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Scott Hacker Responds
Elwood writes "
Scott Hacker answers some of the questions and concerns that /.ers raised in response to his last column Of Tanks and Batmobiles."
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All I can say is that someone who so stupid that they manage to break their system by RPM installing the GTK/GLib bits and bobs shouldn't be given credit for anymore insight than Jesse Berst.
:)
It must have been in a sorry-ass state before he started.
I'm sure I could break BeOS (or worse yet, MacOS) so that when you installed an update, it'd fall over. This is borderline FUD.
His is the song of the disgruntled enduser, who claims that "I didn't touch it, *it* did it!", when their computer screws up. His is the song of the lamer. This shows very poor standards of journalistic integrity.
A lot of the "technology journalists" who are jumping on the bandwagon these days are doing so for reasons of facile progress. They neither have journalistic standards worth a damn, nor any decent grasp about their subjects.
End of rant!
Hear hear!
I agree with your comments, and what's more was quite interested in BeOS. However, the borderline FUD rubbishing in order to make a tenuous point was a really cheap and dishonest shot. Classic advocate behaivior..
"W-w-w-w-w-why can't we all get along?"
etc.
I'm not saying it's not going to happen, Linux distributions are worlds apart today (just finished a RH6 install) from what they were when I did my first Slackware install (during the 0.9x kernel days... I remember using a stack of 45 AOL flopies to do this install)... thing are improving, but I've never seen an OS as ealy toinstall+config than the BeOS is today. Though I'd still claim that a properly set up Mac is still easier to use (after the install and setup) for you're average person than BeOS, WindowsXX, any Linux Dist, or any other OS I've ever tried (though there aren't many properly set up Mac's in the world)...
This is true for ANY OS... It's equally aplicable to any Linux Dist and BeOS and NT and MacOS and Win 3.1 and Win 3.0 (my HS had a single Win 3.0 box because we had an old IBM scanner that wouldn't work with anything else) and Xenix and BSD 4.0 and OpenBLT and ANY other OS you can name. Sorry to be repetative, but I've seen so many people make this point, and only apply it to their favorite Linux Dist "because it's open source". Nobody is forcing you to upgrade your OS. Hell, my father's office had a Microsoft Xenix (yes Microsoft Xenix, a Unix flavor) box up for 10 years w/ almost daily use, and they still use it for old data... over the 10 years, the only things they 'upgraded' were some new dumb terminals and a new printer. The OS has never been upgraded.
On the other hand, if you're concerned about security... or if the task the computer is doing changes, you may have to upgrade your system. Again, this applies to ANY OS...
Well, duh. What's he supposed to say? OSS sux, I'd never use it in my OS, you people can all shut up and use my OS? It's called diplomacy. Something that you could use more of.
*Another* 9x clone coming out? Not the NT stuff? Jeez, they just can't stop trying to make money, even without writing new code. 2000 is gonna be less stable than NT, and less compatible and easy to use than 9x. It's gonna be bad. But even M$ has certain standards. If they can't release it yet, I wonder how bad it actually is now?
Nope. Not gonna happen. M$ programmers are paid to make an operating system that will work well in a business. The OS can suck, it just has to overall fit in better than anything else (and since they get MS compat with all other MS products, they pretty much win by default). Linux programmers program for the heck of it because they want to make a better OS. If they wanted to better serve end-user needs, they'd be out writing technical documentation, instead. It's just a different approach. Maybe if RH gets really rich and hires a bunch of programmers to fill wants...and somehow resists tempatation to fork the source code, given all those coders...
I've been trying to think of a way to distribute processes from a BeOS workstation onto a cluster of Linux machines.
The cluster has 24 motherboards, each with dual P2s and 64mb of ram. (Setting it up for the math and science departments, naturally). Creating the cluster itself is not a problem, however I think BeOS would make a great frontend.
Simple. Create the jobs and send them to the Linux cluster using BeOS, and display the results back using whatever catches your fancy. (Linux, BeOS, Macs, yadda yadda).
BeOS and Linux can make a great symbiotic relationship if used appropriately.
Yes, no?
Well, you hard-core types that can't take criticism of Linux could all set up a forum somewhere else. Whois says that www.linux-nazis.com is still free.
And I've seen a heck of a lot more Windows bashing here than Linux bashing. Less extolling Linux because everyone here already knows how good it is.
A more thought provoking question would be, "What if the whole world was a democracy but COMPLETELY UNLIKE the United States?"
I agree. But you should be careful...his comment is part of a growing Anti-Anti-Anti Microsoft wave.
BE == IBM. No matter how they start out, the current people will quit/be fired/die and it will turn into a corporation. A corporation who's goals are to make money no matter what. Frankly, I find Apple to be as potentially scary as Microsoft, it's merely that Apple wasn't as successful. If Be is successful, sooner or later it will join those ranks, like any suffiecently large corporation.
Maybe a non-GPL open source license... GPL makes *NO* sense for Be right now. But some form of more restrictive license risks a Netscape fiasco.
They're doing OK, I'd say.
Exactly, the more tasks that we want to be able to efficiently address with computers the more tools we need. Scott was right too, the open source movement is a kind of chaos, but it is not chaotic enough to produce all the variations that even our current needs demand. I would love to have more access to more hardware platforms, operating systems, developent paradigms (neither 'cathedral' nor 'bazaar' could address all needs better than the other in every case), API's, development tools, etc. To me the ideal future isn't world domination by any OS (regardless of how open or flexible it may be), hardware platform, etc. but a chaos of options each evolving in their own directions by their own means but made more or less interchangeable by the adherence to a well thought out series of open standards.
Remember, evolution isn't about the dominance of one species but the increase in complexity and bio-diversity of the ecosystem as a whole. It is this increase which enables further evolution and bifurcation of the member species and thus the emergence of new possibilities.
Phew.
I agree with what you said[1]. That was one of his "subtle" snubs. "OSM(open source movement) is chaotic and produces diversity that yields no "clear-cut foundations",APIs. Anyone who understands Linux/Unix knows that we indeed have a "clear-cut foundation" and there are APIs that are likewise "clear-cut". His statement about "conventions, installation methods, etc" Really is a choice issue. The question all OS users/programmers/whatever have to ask themselves is. Do they want choice or not, and were do they want it and to what degree. Also his example of Linux's fault: "The problems arise whenever I've tried to start tweaking or customizing the system, or installing new software." Now anyone who's been around computers especially as long as he claims knows that other OSs *can have* problems when engaging in the above activities. Remember windows DLL hell for example. I'm certain that there are coresponding examples for other OSs. "But I've got a long way to go before I'm confident enough to just download any Linux software and get up and running with it in seconds, as I can with BeOS."
Which is why it's good to have your distributor do it. If he wants to be adventurous with his software then he should expect a less than polished path. "but by keeping the OS itself in the hands of a central authority, BeOS software just works, open source or not." Basically he advocates a central authority, fine. I'll leave it to the historians to judge which is the better(if any). "BeOS straddles the worlds between the cathedral and the bazaar, retaining enough control to keep everything focused and tight, while promoting the many advantages of the open source model." Another one of his subtle snubs[2] By implication OSM is not "focused and tight". How much of a snub (if any) depends on were one stands on the issue.
"BeOS has only been on the x86 platform for 18 months. In that time, their approximately 100 engineers have been able to boot the system on the vast majority of modern hardware (that's not to imply full support, just that it can at least be booted on most modern hardware)." What isn't said (but should have) is that Be has the advantage of NDAs. We have to reverse-engineer (and even that's being legally threatened). "in addition, there are some hardware vendors out there who are more willing to work with a central point of contact than they are to work with the open source community" This sumply reinforces what I said earlier. There's another example of the above further down in the article when he compares video-cards and the no muss,no fuss nature of BeOS. It would have been more honest of him and others who use such examples to also bring the fact of NDAs to light.
[1] The chaotic part and the messing up the os part. Note to a lot of the people outside this post. You throw around accusations of Hate and Zealotry. From someone who's stared both in the face. I doubt you would throw it around in so cavalier a fashion if you knew what it really was, so people tone it down. Otherwise you come off no better than the people you accuse.
[2] It's I shame really I had to go thru and point out all this subtlties but right now quite a majority think were bashing him for no good reason. We're not really, just pointing out some of the errors in his article. There is a difference. How many know what it is?
*Where* are these posts? I can't find any of them. I see maybe 5 strongly worded anti-linux posts on all of Slashdot at the end of the day. Probably 5 times that strongly pro-linux. Many pro-linux related (OSS, GPL). And tons of "I like Linux, use daily" posts. Not many "I like Windows, use daily" posts. Not many pro-Mac...a couple. A few pro-OS/2. A few Solaris. Lots of BSD, but not as many as Linux. Where are you getting all these posters from? Because Slashdot strikes me as about as much Linuxtown as it gets...with friends from FreeBSDBurg, a suburb.
But, realize this: "Free" isn't everything. This isn't a holy war. Open source should be considered an additial 'feature' of a given piece of software, not the end all and be all of how evil a company is. Despite popular opinion, there are ethical companies that deal in closed source software.
Sure, their economic model may be screwed, but that's their problem, not yours. It doesn't make them evil, it just makes them a bad business prospect (even this I doubt, as I'm not exactly seeing the closing of tons of closed source businesses happening).
In my opinion, a piece of software being open sourced is a GREAT feature - many eyes catch many bugs, and you can hack out your own fixes as needed. But, it is NOT a prerequisite for good (or 'ethical') software development. In some cases, it can even hamper things.
Anyhow, people really need to see the BeOS on good hardware (say, a high end PowerPC) to appreciate its merits. This blind fanaticism really is unbecoming for the Linux community.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
I'd say /. is pretty much pro-Linux period, and this hasn't changed recently at all. Just pro-Linux.
- Sample code is ALWAYS under this kind of
- license. What's your point?
That the "samples" include full drivers that
ship with the system and such, not just
example snippets. I expect future releases
to have more driver sources (where not restricted
by NDA or license issues).
*shrug*
--Brian
For every anti-Linux post, I can find you five anti-Windows posts here on /. You are totally wrong. Slashdot is pro-Linux.
Hey, cool. When is he going to port his screensaver to Linux?
(It's funny. Laugh.)
--
QDMerge -- generate documents automatically.
how to invest, a novice's guide
Yea, an rpm can give you problems, but how in the world did he manage to screw up his old system by upgrading gtk.
He must have thought for a second he was a baddass, and ignored dependencies, and just used rpm --nodeps --force gtk*. That makes it his fault. Even then, how did he mess up his whole system.
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
If Be "straddles the cathedral and bazaar", then what is FreeBSD? It has a central point of control.
Besides, you just cd over to your packages/ tree to install GTK by just typing "make install".
What's next? Start the Church of Linux? Worship large statues of Linus and everyone is required to have a ring with a little golden Tux on it.
Hm, now I want a ring with a little golden Tux on it.
That would be even cooler than a Java ring.
(Oh, and I fail to see the point in getting worked up over the "My OS is better than your OS" wars. There are better ways to amuse the elite fourteen year old boys who care about that sort of thing.)
--
QDMerge -- generate documents automatically.
how to invest, a novice's guide
Gee, "World Domination" under Linux is begining to sound soooo enticing. I've been using Linux for sometime but I 've gotten tired of recommeding it to friends who then have to read through the insults and bullshit that the coomunity throws at anyone not toeing the party line or asking uncomfortable questions.
Guess what people, there are people out there who are more mature than you, better educated, more intelligent, know more about computers than you and (gasp) DON'T use Linux. How do you think you appear to them?
Unfortunately, too many people in the Linux community are turning into kind of a Serbian Special Police unit out to do a little OS cleansing. Everything sux except Linux, right?
Personally, I (and many others) want to be able to use Linux, Be, Solaris,NeXT, BSD, Warp, QNX and NOT get into a silly fight with a bunch of fifteen year-olds everytime something is said they don't agree with.
The Linux community should take a LONG and SERIOUS look at the effect Team OS/2 had on the public and media's perception of OS/2. Many users and former users now feel Team OS/2's fanatical efforts at advocacy did as much if not more damage to Warp as did Microsoft. Acting like a buch of assholes neither helps the community nor wins us respect. It sounds trite, but it works both ways, if we treat others with respect, they'll treat us respect and pay more attention to what we have to say.
I think that's reason enough to go BeOS and give up Linux. How much sex does the average Linux user get? I just did a poll of Be developers I know. They get a lot. I don't think it has anything to do with sex appeal though. It has to do with time. Linux users sit and play with themselves while recompiling their kernel. Be users leave that job to Brian "no-dual-Celerons-TYVM" Swetland at Be and spend the quality time with their wives and girlfriends.
Linux may be hot now, but without adequate procreation of its vocal supporters, it will be a footnote in a generation.
Gassee wears leather, rides a bike and sports a diamond earring. I bring chicks over to look at R4.5 running 8 skin-flicks and then boot up KDE...Ha! They know cool....
We all know what grief it tends to cause when you have a closed-source operating system with marketshare in the 90th percentile. I think many of us have seen this same potential, given the similar closed-source approach, in this newcomer to the OS show.
It's easy to imagine the "BeOS doomsday scenario"-- Be starts getting popular, then hits it really big, and then things start going wrong. Feature bloat comes in. The excellent API documentation starts slipping. New releases come out in model years. You know the path to the Dark Side.
