Future of hobbyist OS dev

[Muazzam]

I am posting this because I think future is very incompatible with amateur OS developers. What is your opinion about OS development in era of tablets, smart phone and smart watches (with closed standards)?
(If you think this is stupid topic, ignore this post).

[Geri]

i designing my os and compiler for my own hardware specifications, that it is very compatible with me:D
and i will sell it, so it will be not a hobby any more, once it boots.

[Bender]

I doubt things can remain proprietary for a long time. Making hardware proprietary just doesn't make sense.

In the short run, I could imagine EFI taking complete control from the legacy BIOS on x86 PCs (The only reason I could imagine they have Legacy Boot is Windows XP but it's pretty much dead and anyone using Windows XP is probably someone who shouldn't be cared about), big corporations may try to play their games (e.g. Restrictions on running non-signed programs, not allowing to run anything except "commercial" loaders etc.), but the chance of that happening is pretty low, since they've tried it before (Secure Boot) and received massive criticism.
On other architectures I could anticipate major improvements especially on ARM. (Not really sure what to put here since my knowledge of non-x86 stuff is pretty limited).

In the long run, it's pretty unclear what's going to happen. On one hand you've corporations that have been "proprietary-only" (excuse my English, couldn't find a better word) are now slowly open-sourcing their stuff. Microsoft recently open sourced their compiler, Google and Samsung have a lot of open source projects. Also, open source organisations are reaching up to the "commercial" level, FSF and Mozilla, to name a few.
Of course, there are still loads of hardware/software which are proprietary (and closed i.e. no docs) and are very popular.

But people find a way out. They always have, since the beginning of time.

[seuti]

I don't think the PC is ever going to die.
Tablets, smart watches and phones can't replace them.

[Muazzam]

I don't think the PC is ever going to die.
Tablets, smart watches and phones can't replace them.

According to many resources, Smart phones or tablets are taking over PCs:
http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/opinio ... rnet-began
http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-mar ... tatistics/
http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/28/technol ... -internet/
Note: I am not advocate of smart devices, I hate them.

[iansjack]

Most of those smart devices are running software that is less proprietary than the PCs that preceeded them. And I believe they are complementing conventional computers rather than replacing them. Try using a smartphone to do your development work!

[Roman]

Most of those smart devices are running software that is less proprietary than the PCs that preceeded them. And I believe they are complementing conventional computers rather than replacing them. Try using a smartphone to do your development work!

How many computer users do software development? Classic PCs will be replaced by smartphones and tablets for the average users.

[Geri]

the problem of the decrase of the pc market is that the price of cpus, motherboards will be (are) a bit bigger than before, due to the smaller number of production.

[iansjack]

How many computer users do software development

At a rough guess, everyone in my target audience. Or, to put it another way, almost everyone who is interested in OS development as a hobby. If a hobbyist OS developer has any sense of realism they know that there is a better chance of them winning the lottery than there is of the "average user" ever using their operating system. (But I do appreciate that some here have little sense of realism.)

People have been saying that the PC is dead for ages. These reports are greatly exaggerated.

[iansjack]

the problem of the decrase of the pc market is that the price of cpus, motherboards will be (are) a bit bigger than before, due to the smaller number of production.

Apart from individual variance for some particular components (for reasons totally other than assumed in your statement), PC components have never been cheaper. I can buy a 500 GB solid-state disk now for less than I paid for a 127 MB hard disk 25 years ago.

I see no evidence whatsoever of an increase in the price of PC components (other than short-term fluctuations).

[Geri]

iansjack: around 2004, a proper middle-class, almost high-class amd cpu was 20000 forint.
now its 50000. (forint weakened around 50%, that would assume 30000 forint, but from that, you only can get some low-end amd apu crapware).

yeah, some peripherias keeped the price, such as keyboards and mouse, those are now around 2000 forint, and was 2000 forint back then too, they now even more qualify than they was 10-15 years ago.

middle-class ram was back then in 2004 around 512 mbyte, that was around 20000 forint, 256 was like 10000 forint. now 16 gbyte its 48000, 8 gbyte is 21000.

almost all price is at least doubled (while forint only inflated around 50%-60% in total.)

25 years ago

there was at least a 200-400% inflation since that in almost every currency. and pc market was again, small 25 years ago.

[Combuster]

I see no evidence whatsoever of an increase in the price of PC components (other than short-term fluctuations).

I've been monitoring laptop prices for a while, considering my 4-year old version has to give out at some point. I couldn't help but notice that I would pay pretty much the same price for a machine with equivalent specifications now as I did then.

[alexfru]

As long as there's Linux (BSD, etc), there will exist sufficiently open hardware that can be used as an OS-dev playground. And open/free systems like Linux aren't going away. They are here to stay.

Further, as the horsepower of our computers increases and as memory and storage become cheaper per GB, virtualization becomes more and more common place, not to mention we now have many more virtualization solutions than we had some 15+ years ago. So, you get virtual environments to play as well.

This IOT thing (IMO, a dumb and hollow buzzword, because there's lots of hype and very little details of what and how (standards, anyone?) and many important questions are yet to be answered) has an advantage of providing a third kind of environment: embedded/non-PC stuff (dev boards/kits) that is exactly suited for tinkering at low level like OS dev.

So, the future is not bleak at all. At least, not in terms of where and how to run custom OSes.

[iansjack]

there was at least a 200-400% inflation since that in almost every currency

Quite correct. So the 500GB SSD is only about 1/1000th the price of the 127MB hard disk, byte for byte.

[iansjack]

I see no evidence whatsoever of an increase in the price of PC components (other than short-term fluctuations).

I've been monitoring laptop prices for a while, considering my 4-year old version has to give out at some point. I couldn't help but notice that I would pay pretty much the same price for a machine with equivalent specifications now as I did then.

Anecdotal evidence is always difficult. As a comparison I'm going to take a particular model that I am familiar with (I bought one four years ago) and that hasn't changed that much in the last 4 years - the Apple Mac Mini.

In 2011 $799 would buy me a Mac Mini with 2.5 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, 4 GB RAM, and 500 GB hard drive.

In 2015 $699 would buy me a Mac Mini with 2.6 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM, and 1TB hard drive.

Even ignoring the fact that the 2015 i5 is a better processor than the 2011 one, particularly with regard to the built in graphics processor, I am getting far better value today for less outlay. OK, I haven't take inflation into account (although over the past 4 years that wouldn't even account for the $100 difference in price) but I have also ignored the fact that the past 4 years are atypical (what I referred to earlier as "short-term") largely because of the devastation caused to fabrication facilities by the 2011 earthquake and Tsunami.