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What Would Happen To Linux If BeOS Were GPL'd?
j2demelo writes: "What would happen to Linux if BeOS were to be released under the GPL? How much competition, if any, would this bring upon Linux? I for one would love to see it happen. It would mean another low-cost alternative to Windows on the desktop, allowing computer manufacturers to reduce prices even more. We know Linux isn't currently ready for mainstream desktop use. Could the open sourcing of BeOS give it the kick-in-the-butt it needs?" Before you all start the advocacy wars, I'd like to point out that if BeOS was converted to an Open Source License, it would not mean the end of either OS by a long shot. Competition in markets usually means an improvement of the products in that market, that would mean that both Be and Linux would have to improve. What improvements would both OSes make and how would this affect the Open Source Operating Systems market?
Would this mean that we could finally get rid of the horror that is X? Im not a X coder, but I have been told it is hell.
--matt Cowger
Fucking bullshit and a very lame try bastard. Put any page's name in front of @ and it will show up. Son of a whore.
Most likely, the good points of the BeOS architecture would be incorporated into Linux... and some things in Linux would go into BeOS (do to released licensing pressure). This would be a very good thing for linux... but mostly on a usability side.
:) is that it doesn't make radical enough changes. Distributions are all so alike, that it's sickening. It would be much more interesting if they tried a fundementally different architecture. Perhaps apple's work could be just another "distro" of Linux (I know they aren't based on linux. The point being that they actually tried a different naming heirarchy... wow. ;)
Unfortunately, a lot of the cool things that BeOS can do are because of the overall architecture. It is highly unlikely that the fundemental unix like architecture of linux will change. Instead, we will have to wait for a preemptible, pageable kernel to get developed. Then wait for filesystems to get far enough along to support "interesting" things.
Linux's main problem (which is also the source of much success...
Anyways, one could claim that the Linux community is very good at cloning prior art, but not very receptive to radical developments of it's own.
-Chris
Since we're on the topic might as well consider Windows under GPL. (hehe I know its not an original idea, but its my first post and needed something kewl to say)
I wouldn't quite agree with your statement that linux isn't ready for the desktop. It seems that each new version of any distribution gets even easier to install, and much more functional than windows. For example, the newest release of mandrake (7.2) is extremely easy to install. My friend, with absolutely no linux experience whatsoever was able to install it without reading ANY docs, and didn't run into any problems. I use mandrake on one of my main computers, and now I can't stand using windows, because *I can't do as much with it, as easily*. This doesn't apply only to mandrake. I also use slackware a lot (more than mandrake, actually). I find it a cinch to install, and using it is just fun!
:)
There are many programs that now can be used on the "desktop", such as the new KDE office suite, the GIMP, and many other really powerful programs. Overall, I'd say that linux is MORE ready for the desktop than windows.
Of course, that's all my own personal opinion, feel free to debate
-mdek.net
I don't think it will hurt the opensource market at all, in fact, i think it can only help. Linux is strong, and still going strong, as is the flavas of BSD and BeOS won't be any different. It will pick up new users, and people might start using it more, however, it won't affect linux users and others. BeOS isn't all that much like linux, and a lot of people won't want to switch. I have used BeOS a little, and the GUI reminds me WAY too much of MacOS...anyway..I think that it won't hurt the opensource market at all, and if anything, it will detach some of the robots from microsoft to start using it.
The anti-salmon
/. is a commercial entity. goto slashdot.com
I like Be in many ways, but Be is really no closser to being ready for mainstream users than Linux. Linux may be somewhat more complicated, but Linux and is more atractive to skilled users, and has security features and services that they will appreciate. Be is very easy to use, but since it has so few applications, it's hard to recommend it to non-techies, and techies will most likely be happier with Linux.
what would happen?
in a perfect world, the best parts of linux and be would be combined into a great OS.
i think that Be would give linux the push it needs to become the desktop OS that everyone wants. With Be's great multimedia support, Be and Linux could create that OS that everyone dreams of.
if the right people got together and used the basis of Linux and Be, it could be beautiful.
xavii aka bob
it could help improve gnu/linux, as some of the features of BeOS could get integrated into gnu/linux....like the capability of hotswapping CPUs....and a few other of the benefits of BeOS could be brought into gnu/linux..as well as some of the benefits of gnu/linux into Be...and THAT would make both become viable in their respective markets. Finally...there could also be the capability to more easily port linux apps to Be and vice versa, thus improving both again....
I question the reasoning in Cliff's comment after the story. He's citing the common idea that competition in a free market results directly in an improvement in the competing products, and I'm not sure this applies to the OS community in such a direct way. After all, how much pressure to improve itself has Linux felt from *BSD? What about Darwin or the Hurd? Being newer than most to the community, I put this as a question to those of you who would know it firsthand.
-- "Perhaps the truth is less interesting than the facts?" -Amy Weiss, RIAA
First of all, I know next to nothing about BeOS except for it's link to an anime called Serial Experiments Lain, which cmdTaco seems to love. Oh, It apparently has a great filesystem too, but I don't know anything about it, or can compare it to something, like ReiserFS.
To relate this back to the last story, and I mentioned I know nothing about BeOS, but I'm guessing it doesn't use XWindows, (The huge, clunking monstrosity that runs as root). If the Amiga toolkit was GPLed, would there be any chance of making a unified Windowing system, leaving all the hustle and bustle to the OS advacates. (FreeBSD! Linux! FreeBSD!! Linux!!...)
I would love to see BeOS gpl'd
I have used it before and love it, the only problem is that Be has a relativley small team of developers and they don't have enough driver support for the things on my existing computer, I would have to get another one to run it right.
I don't really see that it would compete with Linux in all that big of a way.
I remember an interveiw with Linus on a radio station here in seattle (99.9 kisw for those of you reading from here) where he said that he had created it because nothing else really suited the way he wanted to use a computer and he wasn't really trying to compete with windows he just wanted their to be more choices the same way that "Mac" is a choice.
Is this just a "what if?" question or has something been hinted at from Be?
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
another data point arguing for the importance of platform-neutral file formats and programs which produce them by default.
... how would you like medical charts that required every doctor who wanted to look at them and even had your permission couldn't do so without having the same brand of printer that created them?
...
To argue for that, let me argue for a second against the opposite situation;)
Microsoft Word, though I'm not a fan, is an adequate program for manipulating strings of words. It has find-and-replace (my favorite missing feature in pine;) ), a spelling checker, etc. Without getting into my particular complaints, I concede that many people like MS Word. But MS Word *could* be a morally / aesthetically acceptable program to me for all its failings, but it's not now. Why? Because its default file format is obfuscated and proprietary, and requires someone else to have either their own copy of Word or a special limited-purpose reader, and is difficult on anything but a Mac or Windows-running PC.
That's lunacy. Analogies fail. It's as if
At any rate, I'd like to see an open sourced BeOS (not that it seems to be in the cards) if it would poke people with the idea that HTML, SGML, RTF, plain text and other such *un*obfuscated formats are the way to go. Documents in (even half-decent) HTML I think will be more likely legible than Word version X in 20, 30, 100 years.
Anyhow, the continuing rant
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
If BeOS were GPLed, we'd get to see some apparently very clean multimdia code. That could then be incorporated into something which would run on Linux or other Free operating systems.
The problem is that Linux is a geek's operating system, and although you will have developers for it (probably the same type of steadfast people who developed for Amiga), you won't have the same momentum as Linux does.
What would happen, though, is a great Free operating system for your grandmother. Let's face it, Linux isn't right, no matter how much you dumb it down. OS X isn't Free, and neither is QNX (or however you spell that bugger). For Free Software to take off, we need a Free OS which does the kinds of things that Windows and Mac have done well, be just what a person sitting at home or at thier desk needs, and nothing more. That means a PC with lots of applications, a very limited number of uses, and a very simple interface for hardware and software configuation.
Network security in this sheme would come from the idea if no apps are running, it would have no open ports.
Simple as that.
- Serge Wroclawski
ok, i'm probably going to get moderated down for saying this, but... probably nothing. the open sourcing of other operating systems, darwin from the MacOS and plan9 haven't done anything to linux. the open sourcing of beos (which is _HIGHLY_ unlikely) would have NO effect on linux, aside from a few kernel patches if the license would permit (which it wouldn't). so, rob, can't you find a better way to generate more traffic? here's a few ideas for you to help add a few more $ to the money bin (like from duck tales haha)
Ask Slashdot: which is better, freebsd or linux?
Ask Slashdot: should i replace my NT server with linux?
Ask Slashdot: is mysql ready for the enterprise?
all of these discussions are just ploys to generate banner ad revenue. but, i KNOW that there have to be lots of decent stories out there getting rejected, just look at k5, it's pretty decent.
------------
a funny comment: 1 karma
an insightful comment: 1 karma
a good old-fashioned flame: priceless
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
BeOS may be better on the desktop than Linux, but it won't beat any operating system anywhere unless it has useful apps. I'm thinking a high-quality word processor, a spreadsheet, and a good, Java enabled web browser. Maybe a GPL BeOS release would spur development in these areas, but what would draw *developers* to BeOS and away from Linux? Probably nothing.
I am not a lawyer.
