Ack. Why do all/. posters insist on getting political?
> they soon will be closing their doors, probably forever
If you had bothered to read the press release and aqaint yourself with the facts prior to your "guess", you would know that it is stated that Be intend to wind up the company after the sale goes ahead.
> will soon be learning why it is that Free Software is such an important concept
You forget that most of the apps and drivers for the BeOS were written (as freeware) by the same people that write freeware for the other free operating systems. They all understand what the deal is, but you evidently don't understand them, or their motivations.
> and you can also guarantee that they aren't going to be interested in the desktop portions of the OS. Palm makes handhelds.
Palm can look at the desktop OS and see a product. Any product is worth something so they sure as hell won't "bin" it. Even if the only value is releasing whatever they can in return for goodwill from people and image. That in itself has value. And yes, believe it or not, despite being in a backwater in the UK, I had heard a rumor that Palm made handhelds, but thanks for letting me know.
> and the time and effort spent writing drivers and Be specific applications has just been flushed down the proverbial toilet.
No, The time spent was a gamble on something good that they believed in that sadly didn't pay off. Most importantly, it was fun, and secondly most of the programmers wrote portable code. Thats not time wasted
Developers who give their effort for free for ANY os, whether linux, Be or windows deserve respect for it. Whatever happened to solidarity? Why do linux 'advocates' insist on trying to take a higher ground when writing any free sofware is not about competition?
There has been little Be desktop development By Be Inc. but there has been a fair bit in the way of application and driver development by the exceptionally talented community of Be enthusiasts. (Their like Linux enthusasts but without the foaming at the mouth)
> If I'm a BeOS user who's gonna be really irate
> if Palm doesn't continue BeOS development, how
> many people are with me? Anyone?
Conjecture.
If you were a Be user you would already be irate. Be Desktop OS development effectively ceased after R5 over a year ago. Theres been no improvements or development or support. All their energy has been directed at BeIA which you wouldnt have seen anyway.
My hope is that palm may release / open source the desktop os for community development as I doubt it fits anywhere into palms business plans.
Well, it's only surprising to us that have been following Be for several years as it was expected to be Sony (Their only current major customer) that buys them.
As for Palm, well they've been in the market for a new kernel for a while now, and BeIA being very slick is perfect for them. Its established (technically, not commercially) and deals exceptionally well with real time media and networking - the kind of things Palm want to build upon for appeal.
The real question is where does that live the desktop OS that showed som much promise? As expected of a slashdot reader, I';ve got to say 'I hope it going to be made open source/GPL/Free/wibbleware' or similar words. Well, who knows... I just hope it doesnt vanish away...
Press release here.
When you decided to create C++, you did it because you saw a requirement for a new language and fulfilled that requirement. With advances in technogy over the past 20 years since designing C++, can you see the need now for a new language and why?
~Pev
Re:Difference between Free BeOS 5 and expanded BeO
on
Free Be
·
· Score: 1
> The free version will not include some codecs, Opera and the G2 Player. The expanded version will include these.
Its all very well being anonymous and saying such things, but no-one knows what will be included yet, not even you. Codecs I have no idea about but I doubt they'll be excluded. As for Opera - its still in beta and definately not distributed with the system, and G2 player isnt even available yet.
> Commercial success at what cost? None. Commercial implies that it is a business. Businesses make money for people that do the work and invest in the product. Business != Charity.
> What about the user who pays for an operating system but isn't allowed to modify or even redistribute it? Again. This is COMMERCIAL. Does buying a book entitle you to photocopy it and give it to your friends to read? No.
>... Be is Free Software parasite.... >... they all want this or that application open sourced so that they can port it to BeOS.... >... Does anyone else see the hypocracy in this?... >... BeOS relies on free software but fails to play fair... No. That is the USERS wanting things, not the company. The OS itself does NOT rely on OSS material. Things like the GNU tools are bundled, but most of the OS is proprietry. A couple of drivers and the pcmcia stack are OSS code, but this has either been donated to Be inc. for use, or they have licenced (with money) the code from the original author. This is very fair.
