Well, after 2 years of work and nearly 25,000 lines of (mostly) Silverlight code, I’ve come to several conclusions that lead me to put myOSity into open source mode very soon:

Too little time, too little time…

I just can’t spend enough solo hours coding this project to bring it to the place where I envisioned it to be.  I’m hoping that the Silverlight community will find at least some value in the effort.

Technology moving too fast for a single programmer to keep up…

As Google so plainly put it recently, the desktop computer will be a thing of the past in a few years, in terms of the average user’s primary access point to the magical Internet.  Though I did have some longer term plans for myOSity to bring it to smaller form factors (Smartphones), I realize that I will not be able to keep up with current trends.

When?

My plan is to release myOSity into open-source soon after .net 4 and Visual Studio 2010 are both released RTM.  The reason for this is rather technical.  Basically, myOSity is utilizing various “cutting edge” frameworks from Microsoft (Silverlight v4, RIA Services, Reactive Framework [Rx], just to name a few).  Rather than release the code into the wild with these platforms in their various “pre-VS2010” states, which is already very confusing and difficult to manage, I’ve decided to release it post-VS2010 with all the frameworks (hopefully) in their standardized form.  Doing so will require me to do a bit of recoding.  I also need to make some changes so that myOSity will compile locally against a local database instance (.mdf) for easier use by the open-source community.  This will also take some time.

I’ll post another entry when the actual release happens.  I’ll be publishing the project to Codeplex.

I've adapted the Microsoft Silverlight demo of chess, the original verison of which can be found over at silverlight.net in the community gallery, to work as a myOSity application.  It ain't pretty (yet) but it works.  Check it out and make a post in the discussion thread of Garbo Chess (see this post for details the new Discussion System) to request features and provide feedback.

I am pleased to announce that myOSity was recently accepted into the Microsoft BizSpark program.  For those of you who don't know what BizSpark is all about:  It's a program specifically designed for small-business startups and provides software, support, and exposure - all courtesy of Microsoft.  A good program that myOSity is proud to be a part of.

Received the notification email for my pre-order just after midnight.

Good stuff! Now if I only had someone (read: anyone) to help me with the visual design of myOSity... (hint, hint!)

I've recently changed the way guest accounts are supported in myOSity.  Previously, all guests shared the same account on the back-end, meaning that I had to disable certain features that required unique accounts - like chat.  Now visitors who choose to login as a guest will receive a temporary unique account.  Very soon I will be implementing an auto-join to a public chat channel for all guests, so that folks can experience the chat system and interact with each other in real-time.

I'm also in the midst of redesigning the web-services component of myOSity to take full advantage of the new "RIA Services" framework from Microsoft.  After careful evaluation, I feel this is the right way to go for the long-term.  Without getting too technical, using RIA Services will simplify the way that myOSity client/server interaction happens.  I'm hopeful this will yield performance benefits, and also make future development easier and faster.

Well it had to happen sooner or later!  After careful review of the Microsoft offering, I choose to take it as good news - an affirmation that myOSity is moving in the right direction.  Plus, I have plans in the works for myOSity that take it well beyond Microsoft's vision of what a "virtual operation system" can be.  Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of Microsoft platforms.  myOSity runs on Silverlight, which is a Microsoft platform afterall!

So cheers to Microsoft - nice work!

Oh and just for the record, Google Analytics shows two visits to myOSity on July 9th and 10th from Microsoft's network: 

First, about the name.  "myOSity" is a combination of several thoughts.  The first is "my", which has the obvious meaning of ownership.  "OS" means "Operating System", which speaks to the look, feel, and extensibility of the platform.  "Sity" (borrowing the S from it's predecessor) phonetically nods to the social networking components of the platform, meaning a place where people gather and live (a "City").

Plus it was the best domain I could find, considering every single word, partial word, and common phrase is already registered (mostly by domain speculators just trying to make a buck, I might add).

As I write this, myOSity is in an early Alpha stage of development.  It utilizes the Microsoft Silverlight engine (more on that in a later post).  You can have a look around by going to http://www.myosity.com, and then after a short load time you will see a login box similar to this:

Click the link near the bottom and you will be logged in as a guest.   Note that you may be prompted to download the Silverlight plug-in first.

From there, use the bar at the bottom of the screen to access the various features of the platform.  These components are in various stages of development, and so if something doesn’t work as you expect, it’s probably because it isn’t finished yet.

One thing that will jump out at you right away is the desktop background is quite busy with activity.  This is a demonstration of myOSity’s ability to have “live” backgrounds.  Gone are the days of simple static pictures (although those are an option as well).  For another example of how this works, open up the Applications window and choose “Starfield background” (seriously, you've never really played Solitaire until you've done it while flying through space).

I’ll dive into each component in more detail in later posts.