If BeOS were open-source, we'd know what to do. Fork the code. Let the community keep them honest. But this, as things stand, is not to be an option for us.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Anyone remember the old days, otherwise known as the '80's? I sure don't, but I've heard a lot about how Microsoft was the underdog back then. They were cheered on by many an end user against the behemothy likes of IBM, Lotus, and the other great Titans of old. Well, we know what happened to young Anakin. Is BeOS to become the next Dark Lord?
I don't intend to slight JLG, or any of the other intelligent and zany BeOS developers, whose efforts have proved nothing short of astounding. However, there is at least a basis for some, shall we say, healthy skepticism on the part of our more faithful open-source advocates.
We know Open Source isn't pixie dust, but it is a very good way of keeping a company from doing Microsoft-like things. BeOS has decided to keep their source secret. So far, they're doing this for pretty harmless reasons-- to run a tight ship, not tell the whole world exactly how the BeOS kicks a$$, generally reasonable things like that.
The problem is, at some point, it becomes very easy to do things with closed source that one really shouldn't do. Things like AARD, funky file formats, and talking paperclips come to mind.
I think the biggest fear around here is that, if Be does break critical mass and gets to the point where they can do that-- quite possible, in a post-Microsoft world-- there isn't going to be much we can do about it. Except kick ourselves for cheering Be on in their early days, call it BeO$, and have a Torvalds-wannabe write a new operating system that totally blows it out of the water. (After several years of careful development, of course).
Anyway, if Open Source isn't in place to keep them honest, I'm not sure what else could. Perhaps a cross-platform superset-of-POSIX API, such that the important apps can easily jump ship to Linux. (But then, given the differences between the systems, you either get an API that doesn't take full advantage of the BeOS, or that can't be acceptably implemented on Linux).
I'll definitely check out BeOS someday, but I do sometimes wish there were some tacitly acknowledged mechanism in place to keep Be in check, should such circumstances ever arise. RedHat has the GPL watching over its shoulder; TrollTech has the doomsday clause in the QPL. Be...?
My five cents. (keep the change)
iSKUNK!
Without touching the questions of whether the Linux development model is chaotic, or whether chaotic development models are good, bad, or indifferent, I think it is worth pointing out that there is nothing inherently chaotic about Open Source. If you want a coherent system where everything works together, then get a distribution and don't mess with it. Better yet (heh, heh...), get *BSD, where there is a centralized control over the entire source tree, rather than just the kernel. The fact that one can make a mess of ones operating system (or environment) has nothing to do with whether or not one has source, or even with Unix vs. DOS vs. Multics vs BeOS... Of course there are issues about priveledge levels or lack thereof, but hey, there is always some way to screw things up.
Hey, when you don't know something why make silly guesses to fit your prejudices. Be has a different way of handling device drivers (as do many other OS's that aren't Linux) which *don't* require you to read the kernel code. In Be's case, a well documented driver API.
l ibrary/drivers.html
Want to read about it?
http://www-classic.be.com/developers/developer_
Sample code (lots), Newsletter articles and references to the online docs on the Be CD and online.
Dj
"You know you want me baby!" - Crow T Robot
Intel owns a 10% stake in Be and uses Be to demo it's newest CPUs because it's sooooo fast. Why don't they demo Linux running Enlightenment? Any ideas? After seeing how IBM has treated it's own child (OS/2) do you REALLY want IBM involved with Linux? You trust them sooo much more than MS? Really?
Probably using Linux, unfortunately. ;-)
Seriously, though, the openness of Linux is a moot point until it becomes useful for the things I need to do. Maybe in 2 years, when this hypothetical breakdown of Be happens, Linux will be ready for me. Right now it ain't.
I get like this near the end of the /. page, too. It's okay...it wears off. You go to bed, wake up, go to work, use Windows, and your religious fervor for Linux burns again pretty darn quickly.
Well in Apples case they make the computers(and the os). And in Microsofts case "it's my way or the highway". Now if we had "centralized location" what could we do to vendors who don't play by the rules? Squash them? No. Make the hardware ourselves. Would be nice, but I doubt it.
So what next?
Yeah. Please don't kill BeOS because of FUD and OSS fanaticism, because I for one think it's really cool. Buy a copy and use it. If you still have the heart to slam it then do so. (I don't see a single bad thing from BeOS users on here...just good stuff...all the bad stuff is from people that haven't used it, which makes a certain impression on me...even Linux doesn't have that kind of record.)
I've heard phrases like "let the code speak for itself". Okay...does OS zealotism mean more to you than software quality? You're on thin ice here...your anti-MS arguments won't work. *TRY* it. THEN comment. I've heard nothing but good, both from users (like the Mac) AND developers (like Linux).
BeOS = Mac + Linux + some other goodies
Imagine: A country like France where anytime the government doesn't write another check for freeloading farmers, there are riots in the streets.
Or, where if a sign is in English, the French language cops appear.
Or what about all those lame European governments that still have a figurehead King or Queen.
Europe is an old decadent continent on its last legs from stupid government socialism and a lazy populace that continue to vote themselves more tea and whine, at the expense of an economy that has to MANDATE A SHORTER WORK WEEK because there simply aren't enough jobs for all the people.
I hope the U S of A doesn't have to bail you losers out again.
Installing redhat was pretty easy, but StarOffice is hard to install for no good reason. This goes for WordPerfect too. Why must they use their own install procedures, instead of just standard package management. They have about everything staticly linked, so rpm -Uvh StarOffice*.rpm should work without a problem.
The instructions for your mom could probably fit on a postit note if you used something like Abiword (or maybe that other commercial office suite for linux whose name I can not remember actually uses rpms and debs.)
I know I will be moderated down for this, but . . . Vincent
Yeah. I'm going to stop driving a car. No one releases blueprints, and car designs are going downhil like crazy.
IT'S NOT THE SIZE THAT MATTERS!! Everyone has this "critical mass" thing going. A company can get as large as it wants as long as it has competition. Microsoft's problem is a) its *specific* Microsoft attitude, which it's always had, and b) lack of competition. NOT size. There are more Linux users now than there were M$ users a while back. So? M$ sucked back then too. It's all how much competition there is. Mac OS X and Be will compete incredibly well (they're well matched from a consumer standpoint...OS X has UNIX internals...nice for your dev UNIXy things, and Be has an ease-of-use edge. OS X has maturity, Be has cool architecture). No matter what, BeOS cannot *help* being incredible (because it already is, and it has competition). OS X is not going away in the forseeable future, so Be is going to have competition. Even Win NT isn't going to keel over any too quickly, so BeOS is going to be good.
Besides, worst case scenerio: Be becomes an evil empire. Apple, Microsoft, IBM, and whoever owns Amiga allcurl up and die. Linux is crushed. Be's software rapidly becomes lame. So what? Within 5 years, they'll have competition, because someone else wants to get rich too. Microsoft will never be able to get that last few percent in the monopoly, and neither will Be, or the Linux chaps, or anything else. Linus himself said he didn't want Linux taking over -- that it's the competition that matters. Be is a *very* goo thing from that standpoint. I'd like to see it get 60% market share, replace Windows in the workplace (so I get to use a *nice* OS), and then stay there. Everyone's happy.
Well, if a Linux hegemony were possible, it wouldn't be so bad. Linux domination would be nothing like Microsoft domination-- it is one operating system, but there are many many vendors who can provide it, and add value. And the GPL would work effectively to keep a measure of technical parity and compatibility between them all.
Kind of like having a form of government take over the world, rather than a single government.
(An interesting thing to note, Linus has mentioned that if such a thing were ever to happen, he will consider Linux a failure. For him, it's always been about choice. With the GPL, and the open development model, everything is in place to ensure it stays that way).
iSKUNK!
Sorry but i can't respond to what I can't read ;\
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Thank you. There's too much anti-Microsoft backlash smacking innocent programmers. M$ was bad. They had no competition, and were bad eggs from the start. Fine. Would you call Ford evil? They don't give out blueprints for their cars. They have a massive chunk of market share. Heck, your *life* depends on that car being safe, yet the community at large can't see the plans. BeOS is a *good* company. Not OSS. They try to be nice about it, but they don't like it. That's just who they are. They're still the good guys.
I assume you mean IBM is an evil corporation,
because their goals are to make money? You can't
have your cake and eat it, too. Money makes the
world go round, it makes the USA powerful and a
nice place to live. In some cases, it can go to far (Microsoft, IMHO).
But I don't think for one minute that this world
would be any better without corporations. I love
ice-cold Coca-Cola, my new Volkswagen bug, my Kodak digital camera. Those things are all made
by greedy corporations, and I can live with that.
And yes, I even like my Microsoft USB digital speakers, even though I hate Microsoft!
Do you think IBM is a "bad" company, like Microsoft? Or do you just not like them because
they are large and successful?
IBM makes some good products, they have been very
good to the Java language, and they seem to under-
stand that not every OS must dominate (although
I'm sure they wish OS/2 had).
I guess I'm a realist. I just want to be sure I'm not arguing points with someone who doesn't like
REM because they're not still an alternative band. ("Sell outs!")
This Open Source movement could be a real wakeup
call for many people that don't realize which
side their bread is buttered on.
For example, how many big, bad, evil corporations
have invested in improving the internet
infrastructure that you and I prosper from every
day? How many do you think it will take to build
Internet2? Would you rather the government subsidized things like that?
Some things to think about before dismissing the
big, bad wolves of the corporate world.
-WW
FYI... I work for a 4-person startup that could be
crushed at any moment by a corporation... but that
doesn't effect the realities of this corporate
world.
--
Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
http://www.byte.com/columns/Be_view/1999/06/0621Be _view.html its in the source fellas ;-) not too hard to find either
See, this isn't even a real comment. It's being put up here to piss off Linux people. Use your heads when you read these, please people. You're intelligent. Think a bit before you take obvious flamebait seriously.
Probably comment #130 also did #121.
I really hope this is true. Then BeOS will be
a real force of nature hehe
Why on *earth* would you use the *Linux* boxes to do the processing? Ususally, parallism like this involves threads (right?), and BeOS is the king of threads. It also rocks on multiple processors (I think it uses them more efficiently than WinNT does...I want to see BeOS on G4 iron).
Anyway, use the Linux box as the front end, and the Bes in the clusters. Bes ought to use the dual PIIs more efficiently than the Linux machines. Plus, if the program involves threads communicating between machines or whatnot, Be will get another boost.
> On Redhat you start up GnoRPM
Couldn't name it "install new software" or anything, eh? Let's play a guessing game. I have a tool called VnaBRG. What does it do?
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
I was too, after reading all those nasty articles slamming poor Hacker.
Assuming his last name really is 'Hacker' and that it's a real person (no offense if you read this!)..
;)
:)
With a name like that you can really only be one thing. I mean a name like that doesn't exactly fit on a shoe salesman does it?
If I had that name.. I'd have a blast. Everyone would think it was a handle, but in truth it'd be my real name. Would be an absolute blast.
Okay, so Torvalds runs to be a senator. We throw a few other key people in, gain control of Congress, get rid of stupid encryption restrictions and other idiotic things, and make the world a better place for technology!
BeOS was started in 1990, but it's really been
:-)
made in the past 5 years. Compare that to 20+
for the other OS's mentioned (except NextStep).
I have nothing bad to say about NeXT... cool
company, cool OS, cool Cube.
On the other hand, BeOS *IS* a significant leap.
It's more than just a OOP API. It's the fact that
it was built from the ground up with pervasive mult-threading, multiple CPU support, a 64-bit journaling filesystem with very cool features,
POSIX compliant with an awesome GUI. A "server"
layer between the OS and the apps to ensure stability. It's like a unix/mac hybrid, without
all the baggage of those legacy OS's, and
benefiting from everything learned in the past 30
years.
You can choose to play it down as "a microkernel
based OS with an OOP API," but you're leaving out
90% of the stuff that makes it cool.
Of course, if you like another OS better, that's
OK, too. I'm not one of those freaks that I've
seen all too often in the unix world that likes
to put people down for something trivial like an
OS choice.
-WW
--
Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
IMHO the jobs are shifting towards integration, customization, and support.
Most businesses want solutions and could care
less about selling software...and they are willing to pay for it.
I fully expected him to go into an anti-open source rant, seeing how he's aiding and abetting the enemies of freedom. But he gave us more than lip service.
I'm beginning to wonder if open source is the right religion for me. I mean, Linus is not nearly as good looking as Jean Louis Gassee. If you gotta have a Jesus, he might as well be damned good looking! So I tried R4.5 today. Those 30 monkeys working at Be have put the 100,000 monkeys working on Linux (me one of them) to shame. I'm switching religions from open source to excellence. It's been fun, but I've got work to get done, and the BeOS makes me productive.
Scott Hacker: Umm, that isn't a priveledge they bestow upon their users; they are required to include the source of the 250+ GNU command-line utilities that they bundle with Be.
Granted, the full IDE is nice, but you don't get the source to that. Not to knock Be or anything, it's a really nice system with great potential.
