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Linux Software

A New 'Linux-Based' OS? 132

Posted by Roblimo from the another-new-face-in-the-arena dept.
nick++ writes "I was browsing iwin's site (iwin is a German company who is supposedly making some formerly-slashdot-mentioned Amiga-compatible machines), and found Xetos. According to iwin, 'Xetos is an operating system based on a Linux kernel which was extended by many components and features.' For example, '...there is a special Amiga mode included which allows you to use most of your older Amiga software.' I wonder if any of these "extensions" are GPLed?" Also, does "based on" mean we're looking at a kernel fork? Or is this just another new Linux distro? If anybody out there has tried Xetos, please let us know what it's like. Thanks.
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A New 'Linux-Based' OS? More

A New 'Linux-Based' OS?

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  • Looks interesting. No comment on what license, however, or whether or not any source is available. Anyone know what requirements they have about releasing the source?
  • I hope that it doesn't screw this up with software using strange, non-opensource or pseudo-open source licenses. Yuck.
  • Hmmm, I wonder if how you pronounce Xetos will be more hairy that the flame war about how you pronounce Linux
  • From the blurry and small screenshots, its looks very advanced.

    I would not be suprised if some more "suprise" Linux distros pop up.

    E

  • Re:What license/Where's the source? (Score:4)

    by Travoltus ( 110240 ) on Wednesday November 17, 1999 @12:29PM (#1524262) Journal
    That and it has a very suspect item at the bottom of the page:

    Xetos WSS: Single CPU Version for Workstations
    Xetos WSD: Double CPU Version for Workstations
    Xetos SVS: Single CPU Version for Server
    Xetos SVD: Double CPU Version for Server
    Xetos SVQ: Quad CPU Version for Server
    Xetos Phantom: Special version for iPhantom workstations

    I hate to remind anyone but Linux is scalable, automatically, to any of those configurations. It is automatically a workstation and a server, depending what daemons you have running, and by recompiling the kernel you get SMP support. Why would this OS be splitting itself into all these different versions...
    unless...
    they were planning to close-source major portions of it and sell it..?

    I'd keep an eye on this pile of embers.
  • This would depend on the way they "based" thier OS on Linux. If they were talking strictly about the Linux kernel, they would have the liberty to redistribute it under a license more restrictive than GPL. Thanks to GPL, we don't have to worry about the kernel going proprietary.

    However, if they used the more general sense of Linux - meaning Linux and accompanying tools, they could easily distribute proprietary tools. This isn't really another OS, it's another distribution that wants to pretent to be its own OS.

    Neither one would suprise me.

  • "If you really should have some troubles one time, then the electronical and intelligent assistant "Mr.James" will help you. "

    That in itself kinda pigeonholes Xetos and what market it's directed at, doncha think?

  • Kernel Forks and Open Sourcing (now with subject) (Score:3)

    by wass ( 72082 ) on Wednesday November 17, 1999 @12:33PM (#1524267)
    It would seem that a new company coming in like this would have a hard time forking the kernel suddenly. For example, if they had closed additions for the kernel, in this case Amiga interoperability and/or emulation programs, it seems that this wouldn't catch on too quicky. I would guess, from the wealth of open-source projects and advocacy, that either enough people would complain to the company to open their code and they'd eventually agree, or an open-source version of the software would be released. I would think they'd need to have people dependent on their closed-source software for a long enough time for enough of a dedicated consumer base to justify a kernel fork. IMHO, of course. [Note - sorry for the double post, I accidentally hit submit instead of preview, and I'm not sure if the post was truly submitted or not without a subject]

    "In a world without walls, who needs Windows" - Someone from LinuxToday

  • This page is very very fuzzy, where's the meat (or a trial download)?

    Well, there are two blurry screenshots and they do look suspicious. One of them appears to be a Win98 screenshot, the other one looks like Windowmaker to me (though I am not that much of an expert on Window Managers).

    Hmm.

    ------------------
  • Linux is a registered trademark of Linux Torvalds.

