Why bother making things easy to use/understand if the only way you make money is from the clueless people??
If Linux wasn't so damned hard to install, Red Hat wouldn't have much of a business. Oh sure companies would still have service contracts and stuff, but isn't the goal of this entire industry to make computing so easy that we no longer even think about it? Isn't that where all this is heading? Why bother making new window managers for X. Why not just shut down Be, Inc. Eliminate the MacOS. If service is how money is going to be made, then ease of use will simply be ignored. Oh sure, we could all just be assholes and say "Hey, you don't know how to recompile your kernel? Move back into your cave". That's not how it should be. The entire WORLD does NOT need to be geeks/nerds.
It's very simple, really. If it's all about service, than you can forget about ease of use. You can forget about "general" OSes. You can forget about the general population. I'm sure that's what some of you would LIKE to see. But then you can forget about the entire computer industry since the folks that spend the money are the folks that don't have a clue. And if things get too hard, support gets too expensive, and the people in charge get too powerful (and inflated egos), they will just stop using it. As unlikly as that may sound, the world did work before computers and there's no reason it won't again.
Get real.
Service-only is NOT going to work for anything but Linux. And the only reason it works for Linux is because it's still too damned hard for the non-computer/geek person. Once some of the window managers, etc. get farther along, and someone spends the time to make a solid, small, super-easy distribution, service isn't going to matter as much.
And, just in case someone thinks I'm a troll or something, here's my play toys: At home: 2 Linux boxes 1 Linux/Windows 98/BeOS box 1 Windows 95 box At Work: 1 Windows 95 box 1 Linux box (and Sun servers)
No kidding!! I listen to some Shoutcast streams the entire time while at work. This thing racks up hundreds of minutes of playtime on a crappy 90Mhz computer with a very old and unstable Windows 95 install. Nullsoft deserves a LOT of respect for making a fast, solid product!
Why? BeOS is one solid product. I like Linux and use it every day for server projects, web projects, etc. I like Be and use it everyday to develop on, play with, and in general get work done without a single crash. Sure I could do that with Linux--but why? BeOS is a programmer's dream. It's almost like having VB in C++. It's easy, powerful, nearly perfectly designed internaly, and extreamly fast.
Linux is aging and falling behind. Sure, Linux ALWAYS catches up. But a true geek wants the latest and coolest stuff--regardless of what the stupid license is or if the code is "open".
Well, Ok.. If I don't count the var setup and inits, then sure, the BeOS API is the same way.:-)
Logically, it's the best way to go. I've just never been exposed to that kind of an API before. Having done a bit of programming on Windows, BeOS has HUGE advantages. I admit, I have done almost no programming in Linux. It's on my desktop machine, but I spend most of my time between Windows 98 and BeOS. At least those OSes have a GUI that works. For some odd reason I can't get X to work with my AGP Matrox G200. I want to try out GNOME and KDE, but it's just not working.
To the general ultra-pro Linux people:
That proves another point--Linux has a LONG way to go. Don't get the cart ahead of the horses. (And wanting to use a GUI is not a l0zeR lamer script kiddie thing--it's an effeciency thing. It takes about 1 second to drag and drop. It takes a few more to type and hit enter. My typing is pretty good, but not as good as my ability to simply move my hand.)
"Lets see your C++ program that sends email with 3 lines code hold up in a multiplatform enviroment."
Well, BeOS is multiplatform. A simple re-compile and it will work on PowerPC. Sure, not 100 platforms, but the two biggest. If Apple wasn't blocking the specs to their G3 machines, then Be would have three platforms to play with. Not a single line of code would need to be changed.
And why does code need to compile on any platform? (I assume you mean other OSes and not just BeOS on other hardware) Each OS does stuff differently (hence the reason for the different OSes) What's the problem with changing a bit of code? Or building a wrapper? Really, the BeOS API is a VERY good wrapper. If you want to port to Windows or Linux or something, just create a wrapper that mimics the BeOS API for the classes you used. It's much easier to start with a very high level API than a low level one. That way all the other systems out there can be easily ported to by simply filling in the holes. Once you have a set of wrappers built for multiple OSes, porting becomes a dream. Sure you could start out like that on any OS, but Be has already done the hard work for you be creating a well thought out and implemented API.
