Slashdot Mirror
The Be Challenge: Zero-cost BeOS for OEMs
Thorbjorn Jemander
wrote in
(as an update on a previous story) to tell us that Jean-Louis Gassée, CEO of Be Inc
is
offering BeOS at zero-cost to any OEM that will install
BeOS completely on its PCs: BeOS must be a boot option or
launchable from the other OS, something that Microsoft
apparently prohibits. He does not expect OEMs will take up
the offer because they will not want to lose Microsoft's
Windows Rebate. His argument also applies to Linux: Despite
the slew of announcements that Tier-1 manufacturers were
going to sell computers pre-installed with Linux, it's revealing
to see that the computers discussed were either servers, or
in the case of IBM, PCs on which Linux is installed by the
reseller (not IBM).
News.com also reported on this Thomas wonders if this offer will provide
the DOJ with unrefutable proof of Microsoft's monopoly.
I thought Be wasn't competing with Windows? :)
Marketing (opportunist) asswipes
Be should thank Linux for creating the nice big spotlight on alternative OSes (and contribute back to the community in some way!)
I believe that Be pays Cygnus to work on gcc and that they often help developers who are writing open source software, including kicking in money and engineering time on projects they think are good ones.
yeah and don't forget, it also does Windows too
I thought it was still only for developers. What gives? Are they just trying to make a buck?
Be's changes to egcs are scheduled to go back into egcs RSN, according to something I read somewhere.
Even VA has its problems. As far as I can tell from their website, they don't allow the choice of anything but Redhat or SuSE... Kind of ironic (moronic?) since they sell up to the huge server boxes, and Redhat isn't really suitable for that area when compared to more technically sound distros such as Debian.
Every time I show a windows user E and its transparent Eterms, they invariably want to know how to get it. Not only is Linux the most stable OS on the Intel platform, it can also be the most visually pleasant.
BeOS has been a fairly retail-quality program since at least R3 (anyone know when it was released?). I jumped in on the bandwagon at R4 in December.
My installation experience was nothing but positive. It took 15 minutes altogether to install and I didn't have to do anything to configure my hardware. The interface is clean and responsive. You can use the terminal or rely almost 100% on the GUI.
At this point, it's important for some "killer apps" to be ported to BeOS to get the general public's attention. BeOS has a POSIX layer that makes it easy to port Linux apps over. If this is possible I would pay real $$ to see a the Linux versions of Wordperfect and Star Office ported to BeOS.
You don't see RMS, ESR, Bruce Perens, and all the other Linux chumps trying to do even one _tenth_ of what Jean-Louis Gassee is doing. They're too busy bickering amongst themselves and dressing up like their favorite Star Wars characters to do any real business.
Go Be!
It uses BFS (guess what that stands for), which is a 64-bit journaling file system. It allows for advanced filekeeping and searching. Individual files can be as large as a terabyte, which is critical if you are into digital audio/video editing.
A read-only ext2 driver just came out. It's in the BeWare section of www.be.com. I heard there might be a BFS driver for Linux, as well. For those of us transitioning from M$, BeOS can read/write FAT16 and FAT32 partitions.
See: http://www.be.com/support/qandas/faqs/faq-0384.htm l
There's currently a beta-level add-on for ext2 support to allow access to Linux partitions from within Be. Not sure if any work is being done to support seeing Be partitions from within Linux.
Hello, this is a bit off topic... but does anyone recommend any good programming environments on Be?
Huh? Don't forget Be is relying on stuff that RMS started (GNU tools) so stop that sillyness.
heheheh
I used to work at IBM as a student, and nearing the time that I left, I learned it was time to get out of OS/2 simply because people were actually looking DOWN on me for being an OS/2 guru. These days, being a Linux guru gets a person a lot more respect, even at IBM, apparently.
Linux may not be perfect, but it is by far the most long term viable alternative to the stagnant Windows hedgemony.
Damned guy! You spoil the fun!
hehehe
say the same thing. I appreciate all the feedback that you are giving this guy, but how many times do we need to say the same thing???
There's a big difference, in both cost to Be and success of the user, between giving the OS for free to an OEM who can make sure that all of the components are compatible and properly partition the drive so that the user can immediately be productive. Just imagine the bad PR if Be offered a freely downloadable version and was then criticized by users who accidently fdisked their whole drive or spent hours downloading it and then couldn't get it to work.
RMS is not out to solve business problems, so this comment doesn't apply to him.
ESR is out to solve business problems, but by explaining the strengths of Linux, not the failings of MS (or even less relevantly: the OEMs).
BP is not someone about whom categorical statements can be made (to say the least).
Well, Apple wants the digital video market... Firewire everywhere... they bought Final Cut from Macromedia... and BeOS is just competing on the same market, so they just want Be to go away, at least from the Mac platform.
IBM used to ship all their computer with OS/2 Warp as a boot option and Windows as the primary OS. I didn't think Microsoft ever said anything to IBM about that. (Of course this was back in the days of Windows 3.1 circa 1994). Why would a BeOS boot option be any different? Besides everyone knows BeOS is highly supperior to any Microsoft OS.
Why doesn't Be just build their own PCs and start their own mail-order company? The implicit idea behind Gassee's offer is reliance upon Microsoft's domination of having its OS pre-installed on PCs. If he is so sure that people will use his OS if it is installed on the computer why doesn't he just do it himself? _That_ would be head-to-head
competition.
IMHO BeOS has potental to be the best OS ever! It's incredbly fast. (Anything is faster than OS/2 of course). It boots in a matter of a couple seconds. It has a great GUI. It is incredibly easy to use, yet incredibly powerful at the same time. Installation consists of clicking the "install" button. And its multiplatform (well... dual platform at least). I think BeOS could become the OS of the future. It simply needs more hardware support, and more companies backing it and developing software.
Why should Be do it when BeMachines already does that? They even sell Dual Celeron systems!
Hmm. Abou any *decent* OS can read FAT
Well, Be is a decent OS. There you have it.
It does most of what you expect of a "decent OS": Crashy applications don't hurt it, it's got a nice command-line shell (bash), etc. It's still single user, of course, but there's no sane reason to use anything but Linux for a server anyway (not counting scary 64-processor boxes or whatever) so, uh, so what
> It even does Windows.
But not very well.
As shown in this article, MS's practices consist of criminal racketeering. This kind of restraint of trade (with real or implied threats) is the real issue, not whether or not Microsoft has leveraged a monopoly in one area to expand its hold on another.
The solution is to boycott MS. What does it take to build a PC these days? Be and Linux distributors should be building their own cheaper PC's for home users and selling them mail order, and offering franchises for local stores worldwide. VA systems, etc., don't cut it. Their boxes are too expensive and noncompetetive. A home users needs even LESS hardware, not more, to get decent performance with Linux (or BEOS) relative to Windows 9x or NT.
If you can't get Linux preinstalled from the likes of Gateway, Dell and Compaq screw them. After a while, with the help of action by the courts, they may defy the MS racketeering, industrial sabatoge, and domestic terrorism, which is what it is. Microsoft is a criminal enterprise - not a legitmate corporation. Gate and other top MS players belong in maximum security prisons with hardened crimimals, and I mean that, because they are felons.
Industrial sabatoge is a serious crime. In the case of MS it consists of doing things to make a competitor's applications not work so well with Windows. That's just like making a competitor's brakes or seat belts not work so well on an automobile. Many systems in which life and property are at risk are affected by this intentional sabatoge. In some countries such activity carries the death penalty. Extradation of Gates, Balmer, and co. to nations which can prove industrial sabotage to stand trial there would not be uncalled for. What if your nuclear power plant used MS software for control systems?
