The BEST OS

[guyfawkes]

I too am sorry, i must read the rules better, it will not happen again .

[Neolander]

Sorry too. Thought that Asper's post counted as a new topic.

[Asper]

Sorry, I was busy.

Thought that Asper's post counted as a new topic.

You can count it as a new topic if you like it, but I have a habbit not to make a new topic for every ask.
I've looked through topics and this one seemed similar to my question to me, so...

Neolander

Thanks for the answer. I know Visopsys for 5 years and BareMetall for 2, but don't know the others you have mentioned.

Legendmythe

Windows had a big group of professional developers who lived probably close together and work months on the same project, here you may find (slightly) more people but we would be divided by great distances, therefore it'll be harder to communicate, you could use some sort of chat but when would you communicate if you live in a totally different time zone? And as you may know the key in teamwork lies in communication.

Yes I do know that the key in teamwork lies in communication, but I do not agree that great distances is such a great obstacle on the way of teamwork.
You maybe know KolibriOS (that is described in the article, that guyfawkes mentioned). This OS has it's own team of developers (me too). We live very far from each other and I have never seen other KolibriOS team members in real life. We use our forum to communicate. KolibriOS also has SVN, wiki, ftp and redmine services, which we use for development and documentation.
We have no leaders, nobody can tell anybody what to do and when, instead of it everybody has equal rights and can work on that part of system which he wants to and when he wants to do it. When there is an argue on something the highest priority has view of the man who is actually do job.
Some people work on the kernel, some make drivers, other make programs, write wiki articles, make icons, wallpapers and other design things and so on. So everybody do some part of job and we all use results of each others work, and thats lead to the general development of the system.
Dex was mentioned here. I know that guy, he is smart. DexOS also has the team despite the split in their team.

So I ask you why you don't collaborate on making several most developed OS to get that OS to the point when it will be not only mentioned in the best 10 OS in the world, but also used all over the world by thousands of people?
It's not so hard as it seems to be if you make a real team of people, who will work on that parts of the system that he (or she) wants to. The system with a team has more chances to alive because it is not dependent on the only one person. For example when I am busy (or lazy ) somebody else do some work and I always go to the forum to get the news of KolibriOS life.

So let's speak i.e. about Visopsys. Why it's in the list, because it has GUI has several programs and stable enough, but to attract users it (as any other OS) must have programs. Why there is a lack of programs in Visopsys? It was developed by only one people and Andy can't spare much time on programs development because he spend it on kernel and drivers. At the end of the last year Andy opened Visopsys forum, and this gave it a chance to gather it's own team and to get to the new level of development speed. Visopsys still has not version control system, I think it will be added in the future, because otherwise it will be hard to coordinate the work of several people working on the same things. Visopsys has a great potential to my mind.

As to me it will be good for the OSdev community to select one or several OS, which will be developed by all the people. It will get your community to the new level.

[guyfawkes]

Well put Asper, i agree with you about everything you posted.
Those OS's you mentioned, are a inspiration to us all.
I would join, if there was such a project.

[MasterLee]

As to me it will be good for the OSdev community to select one or several OS, which will be developed by all the people. It will get your community to the new level.

But which OS to choose? There is already Týndur developed at lowlevel.eu, and as mentioned KolibriOS. Further more there are AROS and Syllable always seeking for developers.
But what would you do if you don't agree with an design choice?

[Asper]

guyfawkes

Thank you.

Those OS's you mentioned, are a inspiration to us all.
I would join, if there was such a project.

You can make an OS that will compete with those OS's if you join your forces like others do it. If everybody will make his job on the same project you will get to that level fast enough, because I see here many talented programmers from all over the world.

MasterLee

But which OS to choose? There is already Týndur developed at lowlevel.eu, and as mentioned KolibriOS. Further more there are AROS and Syllable always seeking for developers.
But what would you do if you don't agree with an design choice?

I don't speak about AROS, Syllable and even KolibriOS (despite the fact that you are always welcome to join our team). I speak about Operating Systems developed by OSdev members, so you can mark it as "made by OSdev community", it will be the real product of your community.
I think you can make a vote which OS's to choose as the favorite projects of OSdev.
If you don't agree with the design, choose another one from favorite projects. If you don't want to change to another OS or there is no OS with such a design among favorites, speak about your idea on the forum. Maybe other people will agree with you or otherwise they will give you good arguments against your idea and you will change your mind.

After you choose such a projects you can make a good documentation to them, so that newbies can easily join.

OSdev has to grow up and make products that will be used by many peoples, that's my opinion.

[Neolander]

And what about the (large ?) part of us who do OSdeving as a hobby or to get intimate with computer internals ?