That's part of the problem with porting to BeOS. It is based so much on object-type coding that most programs out there are hard to port. They were written at a much lower level (C instead of C++ and so are missing a lot of the object stuff). Basically, they had no API to handle all the little dirty work. In BeOS, you just deal with what you are trying to build. You don't have to mess with the details. And that makes it exactly the opposite of almost all other platforms/OSes out there now.
Read the book and you will understand. It is a "possible future". The movie was a bit more direct in how they portrayed the total control/fascism of the time. The book, as usual, made you think about that a bit more. Also, in the book it is not the explosions or the bugs or anything like that that's really the message--it's the main character's internal struggles. That's what the story is really all about. Give it a read. It's not bad.
I, for one, really love the BeOS API, speed, stability, design, etc. In fact I love almost every aspect of BeOS. I have finally found enough time to explore the wonders of developing on R4 for Intel, and needless to say, I LOVE it--lots. I'm not the world's best coder, but I have finally found an OS that I can make stuff for. Where else can you send an email from a C++ program in 3 lines? Where else can you play a sound of any format or codec in about 7 or 8 lines? I've not seen it. BeOS is, in the words of Steve Jobs, "Insanly Great". (Ironic since Apple is now a major thorn in Be's side.. Oh well)
Anyway, I plan on buying R5 when it comes out. I also plan on buying good software to support BeOS developers.
I love Open Source(tm), but I am not so narrow minded to see that there is no other way. Red Hat is widly considered one of the best success stories of Open Source(tm), but why? They make money because Linux is very hard to use from a newbie point of view. It's hard to install. It's hard to download. It's even hard to upgrade. I use Linux. In fact I have two boxes here at home and a box at work. I like it. But I like BeOS better. Linux is not suited for the desktop--BeOS is. What ever happened to using the right tool for the job?
I say keep up the good work. Ignore the losers here on Slashdot that bash, flame, and attempt to destroy all that is not Linux. I can't believe what the "community" is turning into. Gone are the days of geeks being excited by new technologies and new ideas. It seems that more and more people are just out for blood. Linux has all the features of just about every OS. But Be has most of the features as well. Why not all? Be left out the crap.
What are you talking about? I applied for the same thing long ago and I just put down that it would be a hobby to develop on Be. I got signed right up. I don't even have a job as a developer. Be doesn't care. And Be does not make many wrong decisions. Most of their problems are from licenses and other companies' anti-competitive practices.
Anyone else notice how news.com / C|Net, etc are all jumping on the Linux bandwagon? There seems to be article after article coming out of these places that have either nothing important to say or are totaly wrong but mention Linux once or twice. I think these news mags are just trying to take some of Slashdot's many hits.. I imagine that a fair amount of regular readers to those older "tech" sites now check here far more often (or exclusively). They probably are starting to see some ad revenue losses and they want them back. So, what do they do? They pump out a ton of articles on Linux so that they might get posted on Slashdot (or other community sites) so they can make more money. Seems fishy to me.
"The GUS was a proprietary piece of hardware, developed solely as the commercial product of Gravis. There is no way it could survive the long rampup time that Linux has endured."
If what you say is true, then that means there is no way for any hardware to ever have a long life, right? Then how did the Sound Blaster itself (which is even more closed than the GUS) live up until now?
Legions recently had a story about how Intel and their "advances" are not really pushing the envelope. It also goes into how AMD is a rising star in the processor wars and that Intel had better watch it's back. </lame_site_plug>
Hmm... Here's an odd thought.. For a moment, assume that technology has advanced to a point where size no longer matters. Power no longer matters. Heat no longer matters, etc.
Ok, everyone has seen the light sabers in Star Wars. What if the handle contained a SUPER high powered laser and one of these devices. Then, when activated, the light would slowly extend until it reached a set limit. Then the device would get to 0 degs K and hold the light still.. Ok.. So I'm crazy.
What we must all remember is that Bill G. calls the shots. The company can become anything, but it's Bill's "vision" that drives them now. So, the founders are getting up there in age now (mid 40's), and with the money they have, they could easily retire in 10 years or so. Since all the founders are the same age, the new people taking over the captains chair might have a new vision--a more open vision. That is the key. Microsoft is an amazing company. It's the leadership that defines it, however. If that changes, Microsoft could turn on it's heals in a day.
