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OpenBeOs Developers Talk About Progress
DeltaSigma writes: "Michael Phipps, of the OpenBeos team, recently hosted a public Q&A Session where many of the public musings over a completely new open source operating system have been addressed. The answer to all the 'is there room in the market?' questions was answered in a way: 'We are an OSS project. Marketing is not our job.' Perhaps more /.ers could keep this in mind ..."
I agree with you in principle, but disagree with you in reality. In reality, the people developing OSS are a limited resource. More time should be put into making Linux user friendly and accessable to "normal" people (just think of those useful error messages some programs kick out) Why develop BEos from scratch to a point of usability when you have one OS that's already there? Why spread the Open Source community's resources even thinner, when it only detracts from what, IMHO, should be the overriding task of making a greater imact on the desktop.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Now you may not have liked those decisions, but as a group, that's where Open Source went.
Whoa, slow down there, cowboy.
The licenses which make OSS possible are there to do just that -- force people and organizations to stay honest and not simply take advantage of the efforts of others. What you can *do* with that software is pretty much unfettered -- consider all of the places you can find Linux in one form or another.
Besides that, who said we (we as in the community) had decided to compete against Microsoft? Competition implies that the OSS community is tied up in a parry-and-jab with MS, which we most definately are not -- why else would we be so eager to interoperate with Windows boxen, even when it means trying to adhere to MS's broken "standards"?
OSS is about a way to develop software, and nothing else. My personal interest, and I dare say the interest of most people involved in the development or use of OSS, is only to obtain and use the best possible software solution for our needs.
Raising the awareness of the project is important, but generally good and useful software concepts attract users and developers far more effectively tan "marketing".
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Given that BE is relatively new, and as yet (I would assume) under-developed, what would be the challenges in getting it to work natively using windows drivers? In other words, why re-write every driver for every peice of hardware, when one could change the OS once instead?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
My point is that marketing goes far beyond buying ads and doing press releases. That's simply advertising.
So yes, if the people doing the coding want people to actually run their code, they should take it upon themselves to do some evangelizing. If there's not a groundswell of support, then distros will never pick up the code and do the advertising work that follows.
Umm... no. Try to be a little more informed when you write, AC. OpenBeOS is based on a kernel from NewOS which was written by one of the ex BeOS coders. There are several BeOS clones based on Linux (Blue-Eyed OS, Leonardo, even Cosmoe to some extent) but OpenBeOS is something different. The underlying architecture that made BeOS good for audio/video will not only still be there but be improved upon.
Please read the linked content. If you do you'll find Mike makes reference to companies and organizations expressing a commercial interest in OpenBeOS. What we have here is truly unique: An operating system built from the ground up that isn't directly tied to "old" technology. I don't mean to say that old technology isn't important. Indeed it is, because it's proven. But one must recognize that a platform which is no older than five years, that's public, which works on many hardware configurations, and still has the best media management (yes, BeOS under proper configuration and on decent hardware [my SCSI setup being one of them] is better for multimedia than apple systems). It has a place and my question in the article was rhetorical really. A lot of today's self-described linux advocates are advocates of just that; linux!
People don't seem to want to be bothered with supporting truly open source software. This is just an indicator of such a person's own cynicism regarding the potential success of open source. I acted under no direction of the OBOS team. They're right, it's not their job to market, but whoever wants to get the word out is welcome and that's exactly what I did. Now come on, read about what we're doing. Try to understand where we're coming from and where we're going before you judge us from an article, the length of which just barely constitutes a paragraph. I'm sure that if you looked into OpenBeOS, while it might not be the OS for you, you'll agree it has its place. Sorry to bother your slashdotting with this plea for sincere consideration, I'll go back to work now...
>In my experience, you just can't hide the under-the-hood stuff
What about MacOS X?
Anyway, I guess it would be a good idea to put BeOS (the UI that is) on top of GNU/Linux. But who am I to tell anyone what to do?
is there any news at all on what Palm will do with BeOS?
i wonder how much BeOS will influence the PalmOS.
i seems a shame that such a good OS should die like this. i applaud OpenBeOS for their work at "reviving" what once was, even if it is stil linux.
I want 2D games back.
Michael Phipps gave an interesting answer to the "Why openbeos?"-question in the Q&A-session:
[Captcpu] Here's a nice one from: [mwilber] Why did you decide to start the OpenBeOS project? ;-) :)
[17:35:47] [mphipps] Insanity.
[17:36:25] [Captcpu] good answer
[17:36:52] [Captcpu] but wait..there's more...[mphipps] Seriously - I had a project that I have been working on for years on BeOS. The short version of the story is that it is an object oriented paradigm in which every class is a process and every instance is a thread. It needs hyper fast messaging and process/thread swapping. No other OS will do that. Even R5 wasn't the best.