Again, this has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with old fashioned gangsterism ala Al Capone. I don't expect Linux whimps to understand this, but nevertheless it's time to call a spade a spade and quit farting around with MS.
Just my 2 million dollars worth.
They don't know better because they have never SEEN better. They have no exposure to it.
The OEM's don't ship ONLY windows because they don't think they have a market for it.. they reject other OS's because they FEAR MICROSOFT REPRECUSSIONS. That, in and of itself, is the problem.
There was a day when MS didn't control the PC industry, albeit that the industry was much smaller, and that compute rmanufacturers would put different OS on different machines... (usually because they made them.). But people would still try them out....
If the customers don't want it, they don't have to use it. if it's free, it's free. If it's pre-installed, it's pre-installe
You mean like NT4, which still can't read
Fat32?
-Dave, too lazy to log in
As of R4, it is an official release for Intel.
How can they "make a buck" by offering it for free? Most updates
wont cost a penny. Major updates are only $25 at most.
I have a copy of the driver. I downloaded it
from Japan. It was announced on the linux-kernel
mailing list a week ago.
Duh.
Because they would then be competing with Compaq, Dell, Gateway etc etc. They make an _operating system_ and would get crushed (in fact they did) if they tried to push into an area with real, fierce competition and very, very small margins.
- N
From what I've seen so far it's a very nice OS. However it's definitly not yet ready for prime-time; It has a number of quirks, nowhere near enough drivers, nowhere near enough apps.
I sincerely hope Be makes it big, of all the PC/Mac OSes out there it shows the most promise (yes, more than Linux).
Not that i defend NT much, but it supports 8 without extra help, and up to 32 if you have someone insane enough to modify the kernel, and build 19 cd's of source.
One proprietary OS is like another.
I predict Be won't release their sources
because the quality (or lack thereof) is too
embarrassing -- just like Apple.
proprietary cool Free.
One proprietary OS is like another.
I predict Be won't release their sources
because the quality (or lack thereof) is too
embarrassing -- just like Apple.
proprietary < cool < Free.
You are so off base its not even funny. No JLG doesn't think any OEM is going to take him up on it. Microsoft has a monopoly and until the trial is over and OEMs are protected somehow no one could afford the price of offending MS.
On the other hand, if someone mid-large size like say Micron did take him up on the offer, Be would be elated, hire the staff for support and be dancing in the street. People who need support are using the OS and will upgrade. Every user who calls trying to get their modem will probably upgrade at some point and send Be money. Its a no brainer and lots of companies do it. Its part of the reason software bundles are so much cheaper when you buy a machine. The author is gambling that by getting the software in front of you that you will use it, like it (or get locked in) and upgrade.
- N
Since when is it free to download Linux? Most people have to pay ISP charges, many have to even pay phone charges. Even if you argue that they just do overnight and it is essentially free, they still have to _install_ it which takes time, which is directly equal to money.
If everyone was willing to download and install their own OS (kind of a chicken and an egg problem wouldn't you say?) they'd also be willing to take the time to put together their own machines and there wouldn't be Dell, Compaq or Gateway.
As for Solaris - it just proves the point. The free x86 version has really lousy hardware support and _everyone_ I know who has gotton a copy has been dissatisfied. Did they go out and buy new hardware? No, they went with Linux, SCO or NT. It was probably a very bad move for Sun.
- N
Or maybe just like Sun they will.
You Linux people just don't know when to shut up, do you? God you can be so annoying. It does not have to be open source and free to be good. Get that through you thick skull. I don't use Linux, and I've though many times about it, and I've even got pretty close, but every time I hear someone say this, I just think: "Linux probably isn't even that great, it's just evangelized by a bunch of fanatics who love the open-source concept above all else."
Maybe you like open-source, but I don't think it matters that much, especially for the average person who won't be donwloading an OS update every week.
If you have a good reason why the BeOS sucks, tell me, if not, don't say anything. Right now I haven't tried either Linux or Be, but I'm really leaning toward Be after this crap.
Just got back from the BeOS demo at Menlo Park,
talked to JudeAnn Smith, their "Developer Evangelist". They are giving away BeOS for free, but it has to be the OS that pops on your screen when turn on the pc for the first time. And a lot of OEMs can't do that because of their contracts with Micro$oft.
Anyway, it's just amazing how BeOS can handle media. It can handle realtime audio and still play back a couple of movie files while other movies are actually displayed on flipping pages. So if you are interrested in media - check it out !
bluepuma@excite.com
"those who do not learn from unix are doomed
to reinvent it" - confucious
Actually Sengan changed the story. So this poster made a good point. But it's good Sengan changed the story to avoid further confusion.
I'm sure JLG intends to have users pay for upgrades, but the first copy bundled with a PC he is willing to give away.
I believe that he JLG would be very happy to give it away if it offered all of the buyers of a major computer the chance to try or request BeOS. No cost for users the first time, and then they decide if an upgrade is worth paying for. Sounds fair to me.
I used to like OS/2, but after getting used to nice long file named singly rooted hierarchical file systems under Solaris and Linux, it just seems a little backwards. That and how the system becomes unusable when the GUI crashes, and the single-user-ness of the console. OS/2 and Be would probably still be decent for a home system, but multiuser networking facilities of UNIX and X sure are nice on a big (university, laboratory, or corporate) campus.
Of course you are correct in your assessment of the "proof". However, there is one additional matter in that Microsoft has pointed out during the trial that Be is one of the possible alternative OS threats (phantom menance?) to Windows/NT. If nobody bites on Be's offer, then it just shows feeble MS's arguments are.
Ugh, those cases are so gaudy. I was hoping for something more elegant, like an Indy or Indigo2-style case.
There are plenty of good reasons:
1) Be used to make their own hardware (dual PPC 603, but they're getting tame by current standards). They got out of the hardware business so they could focus on their OS. The Be engineers are stretched to the limits already trying to get enough drivers to make BeOS useful on the diverse PC hardware base.
2) Selling PCs requires a lot of work and personnel (i.e. high start-up and maintenance costs). The tech support costs alone would probably overwelm Be. They are better off concentrating on their OS.
3) Competing with the OEMs you're trying to court isn't wise (see what happened to Intergraph).
4) There are already at least two companies specifically selling BeOS-compatibility systems. Why should Be try to do it themselves when they can get others to do it for them? (That line of reasoning always worked pretty well for M$.)
Michael
That's all good, but the real question is does it do Windows?
That's silly. Be runs on off-the-shelf hardwaret el.html
and you can always check their compatibility
lists beforehand, available from http://www.be.com/support/guides/beosreadylist_in
I wouldn't buy a dual-celeron system, much less
run one -- there are known bugs in MP on those
chips that intel didn't fix because they were
never intended to run SMP.
Given a well-supported video card and a decent window manager, X is much faster than Win9x. I used to get good performance on a 486dx33 with 8M of RAM and a VLB Cirrus Logic card. Try that with Win98.
I'll bet the fiasco in the courtroom isn't the fault of the legal team, but the MS executives themselves. These execs have repeatedly shown how arrogant they are. They probably get great advise from their lawyers, and then ignore because they think they know better.
Well, it was a dual PII 350 box, but without any hardware acceleration. Everything done by software. And they have that nice little tool with the Intel inside logo, which lets you turn off the second cpu. That way you can really see the difference. And they are working on PIII support.