I actually think BeOS is the coolest desktop OS I have ever used. Just to keep the record straight, I normally use and develop for Linux, and have played with everything Windows, Linux, OpenStep, Be, MacOS, and a couple others, but by no means every single OS out there. But in the end in my mind BeOS wins. It is really snappy, has a greay interface (a little rough around the edges every once and a while, but really cool nonetheless), and keeps things simple on the surface. But if you want, there is also that command line that lets you run all kinds of Unixy stuff a little deeper in the OS. So, basically you have a Unix-like OS (definitely not a flavor of Unix, but modeled after the same idea) that has a wonderful, very fast interface built in - Like OSX, only a lot better! The whole graphical nature of the OS is built in (unlike X on Unixes), meaning things like driver updates, time changes, etc (the normal maintenence stuff) is easy, but behind it is the power of a Unix like system. This is probably about the tenth time I have said it, but I think that is a really great design.
So, why do I use Linux more that Be, even though I like it so much? One real reason - I know more about Linux, have more apps that I use a lot under Linux, and don't have a big enough hard drive to give both a respectable amount of space. So, in the future I may easily swith to Be full time (as long as they don't drop the OS for BeIA) and make use of the X server that has been ported to it for any X stuff I need. But I think Be really has a great product on their hands.
Posted from the wireless couch.
They actually ban ip blocks?
I seem to recall that slashdot will never censor thier forums, in fact that was the crux of the whole Microsoft Kerb5 thing.
Banning ip blocks to prevent posting to the forum is CERTAINLY censorship.
And I consider myself on the knowledgable side of things. *shudder to think*
I am also in love with BeOS's file manager: No web browser, file reader, bloatware beast here (you hear me Windows, KDE, and Gnome?), just a program that does what a _file manager_ is supposed to do - manage files.
Posted from the wireless couch.
At the risk of being attacked brutally...
I think that more people cling to the GPL because of linux than the other way around. I don't see a lot of people screaming towards the HURD project, which is a pretty good concept.
I think that more people attack the BSD license because of what certain advocates say, rather than the licenses actual content. I am a BSD user. Anybody who has seen my car knows this.
I think that a lot of BeOS would get incorporated into Linux, but it would take time, especially considering the parts that are fundamentally incompatible, but that is beyond the scope of this discussion.
And BeOS isn't going GPL. Why don't we talk about if Solaris or SysV or HURD, oh wait, that is GPL, go GPL instead.
What would happen if every linux project switched to the BSD license? Would everyone leave linux and switch to BSD?
(BTW, I also have a Linux box that I use the hell out of)
Eh...
The *BSDs are best suited for the server market while BEos is a unix designed with multimedia in mind. There in the middle is Linux trying to do it all. It want's to be a server, a desktop OS, and do multimedia. However, if BEos were to go GPL or even better, mold itself after the less restrictive BSD license, then it could mean some trouble for Linux.
Think about it, why use Linux as a server when you have BSD? And, why Use Linux for Desktop/multimedia when you Have BEos? Maybe Linux just needs to try and find itself and stop being all things to all people. Hopefully BEos or FreeBSD won't do the same or they risk going the way of Linux.
http://www.microsoff.com/linux
http://www.microsoff.com/linux/ (for the goat sex paranoid)
With these duplicated efforts, you'd think they'd go with BSD instead...
/me ducks
"Watch these suckers jump when I get root." - l33t j03
I at least would sure like to see how they did that movie cube thing.
If BeOS went GPL, wouldn't that cripple their ability to profit off of the embedded market, which they seemed to be aiming at in that last article about their demo system meant for home use?
(Parody of FDR's speech: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a day that will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan...")
You make a pretty big assumption here... that being that BeOS itself is not a "rock solid OS" and porting it's GUI to linux would help.
This really isnt the case. BeOS itself is just as stable as Linux. Nearly everything runs as a server on top of the kernel, and if it crashes, it just restarts that server.
As far as porting the Be GUI to linux, it also couldnt happen. It would require basically recreating the Be API from scratch, and rewriting almost all of the linux kernel due to different ways of handling scheduling and threading.
In fact, large chunks of the Be GUI are already opensourced at opentracker.org, but porting it to linux would be VERY difficult.
With all these problems, doesn't it seem more likely that people would start porting the various linux libraries to BeOS? The end result would be the same really, but to assume that linux would be the better solution to start building on is probably incorrect.
Little Herbie Feldstein of Fort Lee, New Jersey writes to me, Roseanne Roseannadanna, with this question:
(hint: ask slashdot)
Doh, thats what I get for not checking my links.
NOT OFFTOPIC, just a correction.
As a supporter of the BeOS and a user I find it frustraiting to see such a good product be hinderd by lack of good core devlopement. Sure it has a healthy collection of applications many which are open source and GPL'd but the core of the OS remains closed and Be's tiny team has to deal with all that code by themselves making Improvements Slow. Were still waiting for OpenGL and Better networking since last year when it was promised to us by the end of spring. Insted we got a anemic release that should have been called R4.8 insted of R5. I dont care how many changes under the hood they made or what-not it wasnt enough to justify a full point release. BeOS installs in under 15 minutes, is much much easier to use then linux and doesent require any kind of inferior kernel recompiling when you change the hardware(A microkernel is definatly the way to go, drivers can be dynamicly pluged in.). Also fully compiled binary distribution is also encouraged in the BeOS community unlike in linux where compiling allot of open source programs tends to scare away novice users. Point is BeOS could beat Linux in terms of useability and the OS community could give it a kick in the ass and bring the improvements we need allot faster!
I cannot believe Slashdot posted this lame question.
Why would Be want to do this? Their business plan is based on SELLING their software. Open sourcing their software might as well mean "we are closing shop".
The difference between Be and the Linux companies is that Be is based on selling a product, and the others are based on selling services.
BeOS will probably never, ever be opened. The technology would get bought before that happened.
BTW, be has open-sourced the BeOS front-end at opentracker.org.
EverCode
Because by examining what would make it a successful move we can see what is truely lacking in Linux. Specifically, Linux is already a well established network OS. It has started making inroads into the embedded market. It has remained outside the mainstream though. While lack of applications is a key reason, it is not the end of the story. One has to look at why there are a lack of applications. Top reasons are a lack of stable and even marginally standard API's for application development. Yes, there is OpenGL, but beyond that there is very little there for game developers. For productivity apps there is X and the various toolkits out there. While each is good in its own right (as well as bad), the fact that there are so many different toolkits leaves companies having to pick sides in what is largely an even divide between Qt and GTK (not to mention all the less popular toolkits available). These toolkits are also still in heavy development leading to unstable API's in some and a lack of features in many. This last point means that a company wanting to get involved in a linux app right now has to keep on the bleeding edge of linux to get the same level of functionality that they are accustomed to in other OS's (windows, BEos, QNX, etc). By examining what makes the pipe dream of BeOS becoming open source (at least in large part, similar to QNX), we can see what Linux needs to provide to really break ground in the mainstream and the industry as a whole. Here we saw one reason, there are obviously more to be recognized and hopefully implemented.
Some will say that looking at BeOS for ideas on what is needed for mainstream acceptance is flawed since BeOS didn't make it to mainstream itself. While there may be merit to this keep in mind that Linux has already gained wider acceptance and industry attention than BeOS ever did, as such those facets of BeOS that we might be able to provide in Linux are likely to make Linux stronger. Also, QNX is quite possibly already where a Linux/BeOS would end up. It is worth looking at that and seeing if it is going to make a difference to have an BeOSified Linux when it would be in direct competition with QNX as well as Windows. Right now Linux enjoys a certain separation with QNX that has allowed it to lag behind QNX (in many regards, if looked at objectively) without drawing large criticism from the small device embedded industry. Can Linux be everything that QNX and BeOS is (it already has the "more" parts, more robust networking, larger device driver support, more configurability, open source, etc)? That is what would be necessary in order to survive the move to that next level of application space friendliness. Don't think that Linux could just blow by QNX at that point. QNX would gain attention as a viable desktop replacement if Linux was touted as such, after such improvements as have been described. That would be a hard choice for many software companies to make, it already is in some segments.
I strongly believe that the best strenght of the GNU/Linux OS is that pepole using it are not clueless endusers. We are definitely different users, using a different OS. We build good/stable/secure linux systems because we know what we are doing. The reputation of linux is strongly based on that fact.
As linux will gain shares of the desktop markets, I fear this reputation will dissapear...
Furthermore, because of the graphic/multimedia nature of the BeOS I think it would be a much better fit for the desktop, especially if it become open source!
--
delete free(system.gc);
So, this is another case of nVidiaism. They have contracts with other people which disallow them from opening the source. Stop bickering about it. Stop dreaming about it. It just ain't gonna happen.
Even if it could happen, I wouldn't want it to. All you linux zealots would dive in and try and start 'fixing' things. Then we'd get a "microkernel" as large as that monolithic piece of shit linux 2.4.0.
-G
BeNews Editor
Linux is only free if your time is of no value
Linux is only free if your time is of no value
Be in Your Senses
If Be was going to even stand a chance, they'd have to come up with a mascot as cute as Tux.
I just don't see that happening.. unless they used a porcupine that, instead of needles, had pixie sticks. I love those things.
I consider myself an OS whore. I run as many OS's at home as I possibly can, and I like having them on seperate boxes. My main computer is still Linux, but for the past year and a half I've been playing with BeOS 4.5 and now 5 and so far, my only real complaints with it has been with software and hardware support. I can't put it on the computer I want simply because BeOS doesn't support the hardware. Actually, at this moment I'm typing this in NetPositive on BeOS. Unfortunatly NetPositive doesn't have many useful things, like the ability to run Java. Although there is a BeOS port of Oprah. Anyways, I find BeOS to be pretty stable, with a very very very quick GUI. Yes I know most of us are in love with the command prompt, but lets face it people, most things these days are created for the GUI.
