Altair project is cancelled

Hi, I'm Andres Gomez, AnGoSystems CEO. Today, I bring you bad news: Altair project is cancelled.

Why?

All those days I was asking myself about the true purpose of making a VB OS. The answer I got was clear: "Nothing". I started making fake Operating Systems for fun, and for practicing in the VB language. The first "OS" I made was one made in PowerPoint, and then I migrated to Microsoft Visual Basic. I cancelled two projects: GoVaOS (I only released the first version) and later LeafOS. Why? At first I was bored of programming an app that I was almost sure no one was using daily, and second I lost both OS files when my hard disk broke down. Then looking another people's OS in YouTube, I decided to start on a new project: Antares, that I imagined as the best VB OS on the web, with a lot of features that another VB operating systems didn't had. I released it in August 2011 and I think it was, for a while, one of the best VB OS ever. Antares was downloaded by a lot and people and many people asked me to help in the project, then I announced the next version: Altair, I created the Dev Team and invited all to join for helping with apps and code. This seemed to be a great project in progress.

Developing Altair was not easy, I wanted it to be not only a "fake" VB OS, but a desktop environment that anyone can use daily as an alternative to Windows desktop. Yes, it sounded a bit ambitious, but people loved Antares, and I was almost sure they will love Altair too. What happened? My Gmail got a lot of messages everyday. There were loads of people sending me apps and ideas, and eveytime I answered: "You are welcome, your app/idea will be included in Altair".

But I really didn't know it would be hard to apply all those ideas in the VB OS, until I realized everyday I was more than 3 hours programming, and even so, Altair was far from being finished. In June I took a rest and I started to think about this project, the people that was in it and how long it would take me to finish. Finally I realized making a VB OS has no sense, it's a waste of time, maybe people can download it and use it, but later they will forget it because it's fake, and there is still far from becoming a real OS. After weeks confused, today, I decided to cancel Altair permanently. I want to start on another projects, and I'm sure those will be more useful for everyone. AnGoSystems will continue developing apps.


What can I say to everyone?

At first, I say to my Dev Team and everyone that helped me in this project: thanks for all, you are great. I give special thanks to Guilherme Aquino, my best developer and partner, all your ideas were a great help, and to Zychro Code, thanks for advising me with a lot of ideas and troubleshooting. My deepest apologies to anyone for making you send me apps and code that will not be released. I won't publish any code you sent me. Probably the App Store will be continued for developers that want to publish their apps. But for now, I want focus in other projects.

To http://mundodosvirtuaisos.blogspot.com/, I will be sincere: your website is ridiculous, you say things you don't know about the VB OS projects and I didn't ever care about your reviews about what OS is better, and I think nobody cares. Whoever you are, please don't waste your time in that. Take it as an advise.

To SmarkSoft, I advise you to stop copying, last images of your OS ShiftACE are so similar to Altair. Please don't do that, it has no sense, you can desing things by yourself, and you can make it better.

For people that were waiting for Altair, I'm sorry for taking this decision, but only think... If I release Altair, would you use it daily instead of using Windows desktop? I'm almost sure your answer will be NO.

And finally, for people that are working on VB OS, I councel you to stop spending your time. You can use it in more important things, you can make better apps in VB that you can sell and get money from them. A fake operating system, no matter how good it is, won't give you an important recognition or money, I tell you.


What is gonna happen with the code?

I don't know, I probably will include it in future projects. Altair was a great help for me to learning more about VB developing, and I don't want all this work to be in vain.

Thanks again for all your help and work, and thanks to people who believed in this project. Hope we can continue working together on other future projects.

Sincerely,

Andrés Gómez,
AnGoSystems CEO