[17:37:47] [mphipps] So, when the Palm announcement was made, I looked at Linux and the BSD's, but none of them were as fast and as easy to use. So I decided that BeOS must continue on.
Hopefully more people will see things the same way. Some things are hard to do, or outright impossible in most common enviroments today. If enough people makes this realization OBOS could have a very nice thing going.
Another thing that often is forgotten when talking about OBOS is that the goal is not only to recreate BeOS as OSS. It goes beyond that. The goal of OBOS R1 is to recreate BeOS R5, but when the devlopment continues towards OBOS r2, new interresting stuff is going to be implemented. The plans of what to include in the post-r1-releases of OBOS are made at the Glass Elevator mailing list
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
It is possible that developing BeOS may be the most efficient use of resources for getting a user-friendly desktop onto Linux. If you strip out X and the BeOS GUI, I believe what is left is pretty much identical, and lots of people think the solution for fixing Linux on the desktop is to get rid of X.
What Open Source Zealots Don't Get
.doc file. I'm continually annoyed myself by people who send HTML mail, never mind the lunatics who use Microsoft Word as their text editor in Microsoft Outlook. Email is much more efficient as plain text. If Stallman had positioned his screed as "use the right tool for the right audience in the right medium" I would have been totally on board with him.
.doc format. It's a lofty and valuable goal. But until the day when Stallman or someone else can figure out a way to get open source developers to scratch someone else's itch with the same fervor and quality with which they scratch their own, it's just not a realistic goal.
The News Forge editorial, We can put an end to Word attachments [link via Camworld], by Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation, illustrates perfectly why the free software/open source movement is never going to penetrate the mainstream consumer consciousness.
Caveat: I like open source software. I like the concept and I support it. What I dislike is the zealotry of hardcore open source/free software advocates, like Stallman, and their total disregard for how consumers view and use software. These zealots are stuck in a dogma that is constructed from the viewpoint of someone who develops software, not from the viewpoint of consumers who use software for reasons other than developing more software (which constitute the vast majority). The zealots of open source/free software present the movesment as serving manking, but in fact they have an overwhelming tendency to ignore the needs of any user not like themselves. This essay isn't an anti-open source rant, nor is it flag-waving support of Microsoft's monopolistic practices. It is intended to be a pragmatic look at why open source hasn't lived up to the hype.
Stallman's point in his editorial is that people shouldn't send Word attachments via email. Much of Stallman's rhetoric is justifiable. In fact, I think it's not only counter-productive, but rude, to send Word attachments to people who use open source software incapable of reading a
However, much of Stallman's rhetoric is the usual open source/free software wheel-spinning that shows little consideration for or understanding of the vast majority of computer users. This part of the second paragraph sticks out:
Most computer users use Microsoft Word. That is unfortunate for them, because Word is proprietary software, denying its users the freedom to study, change, copy, and redistribute it.
There are all kinds of problems with Stallman's rhetoric, but this is the most glaring and is the ultimate of example of What "Open Source Zealots Don't Get." Here's the underlying concept that the open source movement has continually failed to understand. Ready? Here it is:
Most computer users don't give a crap about studying or changing software.
Get it? 99.985% of Microsoft Word users have absolutely no desire to view -- never mind modify -- the source code of Word. Why would they? They don't know how to code! Nor do they want to learn! It's like asking them to re-design the shovel to make it more appropriate to their needs. Hey, sure maybe 0.015% of shovel-users customize their shovels, but most people use the tool off-the-shelf, as is.
Stallman is right that people would like to freely copy and distribute software, but this is where we run up against the dirty secret of open source: open source developers like to scratch their own itch. And, unfortunately, that attitude doesn't jive with creating consumer applications, so those consumer needs get left up to businesses that need to make money off their product to exist.
Open source developers tend to work on projects that solve their own problems (which usually revolve around building software and working with others who build software). That's why we have great open source operating systems, web servers, compilers, etc., but are severely lacking in open source office suites, graphics and design tools, games, etc. Independent open source developers don't come together to develop those kind of applications like they do to develop web servers, compilers, and databases because developers typically don't have a desperate need for those kinds of apps. No itch, so why scratch?
Yes, I know there are some alternatives out there (primarily because the zealots have this mistaken idea that Linux will compete with Windows and Macintosh for the consumer desktop). I know about KOffice, AbiWord, GNOME Office, OpenOffice, and Sun Microsystems StarOffice.The only competitive contender on that list is StarOffice, which, of course, started as a proprietary application. Sun Microsystem's CEO, Steve McNeally, acquired StarOffice and open sourced it purely to attempt to spite Microsoft; Bill Gates just laughed. The Gimp is a fine graphics program, but it doesn't measure up (especially running under Windows) to Adobe Photoshop, or even Jasc Paint Shop Pro. And where are the competitive open source competitors for Adobe's Illustrator, ImageReady, PageMaker, InDesign, Premier, AfterEffects, etc.? What open source app would professionals choose over Macromedia Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Freehand, Flash, Shockwave, Director, Authorware, etc? Answer: they don't exist.
