SkyOS Forum

Robert, if anybody had asked me an hour ago whether or not SkyOS should be opensourced, I would have pretty passionately answered "no". I think you really deserve better than to simply give the code up to an ungrateful community of free software fanatics who have all along been calling your project worthless while in the same breath insisting that you simply give your years of work away to them. Compared to you I have barely any personal investment in SkyOS, yet it still infuriates me that so many people feel like they're simply entitled to your code.

I was quietly hoping all this time that some modestly funded company would buy the codebase from you, or at least someone with a similar skillset would come along and ask to take lead of the project so that it wouldn't be ruined by a lack of leadership, like so many opensource projects are. I know you were too.

But the longer you just sit on SkyOS, and the longer nobody does come along to buy it from you, and the longer no one else steps up to continue where you left off, the less valuable your work becomes to anyone. It's been something like four years since the code was touched in any significant way, maybe longer. We're long past the point where we can seriously hope that anybody is going to come along wanting to buy it - if that were going to happen, it absolutely would have happened already. It's time to stop holding out for the right situation and just get the code out there and hope someone else steps up and brings it back to life. If you just sit on SkyOS much longer, then regardless of what you end up deciding to do with the codebase, it will be so outdated and so forgotten that all your work will have literally been for nothing.

Alex what is the alternative to open source? No one would buy SkyOS since it is not complete,stable and the hardware support is not very good. So the company would need to invest a lot money into the development so it would be a lot easier to use Linux or BSD.

But I think it is too late for opening it. There is no community left so there is nearly no one who would develop SkyOS.

For me there is only one conclusion: SkyOS is dead!

Actually, I think most new open source programmers look for a project that seems nice and that really needs developers. It is these programmers who could keep developing SkyOS in the future.

Why should they? Wouldn't they rather choose an OS like Haiku or ReactOS? They could do something now and not wait until eternity for SkyOS.

Open Source is not something that works ever. Every oss project has an core team of developers and some contributers but it is not very easy to get a core team if it is not the original one. So it will take a lot time to form a new team, create related documents and so on.


And because of the actual situation there is nearly no interest in SkyOS, so you would need some sort of marketing campaign first to get potential devs looking.


I hope that I am wrong but I don't think it will work now. It is too late.

I completely agree with you. "on hold" will change fast in "on hold forever", which if Robert doesn't want to use the word "dead", means exactly the same thing.

Devs might want to consider Haiku and AmigaOS which are 2 big projects still going forward.

Well not being dead is a good start. Simple question, is the code trademarked or protected by patent in any way? If so, finding competent developers should be the focus. If your interests are protected why not make Skyos readily available to developers? A possible scheme:partner with software company in exchange for inclusion of their software. (drivers)
There is a reason you dedicated so much of yourself to Skyos, an inventory of this reasoning will point the way to Sky's future.
For commercial success, Sky must be promoted, and copies must be availible with a bug-reporting mechanism that alerts an ACTIVE community.

This sucks, Robert taps out at the peak of my curiosity. So, can I even get a copy of Skyos at all? d.cozart@dcemail.com

Contact Robert at:
robert__@__skyos.org
skyos__@__liwest.at
It is the best way, or be an beta tester

Contacted Robert about Beta testing, nothing. Robert I know you have ALOT going on but don't leave Skyos circling the drain. This is a way cooler gig than putting Pac-Man on an Ipod. Even if there is less money in it.

Talk this to Robert, it's all that I can say...