bzt wrote:
MikeOS, DawnOS, Pedigree - someone has removed these, wonder why. They are more mature than many on the current list. DawnOS for example is still actively developed, as well as it's SUBLEQ emulator. Pedigree might not be developed any more, but it is still one of the greatest achievement of one of our community members (ipv4/6 networking, GNU userland compatible etc.)
I agree MikeOS shouldn't have gone. A spot of inappropriate snobbery there, I think. Or possibly jealousy: Just because it seems easier to make a 16-bit BIOS-based OS than to hammer a gcc/elf/what-have-you monster into shape doesn't mean MikeOS isn't notable in its way. I can understand such jealousy, but still...
I don't remember Pedigree specifically, but I am opposed to removing OS projects from notability simply because they're not currently maintained. There are some very interesting concepts in some unmaintained OSs, including some which haven't been maintained for literally decades, and they still run with suitable emulation. ... Perhaps they could go in the "interesting OS" page I came up with below.
klange wrote:
That said, DawnOS does not belong here if not just because its author has engaged in cyber attacks against the wiki and forum and I'd prefer we don't give them any free advertising.
I'm very sad to hear that. Rational or otherwise, I rather liked the project, but after hearing about this... well, I think its author needs a long time to cool down... and maybe a hug and someone to tell them they are worth something outside of their achievements.
bzt wrote:
9front - this is a fork, should not be listed as an OS development project (it is not written from scratch, it's a fork). We do not list all the BSDs or Linux either, right?
Uh... I was initially surprised at its inclusion for the same reason you are, but on the other hand it's a
smaller project than some of the POSIX systems forum members have developed. It was never used on anything like the same scale as BSDs or Linux, but again I get the feeling it has had more use than the top 5 member projects put together. (Managarm
might be an exception?) It runs a few websites & mailing lists. A college teacher had it on a 64-core system and taught students with it. Its parent OS has been through the Himalayas with the file server on one Jeep and terminals/compute nodes on others!
They -- 9front and Plan 9 both -- are more mature than most projects here, but they're also more manageable and customizable than most other OSs, especially if you're a good C programmer. So really, I have no idea whether it should stay or go, but wouldn't be surprised if it goes.
bzt wrote:
FreeDOS, Haiku, SerenityOS, Visopsys, Kolibri OS, LK - are these written by this community? I don't think so. We don't list Oberon or Minix either. Otherwise okay, specially if at least one of their developers are members on this forum.
Visopsys is a one-guy project with maybe one or two interested contributors. I feel it belongs here in spirit. I'm not sure this counts: its killer app is partition management; it's useful to us. FreeDOS Kolibri OS might be a bit too big and popular? FreeDOS's development history looks like Linux's: very many people have contributed components. Kolibri has quite a lot of contributors now. On that point, 9front is slowly gathering more contributors. The others I don't know at all, except Haiku seems to be in the same class as FreeDOS and probably has many more contributors than Kolibri OS by now.
I'd like to suggest a new page for research operating systems and others with interesting ideas. I mean Oberon, Plan 9, maybe Linux. I'm sure there are others. Actually, speaking of ideas, I like to refer to Kolibri's very simple GUI API sometimes. I'm not sure where to draw the line on what would go into such an "interesting OS" page.
bzt wrote:
I think we should make some guidelines on what fits on the "Notable projects" page. Here's my two cent:
1. written by an OSdev.org community member
2. should be mature enough, run on many VMs and/or real machines (means relatively decent driver support and relatively bug-free kernel)
3. has a working shell / fully usable GUI with some userland applications (just a kernel does not qualify, it has to be an OS with at least a few apps)
4. being self-hosting is a strong point for inclusion on the list, but not a must have
5. network capability is also a strong point for inclusion on the list, but not a must have
1: Again, I think Visopsys belongs here in spirit, but that's just a feeling really.
I'm lumping 3 and 5 together and saying I think an OS should be required to meet these only as apropriate for its goals. A edicated router/firewall OS would very strongly meet point 5, but by design wouldn't meet point 3. Likewise, a little OS which can't network but works well and has nice apps and games would meet point 3 very well, but not 5. I'd say an OS should meet at least one of these rules for inclusion.
2: uh... I mostly agree, but there's a case to be made for KVM-only OSs for VPS use. I guess if the rules are a bit flexible and such an OS meets other points, this is a good rule. The "apps" in this case may be server programs, but we don't need to specially note that, do we?
4: Self-hosting is such a strange thing. Some Forth designs can be self-hosting with less code and effort than it takes to reach the stage of loading user programs at all in a system built with gcc & binutils. Those primitive Forths wouldn't have a filesystem and would load source rather than binaries, so how much is the self-hosting part worth?
All the same, self-hosting is a clear milestone in the development of more complex OS, so it's a useful guideline for including them.
@PeterX: I feel that's too many divisions. For example, some OSs which weren't developed in universities had very interesting ideas.