I feel if BeOS were GPL'ed (which I really don't think it will) both BeOS and Linux will both benefit from it. They both have a lot to offer to each other, especially from those of you that complain about xfree86 being old and crappy. Anyways, thats my $0.02
End Of Line
c'mon Nvidia!
:)
I'll be a total convert
BeOS is a great little OS, don't get me wrong, but it wouldn't compete with Linux. BeOS is great for multimedia and Internet Appliances, but it's not a robust, useful OS such as Linux. Net Positive is way to annoying a web browser anyway. ;)
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
The BeIA os your refering to is totally different from BeOS. It isnt really even an OS in itself but a suite of "OS parts" in which Be will put together the right combination for your specific application. OS'ing BeOS wouldent effect the BeIA.
OS/2 Contains propriety 3rd party code, that means the companys that hold those licences would have to also ok the Open sourcing.
You really are an ass because if you have been to www.bebits.com www.benews.com or any other beos site you will se that BeOS is used by people and their are more users out their then allot of people think. Do a little research before you make ignorant comments. BeOS would have the benefit of incorporating linux code into it the majority of people here seen to prefer BeOS over Linux. Linux is made by "geeks" who think that a complicated OS actually would actually attract the windows users, when it scares all who attempt to use it back to their easy to use system. Bottom of the line linux has allot of backing but BeOS has allot of core technology that beats linux anyday.
BeOS Personal Edition is under a very restrictive license (they even ban any commercial use). Users have no freedom to share modifications and learn from the code--it's not free, merely cheap.
I am sure all of you folk are drooling at the prospect of an OS designed right from the ground up would be open sourced so that you could grab the goodies. Unfortunately for you, it won't happen. Be Inc now makes their money from BeIA and BeOS is relegated to the role of development platform. Nonetheless, many technical features cross back and forth between the two OSs. BeOS is not likely to crack that nut wide open while they are still breathing, but even if they die, I have it on good authority (a Be engineer) that just too much licensed technolgy, NDAs etc, are in place in key parts of the code to prevent them from releasing it. So the speculation stops here! But I do find it amusing how many of you think you could improve linux by looking at Be. What happened to all that Open Source can innovate BS? So far, all I see is theft of the good (and sadly bad) ideas from Apple and MS UIs tacked on an ancient OS never intended to be a desktop OS which was anyway not an open source invention itself. Not there is anything wrong with any of those things! Why reinvent the wheel? BeOS began in 1991 roughly the same time as linux. And they did it with less than 100 engineers. How many people purportedly contribute to linux again? Be have innovated. They did it right. Too bad MS OEMs have killed commercial threats to their OS. Sometimes capitalism, even in software is a good thing. Try Be. I did. I switched. Cheers.
Marketshare!=success. Even if they gained 100% market share, if they're giving away their product they won't make a cent on it.
--
They would make money on service contracts... who better to provide you with an embedded solution using BeOS than the BeOS team?
the benefit of GPL would mean 1000 more brains would be writing and porting apps for their OS.
it is a win-win situation for both BeOS the company, computer users, and the open source community.
also... this could be the straw that breaks the xbox and microsoft's stranglehold on the gaming platform since BeOS beat MS in opengl implemenation performance, something linux cannot claim.
j. herber
OK. Flame retardant suit on.
:)
It would be, just, the greatest thing. Unix/Linux/BSD could get on with what they were designed to do, be a multiuser operating system. We could all concentrate fully and properly on what ought to be everyone's number one concern: Making DAMN CERTAIN Win2K server/advanced server/datacentre server never gets a foothold. Keep that damn thing on the desktop, at most.
Use all these vast quantities of effort currently going into, well: making X do things it was not designed to do; trying to get open source drivers for video cards and having to reverse engineer things; ditto sound cards; in fact anything to do with persuading very good server operating systems to work on the desktop.... And point it towards doing great things server side. Let's see a damn good debugger for Zope; Some clever stuff to do with hot swap PCI; Lots of top notch hardware failure tolerant work; Innovate, dammit, you know you can.
And with the people that want to squeeze that last 5 fps? Or those who want to make nano-small virtual machines for running applets etc. Fine. Good. Great even. Use something that was designed for it from the ground up.
I guess that's the point. An open source Be would be just wonderful on the desktop. Unix is just wonderful on the server. Wouldn't it be great to use the right tool for the job?
Here comes the napalm....
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
You're right, Word has the ability to create clearer / more open file formats -- and I assume (though I don't have it even on the Windows partition of this laptop) that you can probably change the default output in Word's preferences. But the default output is more important that it's changeability implies, because most people probably aren't even aware that it *can* be changed, and of those who do, probably most never change it anyhow. Inertia and indifference are like the paired nuclear forces there;)
... the reason I hope that would encourage file-format neutrality is by dint of being *another* OS running on common hardware, and therefore a likely target for text files, web pages, spreadsheets, movies, etc. Software producers, at least and especially the commerical ones, want to sell to as many desktops as possible; it's in their interest (I allege) to provide file fomats which allow their products to work more than one place / context.
And as for how BeOS being opened (if it were, which it won't be in the medium-term, I know I know) and cross-platform file formats, well
I think the less the OS running on a particular machine, and the harder it will be to assume that a certain subgroup of users are using the same OS, the better argument can be made for providing output that works cross-platform. You wrote: "... but if Microsoft wants to make theirs proprietary, that is their choice after all. There are open alternatives, and their reluctances to use them may well bite them in the ass one day."
Agreed on both points. It *is* Microsoft's choice, and surely defensible on some grounds. Just not my preference as someone mailed too many Word documents;)
Anyhow, idle chatter,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
You're making the assumpotion that the only reason that someoen would develop an OS would be so that they could create the **best* OS on a technical front.... maybe open sourcing BeOS would create a better" OS, but Be,inc, the driving force behind the BeOS would not... and that'd be detrimental to the BeOS in the end. How would be stand to make money? Who'd pay their architects to devise improvements to their OS?
Yes, LInux has grown under the open source umbrella, but it still remains quite a few leaps and bounds from the reformity that BeOS possess...
Be was going to revolutionize the world: It didn't.
Be was going to sell the hottest boxes: They stopped.
Be was going to challenge Apple on their own hardware: They didn't.
Be was going to be THE "Multimedia OS": Disapeared from sight.
Be was going to take the x86 world by storm: Not even a breeze.
Be was going to break down the initial-investment barrier by releasing a no-price version: Nobody cared.
Be is going to become an important embedded OS: We'll see.
Fer goodness sakes - they can't give it away, why is making it Open Source gonna change things?
A couple of headlines, a two-day wonder, a surge in downloads then pretty much the same things that's been happening all along to Be - not much. First it'll get picked over for whatever goodies can be gleaned from it, a few more zealots will join the Be camp, a couple bug-reports will be sent in, several even with a pointer to the relevant code. Beyond that - snoozer.
There are lot's of kewl OS's out there ranging from LISP machines to Oberon to nano-kernels - nobody cares .
Be does offer more then the typical niche-OS but nothing so incredible it's a must-have. It doesn't scratch any itch that can't be scratched otherwise. It doesn't offer any dramatic price or performance benefits that can't be papered over with the standard quantities of green-stuff. It isn't a developer's-dream or a user's-delight or an administrator's-joy: It's nice enough at all of these but it's not so outstanding at any of them to make it an imperative.
Worse yet it's a horse in an increasingly crowded field. Aside from the MS stable of OS's (what - a dozen or so variations out now?) there's of course the Linuxen, various BSD's, Apple's dark-horse Darwin/MacOS X, QNX, and a couple of bajillion boutique & school-project OS's. Be is just one more small-OS trying to make the jump to the big-leagues.
More power to it but Open-Sourcing ain't gonna be the break that makes it all happen for them. A half-dozen commercial OS's have been Open Sourced in the past year or so & none of them have benefited greatly from it. Heck, Apple even packages their Darwin for x86, a platform they're not even on & the active outside developers on it can be counted on one hand - a maimed hand at that.
I honestly like Be - they've got some great stuff, but I just don't see them getting much out of Open Sourcing, certainly not enough to chance chance eroding their existing advantages. It may be A Good Thing in the big order of the universe but in the pay-the-bills world it wouldn't seem to be a prudent move for them.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
I dont think BeOS is competition for Linux, just like Windows ME is not competition to Windows 2k. They are different type of OS. BeOS is a personal OS, multimedia OS, gaming OS. Linux is for serious development, server work, and general hacking :-). It's not competition, they can even help each other. Cross platform application can be made to compile well on both oses as Gimp, and many others already do.
And also in a small scale it's not the price that matters, it's the liberty and most of flexibility and quality.
I have used the BeOS a great deal, even as my primary OS for a few weeks, and I can say without a doubt that most anyone who has used it saw the potential. If the BeOS had a few more 'killer apps' for it, it could really catch on. People's complaints about its interface being to mac-os are valid, but imagine a gpl'd beos: There would be as many options as X! I would be thirlled to see be get gpl'd. However, it wont happen.
In the 'BeOS Bible' (inclued with BeOS 5 Proffiession Edition) there are interviews with the Be programmers. They are very clear about how their code is rarely documented properly, and that it would be nearly impossible to ever go open source.
