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Interview with OpenBeOS Leader Michael Phipps
Gentu writes "Koki from the japanese site jpbe recently interviewed Michael Phipps, the project leader of OpenBeOS, the open source re-implementation of the BeOS. Read here for the english version of the interview where Michael is discussing the roots of the project, the current status, the roadmap, the choice of the MIT license, its relationship to YellowTAB's Zeta and the other efforts to resurrect BeOS, BeUnited and the Sun Java port and more."
This is not a development effort of "just because I want to". A new OS that is open source increases the size of our OS ecosystem...this is one of the greatest threats that Linux poses against MS. Linux today enjoys widespread support, but having more choices out there is a very good thing. Who can say what the OS landscape will look like in 5-10 years? Think back even five years and you'll see what I mean!
As a supposed Linux user, would you then bash OBOS because it wasn't Linux? That's hypocritical at best, and spiteful at worst.
You can have my one-button mouse when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
You may consider it a waste of time but I assume those involved in the project don't. For example, do you consider watching a movie a complete waste of time, how about playing a board game or D&D, what about any sort of hobby you may have that really benifits no one but yourself. How about art -- maybe that doodle you did that no one else will see. Is all of this a complete "waste of time" ? If it is so what, they are doing something they enjoy for whatever reason.
No they are not required to contribute to a project that you view as more important, nor are they required to not "waste" their time. So piss off and let them have fun, hell others may benifit at the same time even if you don't see it.
It's horses for courses. As the article says, Linux was designed for server use, and the BeOS for desktop use. The BeOS had a special feel to it, as the most responsive and multimedia capable OS of it's time. It was designed to handle large numbers of tiny threads and fibers well. Sure you mould a BEOS lookalike system around a Linux Kernel, but it doesn't mean it would feel like BEOS.
In Kurzweils excellent book Age of Spiritual Machines he is referencing some computer experiments on developments of Artificial "Lifeforms".
One of the unexpected things the researchers found (can't remember who it was) was that increasing the "Mutation rate" was not enough. You needed a complex and rapid changing Ecosystem.
OS's that finds it way into new application areas provides presicely such an Ecosystem that the dominant OS might later adapt to.
As an axample we can look at embedded devices. The pressure from Symbian in the Smartphone market causes Linux and Windows for that matter to change and adapt. The adaption does not need to be Monolithic as is the case with Windows but an OS bifurcation is fine and actually more akin to the real world evolution. In that sense OpenBeOS can be a real plus to everyone. User or not
Well, Your point is well taken
Help fight continental drift.
It seems to be a /. point of view that anything outside of the Linux arena is a waste of time in some manner. If these folks want to try to revive BeOS, what business is it of yours, and why go on about it?
There's 3 things BeOS had going for it - lighting fast GUI responsiveness, excellent handling of both audio and video media, and a way before it's time journaling FS that allowed you to yank the AC plug out of the wall with no data corruption. I daresay only one of these has been implemented on *nix ( the FS ) and the other two are still MIA. Until you open source guys get linux up to the same speed in the other 2 areas that they are concerned with, dont bother asking why they are working on OpenBeOS. They are doing it becuase even after 5 years not one operating system made compares in those 2 areas.
And in general, pissing on other peoples parades shows insecurity about what you are doing. Let em alone.
The whole time, being a Linux user and developer, I was talking about opensourcing this and that, there was so much opensource in BeOS to begin with, why not take the bull by the horns. Be used Linux as a host platform to develop beos. Be used GCC. Be carped driver designs, and an OS platform from GPL libre software. Nothing ever happened. I even wrote to the company and explained it, the response is that we don't want to help linux, we want to be Be. Now the community is doing this and they are still against Linux; their FAQ even mentions that OpenBeos on linux would be an extension to linux and that is somehow a bad thing.
Long story short, I've got no sour grapes, I don't care about the money, time, effort or anything else, I think some of the ideas behind beos are cool. What chaps me is the unwillingness to play ball and the simple lack of a techincal explanation as to what Linux or BSD kernels (which ones did you look at?) doesn't do that the be kernel needs. Are we talking new APIs? Are talking messaging queues? Latency isn't there (I call bullshit on this one, especially with 2.4 and now 2.6) what exactly is it? In the interview he even says outright that he hasn't gone very deep, pretty much just dismissed it.
Be's problem as a company and a community has always been lot's of talk with no beef and some awful fear of playing with others. "Pervasive threading this," "media OS that" what does that mean? Why is it good? You'll never get an answer with numbers, at best "it feels" will be said. Further, in specifics, what is it that you need the linux kernel to do and why is it easier to start from scratch rather than fix linux to do that? Even if it isn't rolled into mainline, look at ucLinux, rtLinux, and other "forks." I'm simply asking as an engineer, which problem space is bigger? Again, I wish them well and have no real sour grapes other than I really want a project like this to succeed and from the information presented to me from them they aren't making good engineering decisions and aren't making a plan for success. If it's simply an experiment and they want to do it all then say that, but they aren't saying that and that makes me think they either don't know or it's some cultural flaw and either way I don't think it is a good thing for their success.