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That's right. Practice them there deep, throaty laughs! You da MAN, Louie Seven!

100% bug free? That's a tall order! Who's going to do all the testing to determine whether it's bug free. That's a fun idea, though. However, we already have lots of highly reliable OSes. The problem is, people want OSes with more features, and they'll generally choose them over more reliable ones, even for mission-critical stuff.

" The idea of using prizes to spur creativity and research is a technique that is known to be very effective. Witness the recent DARPA Grand Prize and the X-Prize tournaments. While the OS-Newsproposed contest is partially meant to be a promotion for OS-News (nothing wrong with that), it will also be beneficial in publicizing alternative OSes. Question is, does the world really need another me-too operating system? "

Does the world need more than one kind of car? Does the world need more than one color of car? Model airplane kit? Yo-Yo? Cable-knit sweater? Dishwasher design? Depends on end-user demand and idle time for development. If yet another "me too" OS improves the breed, I'd say so. Remember, all software is an incrementally improving effort, just exactly as all hardware is. It's easier to reach a pinnacle in hammer design, but software is a tad iffy-er.

" I don't think so. This contest runs the risk of being just another appeal to a relative small community of alternative OS fanatics who are in it mostly for the fun of it. "

Pray tell, who else other than a fairly lunatic fringe would even start to care? Look at us, Man! We're reading OSNews.com! Can't you see our pain?

" What would be nice is a contest that offers a substantial prize ($millions a la X-Prize) for the development of a new OS that solves a particularly pressing problem in the industry. "

First pressing problem: getting $millions!!

" I suggest that the most pressing problem faced by the computer industry is not power management or processing speed. "

I still kinda think it's getting the $millions.

" The biggest problem in the industry is software reliability. How about a $10-million prize "

Would you believe $145 and a free ride in the "Geek Squad" Volkswagen Beetle?

" for the first comprehensive OS that is guaranteed 100% bug-free? "

Define comprehensive. Define 100% bug-free. Would an ugly brown interface be considered a bug? Inability to read my thoughts? Being packaged in a box that is ridiculously huge for its contents?

" Not an easy thing to do "

Plausibly impossible to define, yet.

" and the rules would have to be worked out so as to be unambiguous on the meaning of bug-free."

Define unambiguous, and be precise as possible.

" Let me suggest that OSNews get together with the X-Prize commitee (or DARPA, or whoM, whom whom whom whom!!

(fist "whom" fix is free)

ever) and convince them of the potential bebefits of such a prize. "

Yes, like essentially re-inventing the wheel. You have me convinced, now get on the horn with DARPA, you sexy genius you! Oh, and I'm letting "bebefits" slide because I think you just sneezed while typing and it's VERY fun to say.

" I'll be frank (shameless plug), "

You're shamelessly plugging Frank? I sure hope he works at DARPA.

" I am proposing this contest because I believe I could put together a team to win it. It has to do with my faith "

My favorite quote on faith is: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
Hebrews 11:1 (NIV), and buddy, you have it in spades. You honestly believe in a comprehensive computational system that is bug-free. Of course, you also seem to believe that for the world to deserve this system, they must first give you a poke at a few million dollars, as opposed to the lovely folks at itty-bittyOS who do it for free.

" in non-algorithmic, signal-based, synchronous software. "

Odd that you mention this. I have one of those lying around here somewhere. Methinks it's called "Leisure-Suit Larry"

" I don't believe that unreliability has to be an essential charateristic of complex software systems. "

Define reliability. Define essential. Define complex. Oh, yeah, this contest is off to a boiling start already. Tell you what, just MAKE the thing and you'll be a guarateed $millions-aire by my sister's third trimester. Then you can tool about in your Murcielago and laugh deep, throaty laughs at the peons still struggling along with their algorithmic, something-else-based, asynchronous software.

" Louis Savain "

And remember, folks. It's not software, it's Savain-ware!

(Hey, if you get rich and use the slogan, I'd like $million for thinking it up.)

Odd that you mention this. I have one of those lying around here somewhere. Methinks it's called "Leisure-Suit Larry".

BEWARE!

Thou art in great danger of desecrating the Holy Leisure-Suit Larry.

Thus far, all you've got to your credibility is a fancy website with all your theories, but no real useful demonstration to show that your theories are actually practical.

Once you've got an OS using COSA and all your other theories that allows a user to run a COSA program (which you must also provide) that performs a perfect implementation of Windows Note Pad (a simple program to reproduce as proof-of-practicality!) then you will have some amount of credibility. After all, Note Pad is incredibly easy to implement (I'll even relax the details of having to handle different fonts with proportional spacing: only monospaced fonts required) and shouldn't take more than a day to implement in any programming language for someone that's not incompetent. Also, if your COSA stuff is so easy to work with, it should take even less time to decipher how to have everything react and work correctly.

So, I'm issuing you a challenge right here and right now to produce an COSA-based OS that boots and runs the Windows Note Pad clone and some other process at the same time, within the time constraints of this contest. The benefit is I'll mod you up everywhere regardless of how off-topic you are (like you have been in this thread, along with almost all others, spamming your concepts) if you accomplish it within that timeframe. The down side is I will mod you down everywhere you post with your spam, and encourage everyone else to do so, too, if you don't accomplish this within the timeframe of this contest.

After all, if the concept is so brilliant and practical, you'll easily have an OS and a Windows Note Pad clone within that timeframe that is completely error-free, and then you can write about it and submit the article to OS News to be published, because then you'll have something that people can actually *try* with their machines.

Frankly, I strongly suspect you can't accomplish this, because of all I've read on your site, and how little you seem to know about what else in the outside world resembles what you preach, and yet you fail to give any notice about that outside world. I'll give you a hint: what you're proposing is practical to do is equivalent to writing a word processor with the same methodology used to control your typical city's traffic light system.

"First they tell you you're wrong and they can prove it; then they tell you you're right but it isn't important; then they tell you it's important but they knew it all along."

Charles Kettering, former head of General Motors

It sure is easy to make claims when you know that you'll never have to substantiate them, because your preconditions will never be met. The more pressing question is, why do you require the attention of others so much? If you can't be famous, why not be infamous? Is that it?

I'll be frank (shameless plug), I am proposing this contest because I believe I could put together a team to win it.

A convincing testimonial of faith in ones own abilities. Until, that is, one reads your website and encounters some of the other things you believe - E.g., http://www.rebelscience.org/Seven/bible.html . I was especially amused by your claim that scientists have an "anti-religion prejudice" because they discard data which cannot be measured or observed. If anything, scientists have a prejudice against unverified and unverifiable assumptions; the funny part is that the claim clearly demonstrates your bias.