Adrien Destugues sent an email to Haiku developers after the BeGeistert forum, addressing their inability to get R1 out the door, and proposed that they rededicate themselves to getting a beta out ASAP. He then asks a question that hangs above the heads of all developers of alternative and hobbyist OSes: is their goal "to create an operating system that specifically targets personal computing? Or have we evolved to the goal of a fun playground for OS-developers to play around with modern OS concepts?" He concludes ... "I do think that the PC-landscape has changed dramatically since the inception of the project, and I also underscore that there is a clear lack of focus when it comes to accomplishing our current mission. I would go so far as to say that the severe lack of interest of developers into finishing R1 is a great indication in that there really hardly seems to be any place for a new (mainstream?) desktop operating system anymore? Even the Linux on the desktop guys seem to have ceased preaching their gospel." That's some sober talk that's important for alternative OS fans to consider.

The ReactOS Project is pleased to release version 0.3.17. A major new feature for this release is the inclusion of NTVDM, which provides support for a wide range of 16bit applications, a long requested feature by the community. NTVDM is still undergoing work but we felt that it was ready enough to provide a sneak peak to the wider community. In addition, the leadup to the 0.3.17 release saw a very impressive round of testing by the community. Several regressions and bugs discovered in the release candidates were promptly fixed and incorporated into the final release. ReactOS is quickly approaching a stage where what the releases will offer is polish compared to previous releases. That will be an important milestone, as it is then that we can begin recommending to people that they try using ReactOS for day-to-day computing.

As Google’s new “material” design language evolves, it’s very clearly heading in a different direction than iOS. Talking about flatness is simply too superficial to be a useful discussion. Superficially, iOS and Android seemingly converged toward flatness (and Windows Phone, of course, was there already), but once you get past those surface similarities, all three mobile platforms are evolving in noticeably different ways.

Lollipop is out, though, of course, the only way to get it now is to buy a new device that supports it. And, according to Pogue, disappointment for people who like upgrading their OSes is only one of the ways that the new Android disappoints. It's flat. Perhaps too flat, and guilty of a myriad of user experience sins. But it's also chock full of new, improved, and useful features, many of which were cribbed from inspired by other platforms, like battery saver, do not disturb, new unlocking, phone to phone transfer, user accounts.

In a Google Plus post, Alan Cox, of linux kernel fame, announced a new Unix V like operating system for the zilog z80 architecture. He's been on a z80 kick the past couple of years, even getting into hardware board design. For those interested, he has has a git repo.