Open source developers don't care enough about those applications to develop them, and they sure don't care enough to develop them for the non-open source platforms (e.g. Windows, Mac) that most of the world uses. The bottom line is...well, the bottom line. If consumers want these kinds of tools that are of interest to consumers, but not of use to the geeks who know programming languages, then the consumers are either going to have to learn to code themselves (ain't gonna happen; we all have other careers) or the consumer will need to pay to have someone else develop them.
The demands for these consumer apps gets filled by corporations who exercise proprietary control over their intellectual property in order to recoup the development costs, because the companies have to hire developers to scratch someone else's itch. And that proprietary control means patents and copyrights1, because to make money off a product you must, repeat MUST, control reproduction and redistribution. And businesses are about making money.
If anyone had been able to demonstrate a competitive, scalable business model for a company that develops open source software, then I might get on board. But even RedHat, the open source developer with probably the most solid foundation and best shot, is still hemorrhaging money. Developing open source software works as a hobby; so far no one has been able to make developing open source software work as a business.
A bunch of developers might come together to develop a super open source web server like Apache to solve their own problems, but they don't get the same personal satisfaction from developing, for example, an open source consumer desktop publishing application or a GUI desktop -- witness the struggle to get KDE and GNOME to some usable point, and remember that Eazel tanked. Problems like those that have plagued the attempt to put an open source GUI on the Linux operating system illustrate another problem with open source: too many cooks in the kitchen screw up the menus. (Oooh. Pun!)
Choice is sometimes counterproductive to usefulness, and usefulness is paramount for a consumer application. This is where "network externalities" -- the economy of increasing returns -- comes into play. If ACME Industries makes ACME WonderSoap, the soap doesn't become more useful to the consumer (e.g. it doesn't clean your armpits better) if more people use it. That might be better for ACME, but my armpit gets just as fresh whether ten thousand or ten million people use ACME WonderSoap. Not so with software. If ACME industries makes a word processor, ACME WonderWord, then ACME WonderWord is much more valuable to me if ten million people use it as opposed to ten thousand, because we're all using the same tool. The best illustration of the concept of an economy of increasing returns is the Microsoft monopoly. People won't switch to Linux and StarOffice, because everyone else in their workplace or community is using Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. In a networked environment where you have to share your output and input, life is more difficult if you're not using the same tool. This is where the open source approach shoots itself in the knew -- every Microsoft Windows XP desktop works the same, but if I want to get my officemate to help me with something, and I'm running GNOME and StarOffice and he's using KDE and KOffice, then we might as well be working on Windows and Macintosh. There's no increasing returns, when there's no consistency.
The open source response to that is "it's not the tool, it's the standard." If every tool adhered to an open standard, then they'd all work together. Which is basically Stallman's point -- use text or HTML instead of the proprietary Word
1I think copyright is an idea that has run it's course, but we're not at the point yet where it can be tossed out the window. And the little known fact is that Stallman has to support copyright, even if he won't announce it very loudly, because the GNU General Public License is founded on copyright. Putting software in the public domain doesn't satisfy Stallman's zealotry because someone can still use public domain software as the foundation or part of proprietary software. Instead, Stallman advocates copyleft, whereby instead of relinquishing copyright, the software developer retains copyright and licenses the software and source code under the condition that any changes or modifications also be licensed under the same restrictions. It's admirably clever, but I think Stallman ought to be as concerned as the RIAA about copyright. If copyright unravels, so does the GPL. [back]
A serious question here: why does anyone "need" to learn about alternate OS'es?
/.'er - just throw out a few neat acronyms, flame some other OS, and claim to be the latest-and-greatest-but-still-in-development. But that may only impress 10% of the market.
I ask because in order to get this message across you need to use an argument that has more meaning than "stopping the MS hegemony" or to "create choice". There needs to be a reason than people can actually personally relate to, such as "because we have the best quilting design software" or "because we provide the easiest-to-configure internet access".
It's easy to convince as
What about the other 90% who just want the damn thing to work most of the time without too much hassle? What do you offer them?
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
People seem to forget that although BeOS was ultra-great, it was designed under commercial pressures. They had to have a product that worked soon, and that limited them. We can do so much better. Here are some blue sky ideas for my "dream" OS:
I mean really, we should not limit ourselves to merely small steps. Linux will do for now, but eventually we will need to move things forward, completely free of the past. Why not?