Castle have admitted that it will be "many months" until a merged version of RISC OS 5 and 4 is ready to be released to end users.Although the ink from Friday's agreement is still drying and the announcement (penned later that night) excited many users, exactly how the future merged OS version is to be released is still on the drawing board.
Jack Lillingston, Castle managing director, argued that this is no small task. He added that there is five years of source code divergence that needs consolidating, stressing that the OS "convergence" is for the benefit of RISC OS. Castle will initially receive all applicable source code dated prior to the end of Q1 2003, from RISCOS Ltd.
Castle see themselves as the ones to take RISC OS into newer, stranger places while RISCOS Ltd. concentrate on the desktop side of affairs. Companies are welcome to licence RISC OS from Castle or RISCOS Ltd., provided it's done within certain "parameters", as Castle put it. Advantage Six, for example, will continue to be a ROL sub-licencee.
Last month, the fruits of Castle's set top box development work was showcased at the IBC, a large broadcast and entertainment media trade show.
Links
Castle website