Advice Request Why don't we see any new operating systems?

[alakazam]

Why aren't any new operating systems being created? Other than a multitude of Linux distributions and Huawei's silly attempt to slightly alter Android OS and call it Harmony OS, no new operating system has appeared since Blackberry (a Canadian company) gave up on BlackberryOS. I suppose the pandemic shut down the world for a few years, but even so... Why are all the other continents letting the USA create pretty much all the operating systems in existence?

 

[jackuars]

Microsoft will eat it up and continue it's monopoly. Big time giant, Google tried with Chrome O.S and it's not popular. So practically no one else will dare to bring one into existence.

 

[Nagisa]

Haiku and BSD derivatives (like FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD...) are actively being developed. And of course, TempleOS.

 

[brambedkar59]

Simply because it takes hell of a lot resources, man power, time and support from HW manufacturers, software devs (cause w/o them an OS is useless) to create an OS from scratch. And even if you do all of that maybe no will like it or use it, then what?

 

[Stopspying]

The world is dominated by capitalism and within that type of system it is often a dog-eat-dog setup, with possibly some government regulation to supposedly stimulate competition. Plenty of people, some would call them idealists, have tried to create a more democratic OS (open source commonly), you touch on this with the development of a multitude of Linux versions. Unless the world sees a big change in how much of it works I'd be very surprised to find we have a decent choice of OSs to use.

Money rules and talks.

 

[bayasdev]

Why the need to reinvent the wheel? althrough BSDs are older than the Linux kernel itself nobody uses them directly outside of proprietary descendants developed by corpos like Apple, Sony or Nintendo (probably due to BSD's permissive license vs the share your OSS modifications aka GPL license used by Linux).

If you ever need a real POSIX and UNIX certified OS that's got a good software support just use BSD macOS .

PD: There's a CentOS based Linux distro developed by Huawei called Euler OS that's got certified by the Open Group as real UNIX but my experience using its "free" edition called Open Euler was quite disappointing due to the lack of the popular EPEL repo found on RHEL clones.

Source: The Register of UNIX® Certified Products

 

[Templarware]

Because there are already too many operating systems.

 

[Viking]

I believe there was a Kaspersky OS in development some years back, not sure how it is progressing.

 

[Nightwalker]

The biggest reason for not having new operating systems in development is that most would be vastly inferior to the solutions we already have on the market.

To avoid this scenario (mediocrity), it would be necessary to invest an absurd amount of money and time that could be better spent on other projects (see Firefox OS / Ubuntu Touch).

The world is dominated by capitalism and within that type of system it is often a dog-eat-dog setup, with possibly some government regulation to supposedly stimulate competition. Plenty of people, some would call them idealists, have tried to create a more democratic OS (open source commonly), you touch on this with the development of a multitude of Linux versions. Unless the world sees a big change in how much of it works I'd be very surprised to find we have a decent choice of OSs to use.

Money rules and talks.

Ironically, the biggest contributions to the development of Linux and free open software in general are not from "idealistic" developers but from the big "bad" capitalist companies.

Research and development depends on financial resources and not on ideology and ego (one of the reasons for having countless mediocre Linux distros).

Source:

Who really contributes to open source

New data debunks several myths around which companies lead in open source contributions

www.infoworld.com

Ps: Microsoft is the biggest contributor to the development of free open source code, oh the irony.

 

[alakazam]

Because there are already too many operating systems.

I respectfully disagree. We have less operating systems than continents, and that is quite upsetting, in my opinion. Each continent should be able to create an operating system. We have intelligent programmers all over the world, from Europe to Africa, to Australia. And let's not even talk about Asia, a pinnacle of digital advancements. I'm quite surprised that Russia hasn't created an operating system by now. I mean, despite Facebook's popularity, Russia continues to have their very own social network with millions of users, namely Vk. Same with China and their social networks.

 

[shmu26]

I respectfully disagree. We have less operating systems than continents, and that is quite upsetting, in my opinion. Each continent should be able to create an operating system. We have intelligent programmers all over the world, from Europe to Africa, to Australia. And let's not even talk about Asia, a pinnacle of digital advancements. I'm quite surprised that Russia hasn't created an operating system by now. I mean, despite Facebook's popularity, Russia continues to have their very own social network with millions of users, namely Vk. Same with China and their social networks.

It could be done but it would be very unlikely to achieve market parity. Mac, ChromeOS and Linux all put together can't even begin to challenge Windows control of the desktop market.

