The Boring State of Operating Systems Today

OSNews ^ | 23 February 2005 | Eugenia Loli-Queru

[ShadowAce]

When I joined OSNews in 2001, I did it with a great excitment because of my love for... messing around with many operating systems in order to explore news ways of doing things. Back in the '80s and the '90s there were a lot of OS projects that would draw the attention of the computer users of the time. But in this decade, it seems that other than Windows, OSX, Linux and a very few other much smaller OSes, the scene is sterile. And it's only getting worse.

Personally, I just can't stand anymore the endless debates between the Linux, Windows and Mac users. It's getting old, it's getting boring. These OSes are already mature, and they follow an evolutionary path with only a few revolutionary steps every now and then (mostly by OSX, and lately with Longhorn -- Linux technologies seem to be more conservative in their nature). But thing is, these are just 3 operating systems and there is nothing exciting about them anymore (except the occasional "wow" factor Steve Jobs might bring with his keynote shows).

It's a lot like liking the Judas Priest music in the '70s, and then they sudenly become so successful and commercial in the '80s, that each album seems as commercial and boring and as identical as the previous one. It's the same with these OSes: they are based on old technologies and they are afraid of making big steps. In fact, they are more concerned on making deadlines (e.g. the cut of WinFS from Longhorn).

If one needs to find some fresh ideas, it's the the small guys he needs to look at. Not because the small guys are "more intelligent" than the big guys, but because the small guys don't concern themselves with legacy support or deadlines. They can break everything they want on their OS and only 10-20 people will notice. The big guys can't afford to do that.

In the '80s we had at least 6 operating systems that had a good hold of market share each (e.g. AmigaOS, Mac, DOS, GEM, GeOS, Unix flavors). In the '90s we had Windows and Windows NT, Mac, DOS, OS/2, Linux, AmigaOS, BSD, other Unices and even BeOS, all with some considerable usage share (before Windows 9x got to its 94% of market share and get declared monopolistic). Along with those, you had a gazillion other small, embedded, academic or hobby OSes. We are talking about a few hundrend of them.

Today, it's the game of the three, plus about 10 more OSes that draw some minor only attention by the media: BSDs, QNX, Symbian, SkyOS, Zeta/BeOS, Solaris, Windows Mobile, PalmOS and some even smaller ones, like VxWorks, Syllable, MenuetOS etc. Overall, I would't say that there are more than 40-50 active or noteworthy OS projects/products out there today. That's a far cry from the hundrends that existed in the '80s and '90s.

Let's look at the reasons why this shrinking of OS projects happened:

1. Windows, Windows, Windows... Microsoft even developed an embedded version of its OS and now it's preparing an HPC one.
2. Linux & BSD are Free and so it's easier//faster/cheaper to modify them to do a very specific job rather than to write something from scratch.
3. Hardware complexity. Back in the '90s, having a "network stack" was a big deal and not all OSes needed to have one. Today, you can't even consider an OS without one. More over, today, everyone wants his USB stack or his 3D acceleration. Writing an OS has become a FAR more complex procedure than it used to be.
4. Embedded OSes have managed to get good features overtime, and so it would make more sense to license them rather than writing your own.

To me, as an editor of the OSNews.com site, it's getting boring. It's the same old, same old, every darn day. We have Unix with Linux/BSD/Solaris/*nix on one side backstabbing each other for years, a bastardized Unix with OSX in the middle, and the Windows dysfunctional family on the other side. All the interesting (non-Unix) projects like BeOS or OS/2 or QNX are pretty much dead, or simply, much smaller than they used to be a few years ago. The big-three have destroyed their smaller non-Unix competitors commercially. What's more sad, is that no big & new really usable OSes have been created since their demise to try and fill their void. After the death of AtheOS (which was moving faster than Syllable is today), only SkyOS seems to be the one that does some interesting things, but it's still very small and exceptionally buggy (lacking proper stress testing procedures that a company or bigger project would put the OS through). Zeta is nowhere as big either (feels like a big patch over BeOS 6-beta rather than the evolution it should have had since 2000 - the last BeOS 5 release). AmigaOS & MorphOS require special hardware and that's prohibiting for most people, plus their companies are under a questionable financial status with their user communities killing each other any way they can, making things even worse.

