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In that case you need to wait for BlueEyedOS or Cosmoe to come along. Those are BeOS API ports on top of the Linux kernel. Meaning a recompile would suffice to get the BeOS apps together with Linux driver support. A worthwhile effort IMO.

Don't forget BlueEyedOS: a BeOS-inspired operating system powered by a Linux kernel. IMHO a very good approach, as using the Linux kernel and XFree86 will take care of the lack-of-drivers problem that the original BeOS had. Also, this will give it decent OpenGL performance for free, which was also one of the weak points of the original BeOS (and will be one of the other sucessors).

That's a very good idea. We should also use rxvt and bash and GNU fileutils, textutils and other command line tools and Perl to give it a decent CLI. Also, APT could be used as a great package management system. That should solve most of the weak points of the original BeOS. I know, let's call it Bebian GNU/Linux!

IMHO a very good approach, as using the Linux kernel and XFree86 will take care of the lack-of-drivers problem that the original BeOS had. Also, this will give it decent OpenGL performance for free, which was also one of the weak points of the original BeOS (and will be one of the other sucessors).

Yellow Tab has a version of BeOS called "Zeta".

I think the story is that they could licence everything but the name. There's an awesome preview up on Zeta Journal.

And there are also the two open clones in the works: Blue-Eyed OS (by building BeOS-workalike bits on top of Linux) and OpenBeOS (a from-the-ground-up reimplementation of BeOS)..

According to this it's licensed under the LGPL.

Discussions on Slashdot are good, but sometimes sterile. Do you think the Linux kernel would be a better kernel for OpenBeOS? Cool! Go help the BlueEyedOS guys. Of course, that would involve a lot of donated work to a software that may never see the day of light, but, if you enjoy coding, go for that.

Some people here seem to not know, or be a little confused about how this company named yellowTAB came to be the BeOS people, and what is happening in the BeOS world at the moment. Also, I'm not associated with yellowTAB at all, this is all my observations.

yellowTAB
Bernd Korz first appeared in the BeOS community when he released a magazine named InsideBeOS. Only one or two issues were translated into english from the native German of the magazine (I purchased the first english edition!). This magazine stopped publication sometime around when Be flopped and as far as I saw, Bernd sort of disappeared again. When Be filed for bankruptcy, there were many outcries from the community for the source to BeOS so that it's legacy could continue. There were several formal proposals from people to purchase the source as well. Then came the announcement that Palm had purchased Be's intellectual propert(IP)... and were not going to continue development of BeOS. Luckily (in my opinion), Bernd was smart enough apparently to ask for a license to the source and not to purchase it. So, before Be sold their IP to Palm, they gave some sort of full license to yellowTAB to release new products based on the source code. Presumably that license just transferred to Palm's ownership with everything else.
So, here we are today, yellowTAB is about to release their new OS named Zeta (sort of BeOS R6) which contains unreleased code from Be plus new stuff and bug fixes that they have added. The article does not make it very clear, but yellowTAB is actually selling RC1 (Release Candidate 1) of Zeta now to the world. The R1 (Release 1) will be available to people who purchase RC1 for 10 Euros.

BeOS rewrites
There are a number of projects that are aiming their sights on rewriting the BeOS. Some totally opensource from conception, others planning on releasing their source after they have a public binary release under their belts. The main contenders that are around at the moment are OpenBeOS (soon to have a name change), BlueEyedOS , and Cosmoe .

OpenBeOS is taking the approach of totally rewriting the entire system. New kernel, new appkit, new interface kit, new storage kit... everything. They're not changing the basic structure of the system, in fact, they're attempting to completely duplicate the system even down to binary compatibility. As a basis for their project, they have used Be's old header files, and written API documentation. They are hosted at source forge and are using the MIT license for all their source.

BlueEyedOS is taking the approach that they perceive the Linux kernel and XFree86 as suitable for building less traditional system on top of them. They are using the Linux kernel as their Be kernel, and X windows as their display. They've released a demo CD so far that is quite interesting and appears very promising. Their code is not available to anyone but their developers at the moment because they've chosen to start their project closed. I've believe that I've heard though that they are planning for a source release later on. The demo CD can still be downloaded from their website.

