Note: These two documents are preserved purely for sentimental value. I still believe it could have been done, but I accept I was not the right person to pull it off.
Initial Proposal
Pro-POS - Project for a Perfect Operating System
We want to create a new operating system, from scratch. No crippling legacy. No convenient shortcuts. No excuses.
This is the 21st century. This is the third millenium. Computers surround us everywhere. We think it is time to create an operating system that uses state-of-the-art technology, design patterns and quality assurance protocols from the very beginning.
What's wrong with the existing operating systems?
Some might be happy with Windows or MacOS. Some might point to Linux as an open source alternative. We think that these three operating systems share a common weakness: They are limited in their potential because they have to provide downward compatibility to their predecessors.
If the foundation of your operating system is a bunch of code written three decades ago in some garage, or four decades ago when nobody yet thought about ZIP drives and your mother being her own system administrator, you get what you deserve.
This does not mean that these operating systems are outdated. They did improve over the time, they added many new features and fixed many old problems. But after a certain time, the world's best make-up can no longer hide the age covered beneath.
We cannot change the way Windows or MacOS work. We would have to change so many things in Linux (facing considerable resistance from those who actually like cryptic options, mystic directory structures and arcane configuration files) that it's probably the best to leave it all behind, keep the lessons learned in mind, and start from scratch.
Which is exactly what we are planning to do.
When will it be available?
Probably never. We do not just want it to run, we want it to be perfect, pleasing the computer illiterate as well as the professional. The odds are overwhelmingly high against us. But in the end, we want to be able to claim, "at least we tried".
No excuses.
2001-11-13, Martin Baute ("Solar") - (c) 2001-2002 by Pro-POS
Mission Statement
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.
Why is such an operating system necessary?
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.)
Our goal
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") - (c) 2001-2004 by Pro-POS.