    Did anyone else see this at the bottom of the page?
  • I think as Linux hits more and more mainstream, we'll see more distributions being more and more vegue. The reasons:
    • Marketing's involvement in Linux. There was clearly some marketing influence on that page. Put simply, marketers don't like to put specifics or anything meaningful. Kelvin Cline ads anyone?
    • They are trying to present Linux as ideal for non-technical users. Non-technical users, sadly, are scared by specific information.
    • Ignorance is in.
    And you thought Red Hat's web page was vegue! Caldera Linux is in this croud too: its page is about as vegue as it gets. Without the word "Linux" on the title, no one would know what they're talking about.

    Geeks, ready your non-commercial distributions!

  • "Linux is a registerred trademark of Linux Torvalds."

    That kind of says everything you need to know
  • Now where the hell do you get it from? There is only one short page and a couple screenshots on that page. I couldn't find links to any other information. Anyone know anything bout this?

  • iWin? (Score:5)

    by IanCarlson ( 16476 ) on Wednesday November 17, 1999 @12:39PM (#1524273) Homepage
    Puh-leeze. I wouldn't believe it for a second. Even Squid ( Amiga Rumour Mill [flyingmice.com] ) thinks it's bull.

    The terminology doesn't match up with real technology. If this thing really existed, it would be very popular. Oh yeah, and the HTML was done by the "CEO" of the company. What it seems to me they're doing is taking the rumours flying around (Linux Kernels, New Boxes) and creating a hoax. Turning it into the iMac of Amigas. And if you send money? theyWin.

    And then, of course, you have to wonder about the "new" distro they're creating. What would the point be? RedHat's Rough Cuts CD has had a fully fuctional Amiga distro for quite a while. It would be stupid to create another distro to do the exact same job of another one already much more accepted.

    Don't tell me someone is taking this seriously.

  • Ha! (Score:4)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Wednesday November 17, 1999 @12:40PM (#1524276)
    I have a linux-based toilet. It's fully open-source, although it sometimes crashes, requiring unclog.sh (it's equivalent of fsck) to be run. We're having trouble finding developers. The code base is still alittle messy, but we're certain once we make the system boot cleanly that'll change....

    *groan* How many "linux-based" products can we have that have little to do with linux but are, infact riding the "open source / free software paradigm"(tm)(c)(r)??



    --
  • These guys need an acid bath. Bottom of the page [iwin-corp.de]: "Linux is a registered trademark of Linux Torvalds." I almost wet my pants. These guys are about as vapour as it gets. Let's not encourage their behaviour by noticing they exist.
  • This disclaimer can be found on various Linux homepages. See http://www.linux.com/legal.phtml [linux.com] for another example.



    Someone registered it, tried to milk the copyright and then experienced the fury of the community. Finally, he donated it to Linus.



    See http://www.linuxmall.com/news/ announce/lxtm.001.html [linuxmall.com] for a bit of legal speak about the story.



    ------------------

  • Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it. Many people wanted open source to be well known. Their wish has come true. Unfortunately, there are some side effects ("features" :)).
  • I'm starting to wonder if a few well-known OSS projects aren't in dire need of a few featurectomies (case in point: emacs)....

    --
  • Amiga interoperability is probably a BINFMT_MISC entry that runs UAE in a500 mode on ADFs, and UAE in 680x0/RTG mode on amiga executables. You wouldn't even need a separate partition.
  • > It would be stupid to create another
    > distro to do the exact same job of
    > another one already much more accepted.

    A Linux distribution that includes a full system-level emulation of the old Amiga (so that you can run your old software) would make sense.

    Nevertheless, I also doubt that iWin is for real.


    ------------------
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • From the looks, it looks like a Gnome or KDE based system using the winodwmaker window manager, with modifications that probably won't let you into a shell.

    Interesting also, I quote, (And not question-mark ;)

    "When developing Xetos we took care about the usability of the operating system and had an eye on existing operating systems."

    And...

    "Due to the Linux kernel, you can benefit already from a large number of applications. No matter if you are looking for office-, graphic-, or multimedia applications - Iwin Xetos provides you with the right software base."

    So apparently they're talking on both sides of their mouth. Not only do they blast Unix for being too hard to learn, but Xetos can use a wealth of applications written for Linux, a variant of Unix. At any rate, it looks like it has a UNIX core. Hmmm...

