OSNews has an interesting opinion piece on the current state of the operating system “scene” and how it’s difficult for alternative OSes (read: Not Linux, OSX or Windows) to gain a foothold:
There are many ‘really alternative’ operating systems currently in existence. Most of them are purely for research, personal enjoyment or as a coding sandbox. Some of them, however, want to achieve wider acceptance. Is that goal obtainable, in the current OS climate?
If you look at the state of the operating system world today, it is fairly easy to name the operating systems that have gained mainstream acceptance (which doesn’t mean that it has to have a huge market share). We all know the likes of Windows, OS X, the BSDs and the Linuxes. They all have their dedicated userbase, steady development process, and none of them will go away for a long time to come.
Then there are those who are in a much more difficult position. Names that pop up are BeOS, AmigaOS, and MorphOS, among others. Even though they all have a user/fanbase, the development process can be jerky, and their respective futures are everything but certain.
The third group consists of the ones I named in the first paragraph; the hobby operating systems. I will focus on two of these: Syllable and SkyOS. Both have a very clearly defined goal: getting a hold of your desktop. Will they ever achieve that goal? I highly doubt it.
Getting market acceptance isn’t merely a case of offering a better product than your competitors. Many perfectly fine operating systems have in the past failed to gain a serious foothold, like AmigaOS or BeOS. Two good operating systems (with their fair share of weaknesses as well, obviously), yet they never got off of the ground in the way that Linux or Windows has.
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