I don't know how the BeOS interna looks like, but I could just never get used to Linux cause I couldn't figure out where all the different files goes...
Be *wasn't* trying to compete....it was those paranoid nutcases in Redmond that decided they couldn't stand to have tiny, little Be in existence.
You just don't get it, do you? Microsoft views *any* os to be a threat.
Of course its not free to add value (especially when you are a value added reseller ...) in any case. That doesn't mean its expensive, or that the OEM can't recoup their costs.
What an OEM _can_ do is a) charge extra for installing Linux or Be (remember Gassee explicitly mentioned Linux in his challenge, a note that OEMs already charge more for NT) or b) simply state that the BeOS is supplied on the same basis that of the rest of the software on the machine is -- no support. Ever tried to call Gateway and ask for support for Quicken?
Anyway, the whole point is to build exposure - thats why Gassee is making the offer. The goal is to get the operating system in from of people who might not otherwise get to see it. Giving away free copies to people who are already interested does make much financial sense as they might buy it anyway.
- N
It has to be default boot OS, or it has to be on the boot manager select list?
Get over it; Linux is the future! OS/2 might not be dead...but it ain't looking so good these days, IMO.
I no longer use proprietary operating systems, and precious little proprietary software at all, precisely because of that reason.
If it's not Free (as in speech), it's usually not worth using, especially in the case of operating systems.
But RICO has _nothing_ to do with Waco.
Are you wacko?
Just to completely beat this dead horse, yes, there is a read/only ext2 driver. It's on my web page here. I am currently working on a read/write version of the driver, and it's coming fairly quickly. I don't really consider it beta anymore, too.
Also, I have a crude NTFS read/only driver on the same page.
Anyway, I figured I'd chime in and set the info straight on my drivers.
Travis Geiselbrecht
Nope! :^)
If some idiot actually tried to run a nuclear power plant on M$ software, in a hazardous environment, it would only take a couple of deaths before they tossed it.
Say a week.
hanzie@hotbot.com
Apple ][ . . . Those things were everywhere.
Indeed.
The point is that the OEM's will not ship another pre-installed operating system on their boxes, because MS won't let them. Giving the OS away to customers is completely tangential. MS said in court that Be is this big bad scary competitor -- when in fact, Be is being slowly strangled by MS's monopoly. So Gassee hears this, and he's got a superior product, and he *knows* it, and he's pissed off at being used as an excuse to perpetuate a monopoly that is making life very, very difficult for his company.
He's demonstrating *WHY* OEM's won't ship other OS's. He's demonstrating just how Microsoft's (desktop) monopoly affects the market, and how it affects innovation. He's somebody who understands the situation, and who happens to have a high-quality desktop operating system lying around the house that he can license for free to OEM's to make a point.
You could call it a "publicity stunt", but the term "classroom demonstration" is a lot closer to the truth. Both are about communicating with people. And, yes, if MS can exploit him to try to grab many billion extra dollars, he's got a perfect right to pull some PR judo and try to use the situtation to grab a million or two for his own company.
What's stopping Apple from selling some Be Machines? Besides the fact that Be is too stubborn to port it to the 750s? I'm sure a little convincing Steve Jobs style could make it happen. Dunno why Steve'd do it tho. It'd just be funny to see them shupping Be Boxes, with no cost to themselves (Remember back when Apple was gonna buy Be... ;-)
Just like how the B-52 is a dinosaur from the 50's. Oh wait, its probably still the most powerful bomber in the US. Or how the SR-71 is a dinosaur from the 60's. Oops again, its still the fastest airplane on the planet. Or how about how C is a dinosaur from the 60s (we all know it came from BCPL)... oops again... how much code is still being written by that dinosaur? It should be clear by now, that when an idea is good that it doesn't die. Saying something is bad just because of its age is sort of childish.... sort of how the public will buy a $10 bottle of Advil instead of the $2 bottle of generic ibuprofen. You obviously lack the insight to acknowledge why it has survived so long! Its not because of Ma Bell in this case. Its because UNIX is the best way that an operating system has ever been implemented on computers.
One final note, when is the Internet going to be extinct? Its been around since the late 60s....
I feel sorry for all of those chumps that are unaware of alternative OS's. After all, if you've never experienced anything better, why would you switch?
I don't know how many times in the past I've left my NT "workstation" (now there is an oxymoron in my case!) and turned to my Powerbook to get real work done. Sure, technically the current MacOs is more primitive than NT, but in my day-to-day usage, it works much better.
I can't believe how many times apps crash on NT (the one saving grace of NT is that they usually don't bring down the machine). Compare to my NT machine (which is a realitively bare-bones install), my Powerbook rarely crashes (although when it does, look out!).
You know what gives NT the most fits? Office 97! There is one bug that is so bad, that I instanltly turn to my Powerbook (or go home to use my Power Computing machine). Excel will give an error saying that "the picture is too big. It will be clipped". I'm pasting text from an ascii file, goddammit! Not to mention the MS tech support site wants to know my shirtsize before they will allow me to download a bug-fix (er, "user-enhancement"). Sonsofbitches!
Oh, as far as pure data crunching of huge batchfiles goes, my compile C++ programs run roughly twice as fast as my Intel "workstation".
Nevermind that the user interface is an inconsitent mess (who were the retards that designed the '95 interface?). That also applies to the windows API's and MFC. Egads, Apple's APIs (which data back to 128k Macs) or so much more elegant. Does Microsoft actually sit down and logically plan things, or do they just belch this crap out?
Go Be! Go Linux! Go MacOS! Go FreeBSD!
Were you just anally raped? How the fsck did you get this response to the original poster. Did you just save this response and paste it to the first one you thought casually offended you?
You become emotionally upset and therefore dismiss Linux. Seems like a VERY rational choice to me! Hell you must love Windows! The users fall closer to the statistical norm and therefore are less likely to offend you.
"I don't like the people who have read the book, so I burned it." Congratulations, but I don't really think you'd be able to handle Linux anyways. Going into one of your irrational fits sometime and wondering why Linux isn't being very forgiving. Out of the window goes the monitor. Boom! Am I that far off?
But let me follow your logic for one second. "BeOS sucks because of users like you." Does this make that much sense anymore?
Have a nice fscking day!
I've seen the "they don't want to lose the rebate" reason given in several articles now.
Maybe I just don't get it.
Unless Microsoft gives a net payment to companies for each machine they ship with windoze, wouldn't it still be cheaper to create a machine around a free OS than one that costs the manufacturer $40 with a $20 rebate (for example).
There's either a positive net cost or a negative net cost to the OEM. If it's a positive net cost, then a machine with linux would be cheaper to the OEM, and the rebate reason is unfounded.
If it's a negative net cost (unlikely, but you never know) MS is underselling the product, & I believe this is a violation even more antitrust stuff.
Even when the cost of windoze is passed on to the consumer, but the rebate isn't, as is likely the case (these are all hypothetical numbers):
OEM spends: $1000 for hardware + $40 OS
OEM sells: a $1040 machine to the consumer for $1240.
so the OEM "earns" $200 profit on the machine, plus a $20 windows rebate for a total of $220/machine
machine with linux/Be
$1000 hardware + $0 OS
selling to consumer for $1200
OEM earns $200 profit/machine
Hm... How could they squeeze an extra $20 profit per machine to make everything work out at the bottom line... perhaps increasing price to $1220 ??? (still cheaper than windoze machine, everyone gets the OS they want)
What's that you say? you think you're in a roundabout way paying the windows rebate to the OEM? Ok, suppose MS gets rid of the rebate & subtracts the value from the real cost of the OS.