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
I think there are very few people that contribute to the world of computing as a whole, and they don't do it by showing people what is possible.
Besides, programming isn't that hard. I'm sure an attempt to copy what Be has done would be possible, and would probably already have happened if people really wanted it. I think wanting source code to help you implement something is admitting defeat.
Be has most of it's advantages because it was built from scratch by some smart people who didn't focus on pleasing everybody, but on doing a few important things right. Once you try to please too many people, things go to hell. OS's get too big and no one takes the time to do any one thing right. Microsoft has shown that the mainstream will sacrifice quality for features, and at the same time shown that these features do not make a better OS.
Remember the Red Hat to buy Be rumour?
 
Well, at current stock prices, it would be a steal. Any one looking to pick up Be & Beos, now would be the time. Be = cheap stock.
I think there are very few people that contribute to the world of computing as a whole, and they do it by showing people what is possible.
I think the question is, what if everyone could share code? The BSD License makes it so that everyone can have the code; the GPL makes it so that everyone has to share.
And I think that Linux would get another journaling filesystem, and maybe some threaded C libraries, and that would kick ass. And BeOS would get a whole lot of drivers, which would also be very cool. And maybe they could eventually merge together.
Although it'd be more unlikely for Linux and "Linux projects" (which often tend to compile on other Unixes as well) to switch to *BSD, I think what you'd see is a lot more code sharing, but then you'd have corporations involved as well. That would be the big difference.
I don't think it's going to actually happen, mind you, but being able to share code is definitely a good thing, and also the point of free licenses. It's a shame that these two are incompatible, but they also have different goals.
I'm not a BSD user because developments like MacOS X make me uncomfortable. It's an ideological difference. I don't like the idea of someone modifying my code and not showing me what they did. I'd like to know, in the same way that a playwright would like to know if you changed the Third Act on him while producing his play, and then made money on it, and told everyone else that it was "your play" now, based on their play, but only your company had rights to your version...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Of course that guy has heard of it!!!
http://www.slashdot.org/users.pl?nick=drwiii (for the goat sex paranoid)
"Watch these suckers jump when I get root." - l33t j03
Say you have just downloaded 100 pics off your digital camera, and they're named pic00001.jpg through pic00100.jpg - and say you have a GUI filemanager with thumbnail display of graphics... tell me, how is your CLI going to help you pick out the 10 pictures you took of your dog faster than I can point and click on the 10 icons with a little picture of my dog inside them?
Tab-completion only works when you have files with dissimilar names.
Grep only works on text files.
Ls only works if you don't need to preview your files in any way - I guarantee you it's faster for me to double-click on 20 different mp3s to hear the first few seconds than it is for you to type (including tab-completion) mpg123 St[tab]n[tab]*beep*[ctrl-D]G[tab]-Girl[tab][enter] . Same goes for images.
Not to mention being able to select many files with vastly different names (such that wildcard globbing wouldn't work) and manipulate them - there's another operation where GUI filemanagers are a definite plus.
And so what if it did? If opening up Be resulted in an open OS that was better than everything else in every way shape and form then who the hell cares if the competition (yes, Linux) goes by the wayside? And visa-versa, of course...
Now, again, I'm not saying that is going to happen (not by a long shot :), but let's not get too emotionally attached to any certain OS simply for the sake of being emotionally attached to an OS. I don't use Linux for the t-shirts. If there's a better tool out there all things being equal then that's what I'm going to use and dedicate myself to, the rest be damned.
I like BeOS, and think it's an attractive, well thought out design. However, I hardly ever fire up my BeOS box.
Why? Same reason that people claimed prevented them from using Linux on the desktop 2 years ago - No Apps. (One wag I know once claimed BeOS was just like OS/2, only without the applications!). Now, I never quite understood that claim on Linux, as I was running an office suite, and had 6 CD's of goodies with my RedHat 4.2 PowerTools, but still people claimed it. With BeOS, there's a little more substance, Emacs supposedly doesn't work, there's no X support, Mozilla is proving so challenging to port, last I heard they were on M14, and it usually wouldn't compile. These are common apps. I can run all these on my W2K box, so why would I run BeOS?
Also, if you're interested in Be, check out the BeOS Bible, for a glance at why Mac folks are so pompous, it's the same vein. The final nail in the coffin (other than pathetic hardware support - 5 NIC's? C'mon that's unusable!) was when it crashed. I have *NEVER* had Linux crash on me in the past 5 years, on many, many servers and desktops. I had some good hopes for BeOS, and so did the guy who wrote "in the beginning was the command line" - the sf writer you all love, I just can't remember his name right now.... I wonder if he still uses it...
The Be GUI would certainly not replace X in any of the many circumstances in which one actually uses the remote display capabilities of X. Sorry, but many of the currently existing Unix/Linux desktop machines are at universities and _do_ have the bandwidth to effectively do remote display. Hell, even a cablemodem is enough.... And a lot of people use that capability.
The red, the yellow, the green, the orange and then the blue; a blue so deep and vibrant that it made the clear summer sky look like a piece of faded crepe. The string too; white as a fluff of cotton. I wound the strings tightly around my hand as the balloons slowly lifted me to a low hover. A gentle breeze carried me over the rooftops of middle-class houses with fat, middle-class families and rich, middle-class barbecues.
I savored every scent as I floated along, subtly changing directions at the whim of a whisp. Some families cooked chickens, others cooked steaks, most lined up in droves for a good old cheeseburger or hot dog. Occasionally, a child would look up from the feeding trough, smiling and pointing at the rich color of my balloons. Excited grandparents would look up and wave at me, smiling wide enough that I could see the metal holding their partials to the rotting yellow-green remains of their natural teeth.
A strong gust of wind carried me northward along Cherry street. I groped around in my jacket pocket and found my cigarettes. I managed to get one loose and into my mouth, where I was able to light it with my patented Zippo. Even the winds couldn't overwhelm the strong scent of lighter fluid. I flicked the Zippo shut and returned it to my pocket, savoring that precious first drag of smoke like it was a french kiss.
It was only a few minutes before I had drifted several blocks north. I caught that sweet scent. My hairs stood end, rising to attention like a million soldiers faced with Old Glory. My pulse rose and my blood pressured harder into my veins. I felt a new life absorbing into me. The odor was unmistakable and it was close. closer.
I looked down at the particularly indestinct house just below me. In the mowed eveness of the rich green lawn, I saw the vision I had bated my breath for. A small lady; tiny in frame. Her brown hair flowing in the breezes that carried me to her. Her brown eyes looking up at me; her gaze was like a warm fireplace in mid-winter. She knelt on the ground, raising her legs up and down, beconing me to her in her catlike manner.
One by one, I raised the glowing ember of my smoking tonic to the balloons causing them to burst like a mind on hallucinogenics. Slowly, I descended until I was low enough that I could unravel the cottony strings and plop easily into the mattress of green.
Gently, I took Natalie in my arms. She looked deep into my eyes, "OSM, a graceful swan you are. And Michael ( jellicle@inch.com) is a fat turd."
i took a bitchslapping for natalie portman!!
i took a bitchslapping for natalie portman!!
http://bebugs.be.com
Pretty public rug there, eh?
Linux is only free if your time is of no value
Linux is only free if your time is of no value
Be in Your Senses
While lots of you will disagree when I say this, but I think that the largest potential for linux is in the server market, and not the desktop. I'm not saying linux doesn't make a good desktop OS, however the only way to get it into corporations initially is via the server angle.
Seeing how Be wasn't intended to be a network(read server) Operating system, but rather a desktop one, this wouldn't preclude any linux growth. The possibility to share code both ways is quite advantageous though. Looking at Be's OpenGL stats makes me drool.
Cheers.
In order to clarify what this moron is saying (in Portugese, no less), I thought I might as well post the translation (a la Babelfish). Now you can moderate him -1 offtopic. Translation is as follows. As well as in the life - and the amateur radio - nor all the participants of the colloquy have interesting things to say, but some have, and many people have developed lasting friendships through the IRC Until marriages have resulted of relationships initiated for the IRC. To say the truth, some people if had become so vitiated to talk in the Internet that already exists a newsgroup of the entitulado Usenet alt.irc.recovery. The value of the IRC depends on as you use it. The IRC can bring you company when you nao obtain to sleep, familiar union can contribute it and to reduce its telephonic account. It can also display the behaviors to you disagreeable. Colloquies can become savages and, say thus, " inventiveness ", and any one (man or woman) that it uses one nick feminino could be assediado. It also exists a great amount of hot colloquies, unprincipled people and mental trash in the IRC, and must have precaution when leaving children to have access the IRC without supervision. But, as an adult, you he is free to visit only the channels that you to choose, and also exist a great amount of positive communication happening. The IRC gained international fame during the Gulf War in 1991, where the whole world notice had come through the wire, and the majority of the IRC users whom they were connected in the hour if had matched in an only channel to hear such reports. The IRC had a use similar during the revolt against Boris Yeltsin in September of 1993, where using of IRC of Moscow they were giving interviews to the living creature on the unstable situation of there. As you can see, the Internet Relay Chat is a great way to talk with the whole world people on any subject. Beyond the most brought up to date notice the world, it exists much aid and channels of bed technician where you can get immediate aid with perplexos problems of computer in an easy way to understand!
-
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
Linux and BeOS are made for different sorts of people. BeOS is to Unix (Linux in particular) what MacOS is to Windows, in terms of simplicity of interface. We won't get into superiority arguments between Windows and MacOS users.
