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Who we are We are Tomahawk Computers Pte Ltd, Singapore, the makers of the Tomahawk Desktop operating system. Tomahawk Desktop operating system is a general purpose operating system for personal computers as well as for laptops and notebooks based on BSD code with K Desktop Environment (KDE). Tomahawk Desktop is free for personal use. Earlier versions of the Tomahawk Desktop was based on Linux for practical reasons. After evaluating various BSD offerings we have decided to use the FreeBSD as the foundation for Tomahawk Desktop kernel and for its key libraries. One of the distinctive features of the Tomahawk Desktop version 2.0 is all user applications run in real-time as in Apple Mac OS X. Ability to run user processes in real-time is a fundamental requirement for professional audio and video production and playback. This is a modular operating system, most of the components are open source packages used as is or modified to suit our requirement, we also incorporate software developed by us and third-party proprietary software from other companies under license. The core operating system is also developed by us thereby maintaining our ability to continually research and value-add the operating system. We strictly adhere to Open standards. What we do, Why we do? Repercussions of using insecure operating systems for years are now evident. Latest onslaught of Conficker reminds the danger that we are in. It has come to a stage most of the computers in the world cannot be trusted any more to type a password, credit card number, etc. Bots also known as software robots running in your computer without your knowledge, come in the form of viruses and worms, watch every key stroke you type, read every document you read or write, secretly visit child porn and leave a trail behind for the police to catch you, etc. etc. etc. No one knows better about you than your guardian bot! Odds that bots operate in your computer are very high. Microsoft Windows 7 vulnerable to 8 out of 10 viruses. If you use your computer to browse Internet (in fact, just connected to Internet is sufficient), read your emails, plug-in a USB thumb drive, watch an embedded video, it is safe to assume they are already in and waiting for you. Time to time they bring in more payloads without your knowledge and prepare for more sophisticated attacks on you and on the world. You may not be knowing that your computer sending thousands of spam emails a day on behalf of their remote masters. You are the cat's paw. You may not be aware of millions like you sending hundreds of millions, if not billions, of spam emails all over the world everyday. As of March, 2009, 94% of the all emails sent are spam! And it is growing at an average of 1.2% per day. As of 07th April 2009, 97% of the all emails sent are spam! You may not be knowing how you support criminal gangs to thrive to feed funds for even further criminal activities. Cybercrime is as lucrative as drug trafficking. Vast amount of Internet traffic is wasted due to spam emails which otherwise could have used for you to browse Internet faster or to talk to someone over the Internet without interruption. Its because of people are taken for a ride, there is no solution to the spam problem. It is growing, growing and growing. Before long the Internet infrastructure will be choked with spam traffic. The Internet infrastructure is the life blood of our personal lives as well as of our economies. Have you ever thought what is the Carbon footprint of spam? How many million servers running day and night to identify spam? How much energy servers burn to identify spam? How much energy computers burn to send spam? What is the impact of spam in our environments, global warming, greenhouse gases? The question we have being asking is answered on 16 April 2009. The Carbon Footprint of spam is 17m tons of CO2!!! That is, a day without spam amounted to taking 2.2 million cars off the road!!! Since bot networks are under the command of their remote masters, they are not only used for sending spam emails, are also used to make Internet-based attacks called denial-of-service attacks on vital institutions and installations as and when needed. Denial-of-service attacks were directed before on various vital institutions and installations and put them out of service for days. Number of zombie computers in today's bot networks are counted in millions. Conficker itself infected more than 15 million computers as of 26 January 2009 as per Wikipedia. Today we live under mercy of such massive bot networks. These are time bombs waiting to explode. This horror story is further explained in The New York Times blog post. The real horror story is in fact is yet to unfold. In 2011, world is switching to IPv6. Current IP address scheme is IPv4 which is only limited to 4 billion separate public IP addresses. Due to the scarcity of current IP addresses, many use network address translation (NAT) to map many private IP addresses to one public IP address in homes and offices. Since private IP addresses cannot be contacted from Internet, computers