$1000 hardware + $20 OS, sold for $1220
vs.
$1000 hardware + $0 OS, sold for $1200
OR, if the OEM is greedy & needs $220 profit
$1000 hardware + $20 OS, sold for $1240
vs.
$1000 hardware + $0 OS, sold for $1220
Therefore, it is obvious that this is evidence that OEMs have a hidden agenda funding the Bavarian Illuminati and the Trilateral Commission by laundering $ from sales of everything from OEM computers to DIVX drives to PIIIs in order to fund the top secret colonization of Jupiter.
reginald
p.s. Beowulf
Check the usenet groups...I see them on sale.
I'm a master at Dos cli and working on unix cli mastery so I prefer using a cli for my day-to-day work.
The problem with Be is their lack of hardware and software support at least in my case.
I have a NE2000 clone (AT-2000 P&P) which, while active, won't access the net.
So I spend very little time in BeOS, what with games on Windows and screwing around with Unix on Solaris I don't have time to whip up a driver.
So, rather than complain, it just sits on my third disk. If it was partitioned on a disk, it would probably be gone by now until I see support for my particular hardware.
And that's the way it is. For now.
VA_BOFH
Well some people are simply retarded.
Read.
Try to understand.
Read again.
Despair
Hey for some there's no light
Well, he was a tad overzelous, but maybe you should actually TRY it from the hard drive before chiming in. R3 booted in 12 seconds on my machine, and R4 (not optimized yet, 4.1 is supposed to be faster) takes 20. Twelve seconds isn't two, but it's damned impressive.
MS goes out and says see there are 60 people who came together 3-4 years ago and in that time created something that in comparison the best our hordes in decades have done is POS. So they are a threat to us.
So David goes out to say that their pebble will not hurt Goliath. Entry point to the OS market is based on price and pre-installation. If more people had linux preinstalled with a default choice of WM starting right after boot with some applications thrown in and better package management, then many more people would be using linux. Considering many people only type papers and browse the web, linux gets their work done just as well or better.
Would you please elaborate on where that 50 bucks might be spent. Hell e-machiens sells whole systems for 400 bucks. So they spend 50 bucks on the license and 50 bucks on installing as it takes that much cash to check for compability. It's either you don't know your numbers or Gateway's incompetent and well I believe the former.
Or perhaps MS can't chicken out IBM
I've got a Thinkpad and the Active desktop bullshit was turned off, IE was configured with the homepage a local file describing IBM.net. Both of which troubled Gateway. Now IBM can ship computers with Linux, do you see a pattern. IBM does not fear anyone a few years back they decided they did not need the "blueprints" for new Intel chips and began running their fabs for Cyrix, etc. Compaq is now afraid to play the Alpha much lest they screw their relationship with Intel. In my opinion IBM is the most respectable company out there. Great research, great application, great software and arguable the best support in the industry.
It's getting really boring. We know that M$ is a bad boy and we know something has to be done about it, but all the anti-M$ articles and news on /. is getting really old and boring really fast.
Doubt all you want, fact is Be doesn't have:
Both of these are in production, but who knows when/if they'll become available. Of course the majority of users will need stuff like word processors too, and of course a hell of a lot more drivers.
Americans live in a money-driven society...
Seriously, here in Europe, people
sometimes do things simply because they want to help.
Lemme tell u what's wrong with windows....EVERYTHING!!!!!!
It's slow, it's massive but lacks in fucntionality and was written to crash. Guess thats how Gates is a billionaire.......he makes u buy a 'newer' and 'better' version of his software everytime that always is flawed. FUCK MICRISOFT!!!
I'm the original AC,
"Just check www.be.com and see why"
Now, seriously, if you want information about something, do you go to a biased source? Be's gonna make it seem like Apple's wrong. MAYBE JLG is holding a grudge? This does seem childish, but these CEO's aren't TOO mature... Remember when Apple bought NeXT? Everyone was pretty damn sure they were gonna buy Be. And I think Be wanted to be bought. But if you asked M$ about the DOJ's accusations, wouldn't they say they were innocent?
As for bastardizing the NeXTSTEP interface... That makes a bit of a hell of a lot of sense. Would Microsoft ship Win2k with a port of E? Doesn't make sense, does it? (slightly bad example) Apple owns NeXT, and if they're going to sell MacOS X (keywords, MacOS) shouldn't it look like the MacOS?
Steve Jobs isn't God. I never said he was, but he IS the CEO of Apple. I would expect the CEO of a company to make their company look good, wouldn't you? So he didn't pay attention to the super high end OpenGL platforms. He was just bragging about the new Macs. It's called advertising. Well, kinda.
Anyways, my point is, people do stuff. If Steve Jobs really isn't God, why do you take him so seriously? I was never really serious in my previous post, I just thought it would be funny if Apple were the only ones who took up JLG on his offer. Don't get so pissy. It's slashdot, not a courtroom. As for Steve ands Steve stealing their ideas for the MacOS from PARC, that's a totally unfounded statement. The MacOS's GUI was only a GUI, it didn't function like PARC's. So what? Copying something... seems familiar. Oh yeah, linux. That BASTARD! Linus Torvalds is the biggest theif I've ever seen! He stole UNIX!!!!!! Ehh.
And this I believe is the point of Gasseé's offer. Not to get BeOS installed, but instead to simply prove Microsoft has a monopoly. Period. This is something Microsoft has vehmentenly denied in court. I don't see that any OEM will actually not take this offer. As various authors have pointed out in is very costly and difficult to coordiante adding a new OS to a machine. Thus, your de facto monopoly :)
Joshua Hull
lynhul@home.com
905.922.4127
BE baby be!!!!!!!! YEAH!!! More proprietary poop!
I'd KILL for a BIND port to beos. I really do like BeOS, but I need to run my own DNS server - and I can't afford an old PC as a server (honestly - I don't even have $5, or £5 for us .uk'ers).
My box boots in 5 seconds from the boot choices.. I guess that may all very on what video card you have and what hardware you do have installed though..
If X is locked, then keypresses on a machine
where X controls the keyboard will do nothing.
Basically, if X goes down, and you're lucky,
then you can kill it AND get your graphics
state restored. If not, then its time to reboot
(since there's no other way to reset the graphics
card)
Microsoft changing special rates for Windows only applies to larger OEM's. With smaller OEM's (unless they are actually resellers) they are likely to be charged for Windows per copy at a retail type price. Thus are more likely to offer an alternative (or a bare machine.)
Where the Be offer will matter is if it's taken up
by a large OEM, potentially that company could end up being charged for Windows without a discount.
"News for Nerds." Maybe you like average people, but I don't think they matter that much, especially for the geeks who'll actually be contributing something other than whines. The average aren't good for anything but economies of scale making our hardware cheaper, so I say fuck 'em.
Too little hardware support, and we can't fix or reuse anything. But that's 'cause it's closed-source, and you knew that.
You don't deserve our gifts, you don't seem smart enough to use them, and we certainly don't need help from the likes of you. In my country we believe in freedom of speech, even for useless decereberate fascist ranting like this.
Not even robber barons deserve to be incinerated without trial. ATF agents are a disgrace to everything our founders fought for, and the sooner they're up against a wall, the more likely the USA will once again become a free country.
What exactly is inconsistant about the Windows UI? Let's hear some examples, MS-bashers.