BeOS does not follow standards that are close to anything in the Unix world. In fact, now that I think about it, MacOS X seems to be a lot like BeOS. People who use Linux want a free, light Unix to use on their hardware. People who use BeOS want MacOS with bash.
I don't think GPL'ing BeOS will change that. For most people, the attraction with BeOS is that it is so foreign... I have been quite curious about it. However, there is a cost-free version available for download, and it will even install itself in spare partitions if you please. Freedom to modify the code will improve userbase very little.
Of course, I'm talking only about workstations and servers here. Maybe it turns out that BeOS is remarkably scalable, and fits well in the embedded world. This will of course change the prospects of Linux making it into embedded electronics.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
While quite admirable, the problem with BE has been mostly due to the people behind it. When they could have gone with Apple to create an admireable OS, they were simply too proud. When they could have blown themselves onto the X86 Gui mainstream, they were trying to charge $50 or so for the X86 beta version... Trying to compete head on on the MAC platform was suicidal at best without Apple's collaboration since they make both their own hardware and software. To make things worse, all this time, BE has lacked any truely compelling applications. While it's probably very easy to develop on it, the company hasn't done a good job marketing this OS. Rightnow, they are targeting the embedded arena, however they still don't have any compelling applications or SDK. Combining a medium level application like star office with BEOS will satisfy a whole range of people and needs, enough for them to turn the backs on $100 + $250 respectively for win98 OEM and office OEM Anyway QNX pre-empted them. A GPL license or being bought over by a company like redhat will be a very good thing. At least with that, they will within a short time gain dominance in embedded gui interface and graphical user interface for consumer product within a few years. It will do great for things like multi-media applicance, home and industrial automation etc. And finaly, it will give linux the final transformation it needs, get rid of X. Either it will get absorbed into linux or linux will get merged into it. While Linux is going places and won't disappear, it still has too many squeletons in the closet in the form of it's monolithic architecture. A few years ago, BE wanted I think $400 million dollars for the company. Things have greately changed since then, and I am wondering if they won't accept $75 or $100 Million at this point in time for the OS source code. They'd still be able to make money off consulting and writing applications. Perhaps the open source community should consider taking it off their hands... Imagine creating a Free BEOS foundation where people can submit tax free donations and where companies can purchase sponsorship for a few years for a fee... Frankly, I believe in periodic renewal. Making linux better or even freeing BEOS will not and need not destroy companies like microsoft in the long term. It will most likely force them to evolve. skunk Akumeka Technology Http://www.akumeka.com
Just because Linux is open source it doesn't mean it's in a special class of it's own - it still has maintenance and other costs associated with the TCO that Windows and Be have associated with them.
Linux developers should think this way because if they did, then Linux would be much easier to use than it is now.
Cheers,
Daniel.
--
Daniel Zeaiter
daniel@academytiles.com.au
http://www.academytiles.com.au
ICQ: 16889511
Linux is only free if your time is of no value
Linux is only free if your time is of no value
Be in Your Senses
flamebait aside, I am a firm believer in beos, I saw it at comdex 2 years ago and paid for a copy of 4.0 before it was free. I think its a kick ass operating system, its fast, it boots quickly and it was made by people who know how to make a file system and memory management.
But as a gamer and need for speed freak I have upgraded my system since 4.0 and thus lost video driver support. Beos has tied its fortunes to the embedded market and forsaken the desktop. They have not released a new video card driver in 2 years. The os is not open source so not just anyone who can string together a couple lines of c can write their own video driver. Sure, no crappy drivers get released, but the bottem lin is that no drivers get released. Drivers seem to be a pain in the ass time consuming thing, but linux hardware support kicks the shit out of beos.
Now, after years of neglecting the desktop, the only real way for beos to make inroads on the desktop is to go gpl. Free is not good enough. -Aaron
We have the best government that money can buy.
I've had this happen lots of times to me while sitting in Linux, but I've never seen a GUI file manager as being the solution.
For a huge honkin' list of mp3s, I'd open up something like FreeAmp if I wanted to double-click on them to hear the first few seconds. (Generally speaking, this isn't what I spend most of my time doing. I'd rather run mpg123 with a large random playlist in a different console.)
If I've got a bazillion different images, I'd open electric eyes or something similar with a thumbnail browser.
But never have I had the need for a basic GUI file manager. Now, if you're talking about specialized filelists inside of GUI programs, those can be helpful quite often. But I don't want an unhelpful generalized version of that.
And 90% of the time tabbing around in the command line is faster than even those specialized GUI programs.
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
/*Competition in markets usually means an improvement of the products in that market, that would mean that both Be and Linux would have to improve. */
Blah blah blah, standard OSS party line. The problem is, that only happens in situations where there's a monetary incentive. In the OSS community, it means so much duplication of effort tying up so many developers that no one ends up getting all the things they need. 3 different BSDs, god knows how many different slightly incompatible Linux distros, etc etc. It's great to have choices, but OSS is not without its drawbacks in this regard. The other problem being that many people won't develop a full-featured product without being kicked in the ass by a corporation - do you see any decent integrated IDEs for UN*X? Any good multitrack sound studios? People aren't making these things on their own, and they won't because it's too much work to polish the applications like corporate programmers do.
That said, I should point out that I'm not a corporate programmer, and I use quite a bit of OSS myself. But unless people come up with a way to make OSS produce really high-quality apps as the rule, instead of the exception, people are going to keep booting into Windows/BeOS/MacOS etc.
-lx
I ate some oatmeal this morning, what affect will this have on linux?
Hey do you have nothing better to do then flame people new to the slashdot arena. He even stated it was his first post. Please cut this kid some slack and just cause he spells like his peers there is no reason to attack him. Sigh but i guess that is what the world is coming to. Oh did you click the little post anonymously button or do you not have a slashdot account?
--zer0her0 home: http://zer0her0.info work: http://lgmp.info
I think opening up BeOS would be pretty great, but I don't like this mantra that "competition is always good", because it's not. Just look at the wonderous results of the browser war - there have been hardly any improvements whatsoever in web technology since that competition started. And how about the original fracturing of UNIX? Competition is only good if all the players are honorable and open minded - aiming to win by being the best for the users. Otherwise it just turns into a snakefight.
Besides the fact that BeOS isn't going to be GPL'd anytime soon there is also the fact that that BeOS and Linux were created to do two compleatly different things.
BeOS was developed as a multimedia OS, and Linux was developed as a Server OS. The optimizations that are required for one would destroy the other. ie you can have the kernel doing the majority of it's processing with a video render or have apache running at full speed.. not both.
To paraphrase the perl advoticy article... there is no one OS for every task. Just like PHP is easier than Perl for certian projects, BeOS is easier than Linx for certian tasks.
To clarify for our non-geek readers... Both a hammer and a screwdriver will put a screw through a board... but only one was designed to do so..
Dave
btw: no I can't spell... I code for a living
Whats the point of being grown up if you can't act childish sometimes? ---- Dr Who
Be is Awesome thats all there is to it. If more developers would come on board, which GPL would help with ,and port some more apps I'd have no arguments at all with it. All I have to say is if you haven't played with it you should (the personal edition is FREE! http://free.be.com .)
Here's an interesting idea: If there's a feature in BeOS that you like, why not implement it in Linux? There's nothing about Be's code that is so earth shattering that it couldn't be replicated with a little ingenuity. The problem with implementing some of Be's features in Linux, such as their unique file system, is that it would break compatibility.
Linux is still a Unix clone and has all of the benefits and shortcomings thereof. And before you get on your horse and claim "BeOS is based on Unix too!", it is not. Nor is it based on Linux, BSD or any other clone of Unix. Be did implement a Born Again Shell so BeOS could run most POSIX compliant programs. However, that's where Unix compatibility ends. BeOS was written from the ground up, including the kernel, with performance in mind. From a programming perspective (I have over 25 years experience, I might add), BeOS's API wins hands down over all other major operating systems. As for BeOS's lack of drivers and applications: Anyone with technical knowledge of the hardware can write a driver for BeOS. There is documentation on Be's Web site and many examples, BeOS and the development tools are free for the time it takes to download. If there is an application you would like to see on BeOS, by all means write it!
I personally don't think either BeOS or Linux would benefit from BeOS being GPL'd. In fact, I think that BeOS might suffer from too many ingredients in the pot. For example, if I install Red Hat using the "Gnome Workstation" option, it takes up somewhere in the neighborhood of a gigabyte of storage space. This is heinous bloat, most of which the average user (or even programmer) would never use. But trying to make heads or tails of what packages are actually needed would be impossible for the non geek.
Hardly. I've been following the bug database for a while now, and there are tons of posts (read that as good) about the new networking stacka, and things that developers would like to be implemented. Also, the lack of bug reports does not mean a thing. I'd say it's a pretty good sign that with the current release of software that the OS is fairly stable, from a developers point of view.
I really like BeOS, it is a stable, well designed OS and is far superior to Winders. If there were decent apps available for it I would probably use it in some context. It cannot do much of the stuff I do with Linux but if it had a decent GPL'd office suite it would have a place and I for one would start to advocate it.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
I know exactly how UNIX works. I use it (and program it) for a living. However, when I get home from a hard day at work, the last thing I want to do it sit down in front of a UNIX box.
I prefer using my OS to get a job done, not playing about with the OS itself.
