Selling a Newly Created Linux

Well, I would say there is nothing wrong with aiming high or having big aspirations, but from what I have read, you don't have nearly enough knowledge to even begin planning what you have been talking about.

You're only 16/17, maybe try learning a bit about what you are talking about before getting involved with something like this.

Tassidar had some very practical questions which you ignored:

1. What is your unique offering that will make people choose your OS over Windows, Mac or Linux?
2. How do you plan to market your OS? There have been numerous OSs in the past that have been very good that have failed, in no small part due to marketing (OS2; BEOS)
3. Do you see this as a main stream OS with an over 1% market share, or a niche OS with perhaps a 0.01% market share?
4. What do you see your role as being? (MD / Programmer / Project Manager)
5. How do you plan to get funding? This will be a full time operation, and you will need to support yourself during this period, and almost certainly a number of programmers.
6. What sort of time frame are you looking at?
Click to expand...

I work with computer scientists with tens of years experience in all the disciplines required to undertake a task of this magnitude and they admit that they wouldn't be in a position to improve on the current offerings by writing something from scratch.

What is your skillset btw?
 
Only way to get around the assumptions being made, is to just start with something and see where it takes you! Either way you will learn a lot
 
I think I saw somewhere an OS that was created entirely in Assembly. It has a GUI similar to Windows albeit a little less pretty and comes with games and some basic software features as well. The entire OS can fit on a floppy and takes like a second to boot up.

Actually now that I looked it up I know of two similar OSes but can only recall one of their names ... MenuetOS
 
ChromeOS is a modified version of Ubuntu, so not even Google is brave enough to create their own OS.

But I do like your attitude, the dude I mentioned on page 1, Linus Norvalds, had the same attitude when he decided to write a kernel for Linux. ;)
 
Jonny Two Shoes said:
I think I saw somewhere an OS that was created entirely in Assembly. It has a GUI similar to Windows albeit a little less pretty and comes with games and some basic software features as well. The entire OS can fit on a floppy and takes like a second to boot up.

Actually now that I looked it up I know of two similar OSes but can only recall one of their names ... MenuetOS
Click to expand...

A bit off topic, but I was quite impressed with MenuetOS, unfortunately it didn't work on all of my systems though.
 
@ OP instead of re-inventing the wheel.

Why not develop a new form of WINE or Cedega for Linux? Something that will allow full support of Windows apps and games on Linux. You can charge for it like Cedega but don't make it too expensive like they do :P and hopefully you can come up with something that runs ALL windows apps perfectly in Linux making it cross compatible and easy to use :)

Not sure if that will be an easier project or not.
 
kingrob said:
Linus Norvalds, had the same attitude when he decided to write a kernel for Linux. ;)
Click to expand...

Torvalds.

I'd rather suggest you start smaller at the moment and offer your services on an app. At the moment im looking to help out on pyMT which is a python multitouch framework
 
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Hi

I think that you are missing the point of GPL.

Under GPL you are entitled to charge a fee for distributing the software. No-one says you can't make money.

You cannot prevent other people, once they have bought the software from you, from copying it and redistributing it for a fee.

The 'freedom' that the GPL talks about, is the 'freeness' of the source code. It guarantees that the source code must be available, and places a responsibility of a distributor to provide the source code, should the customer ask for it.

So under GPL you will be able to develop your own OS. If you build on existing GPL'ed code, you are obliged to publish your source code of the modified apps.

There is nothing to stop you writing proprietary apps from scratch for the OS, and using a proprietary licence for them. You are then not obliged to publish the source code for those apps. It would make distribution difficult though.

I would be hesitant to charge a big fee for copies of Linux. Implicit in any commercial transaction would be an expectation on the part of the user for support - something like "I've paid for this, and I'm entitled to expect support". You may end up endlessly fixing customer's installation problems for free.

I like the Canonical type licence = software for free, support for a fee. You don't need to waste energy policing copying and all that stuff, you support paying customers who sustain your business.

I like your attitude, but I think you need to come down to reality. Linus Torvalds was an honours student when he started Linux, who already knew all about C, structured programming and microprocessor architecture etc. etc. Also, his first post was about what he'd done, not what he was going to do.....

Development of the Linux kernel is taking place faster and faster. So it's getting bigger and the rate of change is increasing. Quite some competition!

Good Luck
 
Both Windows and Linux have been in development for decades. On your own, you'll be old before releasing a viable product. Nothing to stop you trying though - if you have the motivation and energy.
 
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