'Cosmo' — a C#-Based Operating System

Billly Gates writes "A new operating system called Cosmo has been developed, written entirely in C#. It shows the naysayers you can write a full OS kernel without C. So far, you need Visual Studio to compile and run it, as Mono is not supported. However, the source code can be compiled with the Express editions of Visual Studio. The project plans to add VB.NET support soon."

Old news

[Anonymous Coward]

There haven't been any updates to the site in many months. Dead links left and right.

Can't even get the name right

[Pete Venkman]

The project is called Cosmos.

I'd just like to know...

[vegaspctech]

...who said you couldn't write an OS in C#, or that you couldn't write one without C? Obviously C wasn't used to build the OS that C was built on. And if that someone said they couldn't do it was their reason for doing it, quick, someone tell them that there isn't an OS written in COBOL and that they can't paint your house with a toothbrush. And no, if I say I think it's a waste of your time to paint a house with a toothbrush, it isn't because it's a Microsoft toothbrush or Microsoft paint or that you're painting a Microsoft house, it's because it's a frickin' toothbrush. By the way, I love how the FAQ link takes you to a page that tells you they moved the FAQ instead of just taking you there. It reminds me of all those links wannabe web designers did in the style If you'd like to read about Obvious Anchor Target click here.

Re:Full Kernel without C*

[spauldo]

If past rude and evil behavior of the corporation which spawned a language is a reason to avoid the language, WTF are you doing using C?

I'd argue that the reason isn't that the language was created by a rude and evil corporation, but that it is controlled by a rude and evil corporation.

AT&T may have created C, but it didn't control it in any meaningful way. Yeah, the standard for years was "whatever the AT&T compiler will compile", but AT&T as a company didn't care about it. They weren't allowed to sell software because of the monopoly agreement they had with the government. By the time they were allowed to sell it, the cat was already out of the bag, and they focused their efforts on the whole SysV vs. BSD war.

Microsoft views .NET as a tool for lock-in. They intentionally sabotaged Java on Windows for years while they played catchup - hence why Java never really caught on as a language for full applications. Java's no better, really - Sun tried the same thing, more or less.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't use C# or Java or whatever - I don't really care. Just bear in mind these languages were not designed with the goal of creating programs - they were designed to control programmers.