(Of course that all assumes a Bill-wannabe doesn't take over...:-)
I said "mostly" use thier computers for work. There's no rule that says I have to follow that with a sentence of ONLY work-releated things...:-)
The people I'm talking about have mechanical jobs or factory jobs, etc. They don't use computers as part of thier job. I'm talking about using it to find information, store records, and help them pay taxes. Most of us probably do all those things too, but we also like to hack, tweak, play games, build, modify, etc. The "average" person doesn't do/know/have-a-clue about that stuff. As far as I'm concerned, the stuff they do with computers is "actual work"--I just have fun with mine.
Quicken would bring more interest from the "average" home user. Most people (without kids and geeks in the house) seem to use computers mostly for actual work. They type stuff, read e-mail, surf the web, and do their books on the machine. Linux is good at all of these things. And with a name like Quicken, it's only going to make Linux look better. (Plus, the security of Linux can be used to help bring people in who are worried about keeping finacial data on a machine they don't totaly understand. This could be a sort of "killer app", in a sense...)
After reading the abstract it seems to me that this is a patent of computer communications in a VERY broad sense. It almost seems as if the web would fall under this patent (along with just about everything else on the Internet). Would someone care to clarify, because I might have missed something important..
I think Be, Inc. bought BeDepot and just didn't bother to waste time and money switching the systems to something different.. Don't hold that against them. Be is a great system and you just have to play with it to get a good feel for why Be supporters are so strong about it.
I seen this on TV and they showed the guy (or at least the parent) who first claimed to have found it. He was all concerned that his kids would be forever corrupted or something after seeing the video. I think parents should lay off a bit on the censorship stuff. Do these parents that complain have any idea what school is like?
Making a zipped version is fine... Feel free to distribute it to other people, too. The only thing you really CAN'T do with the source code is use it for profit.
Slashdot Mirror
Service is bad for the computer industry.
Imagine this situation...
Why bother making things easy to use/understand if the only way you make money is from the clueless people??
If Linux wasn't so damned hard to install, Red Hat wouldn't have much of a business. Oh sure companies would still have service contracts and stuff, but isn't the goal of this entire industry to make computing so easy that we no longer even think about it? Isn't that where all this is heading? Why bother making new window managers for X. Why not just shut down Be, Inc. Eliminate the MacOS. If service is how money is going to be made, then ease of use will simply be ignored. Oh sure, we could all just be assholes and say "Hey, you don't know how to recompile your kernel? Move back into your cave". That's not how it should be. The entire WORLD does NOT need to be geeks/nerds.
It's very simple, really. If it's all about service, than you can forget about ease of use. You can forget about "general" OSes. You can forget about the general population. I'm sure that's what some of you would LIKE to see. But then you can forget about the entire computer industry since the folks that spend the money are the folks that don't have a clue. And if things get too hard, support gets too expensive, and the people in charge get too powerful (and inflated egos), they will just stop using it. As unlikly as that may sound, the world did work before computers and there's no reason it won't again.
Get real.
Service-only is NOT going to work for anything but Linux. And the only reason it works for Linux is because it's still too damned hard for the non-computer/geek person. Once some of the window managers, etc. get farther along, and someone spends the time to make a solid, small, super-easy distribution, service isn't going to matter as much.
And, just in case someone thinks I'm a troll or something, here's my play toys:
At home:
2 Linux boxes
1 Linux/Windows 98/BeOS box
1 Windows 95 box
At Work:
1 Windows 95 box
1 Linux box
(and Sun servers)
Words of wisdom are often ignored here.
*sigh*
Well said, though.
No kidding!! I listen to some Shoutcast streams the entire time while at work. This thing racks up hundreds of minutes of playtime on a crappy 90Mhz computer with a very old and unstable Windows 95 install. Nullsoft deserves a LOT of respect for making a fast, solid product!
ROTFLMAO!!!
(Sorry, couldn't resist)
*whips tear from eye*
Linux > NT
That's a given.
The discussion is about BeOS vs. Linux.
IMHO,
BeOS > Linux
Why?
BeOS is one solid product. I like Linux and use it every day for server projects, web projects, etc. I like Be and use it everyday to develop on, play with, and in general get work done without a single crash. Sure I could do that with Linux--but why? BeOS is a programmer's dream. It's almost like having VB in C++. It's easy, powerful, nearly perfectly designed internaly, and extreamly fast.
Linux is aging and falling behind. Sure, Linux ALWAYS catches up. But a true geek wants the latest and coolest stuff--regardless of what the stupid license is or if the code is "open".