I want to load up 3 MPEG movies on my 400Mhz celeron and watch them at the same time with no frame drop. I want to play my mp3's backwards in real-time to hunt for secret (stupid) backwards messages. I want to write code in the cleanest C++ API I've ever seen. I want my CPU load to hit 100% and not even notice because the GUI is still instantly responsive. I want to do a search for files based on an arbitary index I created myself and have it done within a few seconds.
I do not want to spend hours mucking about with text config files so I can get the GUI working...
That's why, 2 years ago, I dumped Linux and put BeOS on my machine instead. My OS use has been stress free ever since.
What if lawyers suddenly became honest?
Imagine if the legal sharks out there stopped pursuing lawsuits that are based upon dubious claims and wholly intended to make their clients a fast buck? What if they suddenly became ethical and just flat out refused to work for companies like Rambus? What if socialists who are busy in some cities suing firearms companies, for supposed damages because hood rats are using guns to kill each other, just couldn't find a lawyer worth snot to pursue the case for them?
Guess what, it ain't gonna happen so why waste time wondering about it?
Or how about this, what if D-O-G spelled cat?
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
It's not possible to GPL what remains proprietary from Be (because of it's partners, or because it would require substantional engineering effort to clean up the code for release, that is: someone must pay for it to happen). However, the source code that most developers desire, the Tracker and Deskbar is available on http://www.opentracker.com. And the developer tools are not limited to the professional version either.
To quote from Be's website:
However, Companies who develop software for BeOS desktop PCs are encouraged to take advantage of free resources like BeOS Personal Edition, BeOS development tools, and more. It is possible to create quality BeOS software without paying a dime.
If you think there's no applications, check out http://www.bebits.com
> Unfortunately for Hurd, for example, they will not have the neccesary developer base to get the ball rolling and self sustaining for a long time. By that time, Hurd may very well be obsolete.
hmm this is not really truth. i've been on debian-hurd mailing list for a year and traffic on it has been steadily increasing and there are probably 20-30 people posting patches almost on daily basis. other kernel project doesnt have much more developers than that. theo said in his slashdot interview that openbsd kernel had around 50 contributors.
-- http://electronicintifada.net --
Very (Be) Groovy... I understand your view. Really!
You'd need a multithreaded kernel for the app_server on BeOS to work. FYI, Be's kernel is rock stable doing all it's neat tricks. At least if you've got hardware with "correct" drivers. And you can't blame Be for not getting spec for Nvidia etc.
BeOS supports a lot less hardware than Linux does. So even if BeOS would be GPL'ed it wouldn't work on many peoples PCs. I, for one, downloaded the BeOS free version but it didn't even boot on my PC.
I still hear people in the industry saying "We don't believe in Linux, because one man cannot replace Microsoft". They are so Microsoft focused that they have no clue what Linux is all about.
In fact, the word "Linux" is very much used to describe open-source software, outside the open-source community. Therefore, a GPL'ed BeOS system would be a "Linux" system...
It will take a couple of years before end-users find out how things work, and we can name it GNU instead of Linux. My grandmother will probably never find out. She knows too well, that Linux is Windows without her favorite bridge game.
Timothy, thank you for the stories you choose to post!
Sigged!
While I've never used BeOS, it is my understanding that BeOS and Linux go two different ways - BeOS is Mac-type computer; it's supposed to be easy to use, and it aims for the same type of customers. Linux, however, isn't really designed for ease of use (note that I did not say "It is hard to use."), and it aims for the completely opposite type of people - computer geeks.
Now, I know, this is stereotypical, but the majority of people fit the stereotype. I'm sure some people will leave Linux for BeOS, but, well... there are people who leave Linux for Windows!
The reason for my filesystem comment is that the one thing everyone seems to envy about BeOS is it's filesystem. I must admit, I haven't done my homework and researched it, but I have heard a fair amount about it, and it sounds like something Linux ought to pick up.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
So what happens if you open source BeOS depends almost entirely on how good the guy who leads GPL BeOS. I'm not trying to say that Linus is the only one who's done any work on Linux (indeed, as many of you will hasten to point out, most of "Linux" doesn't even have anything to do with the kernel), but he has been responsible in a large part for keeping people interested in the OS, and getting them to help out. It's just like a business. You've got crappy management, it doesn't really matter how good your product is.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Exactly where does this Ask Slashdot connect to reality? I seem to have missed the threads asking about how the universe will change when Solaris is open sourced, or Quicktime, or the Macintosh interface, or Windows NT. Isn't it disturbing for all those Open Source fanatic types that there are cool things out there that arn't Open Source, and which arn't going to be Open Source? (I'm talking about BeOS here, not Windows NT btw)
.sig, I salute you.
Whoever it is with the "Open Source, Closed Minds, We are Slashdot"
Believe with me, my saplings.
1. BeOS and Linux made more compatible and make them able to run each others binaries.
2. The focus of Linuxdevelopment is moved to serverapplications, while BeOS takes over as the GNU desktop-OS. Also try to move them towards a common Windowing-system, common tools etc.
Market the two as two sides of the same thing. GNU/Be (Try to pronounce it), the desktopOS and GNU/Linux the serverOS.
Kind of like Win98 vs. WinNT, only both much more stable.
I do believe in Linux as a desktop-OS, but we don't have the best foundation available.
Now.. BeOS will not be GPL'd anytime soon.
Heresy! X is tradition, dammit. We can't break with tradition. We have to keep X with its gaping security holes, its unpredictable behavior, and its massive code-bloat. We can't do anything new, because that wouldn't be traditional. Screw the non-techie users. We don't want Linux on the desktop anyway, that means people who aren't hard-core geeks could use it, and we wouldn't be 1337 anymore. Jeeze, what the hell are you thinking? Abandoning X and going with something new that works would break with tradition, and we all know that violates the cardinal tenets of the Church of *nix. Remember the First Commandment: Change is bad in the *nix world.
What struck me as being the most obvious oddity about BeOS 5 is the disparity between a very nice underlying operating system and API system, and a comparatively childish, clunky user interface. To me, it looks and behaves like something that is trying to be a better Windows 3.1, i.e. Something That Ought Not To Happen (tm).
I'm not saying that Linux is all that better w/r to UIs, but KDE is at least improving over time, where BeOS is more or less locked down on its present look and feel.
$0.2E-32
AlexanderI think that this would be a great thing. Besides the fact that it would make competition, there are great features of both OSes that could to ported to the other. For example anyone who's used Be much knows it has a kick-arse file system and it excelent for multimedia. Linux has trillions of apps and supports way more hardware than Be.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
- Multimedia capabilities of Be
- Stability and application base of linux
"And there was much rejoicing..."--
Give a man a match, you keep him warm for an evening.
Give a man a match, you keep him warm for an evening.
Light him on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life
I don't think that, in the end, it really matters whether a GPLized BeOS will take away market share from Linux. OK, as a Linux user and admirer I would prefer Linux to gain rather than lose market share; but to me (and probably to the FSF as well) there is a higher goal that prevails: the GPLization of another big OS product moves the Free Software movement one big step ahead. After all, it is not about Linux gaining market share, but Free Software gaining market share, and providing the users with more possibilities to do their computer work with truly Free products. Prom this point of view, Linux is just one way to promote Free Software, but in the long term, we can't force anyone to keep sticking to Linux. It's all about providing more choice within the Free Software domain. And whenever a big software product moves to GPL, it is most importantly a big success for Free Software and its philosophy.
Extactly like my subject. Nothing will happen. People who use linux will go on with their daily lives like nothing has changed.
Brielle
If BeOS would be distributed in an OpenSource or GPL license I think it would cause little impact on Linux. What really would cause it may be a boom on multimedia, together with all *NIX.
BeOS is clearly superior to any other OS in terms of multimedia. The fact it is free for the masses is already a big +. However I suspect that this hampers some threads of development. Specially integration with other OSes. If this barrier would be overturned then I believe we could see BeOS suddenly appearing as a *NIX visual interface. There are lots of things on *NIX that demand good quality graphics and sound. And *NIX is surely not the best for that job. Even Linux still looses a lot here. Having the BeOS sources. people could try to overcome these limitations by combining tasks between *NIX computers and BeOS. BeOS is probably the nearest OS to *NIX in this field so that integration could be quite powerful. Imagine a powerful Beowulf cluster calculating 3D virtual worlds and BeOS stations showing it... Yes it is possible now. But still I believe that open source would make a much better job. Specially on what concerns kernel interaction. Clusters could be more tightly integrated for example. Maybe BeOS would be not a station but a cluster member with different tasks.
What about all the Linux GUIs vs BeOS' open sourced Tracker and Deskbar? Since BeOS open sourced those, what has been the effect on Linux GUIs? Not much, I think. (Other than the fact that all non-windows 2D GUIs tend to look alot like MacOS interfaces...)
So I submit that Open Sourcing all of BeOS would have little to no effect on Linux. Assuming of course that all the proprietary technology that Be, Inc. licensed from other companies would be available for Open Sourcing...
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
Can't argue too much there.
or DOS -> OS/2 -> NT
Wrong. DOS was not the foundation of OS/2. OS/2 had a layer that could emulate DOS calls when the programs were run but it was written from the ground up. I'm not going to argue too much on NT taking from OS/2 as many parts were canabalized like the filesystem but NT is a different horse with a very different design.
or MULTICS -> UNIX -> MINIX -> LINUX
BeOS is written from scratch with out all the age-old crap underneath. I'd say in the time they've been on x86 and the rate their gaining that Windows AND Linux just better stay the fuck out of the way.