(Other than Solitare which has a Game menu rather than a File menu
>>6.Multi-user
>Yes, true, but this typically doesn't matter in the home.
Excuse me, but the only place Multi-user capability doesn't matter is when ONLY a single user will be using the system. The multi-user capability of Linux ensures that my wife and son can't mess with my stuff or eachothers or the system stuff.
that's funny. Be Inc has an open bugs database. btw, when will linux developers get rid of xwindows and replace it with something modern? I'm still waiting for the 'fast response time' of OSS.
They are. It's JLG's challenge that may make this case stick. That's good news for both linux and BeOS
are really so naive as you seem? the only reason not to publish someone sources is their elegancy..
you're kidding, I guess
OK, so not X, but Linux hasn't got a consistent GUI (which is a pity in my opinion).
)
I'm afraid the concept of consistency isn't part of Linux culture; given Linux itself, its history and its user base, it may even be good this way.
Surely to catch the desktops some work needs to be done, and actually it's being done, though the distributed development style doesn't help the making of radically new designs (the people need to work on the same basis, which in turn needs to be well enstablished and this overall brings to dynamic development of conservative designs).
Given that this thread came up from BeOS issues, I'd point out that I certainly prefer the BeOS GUI as a programmer and a user as well. I'm not sure it's distributed, anyway VNC was ported (well, just the client so far: http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/platforms.html
preinstalling linux on a computer isn't exactly as simple as throwing a copy of Netscape on the hard drive and leaving a shortcut to it in the Start menu.
As a mac user, i don't really know exactly how this works on x86 machines, but my understanding is that you have to have a seperate EXT2 hard drive partition to hold linux in, and that you can't easily remove that partition without erasing the hard drive.
Unless there's some way to run linux off a windows partion (similar to linuxppc live) without much parformance loss I dont think bundling linux makes all that much sense except as a BTO option.
Same thing with BeOS. only worse. BFS, huh?
I believe early versions of Mac OS X supported booting off of any file system you installed it on that MOSX had drivers for. But that's irrelivant now because apple destroyed macosx/x86.. which i dont even want to go into. Bleaugh.
that said, if MS's liscensing agreements that require computer makers to uphold MS's monopoly in various ways don't qualify as antitrust, i dont know what does.
ahh, who am i kidding? nobody's gonna read this, there are 256 comments already.
Hasn't Be lined it's pockets with quite a bit of Intel's loot.
That seems like the more likely explanation of why there is no G3 BeOs.
Pios (www.pios.de I think) was willing to work with Be on a SMP PowerPC system.
Microsoft doesn't care about the end-user.
The vast majority of their sales are to OEMs not the poor slob at home.
My thoughts exactly. BeOS can kiss my ass, they are just as bad as microsoft.
AFAIK, X doesn't have a user interface. They left that to others to implement on top of X. Whether that is good or bad is largely a matter of opinion, but it does make it much easier to fix the bad ones. In any case, the problem is not with X but the programmers who use it.
Try opening 15 Netscape windows on a Win95 box with 64 megs RAM, then try the same thing on a Linux/X box.
Considering the number of programs you can do this with and have no problem, and the fact that those who want to disparage X always use this exact example, I would say the problem is with Netscape, and not with X. If the Linux version of Netscape is more bloated than the Windows version, how is that the fault of X? More the fault of Motif perhaps?
Now, in the interests of a fair comparison, open five different programs on your Windows box, each of which are running on a different machine than the others (and yes, the ability to do this does come in very handy).
I think if you take a close look at it, most of the problems people have with X (definitely not all, though) aren't with X itself, but with the way it's used. Personally, if I total up all the pros and cons of both X and Windows, it's not even close. X wins hands down. I recognize, however, that we're all different and YMMV.
of a trust or illegal business practices.
The anti-trust laws make it illegal to use that monopoly to stifle competition.
How do you make the OEM's admit they are subject to strong arm tactics? Not using an operating system with a small percentage of the OS market could be attributed to the chicken and egg problem. That is, which comes first - it took a long time for CD-ROMs to become "standard" equipment. Anyone remember the Year of the LAN that was predicted so often it happened before it was recognized.
This is the sort of argument that MS or the OEM's would make, and it contains some truth. Moreover, the descriptions of the Law as the search for the truth has never been in a courtroom or take too many political speeches at face value. Given the right mindset, an actual case is better than standup comedy.
Yes to those convinced of illegal dealings and skull duggery it's obvious , but it's not legal certainty.
...or for that matter Window Maker, nicely kitted out, with transparent aterms... then close the transparent one (hee, only good for showing off when you have a vivid desktop) and run the afterstep xlock -inroot hacks... for star travel or laser shows or 'swarm' (everybody falls in love with swarm!) as _animated_ desktops.
*grin* damn straight it can be the most visually pleasant, and this is a dude here who knows _all_ the tricks for making a _MacOS_ desktop visually pleasant (and there are a lot- basically the equivalent of E for macs, complete with outlandish window regions). You can set up a workstation in linux that's not only beautiful, but deeply functional- I can't get over the elegance of running them little old unix apps from tiles with elaborate lashings of flags and all sorts of customizations on the window specifications...
Yes, the visual prettiness is enticing, but you know you're a serious linux fancier when you get off on your ability to totally rewrite the menu and invent applications out of very basic parts (process manager, called BOFHCenter, run as top in an inverse aterm with the minimize button and resize border removed! Oh, and shift-keypad - and + will make all aterm-based apps shrink and expand as the font size changes- sort of 3D effect there, try _that_ anywhere else)
Maybe this is only for geeks. But, by God, is it ever for geeks! It's fun to do demos and wow neophytes- it's _amazing_ to set up a workspace where you could do demos that would floor _other_ _geeks_...
It's inconsistant in it's user interface
X is MUCH more inconsistent in its user interface. With billions of different widget sets and keyboard shortcut conventions and methods of cutting/pasting between apps, nothing is consistent. Every single app does nearly everything completely differently. If you want consistency, go for OS/2 or Mac OS, not Windows or X.
And before I get flamed - yes I know that X is not Linux. However, we're comparing the GUI of Windows to a Linux/GUI combination, and until somebody gets another working GUI that I can use with Linux, X is the only choice.
it's slow
Depends what you're talking about. For servers, yes it is, since you can run a Linux box for a server without a GUI, while Windows doesn't let you get rid of the GUI. However, for GUI programs, X is just as, if not more, slow than Windows. Try opening 15 Netscape windows on a Win95 box with 64 megs RAM, then try the same thing on a Linux/X box.
wastes disk space
Definitely have to agree with you there.
it's a hack ontop of hacks (ie: FAT32)
I thought "hacks" were generally considered a good thing? Linux is generally considered to be one big hack on top of a hack (UNIX being the original hack). In FAT32's case, it's a bad hack, which could be the distinguishing factor.
unreliable (frequent crashes)
No question there, although X could use a little more help in the reliability department too. I've managed to get XF86 to lock up the computer several times (due to incorrect video card configuration in XF86Setup). However, when finally set up properly, it definitely beats Windows in reliability, even if it is a bit clunky.
it's made by microsoft
That would be one of the major strikes against it. I'd have to agree with you there.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Yes, people have told me that. It's irrelevant, since I cannot telnet into my computer when it's locked up (it's the computer I telnet *from*) and I do not own a serial terminal. So it's as good as locked up for me, even if technically it isn't. Either way it requires a reboot.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Posted by stodge:
And why the hell not?! It would be like a kick in Microsofts' knackers if a large OEM accepted this offer. But I but noone does - I believe that MS has the OEMs by the short and curlies with the licensing. Shame they cant publish the different deals offered to each OEM. That would make for one hell of an interesting read. I bet they used to sell Windows licenses to Gateway for a buck each.