    --Rob

  • Absolute Nonsense (Score:5)

    by DrPsycho ( 13308 ) on Wednesday November 17, 1999 @12:51PM (#1524289) Homepage
    I try not to get emotionally involved in these reports, but this time I can't help it... and I apologize in advance.

    iWin shot its credibility down the craphole when it started making grandiose claims about creating a next generation Amiga computer. As the Amiga market, desperate for any kind of light at end of this long dark (and exceedingly depressing) tunnel, began to examine their product specifications... they began to realize that they were being fed a load of bullshit. I think some of this was thrown on up on Slashdot way back when.

    iWin was creating an nextgen Amiga system, and yet their sales did not include either Kickstart hardware ROMS (standard Amiga equipment), or a copy of the operating system. Amiga Inc. was never contacted, and as such could not (and did not) officially lisence their tech. iWin continued to plead it's legitimacy, but (I'm not going to cite specifics, I'm just writing quick) more and more holes began to appear in their story.

    I think it's fair to say that anyone who has followed the iWin story is convinced that they're full of shit. This feels like the "company" is just taking their hoaxing of the Amiga Market and throwing it in the face the larger Linux community.

    Don't believe the hype.

  • Re:Pronounce (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 17, 1999 @12:53PM (#1524291)
    Clearly it's "cheetos".
  • Everything is in the place in which you would expect it. You don?t have to search for it. If you really should have some troubles one time, then the electronical and intelligent assistant ?Mr.James? will help you.

    I got a good laugh out of that paragraph. Mr. James will help you... hehe... Office paperclip meets Ask Jeeves and answers *your* vaporware questions. LOL.

  • I can identify one of them. I'm pretty sure the one at the bottom is one of the GNUSTEP file managers. Other than that... I need to set my screen to 320x200 ;-)
  • At the bottom of the Xetos web page [iwin-corp.de], it says:

    Linux is a registerred trademark of Linux Torvalds.


    That's quite interesting, I really thought the guys name was Linus.. haahaa

  • It's pronounced "Chee-toes"...

    puffy synthetic air-puffed cheese which smears in your hands and makes your teeth gritty.

    wait, have I been drinking again?

  • Yeah, that would be a good reason, but that was never mentioned. One minute, it's a cool Amiga compatable machine, next it's a bitchin' Linux workstation. You know, it's just odd. And you would have a difficult time emulation the Amiga at a kernel level, would it be smarter just to do a VMWare thing?

    Really, we can talk about what would have been smarter, and what would work better, but the bottom line is, this smells too much like a hoax for me to waste that much time on it.

    When it ceases to be vaporware, I will be happy in insert my foot in my mouth, but until then, can we please assume it's a fake until something real comes out of this?

  • If you look on the German copy of the page [iwin-corp.de], you'll see it's spelled correctly.

    >
    > Linux ist eine registrierte Handelsmarke von Linus Torvalds.
    >

    Perhaps it was just an overzealous spellchecker and poor proofchecking before publishing the page.
  • Well, I did some research and apparently Pjotr Semanov is the cheif developer for Xetos. Anyone ever heard of him in the kernel-dev community?
  • I have a coupon for a discount on an SGI 1400L server that I got by attending a "Linux University" put on by SGI the other morning, and it also says Linux is a registered trademark of Linux Torvalds in very small type along the edge. In fact, that's the only reason I haven't thrown out the coupon yet.

    Last I checked, SGI actually did exist; I haven't seen any evidence of existence from this company, though.

  • Iwin Xetos alread includes various tools and utilities which will make working with and administrating Xetos very easy. You will stay compatible with your old system. Iwin Xetos understands Linux, Windows, MacOS, Novell and AmigaOS

    That seems to say that it can run all of those OSes binaries. Erm, no. That's not happening any time soon (how long has Wine been in development?)
  • A "Linux kernel based" OS that's not just a GNU/Linux distribution is actually possible: You could take the kernel (unmodified) but replace all of userland with a different system. The new userland could be distributed under any license one pleased, including fully proprietary.

    With a different C library, standard utilities and file system conventions you could have a thoroughly non-Unix-like OS, even with POSIX system calls under it all.

    Of course, why you'd bother is another question. I'd be fairly doubtful myself as to whether this is what they've actually done.
  • Zee-toes (an italian restaurant?)
    Chee-toes (a crunchy cheesy snack)
    Shee-toes (a really bad breakfast cereal?)
    Ket-oh-ess (an OS for processing backward TeX?)


