody forces you to click on the "read more" link of SkyOS related news.

Nah, setting deadlines is an act of realistic thinking. I don't think E-17 is ever intentioned on being *released*.
But if you can imagine a set of features you want and a date by which you would like those done, you can then start to balance what you want with the date.

Consider however that a new project is not the same as an established product. GNOME would be hard pressed to have a two year gap between releases, even if the features wanted are great. KDE is making this choice right now, the gamble being the payoff will be worth it.

>>How accurate the summary is.
Yes, it is.
The lines you posted are from DataCollections Editor export function just to teach the user how a theme configuration file is handled internally. (this is not a text file you can edit).

Just modify the images and use the DataCollection Editor to adjust a few keys to get a complete new theme. I think you don't want to compare editing images or modifying a few keys (using an dedicated application) with writing source code which hooks into a theming API, do you?

Edited 2007-10-31 22:29

That must be a universal excuse, an international get-out-of-jail-free card:

...sorry I'm French.

You are right,
instead of correcting my mistake
and making excuses by saying
"Sorry, I'm French..."
(which implies that English is not my native language)

I should have made excuses by saying
"Sorry, I typed too fast and submitted without making sure my post was correct"
or
"Sorry, my mind slipped and I wrote the wrong word"...

Damn...People are getting picky to the point that being French isn't even an excuse anymore ! ^_^

Actually, the mistake was mine, I forgot to add the, now obligatory, [/joke] tag to the end of my post. I just thought 'Sorry I'm French' a rather amusing excuse to use in a wide variety of situations.

DIRTY FRENCHMAN!

Well, there's lots of different projects, with lots of different licenses. We chose closed-source, simply because it worked best for how we want the direction of SkyOS to head. We certainly appreciate and respect every project's license though, and the right of the respective parties to choose what works for them. I personally use Ubuntu Linux at home myself almost exclusively, so I very much respect the ability of open-source to deliver a strong, polished product!

Are you saying these are NOT legitimate questions?

No, I'm saying for all the hue cry people are putting up about the long beta cycle that once it is released, this is what they'll complain about next. People seem to want to find something to complain about with SkyOS no matter what happens.

"The people that put those SkyOS builds on p2p networks are even more despicable and low, in the first place."

Since the serial number is tied to your account (I know this since I paid for the beta), could you explain this further? I'm struggling to see how this behaviour is happening if the serial is tied to a user.

Edited 2007-11-02 12:25

[quote]
"The people that put those SkyOS builds on p2p networks are even more despicable and low, in the first place."

Since the serial number is tied to your account (I know this since I paid for the beta), could you explain this further? I'm struggling to see how this behaviour is happening if the serial is tied to a user.
[/quote]

Well, I hear you but I was just stating
observed facts (however silly they may be) :
-a few builds of SkyOS have been leaked on p2p networks
-a few people with an illegal copy of SkyOS even asked for help on the SkyOS website.

If I'm not mistaken, there have even been occurrences of people with an illegal copy of SkyOS implementing 3rd party apps for SkyOS (please correct me if I'm wrong)...I believe that a piece of the Wmware support for SkyOS emlerged from such an occurence... (thanks for that) ^_^

On a side note....
among the many people who applied for a free copy of SkyOS in return for developing SkyOS apps (the now forsaken Beta developer programm),
only a few (we love you guys) stayed true to their words and actually developed apps for SkyOS.

(stupid) Humans...

I don't think you have the right to make the broad assumption that everyone who doesn't buy SkyOS is cheap, spoiled and childish. While I don't approve of bornagainenguin making comments about suck-ups, you are definitely not taking the high road here.

I personally think SkyOS looks like a fun project, and I'd love to try it out. I can't see paying for it for a few reasons. One is that I have an old laptop that I install different operating systems on for fun, and doesn't seem to work well with anything but Windows. I also have a hard time with purchasing a beta of something I've never tried before. I don't know how it works, I've only seen screenshots and changelogs. If SkyOS were further along, I might consider spending the $40 US to use it. Right now, I just can't see it.

I like the free open source business model. I think it's great when people willingly donate money to developers of a project because they love using it, not because they're obligated to do so. Of course, Robert has the freedom to choose any business model he wants for SkyOS. Some may agree with it and some may disagree, but I don't think there's any reason to fight about it.

I'll leave this comment with a link to the Linux Mint forums, where people have been donating to the project that is free to use. This is the type of business model that I prefer, and I hope that Robert is making as much to support his efforts as this free project is.

http://linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26&sid=3f33bf66ea0df...

[quote]I don't think you have the right to make the broad assumption that everyone who doesn't buy SkyOS is cheap, spoiled and childish.[/quote]

That's not what I said/meant. Reread my post.

First, I spoke about childish people trolling about SkyOs and afterwards I spoke about more mature people "disliking" SkyOS/having sensible reasons not to buy it (and who don't troll).

You appear to belong to the second category.

I don't approve of bornagainenguin making comments about suck-ups[...]

Please see my response to that post. I chose my words poorly, not realizing they could be so misinterpreted. Did you know "suck up" has over ten definitions!! What I meant (as should be clear from the context of my comment) was to call the people who were moderating me down because they didn't like anyone being critical of SkyOS "brown-nosers" is that more clear?

--bornagainpenguin

It's a personal attack in whatever way you put it, and that's actually against our rules. I'm too lazy to moderate this thread right now, but a bit more of this nonsense and this thread will receive some massive moderation.

I'm getting pretty much sick and tired of the comments' sections on SkyOS stories. And yes, you are all responsible for that, on both sides of the fence. It is quite likely that I will have to resort to much fiercer methods of keeping SkyOS threads clean.

I've had it up to right about HERE with people pro and anti SkyOS. Get out more.

Nice try at character assassination! Only you couldn't be more inaccurate if you tried...

Go ahead and look back through my posting record and see what I say are my concerns about SkyOS; you'll find I often compare SkyOS to the BeOS. There is a reason for that. I was among the last people to purchase BeOS in the store, three months later they were out of business.

I'd been using the BeOS PE and finding it very usable, I could have just installed from that, like so many others did but I wanted to be legal and I wanted to be able to play my collection of RM videos. I also wanted to support the company I'd read about in Neal Stephenson's essay...I wanted to see BeOS continue to grow and prosper.

Why would I want to go through that again?

The past has shown quite clearly what happens when an OS is closed and there is no money to continue development. Or its lead developer loses interest and quits. It is only thanks to the fact AtheOS was released under the GPL that Syllable was able to rise from its ashes. What will happen if/when Robert decides to quit SkyOS in favor of something else? Will there still be a SkyOS?

Why would I want to take that chance?

By the way calling the people who bought SkyOS "Szeleney Suckups", is like saying [...]

I think you're missing my point altogether there. Perhaps I should have called them Szeleney Brown-Nosers instead? Does that make my meaning more clear? I did not mean anything sexual in my remarks, I was referring to fanatic who moderate downward any post which does not praise SkyOS or adulate its creator. As you can see I was correct in thinking this would happen....

Not liking is one thing, defiling SkyOS user base is quite another.

Not liking my posts is one thing, moderating them down as if I were in violation of the board's posting policies is quite another. Also, as said above I was using "suckup" in ... look see dictionary.com, particularly definitions 10 and 20.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=suck+up&x=33&y=25

I did not "defile" SkyOS' user base. If you or any one else who bought the SkyOS betas were not moderating me down against OSNews.com policy, then you were not included in my statement. Do you have a guilty conscious?

--bornagainpenguin

Truth.

Edited 2007-11-02 19:49