Did anyone read the link from BE's page to Pathfinder? I loved the diary of the trial they had. It was so funny.
Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:
bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Yes, I'm well aware of the fact that this exclamation is normally capitalised to express extreme humor. In this case, I've left it in lower case to express boredom. Specifically, the boredom of having to explain, yet again, that Windows does not do Windows.
Specifically, it doesn't do previous versions of Windows, or work properly on all ranges of available hardware. Each major release of Windows has generally required that applications written for the previous version be signifigantly re-massaged for the latest version.
That's one of the main reasons why Windows programmers ( like myself ) have given up on the posibility that the idiots at Redmond will ever get it right and why we are hopeful that OS's such as Linux/FreeBSD will continue to grow in popularity.
Still, I'll give you the benifit of the doubt and assume that you comment was intended as humor rather than flaming you.
$1000 hardware + $0 OS
selling to consumer for $1200
OEM earns $200 profit/machine
Craig
I am getting sick and tired about hearing how evil Apple has been to Be regarding the G3 specs. There are two open source OS's that run on Apple's G3's which Be could derive the required specs from. JLG is just pissed off that Apple won't bend over backwards to help him compete with them.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
I'd read it earlier this week, or last week. Laughed my ass off. It was soooo good. Best coverage I've seen yet.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
Now if they could only get them to put out a product that was worth $50 they would have a good deal on their hands. :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Valid points.
The real proof which bypasses any excuses of support cost is that you can't get the computer with NO OS at all. No OS = no license costs and no OS support costs, but they won't (can't) do it.
The BeOS offer is still a good thing since it calls public attention to the whole issue.
I'm sick of slackers like the people above me. What is so hard about taking a few hours, or reading a book, so you can learn how to use the CLI, an infinitly powerful tool? If you have enough time to read /. , you have enough time to learn linux.
A transparent Eterm doesn't STOP and of the rest of the nice GUI goodies. Even without GNOME or KDE, just about anything outside of root admin can be done in the total absense of xterms.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
First let me say that I own a copy of the BeOS and enjoy it immensly. I am NOT trying to slam Be.
With that said, I feel there is a problem with Gasse's "proof". If vendors do not take him up on his offer to pre-install the BeOS free on their machine it does NOT PROVE THAT MS HAS A STANGLEHOLD MONOPOLY. The reasons is simple.
1) BeOS is still coming up to speed. It wasn't until the release of rev 4 a few months ago that Be even supported SCSI. Many still don't have drivers. Much of the OS is still under development. This is not the sort of thing that I would feel confident putting on machines that I sold. (P.S. To its credit I've never seen the BeOS crash!)
2) It takes more than just software.Sales, support, training, infrastructures, etc... all need to get up to speed if a company were to offer the BeOS on machines. Even if it is completely unsupported, it still takes time and energy to sell it with the right hardware and to put it on the drive.
I feel these are two perfectly logical reasons for not taking Gasse up on his offer. I know that these aren't the only reasons, and that the single biggest reason is probably MS fear, but I AM saying that there are other reasons not to run right out and adopt the BeOS.
Even though I don't think this will "prove" anything, I hope this stunt brings attention to MicroSloths unfair business techniques. I hope that vendors take it serious and begin offering the BeOS. I hope to see fair OS competition in my lifetime. Until then, way to Be!
-Derek
Be isn't going to make their OS free forever - no OEM is going to start shipping the OS for free if at any point in time that free offer could be pulled out from under them, just as they get a few orders in for it. It's a publicity stunt, and it looks great until you dig a little deaper.
--
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
Officially, IBM doesn't consider OS/2 to be competition to Windows either. Well, on the client side at least. Of course, everyone ELSE thinks that OS/2 is competing against Windows.
--
Timur "too sexy for my code" Tabi, timur@tabi.org, http://www.tabi.org
Sorry people, but as "great" as Linux and BeOS are (frankly, I think OS/2 is better than both of them combined), the customers don't really want it. The average computer user doesn't know any better.
--
Timur "too sexy for my code" Tabi, timur@tabi.org, http://www.tabi.org
The cost of the OS is insignifcant compare the cost of supporting it. If an OEM wanted to pre-install BeOS, they would have to support it as well as they support Windows. That means hiring or training people, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
--
Timur "too sexy for my code" Tabi, timur@tabi.org, http://www.tabi.org
He's no relation of mine, sorry to say.
An esoteric scratched itch:
Homeworld Map Maker Tool
That's the problem with Linux for me. You can have a striking terminal using transparency, OpenGL or whatever, but you still have to use the somewhat cryptic Unix commands. Using a desktop environment like KDE and Gnome sure helps, but it doesn't even scratch at the OS/2 WPS ease-of-use, extentiability and pure brute force. Linux makes a great server (install, configure, let it run five years, compile new kernel, reboot). However, I will not replace my OS/2 Warp system until there is something better than WPS in existance.
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
The OS/2 WPS is an object oriented user interface that you can extend in almost unlimited ways without the need to recompile or modify the basic source code. You can make a special type of folder or file by inheriting the basic properties that object has and then adding a few new ones. One example is the desktop, that is a basic folder with a few new capabilities (like Shutdown). Adding a tab with your own setting for an object in the Properties panel is easy. This sort of flexibility doesn't exist in any other environments that I know of.
This site got some things about the WPS.
http://ro.com/~jeffj/computers/os2/WPS/
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
ummmmm... be doesnt want to use those because those are reverse engineered and they can change at a whim. apple is stupid for not releasing the g3 specs. with regards to this aspect they are shooting themselves in the foot,
"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."
--
And Justice for None
I was afraid it was a mistake, not as severe as the Linux as a "competitor" defense- but a mistake just the same.
Now, I know better- it was as gigantic a mistake on MS' part bringing Gassee's company into the picture as a "competitor". Whomever said Gassee was from the "scorched earth" school of business wasn't kidding.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Just because the mythical "average consumer" didn't want OS/2, doesn't mean they don't want Linux or Be. ;)
IMHO one of the biggest problems being overlooked by everyone is the simple variable of the common consumer.
Even if Joe Blow has an option to get a machine with any OS he wants, he still MUST weigh application availability.
The common consumer will be looking at what is available to him/her in the market. Sadly you can go anywhere and all you will find is M$ compatiable software.
Yes, yes, I know you can get other applications, but finding them is not all that easy AND you still have to wait for them in the mail.
Most users will prefer to go to the store and buy it. That is because that will allow them to enjoy their purchase NOW. It's the state of our society. We have all gorwn up getting things NOW. Not later.
Even downloading is becoming more and more popular, because you can get it now.
When places like shareware.com and download.com amongst many start offering software for other OS's besides MAC and M$ as the majority, you won't find people rushing to a different OS.
Also, the commmon user will looking at their current investment of software. When you spend 50.00-over 100.00 for software you are more and more reluctant to go and purchase another 100.00 software that they need to relearn how to use.
When WINE is stable and truely does what they're shooting for, then you will see more people wanting something different and more willing to change.
All IMHO.
(I hate MS but it pays my bills.)
Sorry, but I'm not familiar with X11. As my signature should tipped you off, I'm an OS/2 user and thus am familiar with a very consistent user interface! This site is "News for Nerds", not "News for Linux users"...