    --
  • OK...

    Where's the download?

    or the order form?

    or any sort of indication that this program is available in any shape or form?

    The only proof of its mere existence is two blurry screenshots, one of which looks like win95/8 and the other of which looks like WindowMaker.

    Yet you claim to have installed it. Where did you get it from?

    Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but this comment was also posted anonymously. To quote Shakespeare (Roger Bacon? who knows), "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

  • The i-files (Score:4)

    by Hanno ( 11981 ) on Wednesday November 17, 1999 @01:14PM (#1524314) Homepage
    One of the first things that came up when searching for the iWin CEO name on the net was this: http://kleinbus.org/~zza/iwin/iwin-eng. html [kleinbus.org] It's an interesting list of strange facts about iWin.

    ------------------
  • Why for some reason I am inclined to think you are an employee of Xetos?
  • I was hoping they'd include the talking paper clip that Office users are so fond of.

  • Read it more carefully though. It says Linux Torvalds. Not Linux Torvalds.
  • It's prolly a typo. Maybe I should watch over your shoulder and bitch about your spellin =:)

  • Newer dist (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is to announce a new linux distribution. It understands alot of different os's, based on the linux kernel, and can even run DOS programs!! It's called LinuxLinux. Of course we don't have a web site yet, or even a domain name set up, but if you send money, we will ship it to you, as soon as we can burn a few cd's.
  • Did anyone notice the footnote:
    "Linux is a registered trademark of Linux Torvalds".
    Yes, Linux Torvalds.
    This site reminded me of that Turkish guy who was
    kissing everyone.

  • It stands to reason that if the forked features are better, then in the long term that fork will succeed. Forking is not necessarily bad, and the right to do it is arguably one of the core strengths of OSS.

    The biggest risk of fragmentation comes not from start-ups building vaporware and me-too distros with forked kernels, but somebody the size of Red Hat putting together a proprietary API that is great for developing apps but closed-source.

    IMHO, neither phenomenon is a risk to Linux today, because no single player has the power to dictate terms to the market. If anybody tried to, they'd get laughed out of town.

    -Sansbury

  • "Due to the Linux kernel, you can benefit already from a large number of applications."

    No. The Linux kernel is just an ELF loader, and just provides a few functions (the ones that make Linux apps non-portable :-). They'll also need to have glibc2.1 or libc5 & pthreads, libgr, etc, to provide Linux app compatibility.

    What someone should do is fire off an email requesting source. The GPL sorta specifies that they have to give you a copy, and only charge cost of shipment.
    ---
  • If you look all the way down at the bottom of the page you see "Linux is a Registered Trademark of Linux Torvalds". I always thought his name was Linus not Linux. How concieted to name an OS after oneself :) Anyway someone needs to inform HR over at Transmeta or Mr. Torvalds won't be paying any taxes this year!

    Ah.. I love the taste of vaporware in the morning.
  • The reference to beowulf makes me think he was trying to be funny.
  • K, what good is the Standard 2x DVD drive doing anyone? I guess you can use software that's in danger of being sued out of existance to watch DVD's with no sound?

    If this isn't a hoax, I'll eat a bug.
  • Let's look at the evidence...

    You will stay compatible with your old system. Iwin Xetos understands Linux, Windows, MacOS, Novell and AmigaOS.

    OK, that's clue #1... you aren't going to run all those binaries through software emulation, at least not easily. Unless by "understand" they mean "will connect to via TCP/IP".

    the electronical and intelligent assistant ?Mr.James? will help you

    Clue #2... I wonder if "James?" is a talking paper clip?

    Xetos Phantom... Special version for iPhantom workstations

    The Phantom Workstations... didn't that star Bela Lugosi and Tor Johnson? I wonder if these workstations use Transmeta's new Crusoe chip.

    JMC

  • Amiga Press Release Syndrome... (Score:3)

    by Jamie Zawinski ( 775 ) <jwz@jwz.org> on Wednesday November 17, 1999 @02:05PM (#1524332) Homepage

    ...seems to have replaced ``Amiga Persecution Complex'' as their affliction of the day. Has there been a single example of an Amiga-related announcement actually having been followed up by something more substantial than, say, more announcements? Any time in the last eight years? Just wondering...