Naveen Michaud-Agrawal nxm167@psu.edu
No, I'm saying IBM was a evil company because "no one ever got fired for buying IBM" (and I understand that IBM literally got people fired for buy non-IBM stuff at corporations they worked with.) What I'm saying is that corporations are by nature untrustworthy. As jwz said in his "I'm leaving AOL" writings, they do things not because they're right (or wrong), but because they're profitable.
I'm not saying that corporations are always evil, merely that you can't trust them to be good. Fortunetly, it doesn't look like Be can be another Apple (total lock-in), but another Microsoft doesn't seem that inprobable, and if the current people won't try there will be new people sooner or later who will.
Or maybe a woodsman? ;)
--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
"People will pay big bucks for the luxury of ignorance."
I got into linux not for the freedom, but becuase I had always been interested in trying UNIX but couldn't afford Microport and the rest with the necessary hardware in the early days. Linux came along at the right time for me in that respect.
When I started, I didn't know from free software. I thought shareware was the thing.
The longer I am in it though, the more I think FREEDOM is THE THING. I will do with a lesser free system today (although, for what I am doing, I don't see it as lesser) in the hopes of a better FREE system tomorrow. I just don't want to walk that other path again. It has caused me too much trouble in the past and I see too much potential trouble in the future.
A Nony Mouse
The average computer users (Windows/Macintosh) where I'm from (a University in North America) call me for information on how to drag icons to the trash/recycle bin, in fact, I had a 45 minute call with someone who simply wanted to ftp to our local webserver! (These are professional staff/faculty, not students)
This leads me to believe that knowledge of unix/C is a little special and therefore I've the right to flame once and a while. I am not claiming to know everything, but I feel I am more familiar with technology than many people writing online articles criticizing my beloved linux.
BTW- BEos rocks and if Scott Hacker cared to convice the linux community of this he could send us each a free copy for tinkering :) (Like that will ever happen)
Who really cares, all OS's suck in their own little way. Linux sucks because it is still hard to use (same all unixes). Windows sucks because it crashes my computer. OS/2 sucks because there is nothing to run on it and getting software for it is hard. Same with BeOS. DOS sucks becuse it combines the difficulty of linux with the stupidity of windows.
:)
I defend my right to flame OS's and I don't care what others think of my flame! Thank you. Feel free to moderate me down
Try to think of we BeOS users as the Jesuits.
Believe with me, my saplings.
Be truthful with yourselves, for MOST of you, having access to the source code is nothing more than a banner to wave over your head. Most have never even looked at any source code...never mind knowing what to do with it.
The open source arguement is moot for the majority of people out there.
Get over it!
- Overview
- Device Drivers
- Modules
- Bus Managers
- ...
You can find fully functional source to the shipping Symbios and Buslogic SCSI drivers, the scsi_raw device, PCI NE2K, Sonic Vibes, lots of neat little programs, etc at ftp://ftp.be.com/pub/samples. Sure Linux has a lot of that stuff already, but if you want to know how drivers work on BeOS, there you go. And if you read the LICENSE file you'll find that it's a familiar sort of document:----------------------
Be Sample Code License
----------------------
Copyright 1991-1999, Be Incorporated. All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions, and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions, and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
"No one ever EXPECTS the Spanish Inquisition...." - Monty Python
X116.3 server for BeOS. Wasn't very hard to find (Be.com-Products-3rd Party Apps-All-X)
I think I have been a little bit misunderstood. I don't like it ( but it's no so bad) I say that is yet another non GPL OS and MS could kill it. I would say also that alternatives OS, like *BSD, have to thanks Linux for their good trend.
Vote for or against Clinton because of what he did?
Besides...isn't *France* supposed to be king of sex scandals?
Your sig says you're a Lotus notes administrator. An IT person? Yeah, I'll bet you spend *tons* of time coding on your OS. Riiiiight.
/. needs an IT person filter.
(Actually I did meet one solid person once who was planning on an IT major...so I can't slam *every* IT person)
I think the number of Tuxes you have on your clothing should determine the pecking order. I could get lots of Tux rings and be a high priest or something.
14 year old boys arguing in favor of IRIX?
Ye gods, I wish *I* had had that kind of allowance...yeah, an SGI at 14. I could have lived with that!
I'm not one of those freaks that I've
seen all too often in the unix world that likes
to put people down for something trivial like an
OS choice.
Enough said.
Well, for now Be IS privately owned, but it's just waiting for the SEC to hand back it's IPO registration filing papers with a big smiley-faced "APPROVED" stamp.
As to your first issue about publicly-owned companies and their ability to be ethical: How exactly are you defining "ethical"? It seems to me that people have some wildly varying concepts of what is "ethical."
What are the mores that you would like to see public companies subscribing to, and how are they, in general, failing to live us to your expectations?
Because the quality of that porn and coding depends on your OS! See any good porn viewers on Linux? I thought not! Slrn doesn't exactly have an integrated image viewer! And as for coding, you going to be coding on Windows or BeOS? There's a very significant difference...*one* is cool to program for.
:-)
(This isn't flamebait...I'm joking)
Posted by OGL:
> Hey, when you don't know something why make silly
> guesses to fit your prejudices.
Gee, why do you do the same?
FYI, you don't need to read the kernel code to develop a Linux device driver.
-W.W.
The biggest problem I have with BeOS right now is that it doesn't run on bloody G3's, and that includes my top-of-the-line, fast-as-hell iMac. Which means that whenever I want to use it, I have to switch either to the PMac 7600 or to the Pentium. It really pisses me off, because the two would be a killer combo.
I've been thinking about the notion of creating a Free (as in speech) BeOS clone, like GNU is to Unix. Maybe we could call it FreeBe or something. Personally, I'd do it just to be able to add G3 support (reverse-engineering from LinuxPPC or something). If anyone likes the idea, drop me a note.
P.S.: Anyone else see the irony in this guy being called Scot Hacker?
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
It appears you seem to be offering some development work for free... why stop there? Why not come over and clean my house for me? For free, of course. ;)
If you want the source, you're not a user -- you're a developer. And if you're a developer who gives away your life's work for free, you are a very, very poor developer. In fact, you must be a breatharian, squatting on federal land (behind a tree).
Either that, or you're living at your mom's.
... Workstation OS source! It just isn't that important, and so NON mission critical...
More often than not I find,, having reliable workstations is `mission critical'--if my workstation is down, I can't do anything with it. Of course, I might be able to use a server to get my work done, but only if the server is also functioning as a workstation.
The last thing people need is alternate window managers that no one knows how to install, etc, etc...
Yes, but, note that, if you don't know how to install it, then you don't have it, and it won't affect you. This only untrue if something becomes `the standard', in which case it's not `alternate';)
-rozzin.
I see you've perfected the art of reading what isn't there into a post. kudo's to you two.
Yes he's entitled to his *opinion* just like everyone who has ever posted to Slashdot. Yes even you two. And "I" will continue to point out *flaws *in other peoples commentary regardless of anyone elses "pro" this or "con" that.
As far as him being "for or against us" I got news for you kiddo. When I wake up tomorrow morning the sun will be shining. The grass will be growing. The earth will still be turning. So in the grand scheme of things IT DOESN'T MATTER. And to your rimshot about "Linux being confined to geeks". I suggest you pull your head out of the slashdot sand and look around. IT'S ALREADY HAPPENING.
Good press, bad press, slashdot posts, no slashdot posts. It's already on the move. The genie's out of the bottle. Deal with it!
Don't you think you're getting a little ahead of things? The open source model has only until recently come unto it's own. The capitalistic model favored by present day software makers has been around for how long? To say the success of one model means the failure of another is quite premature. In other words there isn't enough historical precident to say if this succeds this will happen and vis versa. Give it time and maybe you'll find that things weren't as bad as you thought.
I think your comments are way too harsh and with the wrong verbiage in response to his original point. What if I didn't install Gnome? Does that make me a stupid f***? It sounds like Mr. Hacker is a very intelligent person that is exploring many Operating Systems and has found one that suited his needs for a number of reasons. Not everyone cares about source code, and that does not make them stupid.
www.jackasscritics.com
Please elaborate. I don't quite understand what
you mean by Be trying to be "another Microsoft"?
If you mean a successful OS and software company
that does everything in its power to make more
money, then I have no doubt you're correct.
If you mean stop at nothing to make more money,
dirty deals, contract clauses with OEM's to force
BeOS on the computer, etc., then I would have to
disagree.
Microsoft is a unique company in its leader and
bloodthirst. Just look at how they started out!
They sold an OS they didn't have to IBM, with a
hell of a license agreement.
BeOS started out as sort of a hippy-dippy ex-Mac
company, similar to NeXT.
Every company has the potential to become like
Microsoft, in the good and bad sense, but not
every one of those companies has someone like
Gates running them...
-WW
P.S. I love how my original article got knocked
down to a zero rating. That's a first. Nothing
like a little censorship by someone who can't
handle the truth.
--
Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
How about this?
http://www.gjeffrey.com/bewine/
EverCode
... but good call :)
Believe with me, my saplings.
The great thing about Open Source software is not that *everyone* looks at the source; the great thing about OSS is that *the right person* looks at the source.
The pool of potential debuggers and bug fixers for a given OSS application are orders of magnitude greater than the pool available for a comparable closed-source app. The net result is not necessarily that many more debuggers/coders throw themselves at the project, but that the debuggers/coders who *do* get involved are much more qualified.
Quite frankly, this whole arguement is tiresome, and my eyes are hurting from reading the same messages spewed out over and over again. How about we all just give it up, and go look at porn, or read a book, or do some coding? Just face the fact that not everybody uses/wants one OS, and everybody has the right to choose whatever OS they prefer for whatever task that they would like to do.
chad
"Talk doesn't cook rice." -=Chinese Proverb=-
As someone who develops BeOS device drivers
(and bus managers and other kernel modules)
on a day to day basis, I'd have to say I find
the driver environment pretty slick. Being
able to install custom kernel debugger commands,
reload a driver by copying a new binary to the
right place, go through many iterations without
rebooting, etc makes me very happy.
--Brian
Nuff Said. Unless you're a busy surgeon, hamburger flipper, etc. if you ask a question that has already been answered in a way that generally applies to all questions of the same kind, read damn it.
We're not your babysitters. Be an adult.
Second, stop being a crybaby no monster is going to touch you Workstation source. Nothing gets changed in the kernel until it's submitted to Linus. And seriously source won't start editing itself and compiling itself, so I don't know what you're screaming about. Take a chill pill.
Lastly, do you know what a fucking kernel is? It has nothing to do with the WINDOW MANAGERS.
It amazes me how opportunity scares you freaks. You love being stuck in a stiff frame of mind.
Thank god I read when ever I can at least I'm not living in your self-created House of Usher.
I wonder WHY the fuck every source I have download comes with a file called INSTALL that tells you precisely what to do if NOBODY ever reads. (and we wonder why this country's going commie in a few years)... Hint hint: usually the same instructions apply across the board.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Hmm, I thought it was:
"W-w-w-w-why can't we all just get along?"
His first article was right on. His response to the Linux zealots was totally uncalled for. Notice how he's going out of his way to convince everyone that he likes open source software and that he thinks Linux is also cool. Trying to suck up to the Linux community, Scott? Let the bastards rot in hell!
I can't believe the reasoning you people use.
"Oh, it's as easy as recompiling your kernel."
"Just open the source, edit it to your liking, and then recompile into a binary."
"If you can't configure xyz package because of library problems, then you are stupid..."
I know Linux is getting easier every day. But there are the Linux zealots who like how many Linux tasks are hard for others easy for them. You see, all it is doing is creating a monopoly of sorts. Those who know how to use Linux look down on those who don't know how to use it very well. They laugh, ridicule, and talk down to such people.
What they don't get is that M$ is where they are today for one simple reason. They know how to play down to the lowest common denominator. And for the most part, that's through marketing rather than technical excellence.
Also, Linux, BeOS, MacOS, and what have you will never beat M$ at this pace. M$ caters to the whims of IT departments, businesses, and eventually the end users. They go out and find what these ppl want and they pretty much go do it. Examples include IEAK (Internet Explorer Admin Kits), ZAW (Zero Admin Windows), Office packages, and so on. They tailor their products to meet what businesses want. And they will win every time they do this. Eventually all this will filter down to the end user who will want to have the stuff used in business for convenience sake.
I know I am talking out of my ass here (it's been 26 hours since I slept) but I think Linux, Be, whatever need to carefully craft the system with stuff the businesses want.
Just think. Our OS's are better than M$ any day, we just need to add the hooks/pegholes to the OS's now. Microcrud has basically hacked up Windows every year and make it go 180 degs to do this stuff I mention. BeOS and Linux are practically fresh and stable. Adding such hooks will only make things better. Then when the businesses come flocking to BeOS or Linux, the hooks will be there and the system won't suck because the stuff is naturally built in instead of a hack on top of a hack on top of a hack of code purchased or stolen from a while back.
Please pardon my incoherence. What do you all think?
I forgot that only anti-Linux people are allowed to bash others' choices/beliefs.
I forgot that for a Linux user to even argue a point with a closed-ware advocate is a sin of the highest sort. We're just supposed to shut up and take our lumps.
I will do that now. Excuse me for having an opinion. Sorry.
--
I like to think of Be as a decent compromise between Windows and Unix. Sure, it's got all the icons, windows, bells and whistles, but it's more than just "Mac on a PC".
What I like about Be is that it is geared towards productivity. You shouldn't have to think about your OS while you're doing work, but if you want to, the option is there. While Be may not be "here's the source code"-open sourced, it is written and engineered by people who are a part of today's computer society. For the most part, they represent the bleeding edge in OS advancements and stability that I'm looking for.
Now if I could only get my damn sound card to work with it, that would be another story.
Who, pray tell, attacked Who in this mess? Has Be EVER attacked Linux? Did Hacker attack Linux? The answer to both questions is "NO!". Slashdot is supposed to be "News for Nerds". I'm not aware that it's now "News for Linux Nazis and all the rest of you can fuckoff". Has that changed? It looks like everytime Be has been mentioned in Slashdot recently the same BS starts up "I don;t know anyting about it but it's closed source so it sux". Opinions like that are (as the Chinese say) "Dog farts". Actually, they sound like the ranting of a bunch of very insecure 15 year olds.
I use half a dozen OSes (OSs?)...am I supposed to hold my INFORMED opinion when some ignorant twit starts sounding off about something he knows NOTHING about?
Yes, let's just keep on bashing each other....what a great idea! Meanwhile Bill Gates gets richer and we look stupider.
You added bold font to "the unix world," but
really I'd like to stress the words before that:
"...that I've seen all too often...." I'm
clearly not implying that unix users are freaks.
(I like using unix sometimes.) My point was that
most of the time, when I see someone making fun
of someone for the OS they use, it's from a unix
user.
I can see why this happens, since a lot of Linux
users are former Windows users who hate Microsoft.
But it's just a waste of time (and annoys the pig).
-WW
--
Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
Please don't blame Be for this problem, it isn't their fault. Apple has flat out refused to release to them their specs on the chip and the motherboards and how they interact. The reason the intel version is doing so well is that intel went so far as to send a team of intel engineers to Be to assist them.
1) Be has to much on their agenda right now than to reverse engineer the G3 specs.
2) There may be some possible legal issues to Be rev. eng. the specs if they decide to do it. Linux can do it because it is not a corporation, but Be is. How the G3 works is IP for apple and if someone who has deep pockets uses it without their permission.... LAWSUIT. (I am not a lawyer so I'm not positive on all this)
3) Even without 1 and 2 Be has stated that it will not rev. eng. the specs because they cannot be 100% sure it will work and won't risk their customers stability on it.
TC
You don't get it.
Be doesn't just ship with the GNU compiler & toolchain. It is _built_ with it. Its the default compiler for the OS - sure you could go find something else if you wanted, but Be is firmly behind OSS for its tools who is going to compete with that?
As for the IDE - Be doesn't own it, so they can't release the source. Besides, the IDE is not exactly a key part of the development tool set. In fact most people use other tools - including OSS.
Know compare _that_ to MS.
Nope - the scandal is press scandal : when it was published by a magazine that former president Mitterrand had an illegitimate daughter most people found scandalous that press invaded privacy in such a way. Mind you - his former mistress and illegitimate daughter was at his funeral too, and nobody had any problem here.
Also nobody care if the environement minister smoked some pot, inhaled or not. That's not a problem for most people, they care more about ideas and facts than what leaders do in their home.
This assumes:
1) No forking
2) The people maintaining the (unforked) kernel source tree are trustworthy.
So far these two things have held up. However, I consider it very improbable that they will hold up indefinitely. Eventually, either a significant group of developers will become annoyed enough to fork the tree, or one of the main kernel maintainers will not prove to be entirely trustworthy (aka taking money from a company to implement the features that company wants).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."
:-)
OSCAR WILDE
(note that when you see a cup in the shape of Jar Jar head, you REALLY see what decadence is all about
Ye gods. I hope OSS neither "rules supreme" (as some somewhat fanatical and sheeplike people seem to be chanting) or "dies a horrible death", (as I know every M$ exec is thinking). OSS is just like operating systems. It's a tool, and can be used for the right or wrong job. Unless the world goes socialist, every programmer can't go OSS unless there are a lot of people with night jobs. OSS is great as a hobby (if you already have a job and program for fun). It's nice for the rare few that get paid for doing it (and companies that can survive on this). But I doubt that more than 1/3 of software will ever be OSS. I hope OSS hits the 1/3 mark and stays firmly there, neither increasing or decreasing. That'd allow me, as a programmer, to get a nice paycheck. It'd also let me work with others as a hobby in a rather pleasant and supportive community. It'd let the occasional commercial product eventually be released as OSS. It'd keep big companies from pricing $70 products at $500 (M$, are you listening?), and make them trim fat a bit (whoever hires the programmers that put all those stupid features into Word should be fired). Okay, maybe the GIMP can take Photoshop. But some people need to work with propriatory things (the GIMP can't work with propriatory color-matching systems, because the GIMP producers obviously can't pay licensing fees for technologies). There's a place for both GIMP and Photoshop, and I'm glad that both exist. I doubt anyone wants to make an OSS Word clone. Because it isn't really an ideal tool. But there are nice, clean, usable OSS word processors (I think). Enough competition, and either Word has to neaten up its act or become a niche product (for those that actually use it).
In some ways, I dislike the GPL...I like seeing OSS helping *any* programmers that want to work on code similar to existing code, not just fellow OSSers...I think OSS should be primarily devoted to facilitating code reuse. And the GPL too hard-core for this (You want to use this code? You pay...go GPL!). I want to see the Photoshop team benefit from things the GIMP guys do. That way, everyone wins.
Admittedly, this makes professional (non-hobby) OSS coders a bit happier about releasing source. After all, your competitor can't just grab and sell your code. But it also makes OSS help a much smaller group of people.
Actually some of their source code is open. I believe header files and a few other pieces, not demo or examples, are included to help development.
Linux, to me, is just another OS. I would like to get all excited about it like everyone else, but I just can't. Linux users still hasn't swayed me.
Agree with everything but the WM point. I think the coolest thing in the world about Linux is the profusion of window managers that work in totally different ways (lots of diversity...yeah, it makes it harder to get used to a new one...that's OK). Given that each is totally customizeable, you can pretty much make your own perfect interface.
I loved the Mac's interface. Cuz it was better than anything else pre-packaged (Well...haven't tried pure NeXT...besides, not exactly recommended for people that use day-to-day software). I disliked most of Window's (Ugly...the contextual menus are nice). And then I went to Linux. Boy oh boy. Give yourself 6 months to configure things, and you can find your GUI sweet spot. And is it ever sweet. Didn't like the fvwm95, or any of that pseudo-Win95 stuff. Enlightenment...ugh, a bit to heavy on the pretty interface for me. Window Maker and I just never really hit it off. But AfterStep, sans everything but Pager and a stripped-down GNOME panel is good. Very good. Clean interface. And I chose every single little thing that went into that. Heck, I even chose exactly what button did what, and what the menus looked like, what color they were, how they operated, etc. Yeah, it took a long time. But I really liked it. Lots of configurable WMs is a *good* thing.
Besides, at least on RH, what is RPM for if not to install and try out new WMs?
The basic problem with publicly held corporations is that they act in a manner no person would act.
They have no loyalty to customers, employees, or their country.
Layoff 500 people, and make the rest work harder to fill their place? no problem.
Make all decisions from a marketing perspective, to the detriment of customer service and quality? no problem.
Put brands and 3rd party advertising on everything? naturally.
Move jobs that have been in a town for 50 years to a place that's slightly cheaper overall? of course.
Pollute freely, because being cleaner would cost more than the potential fine or lawsuit later? sure.
In general, make all decisions to please some otherwise disinterested shareholders, only to improve their value, without caring about anything else at all? That's their job.
So? Things don't have to be OSS to be good. Yeah, OSS is icing on the cake, but much of its charm is as a cattle prod to keep dev moving and Darwinize out crummy software. At least to me. I really doubt I could understand most kernel source...and most application source is probably hard to read too. Okay, there are a few apps where you say "Cool!" and snag some code for some feature. But OSS is more of a shield against bad software than anything else. Be doesn't need that shield.
I mean, probably 99% of the software in the world isn't OSS. Lots of it is very good. Some is even free, if not OSS. Be is excellent. Okay...I wouldn't use it as a firewall, because there haven't been hackers prowling over the source exposing holes. But I think using Be as a workstation would be great. Be is a nice stable replacement for a company that uses Macs (doesn't find Linux benefits worth the complexities, and doesn't like Windows). Just think of not going OS OSS as a quirk of Be, like Metacreations makes those annoying interfaces to awesome software. An annoyance. It ain't gonna stomp Linux, if that's what your worried about. But it could really stick it to Windows, particularly NT. And Be has probably less propriatory standards than any other OS...UNIX/Linux has *tons* of our-OS only stuff (starting with the way everything is treated as a file), the Mac has Appletalk and resource fork file formats, Windows has just about everything closed-box propriatory. Be doesn't come out with that annoying stuff. Way to go.
If I had another box next to this one, I'd plop Be on it.
Boy, if Be goes out of business, I'll bet my Be OS would stop working instantly (even if the source didn't get bought and dev continued by another company). The same thing applies to M$ and Apple, and Be doesn't have an anti-trust case (and potential breakup) or Apple's recent financial problems. People buy Windows or the Mac OS...and they could be screwed if either company goes bye-bye. Heck, Windows people already are...they had DOS, which got essentially discontinued (I think it'll be official, outside of an emulator, in Win 2000), got Windows 3.1 software had to give it up, got Win95 gave it up at work for stability probs, got WinNT 4.0 for stability...and M$ hasn't even gone out of business, but its made those OSs and computers useless. Apple's about to move to OS X, a totally different OS. Of course, Apple has a history of fantastic backwards-compatibility, and extremely gentle major transitions (going to a multi-tasking OS in Mac OS 7, going to not only a different chip, but a different architecture with the PPC...no disruption there). Be's doing nicely.
Besides, so they go out of business and BeOS dies. Big deal. You gradually (next upgrade is just of another OS...Linux maybe) migrate. Copy those images, get a different DTP program, rather than just an upgrade, and run through a retraining course for your employees. Not exactly a big deal. For most non-techie types, Linux is no more than a possible *future*. Nice, but the *future*. Just a bunch of (excellent) potential. Be is *now*. Maybe no future, okay, but we don't know that yet. And it's great software.
Heck, I still use MacWrite Pro on my Mac. And SuperPaint as my image editor (well...no, actually I use Enhance now, but for a long time SuperPaint[SuperPaint is a darn cool vector/bitmap program...possibly the first]). Both of those products have been discontinued for a long time. So what? They still work fine. I have Microsoft QuickBASIC (a moment of weakness) on my Mac Plus. Used it last summer when my other machine went down. Wrote a great file-editor. Lots of Mac users use Hypercard. Obsolete, sure. Great software? You bet. Is Doom no fun now that Windows development is essentially halted? Heck, do you run out and get the dev kernels for Linux? Every single last one? Well, you're somehow surviving without a constant umbilical cord of updates, and you're doing okay. As long as you stay away from things like propriatory file formats and languages, the choice of OS hardly binds you to a OS company. Yes, you have to do some retraining. But if you think the binding is so strong, there's no hope for the Windows businesses of the world ever going Linux.
As for your point on technical journalists, I couldn't agree more. There are some real idiots out there, and Markoff is just the beginning. They should require both an English and a CS degree (odd bedfellows, but possible) for any tech journalist at major publishers.
I guess if you take an irrevocable oath to foreswear for life all other OSes other than BeOS, you might be at their mercy. Nothing stops you from using both OSS and commercial products. It's a lame excuse.
It is absolutely not true that a publicly owned corporation must care about nothing other than profit. There are certainly pressures to emphasize profit above other considerations, but it is self-destructive for a corporation to be totally obsessed with the bottom line.
Basically, companies that are _long-term_ successes watch out for the interests of everyone that has a stake in the operations of the company, be they stockholders, employees, customers, or other business partners. If a company starts shafting their employees or customers for short-term gain, they will destroy the conditions that allow them to become successful in the first place.
Yeah. You Linux sheep are the ones that don't get it. Yes, Linux (or any other OS) can do anything given the effort. Who cares? Do you want to go to all that trouble? Red Hat does because they make money off Linux and want to be Microsoft II (a worthy goal, and maybe they'll do better). But when people say "but all I want is an easy to set up webserver" and some Linux advocate jumps in and starts screaming about how Linux really *is* easy to use, right now, uh huh, and the few rough spots will be gone real soon now, and blah blah blah, it's silly. Unless you have some big reason to use Linux, don't force yourself to use it (or any other product). If it fits the job, great. Go for it. Don't go to tons of effort to try to *make* it do what you want. Yeah, you can probably port DOOM to Emacs. As a matter of fact, there's probably someone reading this who can sit down and do so in a few months. But why the h*ll would you want to? It just ain't made for it!
Ah. Gee. I don't see any low-budget Linux advocates running around making fools of themselves on Slashdot, now do I? Or Windows advocates. And surely not MacOS advocates?
That's sort of a weak excuse for slamming Be. Be+Linux is *good*. Someday Linux might be a good mass consumption workstation OS. Someday. Until then, I say Linux servers, and either Mac OS X workstations or Be workstations. With the occasional crosspollination.
I left the Mac because of a) stability and b) because I wanted to learn to code for an OS that I could make money on (Apple was dying at the time).
Be *is* stable, and has 99% of the benefits of the Mac. It just might not be around in a while. Mac OS X is looking very tasty...stability from the BSD core, and heck...you can just sit down and write BSD programs if you want to on Mac OS X.
I wish a lot of people would take a serious look at OS X and Be. If not for you, what about your mother? Your friends? They all using Linux? No? How about a consumer OS that's as easy to use (lots easier, in fact) as Windows, more stable, and has all the UI wonders of the Mac? Both OS X and Be are in that slot. Linux is still getting there on the UI front...
This was a darn good post. Reads like a cross between "GeekWorld" and "Reader's Digest", but that's a good thing, somehow.
I just got this in my inbox. Notice how Microsoft is some way, shape, or form is trying to tailor to the IT/business community.
Dammit people, we need to get some people doing this for Linux!!
Read on...
--------------
Recently, Windows NT Magazine partnered with World Research,
http://www.survey.com,to survey more than 1400 IT professionals about
their plans to adopt Windows 2000. Because of the large sample size, we
believe the results are representative of the NT market and would be
interesting to the readers of Windows NT Magazine UPDATE. In this
UPDATE special issue, I'll highlight a few of the findings and provide
some analysis. If you need more detailed information, a 150+ page
report is available for a fee from World Research.
- 46 percent of the survey respondents will do their technical
evaluation of Windows 2000 with Beta 3 and will finish evaluation
within 8 months, or by January 2000. The rest of the respondents will
start their technical evaluation with the shipping product.
- 60 percent of the respondents will finish their planning and
budgeting by January 2000.
- If Windows 2000 ships by 4Q99, more than 80 percent of respondents
will have started their deployment by the end of 2000.
- Only 48 percent of respondents will actually finish implementing
their Windows 2000 migration by the end of 2000.
- Almost 90 percent of the respondents listed reliability as their
top concern. Only 36 percent listed Windows 2000 scalability as a top
concern. The following is a list of top concerns, listed by priority:
reliability, performance, security, ease of administration,
scalability, Active Directory, and total cost of ownership (TCO)
reduction.
- By January 1, 2001, 45 percent of the desktops in respondents'
shops will be running Windows 2000 Professional, compared with 38
percent for Windows 9x, and 35 percent for Windows NT Workstation 4.0.
Because a Windows 2000 desktop will require around 128MB of RAM and a
300MHz or better system, a lot of new machine purchases will result
from deploying Windows 2000.
- By January 1, 2001, 55 percent of the respondents' servers will be
running Windows 2000 Server. More than 80 percent will be running Web
services, databases, messaging servers, and file and print on those
servers.
- More than 70 percent of the respondents will do a complete network
assessment as a result of the migration to Windows 2000.
Analysis
The original intent of Windows 2000 was to make managing a large
client/server PC environment easier. Today, however, the biggest
concern of NT professionals is reliability. In the past year or so,
NT's reputation as a reliable network OS has taken a beating. In a
recent editorial, I mentioned that a component of NT's unreliability
was third-party device drivers. That statement prompted a flood of
responses from readers recounting their personal experience with NT's
reliability problems and giving Microsoft 100 percent of the blame.
Frankly, NT customers are angry, and several have decided to move some
of their servers to Linux.
One of the most overlooked areas of TCO is reliability. If the system
doesn't stay up, who cares how easy it is to administer? If Windows
2000 proves to be more reliable than NT 4.0, people will migrate for
that reason alone. If Windows 2000 proves to be unreliable, watch for
further erosion in NT's market share.
Windows 2000 represents a major shift in NT history and will require
an overhaul in the infrastructure of many companies. Systems
administrators will need to change their networks, servers,
workstations, security, administration policies, and more. Many IT
shops have decided to halt development of new application software in
the second half of 1999 to focus on Year 2000 (Y2K). This pause might
give administrators the time to plan for Active Directory deployment,
security changes, standardizing client applications, and more. For
these reasons and by sheer luck, Microsoft's decision to launch Windows
2000 in late 1999 might be the best timing possible. If you're going to
migrate to Windows 2000, take that time to plan. You'll need it.
Because so much will change with Windows 2000, the need for Windows
2000-trained professionals will spike, creating some interesting new
jobs. For example, expect to see jobs such as Active Directory
specialist or Windows 2000 security administrator appear soon. Windows
2000 boot camps will appear, guaranteeing the fastest way to get up to
speed. Whatever training method you choose, get your best technicians
trained as soon as possible. There's a lot to learn, and you'll
appreciate the inside expertise. Knowledgeable consultants will be
scarce after Windows 2000 ships.
Beyond Windows 2000
Originally, Microsoft planned for a consumer version of Windows 2000 to
become the follow-on to Windows 98. However, now Microsoft has
announced Windows 98 SE (second edition) and has even hinted that the
version after Win98 SE would be based on the Win98 kernel. So for now,
Windows 2000 will remain synonymous with NT, built for business, not
consumers. I'd like to see Microsoft keep its consumer and business OSs
separate. If not, what compromises would Microsoft need to make to
Windows 2000 to make it more compatible with home users? Security,
perhaps? Reliability? Such a move would be a disaster.
If you plan to move to Windows 2000, your work is cut out for you.
You're not alone. In the fall, Windows NT Magazine will start
increasing coverage of Windows 2000 to help you plan, budget, and
implement your Windows 2000 migration strategy. Our authors have
already spent months on the new OS, looking for the tricks and traps to
help you on what may be the most significant upgrade in IT history.
Mark Smith
Editorial Director
Windows NT Magazine
Exactly! Linux is NOT a desktop OS right now, no matter how hard everyone tries to make it look like one! BeOS IS a desktop OS, and since it is POSIX compliant, can run a whole bunch of the command-line tools that people like about Linux! When (if ever) Linux gets it's act together as a desktop OS, I might consider switching. If and when I ever want to set up a webserver, I'll go back to Linux. Until then, BeOS is the OS that gets my programming support.
About that religion thing... Interesting.
/. culture.
I think that would be an hard thing to do. I mean, as much as we all look like we have simular beliefs, we really don't.
The only thing we really all have in common is that we are conserned about the future of computers and software because we care.
Don't try and look too deep into
There's really is not much there.
We know Open Source isn't pixie dust, but it is a very good way of keeping a company from doing Microsoft-like things. BeOS has decided to keep their source secret. So far, they're doing this for pretty harmless reasons-- to run a tight ship, not tell the whole world exactly how the BeOS kicks a$$, generally reasonable things like that.
No, the real reason they're not "Open Source" (TM) is because they make their money selling software. That's what this company does! The "freely redistributable" clause of "Open Source" prevents anyone from making money directly off writing code.
For any software company to ever go "Open Source", the community must accept sources that are open (i.e. given to purchasers along with the binaries) but aren't freely redistributable. Until this happens, don't expect Be, Adobe, Oracle, Inprise, Microsoft, or any of the thousands of other ISVs to go open. I'm amazed that so many slashdotters don't understand that companies have to pay their bills and most employees don't work for free.
Face it, OSS isn't all its cracked up to be. Freedom at the expense of a paycheck? Really how do you expect to make a decent living if OSS reins supreme? Only SUSE and Cygnus have even cut a small profit so far. OSS has done a bunch of good by kicking the companies that charge $500 for a semi-usable app in the balls, but if OSS wins then the computer industry fails. How will you pull in new talent when most people with an aptitude for coding will tell you to fuck off because they want to make money off the code they write?
---Got Coffee?---
X116.3 server for BeOS. Wasn't very hard to find (Be.com-Products-3rd Party Apps-All-X)
I got excited about this for a moment, until I noticed that the only binaries available are for the now-obsolete PPC version of BeOS.
That's a shame. An X server would make Be a very good client platform for my household.
What if the entire world
was democratic like the United States?
Well, I hope that the reason that you didn't say "a Democracy like the United States" was because you realize it's not. We are a representative republic. There are democratic like parts to our system, such as the ability to vote for your representative, but we are in no shape or form a true democracy.
In a representative republic the people vote for a representative who is supposed to know more about the topics that are getting voted on and make a more informed decision on what should be law and not. The people have a mechanism of taking a representative out of office if they do not accurately represent the values and beliefs of their consituents.
This is possibly what the Linux community needs. Just like in the good ol U.S. of A. there are idiots and members of the community that don't share the values of the majority. However, even if they are in the minority, their views and the ability to express them must be protected. We should, however, have members of our community that we "vote" on to represent us. I don't honestly believe that anyone who "volunteered" for such a role would be one to go around and say idiotic things or put users of other OS's down just because they are not using Linux. If so, we could always vote them out of "office" and let others know that they no longer represent the Linux community.
If this were to work, there would have to be a way of tracking votes, and every Linux centric site would have to have a link to a central site that would be where votes are tallied. Or, if that can not be arranged, we could at least have an official Slashdot representative that we vote on here. If other community groups, such as Freshmeat or even portal sites such as Netcenter, Yahoo, etc, want to participate they can "vote" for their own representative. Together all the representatives can "vote" for the one representative to the industry, or they can all talk directly to the industry themselves.
Of course, in the true American spirit, this in no way restricts free speach. Anyone on Slashdot or any other forum can say whatever they want. If they don't like what our representative is saying and they are convincing enough, they could get him/her ousted and replaced by a more appropriate person. I don't think any representative should have an official "term of office." The community should be able to take a vote at any time and kick anyone out for any reason. This would more accurately represent the fast moving pace of our community. Similarly, I don't think there should be "term limits" as there is no "term" to start off with. If any one person thought that it was about time to get another rep, simply put up a web page, rally the people, and convince CmdrTaco to put up another vote.
Am I crazy, or what?
Well, actually, there is one difference between Be and Windows: Be is a really nice piece of software.
D
----
I long for the day when a person can use whatever OS that he or she feels like without being bashed over the head by the OS fanatics.
I long for a world in which users spent as much time on software design and development as they do flaming people for not using their pet OS.
Yes, I know it is a crazy dream. . .
Freedom is about choice and I'll damn well use the OS that works best for me! Feel free to use what works best for you, I won't hate you for it!
Last couple of months Slashdot has been mostly a bash-Linux fest, with lots of vitriolic anti-Linux/GPL posts like yours.
I think this quote shows that it really just comes down to perceptions. I started reading Slashdot a long time ago because it was a "news for nerds" site. In my eyes, it has slowly turned into a Linux advocate love nest, with lots of "Linux is perfect and the rest of the world sux" posts. Recently I've seen some hopefully signs that the Slashdot reader base has grown beyond the blind faith Linux choir to include some rational reasoning that counters some of the drum beating. I certainly wouldn't say it has become a "bash-Linux fest", I still find Slashdot and the average slashdotter to have a strong pro-Linux bias.
So maybe it all comes down to where you're coming from. As someone who isn't a part of the Linux world (I'm an old school BSD guy since '84, now use NT mostly), my impression of the average Linux supporter is a blind faith zealot who can't stand any criticism of Linux or anything positive said about anyone else. I see more FUD out /.'ers than I've ever seen out of Microsoft. Something to think about.
Yeah, I don't look at maybe 90% of what I get in source code form. The other 10% I could not live without. I've picked up a lot of programming tricks looking at open source programs. I've figured out and fixed things in the kernel. I've wondered if some bug I've seen was in my code or someone else's and I've been able to check their code because my code looked right.
Maybe I'm not your average user, but I find open source to be an invaluable tool and I will refuse to depend on closed source products because they don't offer me the flexibility that open source does.
Do not presume to know what works best for me. Do not presume to tell me you KNOW something will work better for me when I've already looked at it and decided otherwise.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Multi-user support is almost completely ready to run. They have had the architecture built in from day 1. Currently the filesystem has support for unix-like permissions, but they are all the default and owned by "baron" (an inside joke). As soon as Be feels it is worth doing they will flesh it out and "activate" multi-user support. Right now though they have bigger fish to fry, like more graphics card support.
TC
"Using debian..."
I think you just proved the guys point...what you suggest won't work on Redhat, nor Suse.
Should Be just release their system for free? How do you expect them to pay their bills? Sure, we all want a free lunch, but it seems unfair to expect them to financially destroy themselves just as their product is getting completed enough to attract a lot of attention.
Alternatively, do you think that no company should ever try to develop a new and exciting product?
Scot Hacker's columns seem to be a fair and rational assessment of the relative strengths and weaknesses of BeOS and Linux. The problem is that a lot of Linux advocates don't like to see any of Linux' problems pointed out. Face it, Linux really IS a pain in the ass in a lot of respects. I don't it's "taking a stab at Linux" to mention these things.
Consider a comment on the order of "Linux has a multi-user security model that makes it better suited as a server OS than BeOS" - I certainly wouldn't call that "taking a stab at BeOS".
This is sort of inflamatory, but if you look what tight Apple control on stuff has done for compatibility (There *are* people with Mac hardware compatibility problems...they're just incredibly scarse), you gotta think a bit more. Even M$ does this in a sort of Goliath way ("Do it my way or I step on you"). Linux would have better hardware/software compatibility if there was a more centralized location for this sort of thing. And yet, I'm glad there isn't. An OS for every sort, yessirrie.
Be is good. Linux is good. My life is good, because I can use both!
That's very cool! Thanks!
Pardon me while I go reboot my workstation into BeOS.
If you look inside any Mac, how many expansion slots do you see? Three ... at the most. How many expansion slots does one see in a PC? Somewhere between three and eight. PCs are inherently more expandable than Macs and therefore will have more hardware conflicts. It's that simple.
The Linux OS religion still hasn't matched the Mac's heyday. You want to see fanatics? Mac fanatics are a whole lot more zealous than Linux people.
Let's all have an OS revival!
Microsoft is a unique company in its leader and
... hmm, I guess their start as a small producer of "buisness machines" had little to do with their eventual position as computer monopolist.
bloodthirst. Just look at how they started out!
Look how IBM started out
If you mean stop at nothing to make more money,
dirty deals, contract clauses with OEM's to force
BeOS on the computer, etc., then I would have to
disagree.
Then I would have to disagree with you. I don't agree with your belief that current situation dictates future actions, and in fact believe that history denies such a view. Too many companies get bought out and/or took over and undergo a massive personality change.
Man, all these different OSs with tasty good points. I wish they'd keep stealing from another and getting better and better...sooner or later, they've all got to converge...
I think I'll call it ParadiseOS.
Not to be a bitch, but header files are required for development. Look at Visual Studio and you'll see > 400 header files "given" away. Plus there's all of Microsoft's Foundation Classes given away (not opensource tho). Be's gesture is nothing out of the ordinary.
Oxryly
That was really incoherent.
Actually, I've heard of HURD, but no one's ever mentioned what it actually is until now. A GPL kernel, huh? Hmmm.
don't gimmie that mac don't have any hardware conflicts bull crap.. have you try to install internal harddrive to your mac before? ven you set it up to the correct id.. it often times cause "interesting error".. not reconizing the harddrive's Id #.
:)
and software conflicts too..
expecially bunch of crosslinks problems when you install too much softwares.. especially "error 01".
And the threading is supposed to be incredible -- even interface. "Be" interesting to see how much Be smacks Linux in the threading department.
Good for Linux too. If something else better is out there, it makes Linux improve faster.
Competition!
Heh. They're easy.
Okay, OS X, BeOS and Linux all beat the snot out of M$. Windows falls. MS goes back to its roots as an application developer...
Visual Driver Workshop for BeOS? Heh.
Big deal. I put down Linux all the time. Blatently. When it deserves it. I still like it, use it as my primary OS, and advocate it to people who should use it.
He was addressing valid problems. Let's see..."You know, I really don't like the fact that Linux's rm command has no undelete..." "SHUT UP!!! YOU JUST SLAMMED LINUX!! YOU SHOULD BE FLAMED!!! YOU M$ SCUMBALL!!! OPEN SOURCE IS THE FUTURE!!". Get real. Nothing wrong with putting something down when it deserves it.
Give Linux time to get easier? How much time? I've used Linux off and on since kernel 0.99, that's about nine years or so. Even today Linux is a pain in the ass.
When you can configer _EVERYTHING_ without _HAVING_ to drop to the command line and hunt down some damned config file in some wierd directory is the day Linux will get close to being user friendly.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
My knee jerk reaction here is "My Gosh, IRIX just plain sucks." Now... I guess maybe I am getting a bit more careful about what I want to say.
Uhm, How can I put this. IRIX was my first UNIX, and I have used it regularly for the last six years. At first, I was impressed. Years of seeing the price tags SGI has put on IRIX, it's service contracts (which can be more than the value of the hardware), it's gaping security holes, it's instability compared to something like Solaris, .... countless things that make my stomach turn, has left me sort of pissed off every time I hear "IRIX."
But, yea, truth is, it's an interesting OS, with it's merits, just not something I totally like. My father use to like Hemi-Head Dodge engines, and was a Dodge fan, a definate Underdog, espically after the 70's were in full swing. Countless people are Ford or Chevy fans, and have little "Piss on Dodge" or Ford, or Chevy logos on thier cars and trucks. Yet, a great number of them will gather together to bash foreign cars. And there are groups of younger people now who will bash domestic cars.... Ah, Hmm, this sort of thing goes back much longer than the existance of UNIX, or Windows, or even the Personal Computer, and there are soo many paralles.
If I were a Chevy man, would I refuse to ride in my friends Ford? Would I base my opinon on them because of there car alone? Would I "really" take it all that seriously? No. Come on people, it's the same thing here. Sure, you can bitch about how one OS is better than another, but how many of you REALLY want to cross that line of having an opinion to go over to "being a nut about it."
A computers a tool, and most people just want to get from point A to point B. (Hmm, that "if microsoft made a car" joke is luming in my head now) But, the opinions are like _____, everyone has one, and thier convinced thiers don't stink and everyone elses does.
Personally, I have probably used at least a dozen diffrent OS's more frequently than any Microsoft products. I have opinions on many. I use to like IRIX, but now lost respect for it. I use to like Linux, but am rapidly loosing that too (although, I still think the LSB is going to be it's saving grace, and it's open source nature may be all that saves it in the long run). My OS of choice now days is FreeBSD, because it brings me back to a BSD like OS like IRIX, and it's more secure, and I can actually afford to run it at home. If I had all the money and time in the world, I think I would probably be a "collector" or something, and try lots of diffrent OS's just to try...
What's the end result? Well, it's all a wash. I hate IRIX, yet I still use it because for some things, there is no real choice (some applications are only avaliable for IRIX). I use MS Windows now too... I hadn't even started doing that untill last year, and it's not "as bad" as it's portrayed, just bad, not evil. Microsoft the company, I have no respect for, but, there isn't much I can think of that Microsoft does that SGI hasn't in the past (oh, yea, and now days SGI requires Netscape, _thier version_, for system help! you don't have a choice, and even upgrading it is bearly possable... At least IE was just an icon on the desktop, you still had a choice.).
The perfect OS doesn't exist. Linux is NOT superior in every way, it's hugely lacking in countless ways. Doesn't mean it's worse than Microsoft, or BeOS, or anything. But at times, watching slashdot posts is like watching a dog chase his tail, it's funny, it's pointless, you can get bored of it pretty easily, but for some reason the next time it happens, your still amused for a few minutes. Where has it gotten the community? Heh, better yet, what is the SlashDot community? I personally think it's funny to watch Linux vs. The World at times, but I also think that everyone should be intellegent enought to realize that other OS's exist, and are worth looking at, I just wish there would be some more info about less popular things (Woo, Go FreeBSD, Ra Ra Ra, try it today, install it, it Rocks! I think I'm one of those guys now... :-( ). But, a cool story on something QNX is doing or someones application of it would be nice, a story on Berlin would be nice, a story on the guts of OS X and who is actually planning on using it would be nice, a story on Solaris, the fate of DEC-UNIX, AIX, something other than Microsoft, Linux, BeOS, and the iMac would be nice!
So, yea, I agree, you SHOULD cheer for IRIX, more power to you, I use it myself! But, we all should try to take a step back, keep our eyes and minds open, and see what's out there. If we can, maybe we can find, or build, a better OS, that has more of the good and less of the bad. Take notes on what you do like about each OS, and what you don't... Hmm... Building the "perfect OS" wishlist...
Warning: [OS/2 soapbox]
If you're not hell bent on a free kernel then OS/2 is still the OS to beat Microsoft and to get sh*t done. If you want usability, configurability, ability to run DOS, Windows 3.x and Win32s, Java, X11(local/clients and remote), and OS/2 (did I forget anything?) there is only one OS that can do that. It has the latest XFree86 system, GNUbin, GNUutils, and the egcs compiler to write free software and to use existing free software.
I still have to say that if the press were to put the effort into writting about OS/2 that they are putting into Linux, the DOJ would easily lose its case because the software works and works well just nobody seems to care about these things anymore unless they are free. Linux is a cool OS but it still has a year or so before it has a chance of having a easy configuration utility.
Todays OS/2 is like tomorrows Linux except the kernel isn't from Linus and it isn't OSS. Think about it, 3 years ago it beat NT server in PCWeek tests when OS/2 was running on ONE CPU and NT was running on FOUR CPU's. Today they compare Linux to NT without mention of OS/2, go figure. It even has the fastest Java on Intel so what is up? Maybe once IBM licenses OS/2 to Stardock, for resale, we will see another piece taken out of Microsofts pie and people can get sh*t done while Linux grows up. Anyway, OS/2 can do for you what you are likely to want BeOS for.
[end soapbox]
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
The only thing it needs is multiuser support. And you wanna know what? When it does get multiuser support, it will probably be faster, easier and sleeker than Linux's.
Right now I think all Linux effort should go into ease of use issues.
EverCode
Some are saying that be does not like open source and linux, and so on. There is overwhelming evidence to the contrary (be has denied this many times and said that they like linux (see their FAQ). However, in the June 16 1999 issue of their newslette rthey have an article that seems to me to show be's ideas on linux, and also their great sense of humor (hilarious bits are scattered throughout their newsletters -- look up "The Cow Piano"). Also, this issue of the newsletter contains stuff about BeOS kernel programming, for those intersted.
Nice troll. Never need to upgrade my ass.
I'm actually really not sure what kind of response you are expecting. I'll hence have to assume that your post is a troll.
If Linux dominates with 90+ % of the market, does that mean everything will be peachy keen? Will everybody be truly happy as you say or will there an technological oligarchy where only a few select companies know how to support and provide value to end users?
Will Linux zealots still be the pricks that they are, or will they change and become helpful and down to earth? Will the minority that knows how to hack the kernel rule the majority that have little or no idea?
Riddle me that. We know what the effects of closed source software domination are. What will open source be like? Could Linux be Microsoft's phantom menance? Could a truly kickass OS/end-user solution be in the works a precious few know about? Hmmm... pun intended -- it may very well be BeOs.
What do you think?
I think you're correct in that the open source nature of Linux has opened the industry to the concept of something other then Windows. I also think that Microsoft has alot to do with this. They have most likely been feeding the press to do stories about other OS's since the trial began. I feel this way because for almost 10 years the press had bashed OS/2 as I tried to make a living at developing for it. There was a nice silence in the press for almost 2 years prior to the DOJ vs MSFT trial and then boom, articles about OS/2 show up. Articles about Linux Mac, and BeOS showed up too though today Linux gets most of the press. I do believe it is the press that makes this all happen. If you don't believe me just look around and all the managers require NT because everyone else is supposed to be using it. Our companies products are being ported to NT even though it is an embedded-type system (preconfigured and shipped with the PC). Not because of features but because the customer never hears about OS/2 and hears about NT all the time. The guy (customer) even was upbeat about Linux. This has 100% to do with press coverage if you ask me and not capabilities.
So in a way you are correct in that BeOS exists because of Linux but Linux exists (popularity wise) today because of the press. This isn't flame bait, I know it wouldn't die without press but it sure in heck wouldn't have EVER been tested against NT without the press popularizing it beyond the hackers systems. Remember that OS/2 had 15 million users in 1994 and the press bashed it for having too few users to survive. NT had under 500,000 licenses sold in 1995 and 700,000 in 1996 while OS/2 was selling 1,000,000 per month. NT got the press and OS/2 got sh*t, so I doubt that even if Linux ran 50% of the web servers and 70% of the universities, it would not have todays popularity without the press.
To bad IBM has non-expiring licenses for code in OS/2 because it prevents them from open sourcing it or dropping its price. I think by the end of July we will know if IBM licenses it to Stardock and what Stardock will sell it for. I do know that it will be packaged for developers in the beginning.
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Is it really necessary to be so paranoid? We, the users, still remember the atrocities inflicted on us by Microsoft. Most of us are still suffering those atrocities.
Microsoft won its unique position because we didn't realize that putting one operating system in such a dominant position would give the company making that OS such control over how we use our computers. We know better now. I'd be more than willing to wager that once Microsoft finally falls, we won't see another operating system, API, or document format with that kind of dominance again in our lifetimes.
Should we abhor GOOD software and the companies that make it because "they might become another Microsoft"? Isn't that akin to punishing someone for something they MIGHT do, rather than what they actually have done? Talk about your chilling effect.
The BeOS is the closest thing to the perfect desktop OS going right now. The company is small, and has done everything in their power to make the OS easy to develop and program for - shy of releasing the OS source. Are you seriously saying that because they haven't done this one thing, their agenda is similar to Microsoft's?
--
All the OS's you compared BeOS to are OLD. Based on ... the big deal is
OLD technology. All of them. You say you don't
understand what the big deal is
that BeOS takes advantage of new technology, new
programming concepts, new models. Linux, Mac, Windows,
are all based on old concepts. Would you really prefer
that everyone just keep fixing/upgrading their OS's for
all time?
I think it's time for a rewrite. A start from scratch.
That's the big deal with BeOS.
-WW
--
Why are there so many Linux-using Star Trek fans? When
was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring up the
commandline display, please!"
--
Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
And you would believe this just because someone at 4am who is half awake decided to throw his own personal views into some readme? Open your mind a little. The advantages and disadvantages have been CLEARLY laid out about Open Source and its day and night why BeOS is NOT Open. (and why Linux keeps getting RAILED in the real world envs for being Open)
In fact, the guy who wrote the Blue Screen Of Death runs Linux on his primary desktop system, and he runs it without X.
I am so sick and tired of reading how any company that
is closed source could "turn into the next Microsoft."
Yes Microsoft sucks. I hate that company with a passion.
My stomache turns when their commercials come on. I feel
an ulcer forming when Gates appears on TV.
But believe it or not, 99.9999999% of the companies out
there are NOT Microsoft, are very successful, have great
products, and are CLOSED SOURCE.
Live with it (because you do).
-WW
P.S. Just so you know where I stand on this whole issue
of Open Source -- any program I write comes with the
source, but the software/source are not FREE. I need to
make money. They get the source. We're all happy.
--
Why are there so many Unix-using Star Trek fans?
When was the last time Picard said, "Computer, bring
I think he stated his and everyone elses points
about OSS wonderful. How its just not right for some OS's, and life and blood for others. Of _COURSE_ I would want the source code to a SERVER OS that my company relies on. But damned if I want anyone touching my Workstation OS source! It just isn't that important, and so NON mission critical... There really is no need. The last thing people need is alternate window managers that no one knows how to install, etc, etc...
His description of how Be is in fact an OS supportive of open-source is nonsense. You can be running windows and run all the gnu tools and use only open source applications just fine, but is windows to be described as open-source supportive in the same light?
Be is closed source, proprietary, centrally controlled all the way down the line. If Be were as successful as M$ his arguments would sound downright silly.
Oxryly
My my.. Such a professional response.
Scot Hacker (that IS, in fact, his real name) did a service to the Linux community by not slamming it. Believe it or not, he's actually a pretty big name writer these days. I mean it's not like he has a book.. Oops.. He DOES have a book. (The BeOS Bible) And I do believe he's helping write O'Reily's MP3 book as well. (Could be wrong about that)
Also, why did you feel this urge to mention that Linux is the "superior" OS? I didn't notice Scot getting all down and just out right attacking Linux.. In fact I don't think he even mentioned it with that sort of tone.
I hate it when people turn STUPID things into religous battles. Earth would be a much happier place if outrageous people like you would just give it a rest. EVERYONE can have whatever opinion they want. Because you have one doesn't mean EVERYONE has got to agree with it. This damned ego-trip half the Linux world seems to be on does NOTHING to help the "cause" and only insults the very foundation of Open Source--the freedom of choice and ideas. By elimiating all other choice, you effectivly kill your reason to live. Can't you see that? Are you that blinded? What if the entire world was democratic like the United States? What then? Well, we wouldn't have anything major to fight over, so we would have to pick something. Next best thing to argue about would be religion. Really, it's just another form of government. And like all government, it's basically a set of rules enforced by people of like mind and big egos. Therefore the perfect thing to fight about.
And it's just so darned logical.
This mindless OS arguing is just plain stupid. A complete waste of time and engery. Especially since it matters even less than government or religion.
What's next? Start the Church of Linux? Worship large statues of Linus and everyone is required to have a ring with a little golden Tux on it. Plus you would go to services every monday afternoon (because kernel hacking is required on weekends) at the local computer lab and donate money to help those poor soles who are out of a job because they "want to believe" so much that they code all day and all night while ignoring the rest of society. After all, they have kids to feed. And they are furthering the "cause".
And then declare war on all other relgions.
Over several hundred years of worship the Linux religion starts to gain political power and eventually begins to buy campaigns in the intrest of "freedom" and more "rights" when in reality they are just futhering their ultimate goals of reaching the golden memory address in the sky. And hoping they will have root privledges when they get there.
Get real. Sounds a lot like most "major" religions these days. Got big. Got powerful. Forgot roots.
At least with BeOS everyone is super user..
:-P
Okay Be is easier to use than linux. Thats right now, give linux time and it will get easier. The whole point of linux is that it's OPEN! If you use Be you are at the mercy of yet another company. If Be merges with someone 2 years from now or goes bankrupt where does that leave you? The source code to linux is and always will be there for all to use,change,re-distribute. Linux can't go out of buisness,or force the user to constantly upgrade.The whole computer industry is based on "the next release", and how to get us all to buy "the next release". Once you have your linux box set up to do what you need it to do you really don't need to ever upgrade it. Thus linux tends to break this cycle. Scary though for people who make money writting about "the next release", or for people who make their money creating "the next release".
I think nearly all Slashdotters would agree that what we really want, more than anything else, is a computing environment everyone can use, that we can cheerfully recommend to our non-computing friends and use ourselves without wincing.
With this in mind, it really seems like a shame that we're so bigoted about our own preferences. Hey, I think Silicon Graphics Irix is the best Unix flavour around, more fun to use and sleeker then any other; but you won't catch me saying that you should avoid other Unix systems, or not use them because you really should be in Irix. No; I encourage you to try Irix if it suits you needs, but I'm not going to tell you you're less than human if you don't pick up a used SGI from somewhere.
And that brings us to Be, which some people have called "The Poor Man's SGI". It seems a pity that, just because some of us want to advance Linux, they feel they should beat on Be to do it. A Linux lover could sit down on a Be console and immediately be productive. Be uses many of the same tools Linux does, after all. The main difference is that the user interface is faster, smoother and more elegant.
Really, isn't it a little silly to hate Be, just because it's not open source? Isn't the real goal quality design and reliability, both of which Be has in spades? If you can recommend to your friends a quality system that won't fail on them like Windows does, shouldn't you?
I think if you have a knee-jerk reaction to Be, you should give the OS a try before being mean-spirited. After all, mean-spirited comments aren't going to make you many friends. And Linux as well as Be need all the friends they can get.
D
----
It's because BeOS, unlike everything else, is actually a challenge (a dangerous one) to Linux, and there's a lot of knee-jerk rejections. At least as I see it. The Mac OS is too unstable. Mac OS X...well, we'll see it when it gets here. Windows is just plain rotten through and through...I don't need to drag out its failings again. DOS is out of date. OS/2 is essentially dev frozen, and isn't growing in market share. AmigaOS? Nope. IRIX/Solaris? Expensive.
The BeOS is as stable as Linux (at least, no average user will be able to tell the difference). It's easier to use. If you like C++ more than C, it's a better programming environment. It shows Linux up badly in many respects. But a lot of people are scared that BeOS will stomp Linux so hard that OSS will go away forever (which won't happen), so they start writing immediate rejections.
Scot Hacker your right on it. What an OS need
is tight controll on the kernel.
Just read the the latest test between Linux vs NT.
BeOS will be a great server os later on.
While ethical companies can exist... ethical, publicly-owned corporations cannot.
Once a corproation is publically owned, then its only goal is profit. It must care about nothing else.. or people will be fired. In fact, a corporation must consider laws, death, and other things as potential costs.... and work toward maximal profit regardless of those things.
What is needed is reform in corporate law.. but until then, Be == IBM == MS == Apple == Sun... None can be "trusted."
What can I say, BeOS is here to stay and it's heavly typecast (whatever others might say -- more so than any other OS). I've read Mr. Hackers article and came to the conclusion that he seems a bit frustrated about the media focus on Linux and not his OS. And every now and then he makes a stab at Linux and it's users. Well, Mr. Hackers, that's not the way to win friends. Most Linux users like BeOS, hell they'd even fish out enough money to buy that OS over any other OS. Typically pitching the BeOS group against Linux group would not result in somethin beautiful. (Not right now, Be (correct me if i'm mistaken), is not mature enough to take on all the other OSes ) just as Linux is not. Adovcating your OS is something most of us do, but when your in the same rut as others around you (linux users), please do not alienate them and try to put them against us senario into action. If you succeed in doing that, Mr. Hacker, you'd see a very evil MickeySoft laughing as two young OSes battle out and die young.....
Let it live togheter! Long live Linux, *BSD, Hurd, BeOS (see that's the only commerical OS I see worth of including in my lineup, Mr. Hacker, please dont change my mind with your negativity and subtile comments).
--
I've used Linux long enough to enjoy using it, and to understand its philosophy. I derive great joy in finding out how to set up software and create new applications for Linux.
But Linux is for me. BeOS may very well be the OS for everyone else, and that's perfectly fine with me. The desktop operating system landscape will probably include all of Linux, BeOS, and Windows, each with their own uses and mindshare. I can see Linux being used as the developer's desktop, BeOS as the media and consumer desktop, and possibly Windows in the corporate arena. And that should suit us just fine.
--Jean-Paul Alderac
If Be isn't publicly owned.. then I look like an idiot by now. :-)
Wow, that was quite an impressive tirade. A little touchy, are we?
Yeah. I mean, if a GNU programmer said their philosophy is right, it must be.
Boy, Hitler would have a heyday with a country full of people like you.
Unless you're a busy surgeon, hamburger flipper, etc. if you ask a question that has already been answered in a way that generally applies to all questions of the same kind, read damn it.
We're not your babysitters. Be an adult.
I'm a little bit unclear about which part of his post you're talking about here. Having twice read both your post and his post, I'm afraid I'm going to have to fall back on asking. Go ahead and flame me.
I don't know what you're screaming about. Take a chill pill.
Right back atcha. Your post is an obscene rant. His isn't.
do you know what a fucking kernel is? It has nothing to do with the WINDOW MANAGERS.
He never said it did have anything to do with window managers. He was talking about how the free software paradigm has led to a profusion of X11 window managers. This is good because I can choose my favorite, and it's good because diversity tends to lead to technical excellence. Blah blah blah; we've all heard all the arguments in favor of free software. However, it takes a religious fanatic to claim that something is perfect, and that goes for free software as much as anything else. Refusing to recognize potential pitfalls in a development process is a short road to hell; read Fred Brooks, or just get involved in a non-trivial project. If you already have been involved in such a project, think about what I'm saying. It's a genuine issue. If you're serious about free software -- and I gather that you are -- you won't do the cause any favors by willfully ignoring its failings.
It amazes me how opportunity scares you freaks. You love being stuck in a stiff frame of mind.
It's amazing how a free exchange of ideas scares "you freaks" (whoever "you freaks" may be; I'm willing to define "you freaks" as "people who flame anybody who tries to make them think"). You want a "stiff frame of mind"? Here's one: Try mindlessly flaming people who use operating systems other than your favorite. That's about as stiff as it gets.
at least I'm not living in your self-created House of Usher.
No, you're living in an entirely different "self-created House of Usher": One where all the "answers" are already known, and "debate" is a matter of reciting them in a loud voice.
. . . we wonder why this country's going commie in a few years
Who's this "we"? Given the ongoing swing to the right in US politics (I assume you're talking about the US), you must be spend a lot more time swallowing right-wing christian [sic] and "libertarian" [sic] propaganda than looking at the world around you and drawing your own conclusions. Gee, it sounds like your approach to politics is a lot like your approach to software: Revealed truth. What that has to do with literacy, I'm unable to imagine. The simple fact is that red-baiters in the US have always been violently opposed to education and the free exchange of information, and for damned good reasons: When you've got nothing to sell but snake oil, it pays to keep the marks ignorant.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
What "negativity and subtile [sic] comments"? He said some good things about Linux, and the bad things he said (about library versions and installing software) are simply true, in my experience. It wasn't a "subtle comment" anyway. He just said "this part sucks", basically. There's nothing subtle about that. Relax -- or, if you'd prefer not to relax, would you be kind enough to provide some examples from his essay?
. . . every now and then he makes a stab at Linux and it's users.
Again, I'd like to see some examples. Yeah, he mentioned in passing that there are a lot of mindless flamers who advocate Linux. So? Read Slashdot and tell me otherwise. It's a fact. However, he spent a lot more time thanking -- and responding to -- those who wrote thoughtful and resaonable responses.
The Linux Bunker Mentality (TM) becomes increasingly annoying and unforgivable as Linux becomes less of an underdog.
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
...I'd like to see more stories about Hurd and Berlin, too. I know nothing about Berlin, in fact.
Whoops, that wasn't a flame. Sorry. I'll do better next time. :)
What would you say to OS/2? You can recompile many Linux/GNU applications to run native on OS/2 with OSS tools. It got XFree86 (latest stable) and egcs so there's nothing new here either. The only drawback that I see is that it is owned by IBM. It is a breeze to configure if you know Linux and easier then Linux is you know Windows. I would really like to see more OS agnostic considerations. The PalmOS has its place, Linux and others do too, we just need to let the market decide and work on getting them to work together. Windows would even have its place if Microsoft would stop killing technology because it isn't Windows. We do ourselves an injustice by only promoting one OS. OS/2 is another commercial OS but its VM architecture allows for great OS compatibilities. Heck, Win32 was possible until Microsoft made it to load parts up above 1GB of address space. You see, OS/2 supports only 512 MB of address space per process (Warp 5 doesn't have that barrier) so it currently can't run Win32 applications. I can run Enlightenment and GIMP though and QT v2.0 was just ported too. Sounds like a hackers dream OS since you can pick your language and pick your runtime environment but do it all from within ONE OS. Why do you think IBM came up with the ideas that was the WorkPlaceOS? OS/2 was already doing it for the most part.
I'm still planning on looking at BeOS because I heard it has a nice OO system through and through.
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
He's putting down OSS and Linux. Very subtly but it's there. I suggest after you've "cooled off" that you re-read the article in it's entirety. Very carefully.
I swore off Kabbalism for Lent, so would you be kind enough to give any examples of what you're referring to?
Anyhow, it's called "free software", not "OSS" (an acronym which upleasantly refers also to a predecessor of the CIA, IIRC).
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
He's putting down OSS and Linux. Very subtly but it's there. I suggest after you've "cooled off" that you re-read the article in it's entirety. Very carefully.
And so what if he is? Isn't he entitled to his own opinion? It's this "holy war" attitude that some Linux proponents have, where everyone is either "with us or against us", that makes Linux lovers look like a cult of fanatical zealots to outsiders. If you really want Linux to be more than an OS for Unix hacker geeks, than you need to be more appreciative and accomidating of other points of view.
Yeah open source is so great that linux with 4 cpus performed on par with windows NT with 1 cpu. Hell, I bet beos could beat linux as a web server. The linux fanatics are a bunch of brain washed liars, take everything they say with a grain of salt.
Yes, his is the song of the disgruntled enduser. That's the point. Users aren't always Gurus. The point of good desktop OS design is to make the user experience as simple and painless as possible. I like to think of my mother as the ultimate usability test.
If I installed Red Hat on my mom's system, and showed her how to install StarOffice, she'd never understand it, and she'd be mad because I put this goofy Linux on her PC that she can't figure out. She'd also have to leave the room, because I'd be cursing the trail of library dependencies RPM is prone to, whether anyone wants to admit it or not.
If I installed BeOS on my mom's system, and showed her how to install Gobe Productive, she'd say "That's easy," because she could write it all down on one page of the little steno notebook she uses to remember these things. That way, when it's time to install something else, she can do it herself. She's happy, because she's confident in her skills, and I'm happy, because I don't have to babysit her through it.
I don't mean to go off on a rant here, but most of the responses to this article have been either the usual chants of Open Source zealots who see operating systems as religions instead of tools, or technical eliteists who think Hacker is the village idiot because he somehow managed to screw up an RPM install. These are the same people who wonder how anyone can speak an ill word about Linux or Open Source, unless, of course, they are on Microsoft's payroll. A bit of advice:
Those who do not learn from history (read Team OS/2) are doomed to repeat it.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. (With apologies to Dennis Miller)
Keith Russell
OS != Religion
This sig intentionally left blank.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
I am ruining democracy! I will kill myself at once.
As far as all the church crap, I've been doing that for years, where have you been? But I can't stand the thought of being an enemyof democracy, in the same catagories as those damned commies.
There are R4/x86 binaries and a source patch for the GeekGadgets source here. Note that I'm not the author of this, I've just made a distribution. Hopefully it'll be merged with the tree as soon as someone gets time to do it.
Johan Jansson
I think alot of them don't understand because Mom and Dad are still footing all their bills whether it be at home or in the dorm. One has to wonder how much work on Linux, Linus and Alan would be doing if Transmerta and Redhat weren't directly/indirectly subsidizing & encouraging them.
XFree86 is definitely NOT what you'd want to use, unless you plan on porting Xnest... :)
Maybe an axe murderer. Just on the side, of course. I don't think axe murdering actually brings in much cash.
What if the entire world was democratic like the United States? What then?
;-)
Suicide ? Moving to mars ? I certainly hope the world will NEVER have be democratic like the US. Think of this : a country where (lame and stupid) actors are elected (and re-elected). A country where you vote to somebody according to his sex life. Damn ! Not in my backyard
If ALL software went to open-source the whole industry would go down. Having a small percentage of open-source is fine, but somebody has to pay for the open-source hackers food and home, and I many company still earn money by SELLING software (and not just the media). Since software companies employ so many people, putting them all out of business would put the IT industry down, and put Open Source hackers into McDonald, which would hurt Open Source too.
I think a balance has to be found between all Open-source and all closed software, so that people can earn money and still have time to hack around.
What did you think all those .src.rpm files on the second CD were?
Using debian, alternate WMs are as easy to install as an apt-get command.
That was just what I was planning on doing pretty soon! I want to build a network with Be workstations and a linux server.
One question for those out there who can help: Is it easy to run X applications on a linux server using a Be box as an X server? Can I have my Be workstation double as an X terminal for any *nix GUI app I happen to want to run? I sure hope so.
Anyone?
Vidi, Vici, Veni
You Know the anti BeOs policy of M##!*@, if Linux don't force a lot of big player (IBM, SGI,Oracle...) to move on it no one care about BeOs, and who care would be forced by MS to go away. Be lives because Linux lives, and linux lives because there is GNU. Gnu DON'T lives because Be lives...
Be needs friends to pay its bills. Linux could certainly do without "friends" who make fools of themselves trying to bash it on slashdot (as an example see the poster referring to the nt/linux benchmarks below).
I said it before, and I'll say it again... UNIX style OS at the core is something I have a great deal of respect for, and a wealth of GNU applications are supported BOTH in open source UNIX and commercial UNIX. When you add to that the huge number of GNU applications that can be easily compiled on a UNIX system using a standard X11R6 structure, there is just SOO MUCH code already out there that I think it's hard for me to say "oh, let's ditch it all, and go to something totally new, and, oh, BTW, it's commercial, and oh, BTW, did we mention that we want all those people who have contributed to GNU to drop everything and port to our OS and windowing system?"
Don't get me wrong, I am not just BeOS bashing. I see what they are trying to do, and I respect that. I just am not excited about it. If you want to know what WOULD excite me, it's replacing standard X with something like Berlin, and replacing the standard macrokernels with something like Hurd, because that keeps it all GPL, will make it possable for software to be more "portable" to Both commercial and free UNIX's, and will allow people to build "optimized" OS's for multimedia, gaming, office apps, servers, cad, etc... AND, the specialized OS's will still be able to probably grab a GNU app that was intended to run on a system optimized for something else, and still run it. Microkernel, making it easier to ditch un-needed overhead, and new windowing system based in GPL code. That's exciting.
I think BeOS is neat, but I think QNX is neat too, and so is MacOS X, and ... but, I am not doing cart-wheels over them, because 1) I can't afford the time to mess with them, 2) I can't afford to buy them all to find out I might not like them, 3) It's taking me away from my "roots." I like the fact that thier are more choices, because competition breeds ideas and motive. But I really think it's about time that SlashDot give some press to something other than just Linux vs. every commercial OS in the world. There are TONS of really cool GNU projects out there. The commercial UNIX's are occasionaly mentioned (and I bet there is a higher ratio of IRIX or Solaris users out there reading that BeOS users, but more BeOS stories), the *BSD's are bearly mentioned, and I can't remember the last time I saw a Hurd or Berlin story on SlashDot at all!
K, flame away ;-)
I just realized that my below may not be your below: I'm referring to comment 16.
ROTFL. This thread is getting a) incredibly funny b) a little scary.
I've been reading some of the comments above and my god, the be zealots are out.
They sound almost as bad as the linux zealots too : )
I think this OS religion thing is crap. Opinions, opinions, opinions ( I know I'm giving mine right now ),
while we should be coding, submitting bug reports, writing documentation...
Anyway I'm off to complete the online GTK tutorial, and my research on xlib.
---------------------------------------------
shut up and code!!!
(or contribute to development however you can)
Yeah...is it market share or OSS that determinies whether a company goes "bad"? Or is it Microsoft, and Microsoft alone, as I like to think?
That would never work for long. Okay, 5 distros hang out, stay friends for a while. Now, Linux takes over in force. All of a sudden, there's lots of money involved. *Billions* of dollars. You think the distro companies are all going to say to themselves (and their shareholders) "Gee, we could be making lots more money if we used a few nasty tactics or whatever to get some marketshare...but we won't, because that would be unethical"? Heck no. And Darwinism will come in. You see, the poisonous animals survive. And we will have Microsoft #2, except lots of people will feel really stupid because their work and source went into the dominant product, and they didn't get rich. I like Linux where it is. A hacker's OS. I want there to be a better mainstream OS, because Windows gives people a bad impression of computers. BeOS fits that bill nicely. Hackers really need the OSS bit. Everyone's happy. Yay, BeOS!
I picked up Linux eons ago at school so that I could better myself with the big Un*x guns. Well, I have seen how far it has come, but how little it has done to sway the masses. Linux will never amount to much more than a closet darkhorse if we don't stop bickering and start coding! Linux zealots spend 90% of their time defending the OS and 5% coding (if that). I don't know where the other 5% went, so don't ask. Stop bickering, start coding. Most of all start listening to what others have to say. It doesn't hurt to hear someone else's opinion.
---
Ryan Wilhelm
Lotus Notes Administrator
Executive Risk, Inc.
I recall those early days. There wasn't a whole lot of bashing of anything then. Well, a bit of Microsoft-bashing, to be sure, but otherwise...
I really want to see all these "Linux is perfect" posts. I haven't seen them. Are you saying that the people raising any question about various benchmark tests are saying "Linux is perfect?" I'd say that's a bit of a strech.
The vitriol lately has indeed been from the anti-Linux crowd. Am I against anything other than Linux? Hardly. I use MacOS, BSD, Solaris and NT on a daily basis. Yes, I use Linux the most, but I am hardly blind to other OSs.
I do question, however, if Linux is really deserving of the *hatred* and *anger* it seems to inspire in some people that post here (a lot) lately.
I suspect it's really fueled by fear of the GPL, which is surely a threat to proprietary software over the long term.
--
Sample code is ALWAYS under this kind of license. What's your point?
...is all we really need. I think that if we could agree that different OS's are better at doing different things then we could avoid alot of flame wars(/me gets in his asbestos bomb shelter).
FreeBSD for servers.
Be for end-user desktops.
Linux for hackors.
Personally I belive in the ideals of FREEDOM and I don't belive in intellectual property, but then I'd rather be coding anyway(i guess that leaves me on linux where i belong).
d00d
I haven't found anything in the XFree86 literature that suggests that it runs on Be, and X11.org doesn't say anything about Be either (but then they were supposedly going to have their site overhauled a month ago but haven't updated their page since.)
:-).
And anyway, I don't really want a whole X server package for Be that controls the video hardware itself. Be has great hardware support already, for hardware that it supports anyway
Ideally, I would want some kind of X server "emulator" that allows the user to run a GTK, Qt, or X app on the Linux server and have it display on the Be desktop with all the other windows.
I guess if there isn't such a thing, maybe I should try to write one, but I am not experienced enough and to me that seems like a big undertaking. Anyone know if there is something like that?
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Wasn't the whole idea of Linux an alternative OS? Well, we now have an alternate OS that will integrate nicely with rest of our pet projects. IT sounds like Be is very forthcoming with the specs for the API's, drivers, and whatnot. Granted, Be is not necessarily a step in the direction of Open Source, but it is an extra step away from the OS dominance of MS.
This can only be a good thing. It's good for them, good for us, and whether you care to admit it or not, good for MS. A little competition never hurts.
The party's over
Posted by OGL:
Having never developed a driver for Be (Are regular users even allowed entrance to the almighy Be cathedral?), I can't really say if this is true or not. But given my experience with Linux device drivers, I find it VERY hard to believe...kernel development under Linux is a snap, and most of that is because the source to the kernel is readily available. Did he pull this out of his ass, quote a total BeOS bigot, or is this actually true? Answer, anybody?
-W.W.
*sigh*
:|
Given the comments I'm reading here, I find myself disagreeing with Scot too. I think he should stop trying to provide a middle-ground, and stop wasting his time. Linux and BeOS are powerful operating systems with their own uses, but if he feels he can tame the beast that is the GPL-fascist, he's dead wrong.
I'm sorry folks, but this fanatical hatred toward an OS and its creator is just downright stupid. Plus, railing against one of its proponents is extremely immature and reflects badly on everyone associated with Linux. Scot Hacker (yes, that is his real name) has been an advocate for BeOS and Linux users working together and peacefully coexisting, and this is the response he gets? Would you rather he were a clueless Microsoft lackey or something?
It's amazing. I see Windows zealots pushing their OS due to its non-technical merits (you can't get fired for recommending MS), and GPL zealots pushing their OS due to its non-technical merits (it's open-source, the way god intended it to be). Both kinds of zealots demonize anything that doesn't fit their own preconceived, limited view of how the industry can and should be. One and the same, despite their appearances.
Come on people! It's one thing to not use an OS due to its closed-source nature for a few real reasons (ie. what if the company goes belly-up, etc), but that's it. It's NOT a moral decision, only one of logic. It is NOT immoral to write code that does not get put into the public domain. Sure, it may not make sense to you. That's fine. It may not make you comfortable with the purchase. That's fine. It may not give you a warm fuzzy feeling at night. That's fine too. But do NOT flame anyone and everyone who disagrees with you. Something being of your opinion does not necessarily make it 100% true.
*sigh* Sorry, just finished a night-long install of LinuxPPC. I think I'll spend another 15 or so minutes to do a quick install of BeOS r4.5 to cool off.
Posted by OGL:
...if I may quote from www.gnu.org:
We do not aim to make GNU software run best on [proprietary systems] -- we write it for the GNU operating system. GNU software can enhance proprietary[...]systems in technical respects, but if you want freedom, you can't get it with a proprietary[...]operating system. To be free, you need to replace the proprietary system with a free operating system, such as Debian GNU/Linux.
Food for thought.
-W.W.
Well since were ranting today. here's mine. He's putting down OSS and Linux. Very subtly but it's there. I suggest after you've "cooled off" that you re-read the article in it's entirety. Very carefully.