We will create a new operating system, written from scratch. We will strive to make it easy for your mother to maintain, flexible for the professional to use, powerful for companies to employ, and fun for the hobbyist to code for.
There has been so much ranting on the disadvantages of existing operating systems, resulting in countless flame wars by those who think otherwise, that we will not open up another one. We will not call other systems names here.
But - are you satisfied with the OS you are using right now? Or is it rather getting in the way every so often, by being not quite ergonomic here and there, by being that little bit sub-optimal, by being just a bit too complicated sometimes, by being a little less than what you would expect from an OS in the 21st century? Given the likeliness that the product you´re using is over 10 years in the making, don´t you think you deserve better?
Being "real good with computers" should be a matter of creativity flowing into the result of your work, instead of knowing how to navigate around the shortcomings of your system. Today, computer geeks are those who know how to install, customize and maintain an operating system. In our tomorrow, a computer geek is someone who knows how to make Pro-POS even better - the rest are programmers, administrators or users, no problems here, thank you!
Companies are not likely to give you such an OS. They have to sell. Features sell. Installed user base sells. Building something anew, from the ground up, takes lots of time, costs lots of money, and you have no user base to make profit from.
Unix spinoffs are not likely to give you such an OS either. For one, they base on Unix, which in itself carries so much legacy, demands so much up-front knowledge that it could be considered the antithesis of Pro-POS.
The only solution seems to be a project that is not a company, that is not based on Unix, and that does not share a number of other weaknesses that cripple so many other OS projects. (We will elaborate on them at some later point of time.)
Every new operating system (not restricted to university research) has to overcome the chicken-and-egg problem: People only write software for an OS if there are enough people using (and possibly buying) it, and people are only interested in an OS that has plenty of software.
Pro-POS will try to overcome this problem in the most simple way imaginable: By being simple. Simple to install. Simple to learn. Simple to administrate. Simple to use. Simple to code for. Without making tradeoffs in performance, flexibility, or customisability. So simple that this simplicity in itself will be the killer feature for users, developers, administrators and companies.
We will accept no excuses from ourselves.
If the documentation fails to enable your mother to be her own system administrator, we have failed. If you cannot get started with your software project right away because our API is confusing, not sufficiently documented, or not flexible enough, we have failed. If our OS is not powerful enough for your company to run its servers, we have failed. If you don´t feel great every time you use our OS because it just works the way you want it to, we have failed.
If this will not be the best, most comfortable, easiest, least annoying, most empowering OS you have ever used, employed, or programmed on, we simply have failed.
If we fail, we will start over, and try even harder.
No excuses.
"It is necessary; therefore, it is possible." -- G. A. Borghese
2001-12-10, Martin Baute ("Solar") - © 2001-2004 by Pro-POS.