    (Oh, and how's that Amiga Mozilla port coming along? No, not that one, the other one.)

      • Jamie, who still has a functional A1000, but doesn't expect it to be making a comeback any time soon.

  • Perhaps I should read my own posts more carefully. It says LinuX Torvalds when it should say Linus Torvalds.
  • This was in response to the AC's post. Of course people have already said that the screenshots might be fake. Of course people have already said that iWin is a scam. That was not my point. If I had posted a new message that said "It's a hoax because"... then that would have been rightfully moderated as redundant. My point here is that this AC seems to be up to something fishy. As I am the only response so far to this comment, it could not possibly be considered redundant. The first part was just to back up my main point; the real point was that this AC could not possibly have installed iWin.

  • I presume you intended to write "wouldn't" instead of "would" in your second sentence...

  • Linus Torvaldx?

    ------------------
  • Xetos is brought to you by a company which also
    (allegedly) made "FidelGastro - a program for restaurants and hotels".

    See http://www.iwin-corp.com/Iwin_internals/Iwin_histo ry/body_iwin_history.htm
  • Are you sure it's not a tyop?

    (with apologies to whomever did Transmeta's homepage ;-)

    Score:-1 Stupid
  • I wonder if this "intelligent assistant" will realize that "electronical" is not a word.
  • Yeah... he's a different guy. Totally unrelated.
    -------------------------------------- --------------------
  • Not only is it more stable than Windows NT and regular Linux _combind_

    .. lets see.. the stability of NT either plus or multipled by the stability of Linux.. which means that this thing, if it were real, could still die a horrible screaming death a few times a day and still fall within these parameters ..

  • 2 of 3 Dining Philosophers demand more forks. (Score:3)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Wednesday November 17, 1999 @02:40PM (#1524343)
    In a recent survey, 2 of 3 dining philosophers said we need more forks.

    Seriously, whence all the furor about forking with the kernel?

    a) The GPL gives you the right to fork it up however you want.

    b) In some cases a bit of forking around might be desirable.

    Linux is evolving into the Swiss army knife of operating systems. Not only does it run on a large number of distinct microcomputer types, it also runs in everything from telephones to desktops to datacenters to supercomputers. Yes, it's a nice ideal to have a customizable kernel that will let you put in or leave out various types of support, but there seems to be a danger of attempting a too ambitious Windows Everywhere (TM) approach, and doing many things poorly rather than a few things well.

    So let it get forked.

    The important thing, IMO, is to maintain support for a well-defined "frontier" in the code base, so that your kernel variant replaces some well-defined "kernel of the kernel", and is therefore transparent to the rest of the OS.

    Most important, IMO, is that some API be maintained so that I can move my GNU apps over to your new Linux-derived OS and compile them without any need for hackage.

    Of course there will undoubtedly be those who will introduce deliberate inconsistencies in hopes of cornering market share, but I'm optimistic that the market will either route around them or else invoke the GPL and absorb them.

    --
    It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?

  • Re:Screenshots look fabricated (Score:3)

    by Travoltus ( 110240 ) on Wednesday November 17, 1999 @02:42PM (#1524344) Journal
    Evidence: Xetos is apparently only mentioned at http://www.iwin-corp.de/enmain/Products/products.h tml This is gotten to by clicking on the 'Products' page. Xetos does not right now appear on a Yahoo! search. Conclusion: I believe that Xetos is laying low right now, and that they may not have requested the kind of attention that slashdot has now given them. I think they would rather have remained quiet and gotten closer to a finished product. I am deeply interested in their licensing issues, as their multiple releases indicate a Windows NT/2000 scheme, but looking at their screenshots and judging them by that is not wise considering the evidence says they aren't even pushing the product for inspection by the mainstream yet.
  • HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
  • Iwin's US site has a page that basically says coming soon but if you use http://www.iwin-corp.com/Products/ [iwin-corp.com] you can browse the site. Under Communications/ there is arouter called the CS/400 and guess what... it also has Mr. James help. I always wanted a router with a flipping talking paperclip. Will he explain BGP to me better than my Cisco books? And its only 999 bucks! I can't wait to see what other vapor is available elsewhere on this site. This asshole definately has WAY WAY WAY too much time on his hands.