The fact that it's made by microsoft is extremely relevant because their business practices are questionable.
because of the way they do business, I(and many others) elect not to buy ANY of their software, even if it might be good.
fs is BFS, a powerful 64bit file system journalize
yes BeOS can read ext2 (beta, read only)
i think a geek has written a BFS driver for linux (alpha, read only)
--
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Be isn't looking to supplant Windows. Their goal is peaceful coexistance. If you re-read the story, you will see that they want to be dual-booted or launched from an icon on the Windows desktop. This is in-line with their goal of building a specialized multimedia OS, complementing the general purpose Windows.
And as for Be thanking Linux: For what? Linux inherited the alt-OS-du-jour crown from OS/2, who inherited it from DR-DOS. Linux and BeOS are just lucky enough to be around at a time when traditional media outlets consider computer stories newsworthy.
Keith Russell
This sig intentionally left blank.
Linux isn't the only operating system with a command line. The BeOS includes a bash shell and nearly all the system settings can be shanged from the shell, if desired. BeOS also has nice graphical tools to manipulate the files, which are much easier to use the the X config tools available. Linux is nice for a server, but for a workstation why not go with the BeOS that has both the power of the command line and the ease of a nice GUI too?
I want it (Linux | BeOS). I's be willing to buy it. I'm a customer.
There is no "average computer customer." It all depends on the market. The development market differs from the web design market differs from the server market differs from the game market differs from the office drone market differs from... well, you get the point.
If there are enough people out there who would buy a product, then there is a market for a product. The "average computer user" IN THAT MARKET has plenty of demand for the product. Is the market large enough to make a profit?
Just judging from the traffic at this site and many sites dedicated to "niche" OSs and applications, I think that there is a significant market for Linux and BeOS and most of the other products which the "average computer user" has no need for.
To paraphrase what you said, not every single customer wants Linux or BeOS. Who cares, as long as many customers DO want them?
Russell Ahrens
It threatens to get more people using his company's product and Linux, and will provide evidence to rebut Microsoft's suicidal Linux defence.
Actually, they used to give the entire OS away for free (or nearly so). I got the full PR1 CD in a magazine. As a developer, you get free updates and at the time, anyone could sign up to be a developer for free. Truly, such a thing isn't very economical in the long run but it did get them a bunch of customers, many of whom are still loyal customers.
Either way, you do have a point. Be wins this way in terms of publicity. You've got to be arrogant in today's computer industry to stay alive.
-- "Never call your girlfriend 'Butterball'. Not even once."
"AFAIK Linux, while having much better SMP support than the crude approach it had before, still lacks many possible optimizations."
It's a lot better than NT, which will move threads to other processes no matter what (AFAIK) and will therefore suffer from L1 and L2 misses. The Linux scheduler tries to avoid that.
Duck for cover! It's another masquerading annon coward!
Believe with me, my saplings.
I had this keyboard problem! Had to change motherboard :( but it was definitely worth it :)
Believe with me, my saplings.
Now all we need is Oracle for Be and we can sit back and yell MAWHUHAHAHAHHAHA (excuse my quirky sexual fantasies)
Believe with me, my saplings.
Well... in my Ideal World (tm), you'd have Be as the standard client OS and Linux as the server. I'll never own a Mac, but I do think that they, like Playstations and PDAs have a place in the market. It's similar with Be. What's *wonderful* about it is that it bridges a lot of the gap between a good consumer OS (as the Mac is, you have to give it that) and one capable of doing groovy stuff.
I really don't think that linux does that in quite the same way. Which is good, because that's what makes linux kick arse in the server area. It's unstoppable.
Believe with me, my saplings.
It's not a cheap publicity stunt: MS is trying to use Be to get it out of trouble in court, and Be is retaliatin by saying "Hey there! People won't be able to bundle our OS even if we give it away!"
Be is the winner, and its a balsy move from Gassee.
Believe with me, my saplings.
Yeah, vi :)
:(
Seriously, if you're still using R3, you probably don't have much in the way of good stuff installed as standard. But the Codewarrior that comes with R4 is pretty good. I've found it a quite different approach to many packages (such as Visual C++), in some ways, yet it's just as good (just... different)
I've read lots saying that Pe is good also. But you can't get it for R4 intel which is what I have
Believe with me, my saplings.
Not true. You can buy licences of NT which support > 2 processors.
Naturally you have to pay a hefty surplus, no doubt to cover the extensive programming, sweat and tears that have made it happen >.|
Believe with me, my saplings.
BeOS left the "developers only" scene in July of '97.
There are several places that will sell you a low cost linux box. For example, sunset systems, TCU-inc, OEMcomputers. See The LDP hardware page for a list of vendors that will preload linux. Some of them have good prices.
--
Donovan Rebbechi
How do you know you dont want something which you cant get, and havnt ever seen before? If everyone out there is competing on a level playing field, and customers knowingly choose MS Windows over other products, thats just fine, but the fact is, the playing field is severely skewed, due to MS's unfair business practicies. Personaly, I think this system (laizzes-faire capitalism) tends to create these kind of situations (monopoly). It might be that at one time, users actually chose MS products over others, this should not be a certificiate for MS to block the entire market from competitors. They are the quintessential bully, and when they get dragged into court, they say the things any bully says - "But we're just a small company", "we need to protect ourselves", etc. Sometimes when my Word tables fuck up on me (yes I use word.. I cant not use it), I feel like punching bill gates in the mouth, and say to him, "Why the fuck does your wordprocessor suck and change formatting on me when I dont want it to?". Shit, I'm rambling...
-Laxative
See the URL:
9 .shtml
http://www.slashdot.org/articles/99/02/20/16722
I didn't want to run DOS in the 80's, but I didn't have an alternative (and didn't know about the Mac), so I got an 8086 with DOS. That's part of the problem today - consumers don't know alternatives exist because Microsoft won't let OEM's provide alternatives (apparently).
But say Gateway advertised their boxes with Windows 95 and BeOS as OS options. As a typical consumer, I'd be like, "What's this BeOS thing?" Maybe I'd do a little reading on it. Maybe I'd find that it might be a cool thing to try out. And if it came for free, I'd definitely order a box with it on there - people love to get stuff for free. Once I started using it, maybe I'd find it did something better than Windows, and so on, and so on.
A demand may be there for Be, but Microsoft is attempting to preemptively squash any prospect of demand. That's one of the points Gassee's making.
Soulfry.
But have you ever gotten a machine from an OEM with some funky DOS/Windows drivers supplied by the OEM to work with their funky hardware? OEM's often have to coordinate their specific hardware with the OS, so why not do the same with the BeOS? Of course there won't be as many resources (read programmers, etc.) to pair the two together, but with plain vanilla hardware, the task will be much easier.
As for the reasons to sell a machine with BeOS (and Linux, too, for that matter): more choices for the consumer, more bullet points in the advertisements, and all the free publicity generated for being the first kid on the block to sell a box with 3 OS'es pre-installed.
Soulfry
Actually, I knew about the Apple II's, but they were seen as elementary school computers. I needed a computer for college, and Intel boxes with DOS was the status quo in my area (Western NY).
Soulfry
Can I be the wookie?
"It's Brazilian"
Per a recent posting on beusertalk (see http://www.benews.com/story/?ID=714) Be is planning on targeting the mainstream.
People like my girlfriend need an email client, a web browser and a word processing app. And that's it.
I think Be's got a good chance of making it in the home market--particularly among new users. Bezilla (in progress) + MailIt/Adamation/... + Globe Productive = enough features for most people.
