Twenty Years of RISC OS Open

RISC OS开源项目迎来20周年庆典，这个曾经封闭的小众操作系统如今已完全开放，社区力量让它焕发新生。简单说，RISC OS是一款轻量级操作系统，20年前还只有官方团队能修改代码，如今任何人都能参与开发、提交补丁、报告问题。这就像把一栋私人别墅改造成公共图书馆，大家都能添砖加瓦。20年间，从最初只公开少量源代码，到现在整个系统几乎全部开源，社区贡献了海量代码，还让系统能运行在更多硬件上。虽然普通用户很少直接接触RISC OS，但这类开源项目的意义在于，它证明了小规模社区也能长期维护一个复杂系统。对于科技爱好者来说，这意味着可以自由研究、修改甚至定制自己的操作系统；对于普通用户，它则提醒我们，软件的未来掌握在开放协作中，而不是少数公司手里。20年坚持不易，这既是对过去的守护，也为未来的创新保留了火种。

Safeguarding the past, present and future of RISC OS for everyone News Downloads Bugs Moonshots Bounties Forums Library <a id="hubssolib_login_noscript" href="https://www.riscosopen.org/hub/account/login_conditional?return_to_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.riscosopen.org%2Fnews%2Farticles%2F2026%2F06%2F20%2Ftwenty-years-of-risc-os-open"><img border="0" alt="Log in or out" src="https://www.riscosopen.org/hub/account/login_indication.png" width="90" height="22" /></a> const logged_in_html = "<a id=\"hubssolib_logged_in_link\" href=\"https://www.riscosopen.org/hub/\">Account<\/a>"; const logged_out_html = "<a id=\"hubssolib_logged_out_link\" href=\"https://www.riscosopen.org/hub/account/login?return_to_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.riscosopen.org%2Fnews%2Farticles%2F2026%2F06%2F20%2Ftwenty-years-of-risc-os-open\">Log in<\/a>"; const container = document.getElementById('hubssolib_login_indication') function hubSsoLibLoginStateWriteLink() { const regexp = 'hubapp_shared_id_alive\s*=\s*([^;]+)'; const match = document.cookie.match(regexp); const flag = (match ? match.pop() : null) || ''; if (flag === 'Y') { container.innerHTML = logged_in_html; } else { container.innerHTML = logged_out_html; } } hubSsoLibLoginStateWriteLink(); window.addEventListener('load', hubSsoLibLoginStateWriteLink); window.addEventListener('pageshow', hubSsoLibLoginStateWriteLink); Latest news edit Twenty years of RISC OS Open Posted by Steve Revill Sat, 20 Jun 2026 15:13:00 GMT On 20 June 2006 we incorporated RISC OS Open Ltd with one slightly mad ambition: to take a proprietary operating system and open it up to anyone who fancied helping. Twenty years on, that has largely happened, and the RISC OS of today is in far better health than the one we inherited. To mark the occasion, here is the story so far, with one highlight for each of our first twenty years. Our thanks go to everyone who has written code, filed a bug, funded a bounty, contributed in our forums and wiki, tested a nightly build, or simply cheered from the sidelines. None of it would exist without you. Twenty years, a year at a time Year 1 (2006-07): it started with a plan to do the unthinkable. Castle and ROOL announced a shared source initiative that autumn, and by the Wakefield Show the following May the very first RISC OS sources were in public hands. Year 2 (2007-08): batch by batch, more of the OS went out to the community, and the early momentum earned ROOL its second Drobe award, this one for “Best show of initiative”. Year 3 (2008-09): a first for the platform. A build of RISC OS 5 ran on an IYONIX carrying a great deal of community-contributed code, shown off to a warm reception at the Midlands Show. Year 4 (2009-10): the plumbing grew up. Nightly autobuilds began rebuilding and testing the sources automatically, while Jeffrey Lee’s port to the BeagleBoard, our first step towards cheap RISC OS hardware, took an Icon Bar award. Year 5 (2010-11): a neat idea took shape. The Bounty Scheme let the community pool donations and vote with their wallets for the features they most wanted to see from the roadmap. It is still going strong today. Year 6 (2011-12): working with Piccolo Systems, ROOL published an open source SD and MMC filing system, giving the BeagleBoard machines native memory-card support and laying important groundwork for the stable release ahead. Year 7 (2012-13): the watershed. RISC OS Pi brought the OS to the Raspberry Pi, a credit-card computer with BBC BASIC only a keystroke away, and put RISC OS in front of a whole new generation. Our website traffic records did not survive the week. Year 8 (2013-14): RISC OS 5.20 landed as the fi