    This came from the downloads directory... apparently they have their own fscking browser as well...

    "Iwin Corporation

    PowerSE Demonstration Readme
    (c) 1999 by Iwin Corporation
    ------------------------------------------------ ----------------------

    This demonstration runns in every internet browser which is able to
    run javascript. Be sure to turn javascript and graphics on.

    This demonstration was tested with Microsoft Internet Explorer,
    Netscape Navigator, and Iwin iwBrowse Beta 3 and 4.

    We suggest to use Microsoft Internet Explorer."



    This came from handheld computing


    he Iwin Mobile Assistant makes working with your handheld device
    easy and fun. No matter if you are using a PalmPilot or WindowsCE
    device - the mobile assistant will always be your interactive and
    intelligent partner. Modules like "Expenses", "Spreadsheet",
    "Word-processor", and much more will help you organize your daily
    business and communicate seamlessly with a lot of other Windows,
    Macintosh or Solaris applications. "


    So now they have made applications that run on any handheld and are portable across various office suite formats. Wow talk about unifing computing.


    RANT
    This site has quickly gone from slightly humorous to downright annoying. And what of any dimwits that actually send him money? I have a feeling that the person behind this is going to be very hard to find indrrd. The attention we are giving him today just tickles his fancy a little bit more. In all likelyhood he is sitting here reading all of our posts and saying I love free publicity. Lets all shut our holes on this one for a little bit and wait for it to come out of the wash or for something real to materialize. What a waste of perfectly innocent ASCII this is.
    END RANT


    Ok. I am of my soapbox.
    Flame Away.

  • Fake fake fake (Score:4)

    by wct ( 45593 ) on Wednesday November 17, 1999 @03:05PM (#1524347)
    Iwin have been floating around Amiga circles for the last few months promising Amiga clones that have *never* turned up. A short history:

    • Pictures from their website (including a *ahem* saucy lady) were found to be nabbed from another website
    • They put up supposed "binary patches" to some of their already released software. On examination, these turned out to be PaintShop Pro undo files.
    • While they claim to be a large company, it was found that all their web pages were done by one Martin Steinbach, who happens to be their President!
    • Shortly after this revelation, his name was removed from the META tags
    • They said they were negotiating for the rights to Commodore's brand name with Tulip, a claim refuted by Tulip.
    • They then said they were sold to some German company...
    • ...before resurfacing following a salvage effort by some "former employees"

    Speaking of former employees, Martin Steinbach's former employer (whose company appears on the "business partners" section of the Iwin site) was contacted - he said he had dealings with MS, and recommended nobody else do the same.

    Finally, if you're not convinced, here's a post from Matthias Ettrich on comp.sys.amiga.misc describing the Iwin press conference held to announce their Amiga product line:

    This morning, I attended the Iwin press conference in Unterhaching.

    Although in theory, 23 people should have come (there was room for 30, and according to [1], "7 places are still available"), there were only *three* guests (and I hadn't even bothered to apply for an invitation), the other two being from http://www.amiga-news.de/ (a more detailed report should appear there tonight).

    Martin Steinbach arrived with nothing but ten copies of the Iwin "press kit", consisting of printouts of the PDF files we already know (product specs and the five-year roadmap), plus two sample ads ("Would you like this to be your new girlfriend? - Everything you were dreaming fo for such a long time" and "High end computing for game-console prices! Las amigas vuelven en casa..."). There was no video (as promised on [1]: "Iwin - an introduction") and no "Iwin Insurance 1.0" or "Iwin VideoStore" presentations.

    We had a three-hour talk with Martin. Unfortunately, he failed to give a single convincing answer during that time. He claimed that the Iwin custom chips were basically UAE source code cast in silicon and that the sample chip design and production was done mostly for free by their hardware partners. He tried to explain the fact that he is a Merant employee with tax reasons (about the photos posted at compcity.nl, he claimed that some of them showed the Merant office, while the others showed the actual Iwin office, and the Merant pictures "should not have been published"). Regarding Tulip and the "Commodore" name, he stated that the price doubled from 18 to 36 million (he didn't specify a currency - I believe he meant Austrian Schillings, as he is from Austria) after an interview was published early. He said that "black boxes" will be shown during the Indianapolis show on the upcoming weekend, but made conflicting statements about the meaning of "black box" (just empty boxes vs. working beta hardware) and that they would not attend HEW due to problems with AInc. Germany. Regarding the fake files in the download section, he refused to give an answer and told me to ask Rue Ann instead.