 

[ZeePriest]

I believe there was a Kaspersky OS in development some years back, not sure how it is progressing.

I would like to see samsung making it's own OS. I think they're capable of competing with the market.

 

[harlan4096]

I believe there was a Kaspersky OS in development some years back, not sure how it is progressing.

Kaspersky OS is not a general purpose OS:

KasperskyOS — cyber Immune approach to IT systems security

Kaspersky’s Cyber Immune operating system and solutions based on it for industry, smart cities, VDI, transport and other markets

os.kaspersky.com

 

[Viking]

Kaspersky OS is not a general purpose OS:

OK, thanks for clearing that up, @harlan4096.

 

[Nightwalker]

I would like to see samsung making it's own OS. I think they're capable of competing with the market.

Samsung already have one, it is called Tizen and it is based on Linux kernel.

I would say that Tizen is one of the few real alternatives to Android, it is already a very capable system used in many Samsung products.

 

[mlnevese]

I believe the opportunity for new OSs was over back when OS/2 failed. Even the small penetration of Linux in the home market is a small miracle, considering how Windows is consolidated.

The investment to create a productive environment, with software and hardware support, the costs in training people, etc. tell me it just won't happen. Any new OS will never be anything but a niche

 

[Stopspying]

The biggest reason for not having new operating systems in development is that most would be vastly inferior to the solutions we already have on the market.

To avoid this scenario (mediocrity), it would be necessary to invest an absurd amount of money and time that could be better spent on other projects (see Firefox OS / Ubuntu Touch).

Ironically, the biggest contributions to the development of Linux and free open software in general are not from "idealistic" developers but from the big "bad" capitalist companies.

Research and development depends on financial resources and not on ideology and ego (one of the reasons for having countless mediocre Linux distros).

Source:

Who really contributes to open source

New data debunks several myths around which companies lead in open source contributions

www.infoworld.com

Ps: Microsoft is the biggest contributor to the development of free open source code, oh the irony.

Yes, just as they have invested in software products that are not necessarily marketed under their own brand names; e.g. Yahoo and Google have both contributed to Mozilla products. In doing so they managed to get their search engine(s) to be the default one in Firefox, so it isn't always for altruistic reasons.

While we live in a world where some people think that the internet is Google and/or Facebook, because accessing their sites is the first thing they do when getting online, we probably won't see much in the way of viable alternative OSs, or major software types - productivity etc. Facebook provide the means for people to get onto the internet in certain parts of the world, their devices are probably using Google Android and they don't know of alternatives like F-Droid to get apps from. Education is a wonderful thing, but restricted education narrows people's horizons and expectations. If the internet providers they have to use do not let the users access things outside of a walled garden they won't know of other apps, browsers or providers. There is a very big captive market out there. The more that people use the 'big "bad" capitalist companies' it seems that it is less likely they will know of, or even look for, alternatives.

 

[show-Zi]

I take the existence of various operating systems as having settled down to their current state after a period of chaos.
Perhaps now, even if a brand new OS is announced, I think only some enthusiastic enthusiasts will support it. I don't think there is any benefit to switching os for the average person.

 

[alakazam]

The biggest reason for not having new operating systems in development is that most would be vastly inferior to the solutions we already have on the market.

Why do you think so? Inferior in what ways? It would just need to have a team to work on constantly updating it. I don't see any reasons why it would be inferior to Windows 10.

 

[Nightwalker]

Why do you think so? Inferior in what ways? It would just need to have a team to work on constantly updating it. I don't see any reasons why it would be inferior to Windows 10.

Hardware compatibility, software compatibility, performance, driver availability, software legacy, developers support and maybe bugs and security wise.

There is a reason why Windows 10 is the dominant desktop platform and iOS/Android are the mobile leaders despite big investments from huge competitors like Samsung (Tizen).

Example:

Linux-based Tizen: Critical bugs leave most Samsung Smart TVs open to attack

An independent researcher has discovered vulnerabilities that could potentially allow attacks on every Samsung device running Tizen.

www.zdnet.com

Good news: Samsung's Tizen no longer worst code ever. Bad news: It's still pretty awful

TVs, phones, watches, you all get Sammy's bugs

www.theregister.com

Samsung has the resources, the expertise and the reasons to replace Windows and Android for Tizen OS, but they can't, because after all its efforts it still not near good enough or viable to do so.

If Samsung is struggling, imagine "small" competitors like Mozilla or Ubuntu Foundation ? (Hint: They failed and failed hard).