[gravaera]

Sup:

From a light a skim, I noticed somebody asking "which OS do we use?". I nominate mine...everybody come work on my kernel for no irl $$ cos I'm just awesome like that

--Let the lulz begin
gravaera

[Asper]

Neolander

And what about the (large ?) part of us who do OSdeving as a hobby or to get intimate with computer internals ?

You will continue do OSdeving as a hobby, but you won't be alone, others will help you to do it. You can work on computer internals, write drivers and parts of the kernel, who will prohibit it to you?

gravaera

Sorry, I'm not sure if I understand your post. If you think that your OS deserves to be chosen by the community as a favorite project, try to convince community in it.
Just think about how much time you will spent on a project alone and how much far you will get.
Of course it is fun to write code, but the most fun you will get when you see that your code is used by other peoples.

[JamesM]

Sorry, I'm not sure if I understand your post. If you think that your OS deserves to be chosen by the community as a favorite project, try to convince community in it.
Just think about how much time you will spent on a project alone and how much far you will get.
Of course it is fun to write code, but the most fun you will get when you see that your code is used by other peoples.

He was being deliberately sarcastic, in a (successful) attempt at trolling.

[Combuster]

Maybe it's time I told you that Linux is always looking for developers </sarcasm>

[Asper]

He was being deliberately sarcastic, in a (successful) attempt at trolling.

Then I congratulate him, if he got anything from it. As to me it's just wasting time. What's is the reason for doing nothing and saying others that they can not do anything too, because he could not it?

Combuster

Maybe it's time I told you that Linux is always looking for developers </sarcasm>

Linux is always looking for new developers and it has them.
You are late. The time passed away about 7 years ago. I'm not the beginner and I don't want to get people interested in my project, I want to see the further progress of OSdev community.
Ok, let's read your article.

Brooks' Law states that the more people on a project, the longer it takes. The only way around this is to split the project into parts that you get people working on and only on that part. Good luck.

I should say that the more people on a project, the more chances for it to survive. Can you explain why you have to say people what they have to do?

There are some things you need for standing a chance (and avoid being painfully told that you are a failure):

If you have no established codebase, people will not join because they can see you lack experience and expect the project to fail.
If you lack a (worked out) design, people will not join you because they can't see how your OS is more interesting than their own design.

That's why in my first post in this topic I asked you about the most developed OS's.

If your reputation doesn't precede you, especially the more experienced people will be very wary of you and lack the trust to join.

If a man can do real job, not just talk about it, isn't it a good enough for his reputation?

If you don't have project management skills, the few rare people that do join will quit shortly because they are discussing stuff and do not get to code.

People that join nevertheless are usually worse programmers than the people for which this list was composed.

People are different. You can't say that everybody will behave in the same manner. Make some rating system. People that do more job has more priviledges. Aren't you hackers? I want to see and use your hacks to believe that you are hackers.

[Solar]

Make some rating system. People that do more job has more priviledges.

I'm full-time employed, married, two children, house with huge garden, and a real life beyond the keyboard. I'll pass.

Aren't you hackers? I want to see and use your hacks to believe that you are hackers.

You can use my C library if you want.

[DavidCooper]

Hi Asper,

Many of us are working on our own project because what we want to do simply doesn't fit into anyone else's OS. It's really up to you to vote for the project you like best by joining it - that may give it extra credibility and could help attract more people to join it if their own projects are going nowhere but they still feel they have something to offer.

[Edit: additional thoughts added below:-]

What would help people to vote (by joining a project as opposed to working on their own) would be to have a proper OS map to guide them to the one that would best suit them. I've looked at lots of different projects here by clicking on the links in people's signatures, but it often isn't entirely clear what they're trying to do. It would be far easier to find out what they're about if there was a map leading you to groups of similar OSes where you could find explanations of the different aims and features which may make them incompatible. In many cases, of course, the aims of some within a group may be sufficiently compatible that they could all join forces, either by merging together into a single project or by building components designed to work in all of them. That could potentially speed up the development of many OSes.

Perhaps someone who has the time could try to build such a map, sending PMs to the different project leaders if necessary to ask for clarification of the aims of their projects in order to get a proper idea of how compatible or incompatible they might be with each other and whether components could potentially be shared.

[NickJohnson]

@DavidCooper: that's not a bad idea. Maybe that "map" could be implemented as a more structured form of the OS projects page on the wiki. It would be a good way to break up and simultaneously organize that behemoth. I feel like with just a few basic criteria (target architectures, languages, kernel type, etc.; existence/completion of bootloader, kernel, paging, multitasking, userland, GUI, etc.) things could be narrowed down a lot.