Therefore, I choose Be "for technical reasons".
Well, Ok.. If I don't count the var setup and inits, then sure, the BeOS API is the same way. :-)
Logically, it's the best way to go. I've just never been exposed to that kind of an API before. Having done a bit of programming on Windows, BeOS has HUGE advantages. I admit, I have done almost no programming in Linux. It's on my desktop machine, but I spend most of my time between Windows 98 and BeOS. At least those OSes have a GUI that works. For some odd reason I can't get X to work with my AGP Matrox G200. I want to try out GNOME and KDE, but it's just not working.
To the general ultra-pro Linux people:
That proves another point--Linux has a LONG way to go. Don't get the cart ahead of the horses. (And wanting to use a GUI is not a l0zeR lamer script kiddie thing--it's an effeciency thing. It takes about 1 second to drag and drop. It takes a few more to type and hit enter. My typing is pretty good, but not as good as my ability to simply move my hand.)
"Lets see your C++ program that sends email with 3 lines code hold up in a multiplatform enviroment."
Well, BeOS is multiplatform. A simple re-compile and it will work on PowerPC. Sure, not 100 platforms, but the two biggest. If Apple wasn't blocking the specs to their G3 machines, then Be would have three platforms to play with. Not a single line of code would need to be changed.
And why does code need to compile on any platform? (I assume you mean other OSes and not just BeOS on other hardware) Each OS does stuff differently (hence the reason for the different OSes) What's the problem with changing a bit of code? Or building a wrapper? Really, the BeOS API is a VERY good wrapper. If you want to port to Windows or Linux or something, just create a wrapper that mimics the BeOS API for the classes you used. It's much easier to start with a very high level API than a low level one. That way all the other systems out there can be easily ported to by simply filling in the holes. Once you have a set of wrappers built for multiple OSes, porting becomes a dream. Sure you could start out like that on any OS, but Be has already done the hard work for you be creating a well thought out and implemented API.
That's part of the problem with porting to BeOS. It is based so much on object-type coding that most programs out there are hard to port. They were written at a much lower level (C instead of C++ and so are missing a lot of the object stuff). Basically, they had no API to handle all the little dirty work. In BeOS, you just deal with what you are trying to build. You don't have to mess with the details. And that makes it exactly the opposite of almost all other platforms/OSes out there now.
Read the book and you will understand. It is a "possible future". The movie was a bit more direct in how they portrayed the total control/fascism of the time. The book, as usual, made you think about that a bit more. Also, in the book it is not the explosions or the bugs or anything like that that's really the message--it's the main character's internal struggles. That's what the story is really all about. Give it a read. It's not bad.
I, for one, really love the BeOS API, speed, stability, design, etc. In fact I love almost every aspect of BeOS. I have finally found enough time to explore the wonders of developing on R4 for Intel, and needless to say, I LOVE it--lots. I'm not the world's best coder, but I have finally found an OS that I can make stuff for. Where else can you send an email from a C++ program in 3 lines? Where else can you play a sound of any format or codec in about 7 or 8 lines? I've not seen it. BeOS is, in the words of Steve Jobs, "Insanly Great". (Ironic since Apple is now a major thorn in Be's side.. Oh well)
Anyway, I plan on buying R5 when it comes out. I also plan on buying good software to support BeOS developers.
I love Open Source(tm), but I am not so narrow minded to see that there is no other way. Red Hat is widly considered one of the best success stories of Open Source(tm), but why? They make money because Linux is very hard to use from a newbie point of view. It's hard to install. It's hard to download. It's even hard to upgrade. I use Linux. In fact I have two boxes here at home and a box at work. I like it. But I like BeOS better. Linux is not suited for the desktop--BeOS is. What ever happened to using the right tool for the job?
I say keep up the good work. Ignore the losers here on Slashdot that bash, flame, and attempt to destroy all that is not Linux. I can't believe what the "community" is turning into. Gone are the days of geeks being excited by new technologies and new ideas. It seems that more and more people are just out for blood. Linux has all the features of just about every OS. But Be has most of the features as well. Why not all? Be left out the crap.
What are you talking about? I applied for the same thing long ago and I just put down that it would be a hobby to develop on Be. I got signed right up. I don't even have a job as a developer. Be doesn't care. And Be does not make many wrong decisions. Most of their problems are from licenses and other companies' anti-competitive practices.