Blah. From where I am standing, it's all sad and boring.

Wishful thinking: hopefully we will see a new, big, well-done OS soon, that's not yet another Unix or Linux (although with some POSIX compliance in place for easy app porting, like BeOS & QNX have). We need something fresh. Heck, something new and fresh indeed. Something INTRIGUING. I wanna feel again that same feeling I had when I tried BeOS 4.0 for the first time in 1999 (excitement to the max) or the Mac OS X Jaguar update in 2002 or NeXTSTEP in 1996 (better late than sorry). Boy, didn't that feel good?

Don't get me wrong, Windows 2003 Server has been the most stable operating system I have ever run, and it's blazingly fast too. But it's not as exciting as the above OSes, because while it's a good evolutionary step for Microsoft, it's far from being revolutionary and fresh. It doesn't come with "Feel Good"(TM) drivers.

[ShadowAce]

OS Ping

[SC_Republican]

I admit...I thought NeXTSTEP would be huge...

[proxy_user]

I hate to break it to this guy, but users like stable, boring Operating Systems.

If you need excitement, there's always the latest release of the full Oracle Application Server stack.

[Abcdefg]

Solaris 10 is free to license and download. I had tried 9 a bit and it worked great on x86 CPU.

[ShadowAce]

Yeah, but he wasn't (or she?) wasn't really talking about users. It's the lack of different OSes to experiment with, rather than the ones to actually use.

I run VMware just to experiment with different OSes, but like the author, I'm running out of real choices.

[sarah_f]

Nothing boring about having to patch 30 PoS 'blows systems daily.

[Billthedrill]

Hmm...BeOS again. Thought that one had died a couple of years ago. Time to crack a dusty book.

One sad fact is that many of these products are less exciting because there's more at stake now than there was in the 80's. A couple of trillion buckadingdongs' worth of e-commerce will turn a feller right conservative real fast. A lot of the old zip has been transferred to dedicated games machines and the Killer App everyone was searching for turned out to be the Internet. In all of that, operating systems turned out to be less dynamic than they had been because users had become less agile. They aren't OS freaks. Why should they be?

[ShadowAce]

They aren't OS freaks. Why should they be?

Exactly. Users shouldn't be. However a lot of new innovations and exciting technologies come from people playing around with technologies like alternate OSes. With an OS like BeOS, or BSD, anyone can study it, think of a cool new feature and try to implement it. That's (IMHO) what these "little" OSes are good for--experimenting. Not for use in the mainstream.

[phoenix0468]

The guy forgot to mention that there is also the fact that it is quite difficult to port an operating system to the complex and redundantly archaic architecture in the x86 chip sets and cpus. This may be a big reason for no one attempting a new port to x86. There is Solaris and OS/2 is still a viable operating system on many boxes. In fact, it would be nice if IBM released the code for OS/2 to up the ante on Win'blows as sarah likes to call it, hehe. The cool thing about Linux is it's variety. It's like a Baskin Robbin's 32 flavors, or however many there are now.

[phoenix0468]

Stable and mature are good things in business, but for those who like to tinker, the newer the better. IMHO.

[theotherWayne]

I hear antique radios are exciting as well as very old telephones and medical devices. Maybe it is time to dig-out the old Sinclair 1000, hook-up a cassette player and load-up Pong or Space Invaders. Relive the "good-old-days" since presently things are very un-exciting.......Oh..nevermind!!!!

[zarf]

I hate to break it to this guy, but users like stable, boring Operating Systems.

I'm downloading files from Madrid that allow me to make a living; I'm watching C-Span while listening to ITunes spit back a Gilbert and Sullivan Operetta and burning a DVD all at the same time and everything is humming along beautifully.