    The Holiday Inn lunch buffet was okay. Of course, most of the seats remained unused. :-)

    I left with lots of promises (he wants to send me the missing video, a *working* PowerSE demo CD and tons of info material) and the uneasy feeling of having been lied to for three hours in a row.

    It basically looks like he's an attention starved underachiever trying to get as much attention on his hoax as he can. In that sense, it looks like he's succeeded.

    Daniel.

  • If you peruse this site read the htm in the MrJames directory.... die laughing...

  • There needs to be the global AC account where all the moderation points are added up. Lets see how low it could get.

  • Yeah. I agree totally. If you still believe the hype, you need to see a shrink.

    Also, is there even an Amiga to buy Kickstart ROMS from anymore? Whould a nextgen Amiga be impossible due to red tape?

    Yeah, I was just as depressed as you all when I found out there would be no Amiga workstations. This iWin hoax isn't a very good way to handle the letdown.
  • Thanks for yet another laugh.
    The fun is at:
    http://www.iwin-corp.com/Products/Software/Mr_Ja mes/body_mr_james.htm

    On a more serious note: this site uses quite a few gif's. Can anyone
    tell if those were made with a licensed program. I wouldn't mind if
    Unysis went after Uloose.
  • If you look at their iBase webpage you'll see what is meant by "Mr.James".
    In normal computing it is called context sensitive online help, the kind of
    help you usually get if you press F1. The big difference is that Mr.James
    gets invoked by pressing CTRL+F1 (check their VideoStore page).
    For a really good laugh check any of their products. I personally am
    addicted. This better than HBO. They have a wordporcessor which is
    touted as devoid of bloat yet you can surf the net from within it. It also
    can change to look like any other wordprocessor (that way the screenshot
    could be explained despite looking very much like Notepad). Did I mention
    their database software which is so powerful it EVEN has a scripting language,
    which BTW is a reduced form of PPL, their all powerful programming language...
    Except that the web page says PPL is not really a language but an IDE for
    several other languages. Nevertheless, this PPL can take code relying on say
    Applescript and compile it for Solaris. It can compile DDE calls for Solaris as well.
    They make an organizer which automatically arranges meetings for you, from negotiating
    convinient meeting time, to automatically planning your trip. They also have their own
    file system, but according to the web page it "is not a real product". Did I mention
    a spreadsheet that can open files with vba scripts in Linux. Macros too.
    The Iwin - Uloose corporation seems to believe that Microsoft invented HTML help.
    Their paperless office suite page says so.
    I am still laughing about FidelGastro, their hotel/restaurant suite, whose
    standard selling version includes five (count'em five) client licenses.
    They also advertise "ready-set-go" concept, which applies to some of their products.
    In gist, it seems that it translates into: install and 95% of the time you are ready
    to go. The other 5% are not mentioned.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • > Or is it just me that's suspicious of a company
    > with unrealistic products, no pricing
    > information, no dealers, and no-one who's
    > used anthing they've made?

    Transmeta anyone?



  • I'd like to add a few more. They proclaim to be multilingual, with
    language support through add-on software packs. They list languages
    for which add-ons are available then in small font state that none of
    theose languages are available for any of their apps.
    As I can deduce from the phrase: "iBase standard now also supports SQL database
    formats" - they seem to think that SQL is a database format. According to their
    web page, their database is not SQL compliant and requires an add-on to
    interact with SQL-based databases, but this add-on is not available on many
    platforms (is it available at all?).
    Last thing about their software: they have their own CVS software, called
    VCS. Of course it is designed for their own language or IDE or compiler PPL.

    Their hardware is weird. They make a distinction between AMD and Intel
    architectures (not processors - architectures). I know Athlon is slot A, but they don't
    sell Athlon systems. They also advertise MIPS, m68k and PowerPC units.
    The most versatile hardware company I heard of.
  • This looks more than a little suspicious. Looks to be about the same as the last article on /. having to do with a major overhaul and weird circumstances. The one about the asian guy coming up with a new company, new product (glossed over Red Hat release) and a coincidental IPO (stock offering). IMHO this is a total crock.