Re: Linux vrs Be... I think Linux makes an awesome server platform, but I personally don't have the sys admin skills to use it on my desktop. Be has the stuff to gain broad market appeal in the desktop and workstation market based on its simple UI and overall speed.
Quit throwing a hissy fit on reposted stories! ;)
BTW, Praise Be!
But most of the time your console is lost until you reboot. If fbcon gets a lot of work in 2.3 that problem will go away.
-matt
Gassee has no intention of giving away free copies of Be, and he knows that he will not be giving away any copies of Be. If he does, why does Be not offer the OS for free to any computer user who asks? He should, if he really believes in the "network effect" he talks about.
This is just a cheap publicity stunt. The OEMs know that this is just a cheap publicity stunt -- therefore they will not install Be (there are many hidden costs besides the price of the OS). Therefore Be is the winner: Be gets good publicity, Gassee gets back at Microsoft, and he does not have to give away a single thing.
"And unlike other 'multiprocessor' Operating Systems, the BeOS lets you really use all that power."
I interpret that as a reference to NT, which as I understand it isolates each process to a single CPU. So you can write a multithreaded NT program, run it on a multi-processor machine, and only one processor will be used. To use >1 processor at a time, you have to be running multiple processes at once.
Not to mention that most NT programs aren't very multithreaded, since it is easier to write single-threaded apps. Under BeOS, almost all apps are multithreaded, simply because the system APIs are designed to be multithreaded on your behalf.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Nope, hasn't been PR for sometime.
They are selling R4 as a full retail version, as they did w/ R3.2...
QuakeII has been ported (and looks awesome from what I have read). Granted, they don't have a lot of commercially available software (yet), but with Q2 ported, an ICQ/AIM (yes, both in one) client in the works, Opera (web browser) more than 1/2 finished, a full featured mail client available, it is coming right along...
-- 100% MS-Free as of 4-4-1999, 11:47:38 PST. "The lapdance is always better when the stripper is cryin'" Free Kevin,
I know it is abit offtopic, but...
What fs type is it?
can Linux read it?
can BeOS read ext2?
Please tell me,
Maybe I'll try it....
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I'm going to live forever, or die in the attempt.
Cool.. :-) if for no other reason, than to help support this sort of guts with my $$$$
You know, I think I like Jean-Louis Gassée. There is a COE with balls!!
This man is willing to GIVE AWAY his product, if it means making his point. I doubt anyone will take him up on it, sadly enough, but, just this attitude is making my want yet another Hard Drive in my system, for Be
Microsoft definitely fears BeOS and Linux, make no mistake about that. Why? Because, if users get PCs with BeOS or Linux on it, they will see Windows 9x for what it really is, a cobbled-together, crash-prone OS, with serious security and reliability issues. OSes like BeOS and Linux are true multi-tasking, stable, do-the-job OSes. The only difference is that the world doesn't think it can survive without Microsoft. The truth is, we can. This is obvious on the server end, but not on the desktop end. Corel has released WordPerfect for Linux, and Be is a great multimedia-creation system. Thy both have niches right now, but I am looking forward to the day when we will be able to get any app, be it a graphics package, accounting software, Internet tools, games (Oh, yeah, I'm a gamer), and more for any OS we choose.
I would like to stress that I am not anti-MS. I just think that there are an increasing number of products that do a better job with smaller hardware requirements. I do think that when they really want to, they can make a good product. They just don't really want to. They are more concerned with profit margins than product quality. And that is why there is so much resistance out there. Corporations (and consumers) are getting fed up with the exhorbitant cost of MS software, the insane licensing agreements, and the downright shoddy quality of some of Microsoft's software. I want to stress this:
YOU CAN'T FOOL THE INDUSTRY FOREVER. You may be able to get away with poor design and high costs for a while, but this industry is constantly reinventing itself for lower and lower costs, and anyone who does not join in this trend will be OUT OF BUSINESS. Microsoft has lasted this long because they don't leave a "crack in the wall" for OEMs to use other (better) OSes.
I always welcome comments. Please email me at robertdumas@hotmail.com with comments.
Go to www.be.com. Read and learn.
Let me quote the relevant portion of Mr. Gassee's offer:
We end with a real-life offer for any PC OEM that's willing to challenge the monopoly: Load the BeOS on the hard disk so the user can see it when the computer is first booted, and the license is free.
In order to get the free license, OEMs don't have to load only BeOS on the machine. It doesn't even have to be the default OS. Users merely have to have the option of using the BeOS when the machine is first booted. And I would bet next month's paycheck that no OEMs take him up on the offer.
I worked for Gateway 2000 for three years, and I'm aware that there would be lots of other costs involved in placing BeOS on the system besides the license - there's compatibility testing, manufacturing downloads, and support. I estimate that it would cost $50/box (or more) to install BeOS on all of Gateway's consumer systems, and there's not enough demand to justify hiking everyone's prices by $50.
In the consumer space, Windows is not one of many operating systems; it is its own category. Microsoft is the only company that offers Windows. No other company has any product that can replace Windows in the consumer market. It is a de facto monopoly, even if it is not a de juris one (and I'm pretty much convinced it's both).
YEAH! Go AC! You tell those guys! Why don't THEY make Linux and GNU and all that stuff free? Why don't THEY talk about how Microsoft is a monopoly that won't let other OSs have a chance? Why don't they cut the license costs to zero for OEMs who preinstall Linux? Cause they're too busy being GEEKS, THAT's why. Let's hear it for the suits! GO SUITS!
for $3000 you could buy a remanufactured Indy with monitor or even an Indigo2 :-)
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
FS: 64-bit journalling FS "BFS"
read only ext2 driver for Be
read only BFS driver for linux
r/w dirver for FAT32 for BeOS
http://www.be.com has all the answers
You obviously don't know anything about Be, because if you did you would not question the quality of their code. If you write code yourself, take a look at their API on www.be.com. Now I know C++ is not l33t, but when done right it rocks, and no-one who uses a Be system will ever again think that C++ only produces slow bloated code.
Just because Window$ is not a very good OS doesn't mean that all proprietary OSes suck
man this Miicrosoft vs DOJ is getting better all the time. I sure would like to get my choice of linux or be from almost any OEM.
it's just too Sweeeeeeeeeeet !!!!!!!
I love the concept of this offer but how bout be get a few (i understand there is a japanese and possibly a european) international distributors. I just ordered a copy of be (had to order it from be in the US) and it ended up costing me $180AUD (im in Australia). I could get windows98 for that price =P.
sorry if i sound overly stupid, but am i going to be able to go to my corner computer store and next time i buy a sytem ( or just hard drive ) and get beOS with it for free? sorry i dont undcerstand teh OEM thing 100% , so some one feel free to clear me up with this.
www.grunef.com slashspam(an A with a squiggle around it) willcowan.com
Why would anyone want anything else? Windows does everything. It even does Windows.
More DOJ ammo. Awesome. Go Be.
BeOS uses its own file system, called bfs. It's a 64-bit journaled fs, with a cool attribute and resource structure. As far as I know, it can't be read outside of BeOS, but that is probably not far out. According to Be's BeWare section this filesystem driver is available for ext2 read-only. The driver also has a homepage. There are several other filesystem drivers available in the BeWare section. The facility for creating plug-ins and add-ons both for an application and the operating system is *very* cool. Read up on the Be Book for more.
How do you mean? R4 of BeOS comes with all the compiler tools, including the IDE and gcc. So you can use that, or vi and gmake, etc.