Many OSs have been written from scratch. Technical supperiority does not lend oneself to being the market dominator. I believe market dominance has more to do with how many apps users want or need are avaliable on that OS. The free/open source OSs are the exception as many users wrote the applications they wanted. What is the BeOS's killer app? It might be a great OS but without a killer app it has no future.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
I'd install and use BeOS.
Really, I have wanted to see just this sort of thing happen for a long time. Prior to even BeOS I had often thought to myself "What if all of these opensource hackers got together and decided to make a better desktop OS from the ground up, instead of tacking it onto a server OS?"
I really want to see the Linux Desktops take off, and become the usability equivalents of MSWindows, but I just have so many doubts. You can't metion X in a group of hackers without hearing at least a groan or two in response, so maybe it's not such a good choice.
I like the Interface of Windows, I just hate nearly everything else about it. If we could use a clean and easy interface, but include all of the stability and customization of Linux, that would rock. Of course BeOS already has the GNU utilities so, man.. match made in heaven.
Let me emphasize, that I would -realy- like to see this happen.
Sigs are awesome huh?
Here's a thoughts on a possible scenario for GPL Adoption:
...
BeOS is a developer's operating system because it is easy to write for. Developers are more likely to work with something that is easy to create for. That is the essence of their bid for a peice of the OS Market in light of other contenders such as BSD and Linux. They might as well give them the knowledge that what they are writing it for is for the greater good and won't quickly become obselete, just like Linux program developers feel.
To Open Source it would allow the community to have a wonderful standards-making OS that would guide future OS's to avoid Linux's bloat, BSD's difficulty, NT's lag, and Mac & Sun's liscence insanity.
Also, it would be nice to finally have an open *media* OS that would be friendly to video capture cards, mpeg and other types of compression, and a server that utilizes it's computer to the absolute maximum. No clock cycles lost. In a perfect world, Be would run every computer because it is the fastest and cleanest.
Naming off some of the projects that are already in progress for major (and very important) types of computing:
Open source distributed computing: distributed.net
Open source peer to peer networking: gnutella
Open source web browsing: Mozilla
Open source unix: Linux, OpenBSD
Open source encryption: Rajandel, Serpent, Twofish
Open source media:
I really can't think of one besides BladeEnc for encoding Mp3 files.
So an open-source media OS would definitely have a place. Linux would integrate some of it, and some of Be would benefit from Linux's very expansive code-base, authorship, and advocates.
But the real question would be if Be can make any money by this move. Can they make a profit after spending so much time, money, and creative effort put into it?
Probably only if it was part of a larger move. AOL-Time Warner has the advantage of Mozilla being open-sourced. It's much more likely to be adopted as time goes by. Especially by web DEVELOPERS who love the standards adherance. It's a little more out of AOL/TW's hands now but at least they don't have to deal with Microsoft owning the web. Sun Microsystems sees this and gives it's support, not wanting MS to have that kind of dominance, also as a larger part of their larger plan.
So the question is: who among the big companies would like to take away the dominance of Microsoft (and, in some areas Macintosh) for a media OS would be willing to buy Be out?
\\\
For my own part, I really hope they do but there's some sharp folks over at Be. Mac OS X already tried to steal Be's thunder and still has yet to really do it. Good luck guys!
1> i guess it stems from an open mind... of course, in theory, a lot stems from an openmind 2> hopefully a lot of
I've been saying for the past two years that if BeOS were open sourced it, and Linux, would kill Microsoft. What is holding Be back is that there is NO hardware support (due to the fact that there are two programmers dedicated to the desktop OS). It is ridiculous that my video card has to run in VESA mode with software rendering, while ATI has released their technology and XFree86 supports it perfectly. Be obviously only cares about the embedded IA market these days. If Be were to give their OS to the community like Linux, hardware support would easily double in a few months. I think Be has the most intelligently designed OS for workstations, and it is quite a shame that nobody can use it because their hardware isn't supported.
have to pay so much for a BeOS cd.
Wow. BeOS actually gets mentioned on /. twice in a week? Something must be up. Is Malda out of town? Just kidding ;) Actually, this is a pointless subject. Linux users don't like BeOS because they feel threatened, and BeOS users don't like Linux because they envy their success. The partisans on both sides will keep spewing their rhetoric ("64bit FS, MediaOS, multi-threading, speed"/"focus shift, dead, non-OSS") and the conversation will do nothing more than to raise my blood pressure at the diehards on both sides who are unwilling to admit the faults of their OS. Without further ado, I'd like to throw my 3 cents into the ring
/etc and I barf. Ugly as an ape's ass. Modules.conf is a travesty in this age of Plug & Play. SysV initscripts are ridiculous. (BSD all the way! ;) modprobe? Why? In order to enable NAT on Linux, I have to recompile my kernel, edit modules.rc to load the ip_nat modules, and edit rc.firewall to setup the firewall rules and enable NAT. On BeOS, I copy the nat module to to net_server add-ons directory, I start up the configurator, use the defaults, and hit "Nat ON" And voila, it's on. To change my refresh rate, I go to the screen preferences and change it to a nice 85hz. In XFree86, I had to write a BeOS program that would get me the modelines and add a modline to XF86Config. Do you realize how many newbie Linux users are sitting there destroying their eyes because XFree86 doesn't think that their monitor can do 1152x864x85 (mine does that res at 90-something hz)? That's just wrong. To install ALSA, I have to edit modules.conf and give it a huge string of parameters telling it stuff that it should get from PnP anyway. In BeOS, it just loads and the only tweeking I have to do is what volume the mixer should be at. After recompiling kernel 2.4, I have to go to modules.conf and edit it to tell it that ne2k is a network driver. In BeOS, the cards are already detected and awaiting IP addresses in Network Prefrerences.
Advantages of BeOS over Linux:
1) It's faster. As someone who has used (and tweeked) most of the popular Linux distros, I can say that BeOS is certainly faster.
2) It has more "creature comforts." Stuff like attributes on the FS, the simple API, and obsessive attention to details like good drag and drop, good interoperabiltiy between apps, standardized interfaces, etc, really shows up in the amount of polish the OS has.
3) It scales. If you're an intermediate user, use the preferences menu for everything. With it, you can set up a telnet/NAT/ftp server with a couple of clicks. More hardcore than that? Edit the text files directly.
/etc and vi are only a terminal away.
4) It has a good app-base. A lot of the most common desktop usage apps are there, and a most of the apps are high-quality and useful. Also, almost all POSIX-text-mode apps are easily portable, so BeOS has ports of nifty stuff like compilers, language parsers, imaging libraries, and even full-blow subsystems like SANE. Plus, it has SAMBA, Apache, and dozens of other common *NIX apps. But wait, it gets better. There is an X server that is being worked on (on hiatus pending release of BONE and the new network API) and a port of Wine on the way. Lastly, BeOS currently rules the roost in terms of innovative audio apps.
5) It is easier to manage. I see
Disadvantages of BeOS vs Linux.
1) Linux will always have superior networking. BeOS just wasn't designed to put an emphasis on processes that simply move data around (TCP/IP stacks) and no matter how well designed the new network environment (BONE) is, the 3ms task slice (vs 50ms for Linux) and the pseudo/kinda/maybe realtime sheduling will work against BeOS here. But that's okay, its a client OS anyway.
2) Linux (even better, FreeBSD) has superior filesystem performance. A process that simply moves data around the filesystem will get about 20% better performance on ReiserFS than BFS. That's okay too. Unless you're a file server, you don't notice the lowered performance. Again, the OS simply wasn't designed to put a priority on just moving data around. As such, you'll see Bonnie scores 20% lower, but with half to a third of the processor usage.
3) It still doesn't have as many GUI apps. Browsers are limited to Opera 3.6.x, Netpositive, and Opera4 (soon, maybe) Of course, there is always Mozilla, and the BeOS builds are progressing everyday. Recently, BeOS has been getting some more support in the app area, and if BeIA pans out for Be (which those anti-BeOS idiots would know, if they ever read BeNews, has been getting a LOT of industry support) then we could be seeing more desktop apps out.
4) It doesn't have as large of a developer community.
5) Be's role in all this is iffy. The focus shift hurt, but if those anti-BeOS idiots would ever read BeNews, development on BeOS is far from stopped. Right now, there are the game_audio, OpenGL, BONE, and Java2 SE ports all being worked on. I can guarentee you the slate of distros being released with Linux 2.4 will not have all these updates.
Then there are the ties. Of them, the most annoying is probably hardware support. Yes, BeOS supports less hardware than Linux. No, you can't buy any of that unsupported hardware outside a flea market. Aside from the 3D part of the NVIDIA chips present in all my computers, all of my computers have full support for BeOS. And this isn't all standard hardware either. My PIII motherboard is one of those MicroATX all-in-one jobs from a fly-by-night company. Hell, it took me half an hour just to find out who made the sucker. Yet, everything from the network chip, the sound chip, the graphics chip, they're all supported in BeOS.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
People would start contrubiting back to it.
