On 2004-05-24 at 16:37:04 [-0400], Simon Taylor wrote: > I don't really want to continue the off-topicness, but this has me a bit > worried. Surely there will be an official R1 release of OBOS, freely > available from the OBOS website? This isn't really off topic. What we plan is basically this - that there will be what I call a "mini-distro" prepared and freely available. This will contain what is in our CVS and only that. No browser, for example. No IRC client. Etc. What I think of as a "distro-maker's distro". In order to call yourself a $newName distro, you will have to include everything that is in the mini-distro as is (or changed within some limits). That is the protection that you will have that anything that calls itself $newName won't be incompatible. Everyone will have the same media kit, etc, or will have cleared it with us or won't be able to call it $newName. There won't be .so/DLL pain like on other OSs. If you want to make something with all of the API changed into Elbonian, you can do that, but you can't call it $newName. :-) If you want to download this mini-distro and add your own apps, etc, you certainly can. If you want to get a distro from someone else, you certainly can. > One of the reasons I am so interested in the OBOS project is because the > entire OS is being developed by one team, with the same goals in mind, same > release schedules etc. It's certainly a major step up from the linux world > where every little part of the OS is developed by different groups with > different aims and everything. 100% agreed. > The next step is to distribute and release it yourselves too, all from the > same central OBOS website. A single "official" distribution which the huge > majority of users will be on would be great for developers and people (none > of these strange linux dependency issues - "will work with OBOS R1" is much > simpler for users to understand). Obviously the license means there will be > smaller distros of source or whatever, but I really think the main distro > should be an "official" release by the project. I think that we are on the same page here. > The step after that is to sell it commercially, and reinvest the funds > created from that straight back into development. That is possible, but I won't commit to it. > There is such an opportunity here to show that an open source OS can be fast, > stable, user friendly, consistent, well led with a known direction for the > whole OS and a small team overseeing the whole thing, and commercially viable > too. Please don't waste it! You should know me better than that. :-) > I hope I can be around for some live IRC chats with the people at WalterCon. Me too! Michael