Anyone else notice how news.com / C|Net, etc are all jumping on the Linux bandwagon? There seems to be article after article coming out of these places that have either nothing important to say or are totaly wrong but mention Linux once or twice. I think these news mags are just trying to take some of Slashdot's many hits.. I imagine that a fair amount of regular readers to those older "tech" sites now check here far more often (or exclusively). They probably are starting to see some ad revenue losses and they want them back. So, what do they do? They pump out a ton of articles on Linux so that they might get posted on Slashdot (or other community sites) so they can make more money. Seems fishy to me.
"The GUS was a proprietary piece of hardware, developed solely as the commercial product of Gravis. There is no way it could survive the long rampup time that Linux has endured."
If what you say is true, then that means there is no way for any hardware to ever have a long life, right? Then how did the Sound Blaster itself (which is even more closed than the GUS) live up until now?
Perhaps I missed something?
That's what Legions is for!
</plug>
Yeah, it wasn't me either. (Not that I could anyway)
:-)
Thanks for getting the news out! We were researching this for our site and ran across that explaination as well. I was just about to submit it. :-)
Sorry, but I just had to mention this..
Legions recently had a story about how Intel and their "advances" are not really pushing the envelope. It also goes into how AMD is a rising star in the processor wars and that Intel had better watch it's back.
</lame_site_plug>
Ok.. I'm done now. :-) Sorry.
Hmm... Here's an odd thought.. For a moment, assume that technology has advanced to a point where size no longer matters. Power no longer matters. Heat no longer matters, etc.
Ok, everyone has seen the light sabers in Star Wars. What if the handle contained a SUPER high powered laser and one of these devices. Then, when activated, the light would slowly extend until it reached a set limit. Then the device would get to 0 degs K and hold the light still.. Ok.. So I'm crazy.
Maybe I just like light sabers too much.
:-)
What we must all remember is that Bill G. calls the shots. The company can become anything, but it's Bill's "vision" that drives them now. So, the founders are getting up there in age now (mid 40's), and with the money they have, they could easily retire in 10 years or so. Since all the founders are the same age, the new people taking over the captains chair might have a new vision--a more open vision. That is the key. Microsoft is an amazing company. It's the leadership that defines it, however. If that changes, Microsoft could turn on it's heals in a day.
:-)
(Of course that all assumes a Bill-wannabe doesn't take over...
I said "mostly" use thier computers for work. There's no rule that says I have to follow that with a sentence of ONLY work-releated things... :-)
The people I'm talking about have mechanical jobs or factory jobs, etc. They don't use computers as part of thier job. I'm talking about using it to find information, store records, and help them pay taxes. Most of us probably do all those things too, but we also like to hack, tweak, play games, build, modify, etc. The "average" person doesn't do/know/have-a-clue about that stuff. As far as I'm concerned, the stuff they do with computers is "actual work"--I just have fun with mine.
Quicken would bring more interest from the "average" home user. Most people (without kids and geeks in the house) seem to use computers mostly for actual work. They type stuff, read e-mail, surf the web, and do their books on the machine. Linux is good at all of these things. And with a name like Quicken, it's only going to make Linux look better. (Plus, the security of Linux can be used to help bring people in who are worried about keeping finacial data on a machine they don't totaly understand. This could be a sort of "killer app", in a sense...)
After reading the abstract it seems to me that this is a patent of computer communications in a VERY broad sense. It almost seems as if the web would fall under this patent (along with just about everything else on the Internet). Would someone care to clarify, because I might have missed something important..
I think Be, Inc. bought BeDepot and just didn't bother to waste time and money switching the systems to something different.. Don't hold that against them. Be is a great system and you just have to play with it to get a good feel for why Be supporters are so strong about it.
I seen this on TV and they showed the guy (or at least the parent) who first claimed to have found it. He was all concerned that his kids would be forever corrupted or something after seeing the video. I think parents should lay off a bit on the censorship stuff. Do these parents that complain have any idea what school is like?
Reply from Kenn:
----------------
Making a zipped version is fine... Feel free to distribute it to other people, too. The only thing you really CAN'T do with the source code is use it for profit.
Kenn Hoekstra
Project Administrator
Raven Software
Khoekstra@mail.ravensoft.com
----------------------------
Have fun with the source!