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Minoca OS: A new open source operating system

blog.minocacorp.com

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Re: Minoca OS: A new open source operating system

#51

Post by cturner »

jwatte wrote: post #41

Also, GPL3? Not my favorite license. (MIT/BSD are the best IMO)

I felt this way as well (since the mid nineties) until a couple of weeks ago when I read _Social Architecture_ by Pieter Hintjens. It has a strong idealogical flavour. He stresses that you should focus on building a community, with the code and platform as happy side-effects of that community.

For that reason, you want GPL because it forces everything back into the community. He gives examples of a friend of his who slaved on a BSD project that got forked with the friend having nothing to show for it. And NT adoption of much of the code from the BSD sockets API.

Re: Minoca OS: A new open source operating system

#52

Post by edraferi »

mememachine wrote: post #29
CalChris wrote: post #7

Oh please. You have to start somewhere and this is where they're starting. By comparison, Linus' first announcement was: Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resemble…

Ok, but why are they doing this?

They want an OS that's smarter about power management and easier to maintain. They describe their high-level objectives in their FAQ:

Why is a new operating system necessary?

...The design requirements of today's devices have drastically evolved in areas of power management, security, serviceability, and virtualization... By starting from a clean slate, Minoca OS is able to incorporate those core tenets into the very fabric of the operating system...

How is Minoca OS different from other operating systems?

...One of the most noticeable differences at the kernel level is the uniform driver model, which provides a maintainable interface between the kernel core and device drivers... Another very noticeable difference is our strong emphasis on the kernel development environment. Being able to step through code in the kernel, boot environment, and even firmware was something we felt was critical to quickly developing and maintaining kernel-quality code...

http://www.minocacorp.com/support/faq/

Re: Minoca OS: A new open source operating system

#53

Post by avisk »

mememachine wrote: post #29
CalChris wrote: post #7

Oh please. You have to start somewhere and this is where they're starting. By comparison, Linus' first announcement was: Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resemble…

Ok, but why are they doing this?

Because they can!

Re: Minoca OS: A new open source operating system

#54

Post by ufo »

jwatte wrote: post #41

Also, GPL3? Not my favorite license. (MIT/BSD are the best IMO)

It looks like the developers want people modifying their code to contribute back, either by giving back the changes or by paying them (they offer an option to purchase a more permissively-licensed version).

Re: Minoca OS: A new open source operating system

#55

Post by macns »

mememachine wrote: post #29
CalChris wrote: post #7

Oh please. You have to start somewhere and this is where they're starting. By comparison, Linus' first announcement was: Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resemble…

Ok, but why are they doing this?

We took a look at the operating systems out there, and realized it had been over 25 years since the major operating systems had been written. 25 years is a long time to accumulate baggage, not to mention the leaps and bounds by which the hardware has evolved during that time.

Re: Minoca OS: A new open source operating system

#57

Post by chubot »

overcast wrote: post #43
CalChris wrote: post #7

Oh please. You have to start somewhere and this is where they're starting. By comparison, Linus' first announcement was: Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resemble…

Amazing the submissive tone, and lack of confidence in that message. Compared to the holier than thou attitude Linus presents himself in these days. I would have never guessed he wrote that.

I don't think it's lack of confidence. It's just a realistic acknowledgement that it's a small start and in fact was unlikely to be useful. But he wanted feedback on how to make it useful.

I think Linus is just a practical person who is good at assessing reality. He doesn't get caught up in grand visions without action.

I don't think he is holier than thou now either. He's just busy and forcefully trying to get contributors to come to grips with things he has learned by experience on his project.

I've never really heard Linus preach about other people's projects, except where he intends to do better like svn. His advice is limited to the kernel as far as I can tell, and it's perfectly rational for him to be opinionated about that, because he has skin in the game.

In contrast, Stallman will preach about other projects -- in fact that is his main purpose. So I can see why people would call him holier than thou, but I don't see it with Linus. I do appreciate Stallman to a great degree too.

Re: Minoca OS: A new open source operating system

#58

Post by protomyth »

jwatte wrote: post #41

Also, GPL3? Not my favorite license. (MIT/BSD are the best IMO)

"This software is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3). Minoca offers alternative licensing choices for sale. Contact info@minocacorp.com if you or your company are interested in licensing this software under alternate terms."

https://github.com/minoca/os/blob/master/LICENSE

Basically, the old MySQL business model.

Re: Minoca OS: A new open source operating system

#59

Post by xapata »

overcast wrote: post #43
CalChris wrote: post #7

Oh please. You have to start somewhere and this is where they're starting. By comparison, Linus' first announcement was: Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resemble…

Amazing the submissive tone, and lack of confidence in that message. Compared to the holier than thou attitude Linus presents himself in these days. I would have never guessed he wrote that.

You might infer that the tone he uses in some emails is for a specific purpose, not because he isn't aware of how to be polite.
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