One day like today, back in 2005, we made public an idea about what the next step in working at Internet should be from our point of view. We called it “eyeOS“, because we wanted to create something visual and intuitive (eye), and similar to a traditional Operating System (OS) for the end user, taking advantage of the latest web technologies and sharing capabilities.

It’s really difficult for us to specify key moments in this three years. Competence has appeared, and sometimes eventually disappeared. We have seen how a market we started without knowing we were doing it has been growing and growing, and there are now more than 50 web operating systems out there. We have given more than 35 conferences about this concept and eyeOS recives about 250.000 unique visits per month now.

Of course, there have been problems during this three years. But all those problems have had a common point: They have been solved thanks to the community behind eyeOS. eyeOS has grown with its community, and some of the members that were there since the first days are today the people who mantains the eyeOS Websites Network, forums, blog, wiki, mailing lists, and even creates some parts of the eyeOS main code.

This is why eyeOS survived in some difficult moments and this is why today eyeOS in the de facto web desktop.

Today, eyeOS is celebrating his third birthday. Thanks to every one of you.

Mat Harley, writer at Datamation has written a great article about the finalists at the Most Likely to Change the World SourceForge award. It analyzes one by one all the finalists to see why they are most likely to change the world.

From the article,

[...] EyeOS, if developed to the point where users can quite literally take their desktops with them anywhere, could prove to be invaluable. There are instances where bringing along a notebook, assuming it is in sync with the files on your desktop, can prove to be more of a hassle than a benefit. [...] (by Matt Hartley)

Read the full article!

This is just a small note to tell that Lars Knickrehm, who is the most active user in the eyeOS Forums, manages the official eyeOS websites and programs some of the base applicatios (and grea plug-ins, such the Translations one), is now officially posting on the eyeOS Blog.

It’s a pleasure for us to be able to introduce members from the eyeOS community to post here in the  blog, to mantain and discuss the most hot points inside the eyeOS community.

So, just a couple of minutes before the first Lars’ post, we just want to say, in name of the whole team:

Welcome, Lars!

As the eyeOS French Blog already posted, the great French publication at Internet about technology, Clubic, has written a review of the Web Operating Systems panorama, and which is a very good read.

The article is called “OS en ligne : découverte de trois bureaux virtuels” or “OS online: discovery of three virtual desktops“, and you can read the original article in french here and a english translation from Google here.

Thanks, Clubic!

The eyeOS Developers Community has been evolving since the first days at eyeOS. Nowadays, a developer that discovers eyeOS has a wide variety of resources to get introduced to the eyeOS applications development, communicate with other developers, publish ideas and bugs, etc.

Today, a new user asked for help in the Spanish forum about what should he/she do to start programming new applications for eyeOS, and Jose Carlos Norte answered with a small but great summary of almost everything available for new developers:

The eyeOS Developers Community Start-Page. The initial point for every developer, with a summary of all available resources. Available in many different languages (talk with Lars K. if you would like to translate the websites to your language!). Direct links to the eyeOS Developer Manual, the Getting Started guide…

The eyeOS Documentation Center. For those developers who have already read the Developer Manual and are already programming or starting to program eyeOS Applications. It’s really useful when you need to know which parameters should be passed to a widget, how to use a library or service…

The eyeOS Developers Mailing List, specially good when help is needed or when we’re stacked programming some application. Also useful for suggestions inside the eyeOS code, how to prepare new releases…

Finally, the Launchpad Resources. Mainly: Bugs and Blueprints. Useful to report and track open bugs that could be solved (some developers send patches to the mailing list with possible solutions or workarounds for open bugs), and to see or send new ideas about eyeOS and applications that could be developed.

As you can see, there is no reason for not starting today to program eyeOS Applications