GuidOS

GuidOS is a general-purpose operating system based on FleetU, built and distributed by the Gudersnipe Foundation. It is highly stable and extremely versitile, serving as the underlying architecture for everything from computers to laptops to cellphones to high-end digital cameras, to any kind of appliance needing more sophisticated control than very basic ICs can provide. GuidOS is near-ubiquitous in the consumer-sector and is the primary user-facing operating system in the private sector. Due to the close arcitecture and inability to tune the kernel, it is not used for high-performance computing or server applications, though a truly-open source platform TelledorOS fulfills that role. Telledor shares about 70% of it's source code in common with the mainline branch of GuidOS.

Usage

GuidOS functions either with a graphical operating system or a command line. Its near-total domination of of the market means users all accross the Known Worlds are familiar with it. Its most visible role is as an operating system for personal computers. There are several competing products on the market, but few can reach the wide-ranging ubiquity of GuidOS. More common are custom-built "implementations", where a more sophisticated shell is built on top of the bare-bones implementation.

As technology advanced, GuidOS kept its same very low operating requirements, which led to it becoming the go-to platform for every device imaginable. Integrated "system on a chip" boards pre-loaded with a hardware-optimized version are sold in huge quantities, winding up in everything from toaster ovens to alarm clocks.

Interface

The standard version of GuidOS runs off of a very spartan graphical interface, with icons and menus to run programs. One of the core elements and most well-known aspect of GuidOS is the mascot, Stripy, who appears as an animated badger in a space suit. Stripy is used throughout GuidOS as a visual indicator, using pictographic animations to communicate information about the state of the system and actions required by the user. Most notably, Stripy will appear with a frown or giving a thumbs-down signal to indicate something is wrong. Stripy is even visible in the standard command-line interface, though he is excluded from more light-weight applications.

Attempts to Reverse-Engineer

The software is programmed and distributed by the Gudersnipe Foundation, who have released parts of the source code in order to assist third-party developers. This has led to numerous civilian attempts to reverse-engineer the entire source code, with limited success. Various groups have over the years identified six so-called "Black Box Binaries" embedded in the code, and which GuideOS cannot run without. The competing TelledorOS was actually created as the result of one such reverse-engineering effort, and required the team to re-write 30% of the source code in order to make the rest compile without those six binaries. Though Telledor allows for the operating system to be fine-tuned for maximum performance, it never achieved the stability of the Foundation-supplied original.

The Gudersnipe Foundation has never formally acknowledged the existence of the Black Box Binaries nor hinted at what they do. Many suspect they are part of a hardware backdoor into the system.

Cost

Technically, GuidOS is owned by the Gudersnipe Foundation, and anyone implementing it is required to pay a licensing fee. In practice, this fees are almost never paid. The Foundation earns money off of GuideOS by selling consumer and professional-grade electronics that run it. That immitators create closes of these products and run on pirated versions is seen by the Foundation and merely validating the success of the product.