running on private addresses are protected from viruses and worms coming from Internet. The IPv6 address space is so large, it is possible to assign a separate public IP address for every device that needs to connect to Internet. This makes many millions computers currently hidden behind NAT routers get directly connected to the Internet. It is possible a large number of these computers to get compromised and create super massive bot networks if they do not use a secure operating system. This waste of time, productivity and resources due to spam, alarming dangers of identity theft and threat of denial-of-service attacks should be stopped. Hope we don't have a disagreement on this. Do we? Many have surrendered to co-exists with viruses and worms, which is obviously not the way forward. So what are your options? If you do not want to throw away your PC, sadly you have no viable option yet. Most of the alternative operating system development projects run as charities, or develop at their own pace when they are free. They scratch developer's itch, ie. features offered are to satisfy the developers, not the consumers. Further, it is illegal in various degrees for Original Equipment Manufacturers to develop closed source binary drivers. Without original drivers from OEMs, how can you get your vital tasks done if you switch to an alternative operating system? To offer lasting solutions to viruses, worms, spam, identity theft, denial-of-service attacks, remote hijacking, etc., we have embarked upon a passionate and very ambitious effort to make a secure graphical desktop operating system based on widely known Unix strengths for both closed source as well as open source applications and drivers to flourish without any legal hassle. The best favour you can do for yourself and to the world is switch to Tomahawk Desktop when it is available. We expect a mass switch over to Tomahawk Desktop. We see a massive market. Tomahawk Desktop is a healthy product for our planet. We intend to establish as an ethical brand. We even openly invite our competitors to collaborate and invest with us and benefit from our efforts. Should our efforts be appreciated or be stopped? Thereby, what we essentially trying to do is public good. No public good can sustain without sufficient revenue. To ensure that we have not only sufficient revenue, but to make significant profits, we intend to use innovative and unusual business practices. We would be recruiting technological and business stars. For our advantage, we are amidst a severe global financial crisis, such technological and business stars are now available. To maximize the shareholder value, we give Tomahawk Desktop for free for any personal use without any string attached! It is just one of our unusual business practices and at the same time we consider it is our corporate social responsibility as we use lot of open source software to make the Tomahawk Desktop. We give public a dignity, now you cannot call them pirates. We intend to earn a significant revenue from our generosity! How ironic, unusual and interesting the Tomahawk Desktop is. How can you help us?
Why we switched to BSD? GPL license requirement of Linux make it illegal for graphic card manufacturers, printer manufacturers, sound card manufacturers, and various other device manufacturers to develop and distribute closed source binary drivers. Therefore, users of earlier versions of Tomahawk Desktop were left with no reliable drivers to get vital tasks done. "Closed Source Linux kernel modules are illegal" - read more info "any closed-source Linux kernel module or driver to be harmful and undesirable" - read more info One of the most important technological development regarding file systems is ZFS. It not possible to import ZFS to Linux because of GPL licensing issues. [wikipedia] Further, most of the libraries in Linux are either full GPL or combinations of GPL and LGPL, thereby, making a legal mess to develop closed source applications for Linux. This is a serious issue especially for small and medium sector companies who find it difficult to afford a copyright lawyer. Development of an operating system for desktop is not in the domain of a one single company. It requires supporting drivers and applications get developed by various OEMs and third-party companies. It must be legal for them to do so. We empirically realised that a viable desktop operating system cannot be developed based on Linux. Opportunity Current predicament of the desktop operating system market is people are in fact left with only two choices, either live with very serious security issues or buy software tied to hardware at high premium. This situation obviously create a lucrative and large market opportunity for us. Mission Our mission is to offer a secure operating system for desktop, laptop and mobile devices markets based on widely known Unix strengths for both closed source as well as open source applications and drivers to flourish without any legal hassle on wider choice of hardware. Audience Tomahawk Desktop is targeted for following audiences: Tomahawk Server operating system is not released yet. |