Cosmoe is a primarily one man show that has taken the Syllable (was Atheos) source code and altered it to run on top of Linux and X. It's author's primary goal seems to be to give the Unix, Linux community a new user interface and the Be API. Code for this system is occasionally released under GPL and LGPL.

The current plan at yellowTAB is to transition slowly from the BeOS code to code from the OpenBeOS project, which is currently moving at its own pace, and released under the MIT licence (tagged as Free by gnu.org). Btw, there are already parts of OpenBeOS in Zeta. So it's already a bit free :-)
There are also other projects to "clone" the BeOS: BlueEyedOS (BeAPI on top of Linux), BeFree, a fork of the former, and other AtheOS derivatives, but IMO none are close enough to the spirit of the BeOS. OpenBeOS chose to get its own kernel (forked from NewOS, from an Ex-Be engineer), and aims at source and binary compatibility.

> 1) Didn't Palm buy BeOS?

Yes, don't expect to see Palm-Be For Desktops thou. Palm bought Be for the excellent engineers the code was a by product. Bits might make it into PalmX.

> 2) Was BeOS closed source or was it open sourced?

BeOS is closed source. However a few other versions have no appeared tring to remake BeOS.
At lest two closed source (Max, and YellowTAB)
At lest two open source, OpenBeOS, based on a brand spanky new kernal, and redeveloped from scrach. And BlueEyedOS, based on Linux.

> 3) Who owns the rights to BeOS PE?

Palm, but before Palm bought Be, Be did a deal with Max to alow it to redistrube it, and did a deal with YellowTAB to not only redistrubute it, but also modified versions of Dano (the next version of offical Be Inc BeOS).

> 4) Who develops these new drivers and the kernel???

Max, YellowTAB (but only for there distributions) and normal developers for gerneric R5 drivers.
Then Linux devs for BlueEyedOS
and OpenBeOS Developers for OBOS.

> 6) What about openbeos? Where do they fit into the BeOS picture??

It will take some time before OBEOS gets a usable version, so the Max & YellowTAB are here to fill the gap untill OBEOS takes off. I'm sure I've seen posts by both YellowTAB and the MAX people that they would like to be come OBEOS distrubuters when this happens.

Your wish was already granted. Take a look at Blue Eyed OS, a relatively new take on BeOS. It uses the Linux kernel with BeOS APIs. BeOS apps will run on it, so long as they are re-compiled. It combines the best of both worlds... Linux's stability, network capabilities, and far better device driver support, and BeOS's user interface, among other things. A bootable CD was recently released a month or two ago. You can get it from the web site if you want to try it out.

I think this is a very good idea. I'm sure some of the former (current?) BeOS users will have a bond with this filesystem layout. Beos had a layout somewhat like this and I loved the way it was easy to navagate. Hey, it could even help out some opened BeOS projects like B.E.OS and Cosmoe

The "Developer Edition" and "Max Edition" are hacked together from the Personal Edition that Be, Inc. released. They are in violation of the EULA that comes with the Personal Edition, but, since they are not making the people distributing them any money, i imagine Palm, or the remnants of Be, Inc. couldn't care less.
For open-source replacements of BeOS check out the following:
OpenBeOS
BlueEyed OS
also look at the following:
beunited
yellowTab's Zeta

The guy writing the review is a horrible representative of BeOS users, i think. it's my main OS at home, and I have had little teouble with it, ever (the only time i went into Kernel Debug land was when I managed to crash snes9x with a corrupted ROM).

OpenBeos is creating a new BeOS from scratch that will be binary compatible with the original BeOS (at first anyway and plan on adding new features that will probably break this later). So far they are coming along at a good pace. They have already created beta's for OpenBFS, Open Media Kits, and their Print Server.

They are using the NewOS Kernel

Blue Eyed OS is an atempt to bring the Be API and interface to the Linux kernel.

YellowTab has some screenshots here: YellowTab Screenshots