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SkyOS
Developer	Robert Szeleney
Working state	Halted
Source model	Closed source
Initial release	December 15, 1997; 27 years ago
Marketing target	Desktop users
Available in	Multilingual
Platforms	IA-32
Kernel type	Monolithic
License	Proprietary
Official website	web.archive.org/web/20130901090439/http://www.skyos.org/

SkyOS is a discontinued prototype commercial, proprietary, graphical desktop operating system written for the x86 computer architecture. Its first version was released in 1997, and its last beta build was released in 2008.

As of January 30, 2009, development of the OS was halted, with no plans to resume its development.^[1]

In August 2013, developer Robert Szeleney announced the release of a public beta on the SkyOS website. This allows public users to download a Live CD of the SkyOS operating system, for testing and to optionally install the system.^[2]

History

Development started in 1996,^[3] with the first version released in December 1997.^[4] Up until version 4.x, the OS was freely available.^[5] Starting with beta development of SkyOS 5 in 2003, users were required to pay US$30 to get access to beta releases.^[6] SkyOS adapted new filesystem SkyFS based on OpenBFS in 2004,^[7] and its graphics subsystem was improved in 2006 with support for desktop compositing, including double buffering and transparency. The OS also moved to ELF binaries then.^[8] The last beta build 6947 was released in August 2008,^[5] and there was no status update for several months.^[9] As the OS was mainly the work of one man, Robert Szeleney, there was increasing difficulty to add new device drivers.^[3] Considering lack of development under Robert Szeleney, going open source was viewed by the tech press as the best option for SkyOS.^[10]^[9] Although Szeleney tried to bypass the lack of drivers by using a new kernel based on Linux or NetBSD,^[11] and reported some progress in this regard,^[12] development has not resumed. SkyOS website disappeared in 2013^[13] and final public build from August 2008 was released for free shortly thereafter.^[5]

Features

SkyOS is a Unix-like operating system with a monolithic kernel.^[3] The OS supports multiple users^[4] and symmetric multiprocessing.^[14]

SkyOS has an integrated graphics subsystem with support for desktop compositing including double buffering and transparency.^[8] SkyOS GUI also allows system-wide mouse gestures.^[14]

SkyFS is a fork of the OpenBFS filesystem.^[7]

SkyOS can also be run from the following filesystems:

SkyOS offers real-time file content query searches with multiple keywords (comparable to Beagle in Linux or Spotlight in macOS), including indexing of files and programs.^[14]

Applications

Most command-line applications that were written to be compiled with the GNU Toolchain can be ported to SkyOS with little or no modification.

SkyOS contains several frameworks for creating applications (including Mono port).^[3] Ported applications include Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, Nvu,^[14] GIMP and AbiWord.^[4] There was also a monetary incentive for porting applications as the SkyOS community voted for desired programs and then supported developers with donations.^[3]

Reception

Although SkyOS includes many interesting features, limited application and hardware support are among its weaknesses (e.g. only a few graphics cards allow 2D acceleration).^[14] Kernel and drivers updates were solely worked on by Szeleney, and because of this he was unable to keep up with new devices. This was one of the reasons the development ended for this project. In the end, the OS was not able to expand beyond a small albeit dedicated user community. Apart from a short early open source time period, the OS had a proprietary licence with a commercial model based on paid beta-testing. This led to some controversy as SkyOS developers were accused of unauthorized use of open source software. No proof of any wrongdoing was given, but the public image of the OS was tarnished nevertheless.^[3]

References

^ "SkyOS development is currently halted and no plans to resume its development have been announced". Archived from the original on 2011-09-10. Retrieved 2009-01-30.
^ "SkyOS Public Beta". Archived from the original on 2013-08-16. Retrieved 2009-08-09.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Bednář, Vojtěch (July 13, 2009). "Rekviem za operační systém SkyOS" (in Czech). root.cz. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Die Windows-Alternative aus Oberösterreich" (in German). Der Standard. December 23, 2005. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
^ ^a ^b ^c Matt (August 12, 2013). "Last SkyOS 5.0 beta released for free". OSNews. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
^ Loli, Eugenia (December 17, 2003). "SkyOS 5 Beta Testing Cycle is Open". OSNews. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
^ ^a ^b Loli, Eugenia (January 23, 2004). "OpenBFS Becomes SkyFS for SkyOS". OSNews. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
^ ^a ^b Krčmář, Petr (July 12, 2006). "Výrazné úpravy v systému SkyOS" (in Czech). root.cz. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
^ ^a ^b Krčmář, Petr (March 11, 2009). "Budoucnost SkyOS je stále nejistá" (in Czech). root.cz. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
^ Blankenhorn, Dana (February 3, 2009). "SkyOS faces choice of go open source or go away". ZDNet. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
^ Krčmář, Petr (June 10, 2009). "SkyOS experimentuje s jádry Linux a NetBSD" (in Czech). root.cz. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
^ Dee, Jay (June 25, 2009). "SkyOS/Linux Progress Report". OSNews. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
^ Chris_G (March 18, 2013). "SkyOS website finally fizzles out". OSNews. Retrieved April 13, 2019.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Miller, Tim (June 14, 2006). "Four alternative operating systems, SkyOS". NewsForge. Archived from the original on November 8, 2006. Retrieved April 13, 2019.