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The Be Lives!
An anonymous reader submits: "As reported on the OS News:
BeOS 5 PE Max Edition is based on the original BeOS 5 PE with an additional number of drivers, add-ons, AthlonXP/Pentium4 patches and more software. It includes new development tools from the OpenBeOS team but you will also be able to select the old tools. This is an ideal way to install BeOS 5 off a bootable CD image, for all those who wanted to try out BeOS but they were unable to do so because of the bugs/drivers and patches BeOS 5 PE needs to have applied into it before it successfully run on or support most modern PCs. BeBits has an overview of the files included in the package, and downloads for the Be Max in parts or as a whole (all 213MB). Enjoy!"
Why the fuck is this in the BSD section? BSD is only dying, it's not totally dead like BeOS is.
Now, if I'm lucky, I can get half the hardware on my machine working under BeOS and enjoy the dozens of applications available for it! I cannot express the sheer joy of being able to use something considerably less functional than even Linux.
--sdem
who should be more offended, BeOS zealots, or BSD zealots?
Why not fork?
...that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous bloatware or to use an obsolete OS that won't run any new games...
Repeal the DMCA!
God, I feel like a complete idiot. All this time I thought this was the "BSD" section, not the "BeSD" section.
(-1, redundant, offtopic, whatever, whatever)
I write in my journal
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered BeOS community when IDC confirmed that BeOS market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming close on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that BeOS has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. BeOS is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskinto predict BeOS' future. The hand writing is on the wall: BeOS faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for BeOS because BeOS is dying. Things are looking very bad for BeOS. As many of us are already aware, BeOS continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBeOS is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBeOS developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBeOS is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBeOS leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBeOS. How many users of NetBeOS are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBeOS versus NetBeOS posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBeOS users. BeOS/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBeOS posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BeOS/OS. A recent article put FreeBeOS at about 80 percent of the BeOS market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBeOS users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBeOS Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBeOS went out of business and was taken over by BeOSI who sell another troubled OS. Now BeOSI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that BeOS has steadily declined in market share. BeOS is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If BeOS is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. BeOS continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save BeOS from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, BeOS is dead.
Fact: BeOS is dying