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Ars Technica on Zeta 1.0

Quantrell writes "Ars Technica has posted an extremely in-depth review of Zeta 1.0 (/. saw another shorter review a month ago, but this new one is worth a look by anyone into things Be). Looking at the state of the OS more closely, it looks like it has a long way to go, maybe too long. Also, the author (rightly, IMO) raises the issue of whether or not Zeta will see success in the face of open source projects like Haiku. Is there anything but a hobby going on here?"

8 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I found this line interesting by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 2, Informative

    One key difference is that Apple eventually closed up access to the hardware documentation, so Be couldn't support it anymore. So Be had to abandon the PPC port and dedicate themselves to x86.

  2. Re:I found this line interesting by Textbook+Error · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well, "closed off" in the sense that nothing changed. The reality is that Be lost interest in the platform as they had their eyes on x86: technically they could have found a way, politically they were looking for an out.

    At the time they came out with a fairly spurious argument that the GPL might somehow contanimate them if they so much as looked at the N various flavours of Linux which could all boot on the machines they didn't want to support.

    --

    Nae bother
  3. Haiku mislinked` by cianduffy · · Score: 2, Informative

    BeUnited is the standards body only, the actual site for the Haiku Operating System is here:

    Haiku

  4. Why no review of multiprocessor support by kgruscho · · Score: 2, Informative

    One of the primary tenants of BeBox/BeOS was multiprocessor.

    How can this be an in-depth review if they don't check it out on a multiprocessor system?

    Also does it support hyperthreading?

  5. Re:Do they have legal access to the BeOS source co by Nahooda · · Score: 5, Informative

    A recent German issue of c't magazine says, that YellowTab already owns _ALL_ rights of the source code.

    Regards,

    Dennis B. Schramm

    --
    Sigs suck!
  6. Re:I think you mean... by nazh · · Score: 2, Informative

    This reeks of a FUD post...

    No, it's a troll. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_trolling_phe nomena#Minor_trolls Look at the bottom at the minor troll list.

  7. Re:Do they have legal access to the BeOS source co by Nahooda · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sorry, there's no online version of the article available.

    Here's the paragraph in German, taken from c't magazine issue #14/2005, page 88:

    "Als der BeOS-Erfinder Jean-Louis Gassee vor vier Jahren das Handtuch warf und seine Firma inklusive der Urheberrechte an Palm verkaufte, war das Original-Betriebsystem trotz aller Fan-Bemühungen zum Tode verurteilt. BeOS-Adept Bernd Thorsten Korz investierte trotzdem Geld und Nerven in seine Firma YellowTab, um ein Nachfolgesystem im Bündel mit aktualisierten alten sowie neu entwickelten Anwendungen auf den Markt zu bringen. Mittlerweile hält die 38-Mann-Firma sämtliche Rechte am Quelltext des ursprünglichen Betriebssystems und hat nach eigenen Aussagen annähernd 90.000 Zeta-Pakete verkauft."

    That's in Englisch:
    "When BeOS inventor Jean-Louis Gassee quit four years ago and sold his company including copyrights to Palm the original operating system was doomed despite of all efforts of the BeOS community. Nevertheless Beos-initiate Bernd Thorsten Korz invested money and nerves in his company YellowTab in order to publish a BeOS-successor bundled with updated old and newly developed applications. Meanwhile the 38-man-company owns all rights of the source code of the original operating system and claims to have sold nearly 90.000 Zeta packages."

    Since German is my mother language, I hope I didn't make too much mistakes ;-)

    Regards,

    Dennis B. Schramm

    --
    Sigs suck!
  8. Re:beos by MrHanky · · Score: 2, Informative

    It doesn't really stand a chance. But it certainly has some advantages. There's always an advantage to run something other than Windows, because of spyware, viruses, and so on (and I'm sure you've heard all the arguments, so let's stop there).

    Against OS X, it has the advantage of being an easy to use, lightweight desktop OS. OS X takes about 3 GB for the default install, and that's with very few apps. I don't think Zeta takes that much, even with all the bundled apps, and there are plenty. It also boots quickly, and feels quite fast even on slow computers with little memory.

    Of course, it also lacks some features (don't know if Zeta has a good network stack, but BeOS's sucked), and has relatively few applications, often unfinished shareware. If it fits your needs, it's very good.