RISC OS Open

RISC OS Open Ltd. (also referred to as ROOL) is a limited company engaged in computer software and IT consulting. It is managing the process of publishing the source code to RISC OS. Company founders include staff who formerly worked for Pace, the company which acquired RISC OS after Acorn's demise.

The source code publication is facilitated by a shared source initiative (SSI) between ROOL and Castle Technology (CTL). ROOL hopes that by making the RISC OS source code available for free it will help stimulate development of both the RISC OS source code and the platform as a whole.

A development version of RISC OS 5 has been available for the BeagleBoard and related hardware since early 2009.

Operations

ROOL set initial goals to make the source code easily available (on the web), and also to establish a wiki, forum and bug tracker. These have been available since December 2006.

Operations exist to facilitate tasks related to ROOL's goals. Additionally, staff undertake development work on the code themselves. Since early 2009, ownership, development and sales of the Acorn C/C++ tools were transferred to RISC OS Open. As a development from the initial goals, in 2011 ROOL introduced a bounty scheme to encourage further development.

RISC OS

RISC OS /rɪskoʊˈɛs/ is a computer operating system originally designed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England. First released in 1987, it was specifically designed to run on the ARM chipset, which Acorn had designed concurrently for use in its new line of Archimedes personal computers. RISC OS takes its name from the RISC (reduced instruction set computing) architecture supported.

Between 1987 and 1998, RISC OS was bundled with every ARM-based Acorn computer model. These included the Acorn Archimedes range, Acorn's R line of computers (with RISC iX as a dual boot option), RiscPC, A7000 and also prototype models such as the Acorn NewsPad and Phoebe computer. A version of the OS (called NCOS) was also used in Oracle's Network Computer and compatible systems.

After the break-up of Acorn in 1998, development of the OS was forked and separately continued by several companies, including RISCOS Ltd, Pace Micro Technology and Castle Technology. Since then, it has been bundled with a number of ARM-based desktop computers such as the Iyonix and A9home. As of 2012, the OS remains forked and is independently developed by RISCOS Ltd and the RISC OS Open community.