  • Hoax?? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Let me start by saying that I don't understand the Slashdot community's unfair approach to this brilliant, promising company.

    We have been running Xetos for several months in our company, on a custom made massively parallel Iwin supercomputer with 2000 nodes. Each node is an Iwin C64, based on the venerable Commodore 64. Iwin's software is efficient and well written, and we can routinely get about 500 spf (seconds per frame) on Quake 3 without any problems. The high-end graphics hardware we use is also by Iwin, it is designed by Iwin CEO & webmaster Martin and contains about one hundred transistors.It has a built-in hardware implementation of the wonderful Mr.James technology, which is a great help during those long rendering sessions. Mr.James is much, much more than an ordinary help wizard, and can effectively converse with the user using several languages on a diverse variety of subjects ranging from Slovakian folk dances to James Joyce's Ulysses. It should be seen to be believed.

    I assure you that everything on Iwin's site is real, and works perfectly. Iwin's CEO, Martin, is one of the most talented people I've met. He's been quite busy nowadays debugging the Xetos kernel source, and spending most of his time correcting the numerous mistakes of some Linus Torvalds, a nameless, incompetent contributor to he Xetos kernel project, which Linux is derived from.

    Along with Iwin, we have a strategic partnership agreement with LinuxOne, too. I believe LinuxOne and Iwin are both great companies with similar visions and wonderful products. As with most of my colleagues, I also would really love to see a merger of LinuxOne and Iwin, which would undoubtedly have resulted in the greatest company on the scene today.
  • They probably just mean that it can read those file systems. An ability common to existing linux distros.
    ---
    Peace,
    Vilvoy
  • Better hope there are no buffer overflow problems so to speak.
  • Debian does that already. It's called UAE. It only emulates an A500, and there are some things that don't work, but hey! It's an Amiga on your PC! (Or Mac, or workstation or whatever)
  • I guess they read Slashdot too? :-)
  • Who cares about the source - all I here everyday is about "I want the source, yuk it doesnt have the source, no source bargggggggg" etc...

    Sometimes it is nice to get a program that works and you dont have to mess around with - and I would pay for it !
  • Yes, I have one of these. It's got 128MB RAM, 2MB ROM, and a chipped RIM.

  • Unix(tm) looses the rumor to be difficult to use and to be just something for specialists and freaks.

    FREAKS! Ha! Does nobody else have the image
    of elephant man telnetting to the bearded
    ladys box in a draughty old tent?
  • Who said it was a linux distribution? The term "linux distribution" has come to mean "a unix like system with all the unix-like tools, based on the Linux kernel". It is entirely possible to create an OS which looks nothing like unix but using the Linux kernel.


    ----

  • Re:Absolute Nonsense (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Also, is there even an Amiga to buy Kickstart ROMS from anymore?

    http://www.amiga.com/amigaOS35 [amiga.com].

  • doesn't work for me... don't have emacs installed on any of the boxes that i admin... it's vi or "find another system" for me.
    ------------------------------------------
    the amazing bc
    latin/funk flugelhorn & trumpet
    webnaut, music junkie, sysadmin from hell
  • You mean, someone ported Microsoft Bob to Linux? That could be ugly.

  • Kelvin Cline ads anyone?

    Is that me slashdotting you or you slashdotting me?

    If You were a user and I were a geek, would you still LART me? ...OUCH!

    Calvin Klein.....Technology


    _______________________________
  • The Amiga Kickstart 3.1 ROMs are available from a number of retailers all over the world (believe it or not, that stuff still sells). I'm not going to turn this message board into a post of free-plugs for Amiga resellers, but they're out there if you choose to look.

    Actually, as of late the ROMs have been selling in higher quantities, because hardware ROMs are required for the latest 3.5 release of the AmigaOS (http://www.amiga.de/amigaos35 [amiga.de]). It's forcing everyone to abandon their softkick ROM emulation hacks and go out and buy the real thing. Amiga Inc. is bundling the upgrade chips with their OS software for that segment of the population.

    Anyway. This is getting a little off topic. Where were we? Oh yeah... iWin sucks. :^)

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