I have used BeOS, and I find a few things they do intersting. I use Linux full time and would consiter installing BeOS via vmware just to play around with, IF it was open source. I am sorry, but for ~$80 to buy it does not impress me. Why should I use it over readily avaiable open source OSs ?
until (succeed) try { again(); }
until (succeed) try { again(); }
BeOS and Linux suffer from a lot of the same problems:
So if BeOS were released as Free Software (which is ethically much better than just open-source), the only thing that would happen is that all the hardcore geeks in the world would take sides and argue about BeOS vs. Linux, while Microsoft and Apple would just pull their proprietary software even further ahead in terms of innovation and marketshare than they are already.
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
In my humble opinion, Be is greatly superior to both Linux and Windows. Before I'm moderated down as Flamebait, I want to point out that I have a triple-boot system, and have the experience in all three to make a pretty valid asessment.
Windows is sort of easy, very popular, and has excellent driver support. If it was honestly as bad as people say, it wouldn't exist because people WOULD look elsewhere. Windows is at least good enough for the unwashed masses.
Linux is an interesting experiment and a powerful *nix, especially for the money. The problem is it IS hard to use. Even KDE and GNOME only scratch the surface. It is a system built on a very old specification, and it shows. Users (not newbies, just users) want to use the system, not tweak it endlessly. Recompiling the Kernel, Libraries, and Apps to get good performance (mine sucked until I did the above) is time consuming, overly technical, and more than even many power user would be willing to do. Linux is a great *nix, but not a great Desktop OS.
Be is the youngest and still has a ways to go, but it shows the most promise. I fear it will die off because of Windows dominance or a shift to IAs by Be, but I hope not. It is very responsive, contains no overtly legacy code, has an Object Oriented API, boots in seconds (while MS tweaks Windows to get 3x the boot time), and is very stable. The only reason I don't use BeOS more is its small Application support and the fact that I haven't figured out PPPoE on Be yet and I can't live without my DSL.
I see an Open Source Be being disected and pasted on Linux (Bad Idea), being fractured as hackers paste on *nix concepts (Worse Idea), or being left to die by a community already focused on Linux (A Tradjedy). I hope Be makes it, but I don't think that the magic balm of OSS is the key. More likely Be would die a quick death as OSS, especially after the proprietary code (from other companies) is culled to keep copyright lawyers happy.
.....I feel that many are not seeing one of the greatest strenghts that BeOS has, and that Linux would GREATLY benefit of... if BeOS was opensourced, which it won't. This strenght is the fabolous thread management in BeOS. I think there is no OS in the world that makes better use of multiple CPUs. Maybe Solaris, but in Solaris this thread management has a significant overhead, which is not the case with BeOS, at least not something you could easily notice.
Another remark: I was often wondering why do people hoe for BeOS to be opensourced. Yes, it has several technologies that could benefit other opensource projects, but still, why is this question so often on the agenda? Well, I think one reason is also that Be inc., is not really unfriendly to the idea of GPL software (you get the whole set of GNU tools with be, with the sources, of course) and has done some initial steps towards opensourcing parts of the OS.. sort of. I am talking about OpenDeskbar and OpenTracker. They are under a BSD-style license, but so far, only the BeOS community has benefited from and used this source. In any case, there seem to be some (maybe misleading) signals from Be towards the open source community, keeping it over-hopeful. No, I don't mean that that was Be's intention.
Sigged!
what???? you mean there not free??? if the ms os's were free nothing would happen, everyone uses them already, except for the *nix people who would switch even if windows was free
Be should keep the rest of it's OS commercial, since it gives it a definte edge over the competition in a number of areas.
But many people are sick to death of X, and what Linux needs for widespread acceptance on the desktop is a GUI that competes with NT and MacOS in terms of slickness.
Many of us are crying out for such simple stuff as antialiased fonts, integrated support for alpha blending, colour correction and high-speed, which X just totally fails to provide - in fact, it's whole architecture makes it difficult for a 3rd party to add this stuff.
If Be released a GTK-level library and windowing system that enabled Linux developers to maintain a consistent look n feel across Linux and the BeOS, for both embedded and desktop applications, we'd have something.
The BeOS could maintain most of its advantages, independently, while remaining superficially compatible with Linux and other *NIXes.
As long as X could coexist with this windowing system (in much the same way as a 3rd party X-server runs under windows) we'd get the best of both worlds.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
linux servers kills NT/2000 beos clients kills win9.x/ME i buy micro$oft for 1 cent and blow it up
1. greatest file system on earth. reiser is piss poor by comparison 2.The easiest most straight forward API in existance. 3.Fastest OpenGL on earth. yes you could get an sgi or something but just think if BeOS were ported to sgi hardware,weee! 4.BONE, the new networking environment makes BeOS an alternate choice as a server.better than Linux. 5.totaly object oriented, it will make you love C++. 6. The greatest, fastest most reponsive windowing system on earth. 7. best smp ever, use up to 100% of both processors, 16 of them if you wish 8. plug and forget it, just add a new card or device, it just works, period. 9. apps, apps, apps! currently there are 2902 apps available for BeOS, apps development speeds up everyday, more on the way. 10. a better, more friendly community than the linux community,BeOS users thed not to be as rude or arogant as Linux users, ask for help anywhere, irc, usenet ect, and you'll find people actually helpfull not just the typical linux users responce, "well read the How-to , moron!" 11. JLG!, french ceo's kick ass! 12. NO DAMN PENGUINS! 13. NO RMS! now that's really sweet!
I like Linux too, although it is important to remember that it's real strengths are at the server level - but my production machine stays on Win2K because that is what runs the most of the apps I need.
Actually Win98 would be the closest fit but I did include a caveat about problems.
Before you reply, yes I know other OS's are stronger in this regard; 2K is the stablest OS that runs the Apps I need.
And I know that I could replace the apps I use with other things, I could switch from Exchange, and I could get different clients to my databases, and I could find some Q3 mods to replace the half-life ones I'm addicted to, etc.etc. but that's a huge job and what I have now works.
Anyhow, dragging back on-topic, BeOS needs better apps; I suspect that opening the OS would probably not change much. The UI is solid, the file system widely considered the best, dunno much about kernels etc. but the thing is damn fast (Start-up time has to be seen to be believed!). What in the OS needs improvement via a Bazzar?
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
it's getting excelt results thank you very much, the tracker has even forked, check out bebits look up the tracker, there's damn near a copy for every language.
Has anyone mentioned too: If you use Linux only, then sit short time in front of a windows box, your brain start telling you, wow, this system is so poor, why does anyone use it?
No, I usually only think "Damn, this thing is slow. Why can't it auotdetect the user and load DOS?"
Seriously, what I really think is "Damn, this thing is (a) easy or (b) scary." "A" for normal use, "B" when (un)installing something. Linux docs currently assume to much... I'm thinking of writing a HOWTO on the subject of getting started (what if you want open(3) and you get open(1)? Took me a week to figure out something other than "man -a open"... and WTF decided searching for help should be "apropos" and "help" should give you Bash internals that scroll off the top of the screen?) unless someone did it already.
-- LoonXTall
/* Sautee STRING briskly. */
~~~LXT~~~
Life is like a computer program: anything that can't happen, will.
AtheOS was mentioned in Slashdot a while ago. It started off as an GPL AmigaOS Clone, but rapidly lost most similarities with Amiga and much closer to BeOS, without the Commercial licence, Closed-source development delay, or Commercial financial backing.
It is slowly making its way towards a usable Desktop OS, without the 'flaws' of BeOS such as the Hardcoded Windows Decor, and incomplete Media Codec extensability.
Unfortunatly, AtheOS also lacks a Complete File Manager, A Productivity Suite (unless you consider EMACS a Productivity Suite), and lots of Games, but being GPLed, these things could all soon change.
If you want to develop for a quick, non-legacy OS, without any Commercial dependancies, AtheOS will do the trick.
If you want to develop for a quick non-legacy, complete OS, BeOS will suit your needs.
I remember reading somewhere that for BeOS to be POsix complient, that BeInc had to make it multi-user, which it aparently is. They just choose not to dsistribute it in multuser form. Well this what I remember reading somewhere.
I would be wonderful to have BeOS opensourced.
However many people tout move towards free software
as a great commercial opportunity, and here are few examples, Announcing game titles for highly promoted PSX platform, talking about free software
as a free beer to yay happening capitalists.
I think we shall discuss more of the effects of it
bringing a decent GUI to linux, more shrink wrapped interfaces, elightenment(no pun inteded).
Such software may for once derail community from
trying to play catchup to build windows like
interfaces and allow for people to refresh their
targets onto building a better interface, that
is implemented in little space rather than copy
microsoft ideologies. Look at linux in early days,
it was a project onto itself, and that way it has
won. It was going its way whatever others were saying and now it is huge. GUI builders are concentrating on wrong targets, and BeOS as a sort
of runup competition may help them make better
guiding choices.
Manpower for opensource projects is limited.
Diffusing it onto wrong targets will inevidebly
will bring us code bloat, featurism and ultimately
will turn smart people away from the movement.
BeOS might just be the stepping brick to guide
us onto understanding that we are galloping in
the wrong direction...
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
BeOS would likely get more newbie users who are interested in multimedia; however, the small amount of BeOS apps will prevent most average users from switching over.
Linux works because it has the ability to run Unix applications and Linux support keeps on growing.
I doubt Be will open source BeOS, because since they dropped their hardware, what will they do for revenue besides software?
Maybe the BeOS core will be open sourced, the part they give away for free anyway? But not the professional version with all the features. If that happens, the license I see them using would be a BSD like license.
Heh, that's pocket change for even Red Hat.
Speculate what you will. :)
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater