Be on the G4

adraken writes "Jean-Louis Gassée of Be Inc. talks about the recent release of IBM's PPC motherboard specs, the G4, and what BeOS will do about it in Be Inc.'s latest newsletter."

Comments

reverse engineering linux / BSD

[mcc]

"Some have suggested that we look into the Linux sources for such data. Perhaps, but I see little reason to open ourselves to possible accusations of reverse-engineering. We're welcome on x-86 hardware, we're not welcome on Apple G3/G4. We respect the logic and that settles it for us. "

"Accusations of reverse-engineering?"
Ignoring for a second whether it is logically _possible_ to reverse-engineer linux, who would accuse them of anything, and what bad could possibly come out of it? As long as you aren't actually reusing code, i don't see any way they could violate the rights of a GPLed program.

What if they just had one engineer read the linuxppc kernel source, write down everything you have to do to work on a G3 chipset, pass that information to another couple of engineers and have them put that into Be? They wouldn't be copying any code, so it would be perfectly legal. Does it even have to be that complicated?
I could understand if Be just wasn't comfortable getting information on the G3 chipset from a secondhand source, but that's not what they say the problem is.

Hell- forget linux, what about NetBSD? or Darwin? They could just take that code and it would be legal, wouldn't it? Is there anything in the ASPL that would at all limit Be's usage of code from Darwin?

I just wish it was possible to get more than one side of this story. All that we have to go on is what Be says, and while it sounds like it's probably true, i'm not certain how difficult it would really be for Be to work out the G3 if they wanted to. And maybe apple just has better things to do than provide tech support to Be?
-mcc-baka

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IS THEFT

Re:reverse engineering linux / BSD

[mcc]

yes. so?

does the GPL say there's anything wrong with that?

Re:reverse engineering linux / BSD

[tdanner]

Be isn't worried about "accusations of reverse engineering" regarding Linux or BSD - they are worried that Apple will drag them into court for reverse-engineering Apple hardware. This has nothing to do with the GPL, BSD, APSL or any other sort of license, it has to do with Apple's well-documented belief that they own their hardware even after they've sold it and intend to exert control over what is done with it by the buyer. It is my personal belief that this sort of thing has no legal standing - hardware isn't subject to the same licensing nonsense that software is, but when big corporations like Apple are involved, little guys can be bankrupted in court even if they are in the right. I can definitely sympathize with Be's desire not to piss Apple off. Competing with both Apple and Microsoft is a two-front war. Ouch!

Tim

Re:reverse engineering linux / BSD

[MindStalker]

I wonder though, in a theoretical sense. Reverse engineered code would be different enough from the original source code, that it wouldn't accually be covered by the GPL license. Could you then just hand the source code created by the computer from the process of reverse engineering straight to the designers without the clean-room step as it wouldn't be needed seeing as reverse engineering isn't illigal in a GPL license? I could be so wrong about this I'm not even funny. Just asking for comments

He sidestepped the clone issue.

[slothbait]

All he did was state that they weren't "welcome" on Apple computers. That is wholly irrelevent here. What he was supposedly answering was the question about whether Be was going to embrace the emerging indie PowerPC boards. Notice, these will *not* be made by Apple, and won't even be Mac-compatible clones. Thus, Apple is not involved one bit.

His statement really said nothing at all. He simply reiterated their reasons for not supporting the Mac platform. Those reasons have no bearing on the emerging "no name" PPC market, however. He was hoping that we would forget the question somewhere in the middle of his apparent muddling about x86 and SGI.

It sounds like Be just doesn't want to be on PowerPC anymore. I'm still hoping for a Linux PPC explosion, though.

--Lenny

Be needs a hardware vendor

[goingware]

I think that if a hardware vendor appeared who would sell systems with those motherboards installed, Be would support them in an instant.

They've got years of work and many millions invested in the PowerPC, and honestly the PowerPC is just a superior microprocessor.

They can sell in the x86 market because they can write for a few common motherboard standards and expect them to work on millions of machines. Suppose they did ship a product with G4 support, that wasn't for Apple? Who'd they sell to?

Mostly people like me, who want to upgrade their PowerPC systems but don't want to buy a new mac because the BeOS won't run on it.

Because PowerPC users are a very small fraction of the installed base, they wouldn't sell many at all.

But if somebody sold a supported system, that was BeOS only, or dual booted into Linux or BeOS - bingo!

So if you want to see BeOS supported on PowerPC in the future, call up your linux hardware vendors and ask them to offer the BeOS as an option on their systems, x86 systems to start, they'll get around to PowerPC eventually.

People who want to resell the BeOS can obtain a free eval copy and a videotape by faxing their resale license to Be (Americas only; other countries have other arrangements). Find out about this at:

http://www-classic.be.com/resellers/

I've been told by a Be executive that the BeOS bundle pricing is "very aggressive". So someone selling a machine with the OS installed would find it easy to profit on it.

And I've used the BeOS for years now, and I'm very happy with it. It's a dream to install and configure, unlike Linux, which rendered my disk unbootable the last time I tried to install and upgrade, and which took me two weeks to figure out how to change the resolution and refresh rate of my X server.

Re:The Viability of Be and Linux

[daviddennis]

Advantages of Be:

- Very Good stability. I've had it crash occasionally, but only when I run it completely out of memory. Don't do that and you're at Linux levels of stability.

- Superior multitasking - I find it a much smoother system than Linux.

- Extraordinarily slick look and feel. I think it says something that one of the most popular Enlightenment window manager configurations is the one imitating the BeOS. Rasterman is a genius, and I bow my head to him as a programmer, but the high overhead of the X-Windows system just can't compare to the integrated nature of Be.

- If you know C++, the API is said to be fantastic.

- Cool applications like e-Picture and GoBe Productive make me think the platform has a good long-term future - despite all the "No Apps!" noises, they are coming, and what's there is great. Apps tend to have an original, well-throught out flair which I find very endearing. They still aren't as full featured as Microsoft Word and Excel, but who uses all those features, anyway?

Disadvantages of Be:

- No released version of Netscape yet. Opera is out and works well, but you have to pay to use it past 30 days.

- Hardware support can be probematical. What's there works great, what's not there frustrates users no end. I'd say at least 90% of Be user complaints on the newsgroup are hardware support-related.

Hope that helps. I'd say it's definitely well worth checking out. Incidentally, it may be proprietary, but actually it's quite a bit cheaper to keep up to date than commercial releases of a Linux version.

D

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Thoughts on Be/PPC

[daviddennis]

I really don't think JLG wanted to drop PPC support. In fact, I'm sure it was a wrenching decision for him. But there were a whole lot of factors that forced his hand:

• He wasn't welcome. Why struggle to do something when your efforts are clearly not welcome? I think this is a very valid argument. Apple doesn't want him to do it, and with his usual gallic charm, he obeys with a smile. I must admire his composure - typical Slashdot readers would launch an assassination attempt on Chairman Jobs.
• Support Issues. Leaving aside Be's own personal desires, virtually all new software for Be is coming out for Intel, without PowerPC versions. The reality is that the developers have spoken, and Be at this point is really run for the developers. Developers feel that Intel is the future, because it's so cheap and popular. Sadly, they are probably right.
• Apple shouldn't be so close-minded. I know I was considering buying a new blue and white G3, and one of the main reasons I decided against it was that I like Be and wanted a system that ran it. So I bought an Intel system instead. I didn't really want to do it - I would have liked to support Apple over Microsoft-based clone systems. At the same time, I know Apple needs to push MacOS X, and they probably don't want Be to cut into that market. JLG doesn't blame Apple for this; he tells us it's a reasonable business decision.
• Be needs to make money. Actually, Be gets punched both ways here. We criticise it for not doing future PPC versions, because it needs to make a profit, and yet we turn around and critisize it for not making a profit, too. Which is it, making a profit or producing a PPC version few are likely to buy?
• This non-Apple PowerPC stuff is unproven. From the point of view of an average consumer, you can either buy Intel, with tons of software and support from Microsoft, or you can buy PPC, with no support from anyone other than Linux or AIX. Who's going to buy these systems? JLG now markets Be on the basis of coexistance with Windows and MacOS; until these machines can run one of those systems, this "piggyback" strategy won't work. Worse, as I said before, developers are voting for Intel with their feet. So why support the new PPC systems? At best it would fragment the platform and divide developer's interests, just as everything seemed to be coalescing on Intel. I wouldn't want that outcome if I was JLG.
• Be is one of the few thouroughly decent companies in the world of software. People who give Be a fair shake tend to love the product. Be's upgrade policies are more than fair; they're generous. JLG is a bit of a character, and that makes following the company and its exploits fun. How many company chairmen respond personally to your email?

Given that Wintel/WinAMD/etc systems are so cheap and run Be so well, I see little point to PPC other than sentiment. Admittedly that's a powerful force, but it's not going to win Be the mainstream friends it needs to survive.

D
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Re:Thoughts on Be/PPC

[daviddennis]

I actually think Be would have been a better OS than NeXT for Apple, and the price was much lower. But with 20/20 hindsight, there is no doubt that Steve Jobs has revitalized the company, and he deserves massive credit for it.

As for JLG, I think he's wised up a bit since his days at Apple. He seems to have genuinely changed his mind about being more open over the years.

I, too, wish both of them nothing but the best. MacOS X is likely to be quite impressive, and I look forward to seeing it and giving it a try on my G3.

D

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if chipset it standard, effort to port is minimal

[Clith]

During the "Genki" beta [was that for R4.5?] there was a kernel produced [genki7] that ran on Apple G3's. I think it was done by an intern who then left, so the code wasn't supported and got axed.

So, given the following qualifications:

• the IBM platform uses standard, well-known chipsets
• it's easy to port the Be kernel to PPC variants

then it stands to reason, that it *would* be in Be's best interest to support the IBM PPC platform [does it have a name? Is it CHRP? PREP? NuCHRP? :-)], since their cost to do so is minimal and can only grow revenue.

Now one thing Be really has to do to be a real presence on PPC is to move to the same development environment [compilers] as the x86 side -- GNU cc. Otherwise, they have to do tons of software support, which ups the cost of supporting the platform. This bullet should have been bitten in R4 at the same time as it was for x86.

BeOS running on a quad-G4, each of which has a dual CPU core -- hey, I can dream, can't I? :-)

The Open PowerPC Platform, etc.

[EverCode]

The only thing Be can do is wait to see what happens with the Open PowerPC Platform. The only OS meant to run on Apple machines is the MacOS. Sure, there is Linux, but that should also be run on an open platform.

Apple is probably smart to keep everything closed. Those MacOS clones were great for users, but bad for Apple. It all depends on how you look at it.

As for Be, they need "workstation" and "server" versions of their product to bring in more revenue. I know there is a need for a multimedia oriented server OS. If they can do this while supporting both x86 and PowerPC, great. If not, x86 is the only way to go, obviously.

I love BeOS 4.5. The biggest drawback is the lack of apps, so far. Actually, once Mozilla 5.0 is stabile on BeOS, I will be happy with the options for apps, and I do not fear going with someone other than the big names for productivity apps, Gobe and Beatware, for examples.

As long as BeOS makes a platform switch transparent, I would not think twice about switching from x86 to PowerPC.

(Hint for Be: Optimize for AltiVec if you are going to support the G4 processor on an open PowerPC platform)

Re:The Viability of Be and Linux

[daviddennis]

I'm not sure who the BeOS core group is - it seems to more or less be developers right now. But it's certain that they are designing software more or less for the mainstream, and in my view (as a programmer), that's a Good Thing. At some point, I'd like to honestly tell someone, "Here's this great alternative to Windows, it's easy to set up and use, and you can do your mainstream stuff on it." Right now, I recommend MacOS to mainstream people; I'd like to recommend something for people who need the low cost of an X86 system.

I think the reason that multitasking feels better on BeOS is that every window is a separate thread. I don't understand why Netscape for Unix wasn't written that way, but it wasn't, and the net effect is that during DNS lookups you can't use multiple browser windows. That problem never comes up on BeOS.

I must admit to thinking of Mozilla as "The next version of Netscape". Me bad, I suppose.

D

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