Who is Going to Buy SkyOS? 118
An anonymous reader wonders: "With the huge amount of operating systems available (numerous free and non-free Linux distros, Windows, Mac OSX, BSD, etc) who would buy SkyOS? An OS that was once free will now become a commercial operating system with the release of version 5.0. Although 'Porting applications from POSIX operating systems is an easy task', applications will still have to be ported since SkyOS 'isn't based on any other operating system'. This leads me to wonder...is there something about this operating system that I'm missing? Has anyone out there tried SkyOS and why would anyone pay for SkyOS with all of the alternatives out there with tonnes of software easily available?"
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
OS is nothing without Apps (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe someone will buy OUT SkyOS (Score:2, Insightful)
Right... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are people dellusional about what motivates purchases?
People will buy SkyOS becuase there is a cost associated to it. For no other reason, rationale or sentimental, than the fact it has a price tag.
For instance, take a look at a typical edition of Cosmopolitan magazine. Go ahead, flip through it. Don't worry, the chick next to you in line might think it's hot. There are so many advertisements in that magazine, you'll be hard pressed to actually find "content". The publishing house makes so much money off the advertisements, that they could pay people just to accept the magazine yet, it still has a price tag; so much money infact, they really don't need "content" and much of it is "fluff" to appear as if there's something of value other than the advertisements. Why? The Advertisement Firms insist they maintain a cover price, becuase they feel people will not take the publication seriously (including holding any value to the advertisements within) if the work was was for free. Now, to emphasize how much of that magazine is content, rip out every page that has the smallest blatant advertisement on it. Or, at your whim, hold all pages that have any "content" thereon. Doesn't matter, either way it will be pathetic I garruntee it.
It's not much talked about, or doesn't seem so, that one of the largest milestones the Open Source community has is convincing someone there is "value" in a "free" product. Especially, if that individual has been raised in such a capitalistic driven society; they literally can not conclude the possibility anyone could produce a valuable product for free without monetary or material compensation. It's out of their grasp, it does not compute. They default to a conclusion that something must be wrong or lacking if someone is willing to just hand it off on someone else.
Someone will buy SkyOS. Will they be the next Microsoft? I doubt it. But, I know for certain, someone will buy it in high regard and expectation of "quality" becuase sense they purchased the product... that makes the people making it, "professionals". To a Capitalist, ability and capability is soley determined by price.
What gets me about it... (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, if there's any "alternative" OS I hope takes off, it would have to be either Linux [insert obligatory reference to Ultima [ultimalinux.com] here], or one of my favorite "pet" projects, ReactOS [reactos.org]. The nice thing about the latter is that it (will eventually) support the same software running on Windows, so if not the most ideal system – obviously, if it runs the same software, a lot of vendors may not see any reason for an open-source, Linux-compatible, etc. version of their product – at least it (will be) a somewhat practical one than a Linux system. And OpenBSD [openbsd.org] is totally kick-ass, although honestly I'd say it's probably in exactly the right place right now; those who can understand it can use it, and everyone else can stick with something better suited for them.
DISCLAIMER: I will admit I'm a Linux dev / distro maintainer and there may be some bias here...
Re:From a Sky OS Beta user... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think so - at least for now. (Score:2, Insightful)
As for the viability of the project (assuming that it's legally clean) - no, it is not viable. As simple as that. ISVs will not develop software for it and people are confused enough with Windows vs OS X vs Linux - the market is saturated. I'm sure SkyOS will have it's share of dedicated followers and users (all 23 of them) but that's pretty much it's niche.
This is a joke, right? (Score:4, Insightful)
USB Devices/Hosts are currently not supported.
Wireless Networking is currently not supported.
SATA drives are currently not supported (if you have such an option in BIOS, try using SATA->PATA emulation).
Printers, scanners, digital cameras and webcams are currently not supported.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Radio isn't free -- they also sell commercials
Public education isn't free -- they use our tax money to support it
Even PBS and NPR require donations.
OSS is actually free. The programmers may get a bit of extra experience that they can leverage into a job. Some even spin their software into a business. However, OSS is essentially free. Truthfully, most of the internet is free because it has deep roots in academia. Scientists and engineers (to a lesser extent) have always valued knowledge for its own sake. Is OSS as user friendly as commercial software. No. Is it as polished. No, but some of the most reliable products are OSS (Apache, Sendmail, the Linux OS itself).
Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
The nail in the coffin was the lack of a decent Web Browser for the longest time. Even back in 1997 the lack of a good Web Browser was just death for an OS. Linux would not be where it is today if Netscape hadn't been ported over to it. The hardware support issues also ment that it didn't install or work correctly when people just installed it on their home machine to try it out. Granted, Linux wasn't perfect back then either (nor is it now), but it was better than BeOS by a fair margin.