No smoke, no sparks no crashes....boring? OK, I'll take boring.

[hedgetrimmer]

Its bigger than you think. NeXTSTEP provided a kernel and interface for the MacOS development which started about 1995/1996, I think.

Intro to NEXTSTEP
So there it is. Apple has decided to buy NeXT Software, Inc., and make NEXTSTEP the basis next MacOS.

The average Mac user is probably scratching his head and saying "NEXTSTEP? I thought NeXT was out of business."

Not so. In fact, the NEXTSTEP operating system is alive and well, and it was the best selection Apple could have made for the next MacOS.


http://www120.pair.com/mccarthy/nextstep/intro.htmld/

Also

6. Inverse Hostile Takeover Fully Complete
The acquisition of NeXT by Apple is commonly referred to as an inverse hostile takeover, because the management of the smaller company, NeXT, has completely taken over control of the larger company, Apple. The list of ex-NeXT staff in senior Apple management is quite long. Steven Jobs is CEO, and Philip Schiller is the Vice President of Product Marketing & Product Management. Although not strictly from NeXT, Schiller came from FirePower, a hardware company formed when NeXT closed its factory. Jon Rubenstein is the Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering. He also came from FirePower, and previously from NeXT. Avadis Tevanian, Jr. , previously from NeXT, is Senior Vice President of Software Engineering. Nancy R Heinen is Senior Vice President and General Counsel, and previously from NeXT. Mitch Manditch, is Senior Vice President of Sales for the Americas and acting International Vice President, also previously from NeXT. Even the head of the Newton Group is now reportedly an ex-NeXTer

In fairness, some positions remain in the hands of old-guard Apple people. Fred Anderson is the CFO. Micheal Connor is the Vice President of Apple Reliability & Quality Assurance. Douglas Solomon is the Senior Vice President for Strategic Planning and Corporate Development. David Roman is Vice President of Advertising & Brand Communications. Maxwell Paley is the "junior" Vice President of Software Engineering. James Gable is Vice President of Platform & Technology Marketing, and David Krathwohl is Vice President of Developer Relations. In rereading this section, I realize that far more ex-NeXTers have the word "senior" in their title. It makes me wonder whether these Apple old guards carry as much influence as the ex- NeXTers.

Apple frequently says that 50% of the Rhapsody staff are Apple people. That may well be true, but it is clear that many of the positions of authority have been taken by NeXT staff. What I see is that the company is being run very much like NeXT: very efficiently and very focussed on the current objectives. At the same time, there is a large infrastructure of Apple people, and Apple procedures that are being being retained.

[phoenix0468]

Do you think IBM, Sony, and whoever the other player is might just try to create a new OS for their new Cell processor? I mean, that would be a pretty good market timing position to do something like that. Of course, as long as Intel and Microsoft are in bed together, doing much on the x86 doesn't look promising.

[phoenix0468]

Check this out:
http://asia.cnet.com/news/software/0,39037051,39219127,00.htm

[George Smiley]

Sometimes the classics take on new life...

And you don't have to worry about viruses or buffer overflows.

[Jeff Gordon]

The last good OS was Apple DOS 3.1. It has all been downhill since then.

>BLOAD MUFFIN

[PAR35]

This editor needs an editor - or at least a proofreader. The writing is very sloppy.

[Jokelahoma]

I'm sure mechanics get bored too. But your average automobile owner doesn't care that there have been no amazing new developments in the internal coumbustion engine recently, either. They simply want to know that when they turn the key, the car works. And they don't want to have to bypass certain gas stations because that fuel only works with a different type of engine. They want workable, and they want nearly universal. Stable is good in many areas.

So let the geeks and geekettes play and see if they can come up with something new and exciting. They had best be prepared to make their new invention as workable and nearly universal as the current choices, or they'll be a mere blip in history, fondly remembered by other geeks, and completely, totally forgotten by the consumer.