> If users want Free Software then they would not choose BeOS. No, let me check. I seem to remember that the announcement meant the OS _is_ about to become free.
> Users want Free Software. Indeed. Feel free to argue yourself into a corner anytime.
To make a last point - if you decide to make your software that you write open source, that is up to you. By doing so you are declaring its there for others to use as they see fit. You dont expect anything back in return. You yourself in complaining about the validity of making use of OSS code are arguing against its principles. making code availiable means exactly that - you cant have it both ways.
Quite a lot of questions have been asked about issues here so I'll try and answer as many as I can:
Q: As stated in the FAQ it runs in windows and does not need repartitioning... what's this? A: If you read the FAQ, it states "you'll be able to download BeOS 5 via a Web browser and store it as a file within the Windows file system." so the money is it on being a filesystem implemented as a file under windows that the kernel will be able to mount."Thats able folks, not have to so you ll still be able to use BFS in a partition as most geeks will want to.
Q : I still don't think that it will gain widespread acceptance until it is Open Sourced. A : Why? look at all the major OS's that are commercial successes - Windows, MacOS, qnx et al. They have not needed open source. Linux does not need open source to be used. How many users actually use the source. It aided its development and growth, but not its usage. If you wish to argue about the closed-ness of api's for writing drivers etc on the BeOS, dont worry as Be are very good at supplying full documentation and sample code as required
Q : Is Be doing well from a commercial viewpoint? A : At the moment, not especially, but are heading towards critical mass steadily. People try to compare linux companies IPO's with Be's - this isnt really relevant as the stock price in linux case was brought up by hype and is not a true indication of revenue coming into these companies and is a debatable point whether it ever will be.
Q : But it's difficult to find anywhere in retail outlets. A : But very easy just to call be, order one and have it arrive on your doorstep
Q : But how free will this be? A : RTFFAQ - totally free for non-commercial and personal use.
Q : But is this an attempt to garner marketshare by giving the product away? A : Probably. Who knows or cares. The fact is that unless you are microsoft, desktop OS's dont make money. Embedded ones do.
Q : If there's no less than 3 different Linux distros that run on G3 Macs, why can't Be get BeOS on 'em? A : Because Be have no support from the hardware vendors. If they are have a commercial product that has a problem for a user, they are liable. Hence, if thats due to lack on info they cant get, they are stuffed. Linux etc. dont have this problem because if it doesnt work, it doesnt work, and no-ones liable.
Q : Whats missing from this "cut-down" release? A : Well, it hasnt been announced but its easy to make a good guess - not a lot. The faq states We do plan to offer for sale an expanded edition of BeOS 5 containing a variety of special software components and other valuable utilities. The dev tools etc are there and as the distro is 40-60M (and all the be system binaries are only 20M) it should all be there. The missing things will likely be extra non-vital tools + utilities. The cut down bits are likely to be all the sounds/videos/images + source that are normally on the cd (an separately available anyway)
Q : the free version is really like a demo A : No its not. Go read the FAQ before talking rubbish.
Q : Now that Be is concentrating on the Internet, what about the JDK promised here? A : Well, I've heard its taking them a little longer due to the Stinger/IA push. Expect something RSN.
Well, thats about all I think I can add for now. Hopefully this should blitz some of the speculation and unfounded rubbish people have posted so far:-) That is assuming people read others posts as well as just posting their own opinions hoping to appear knowledgable.
Peace out, and try tasting the OS sometime soon if you havent already,
Well, if you mean the Intellimouse explorer, yes. The USB->PS2 converter works exactly as you'd expect and lets you use it as a normal ps2 mouse. Under USB I dont know, but if it helps, I run my one using USB under the Be OS and it behaves absolutely fine.
Well, I'd like to take this opurtunity to be childish and blow raspberries at our cousins across the water in the US and point out that for once its nice to be ahead of the game. The US gets new hardware, new software, new films, new videos all much sooner than the UK + europe. Also generally 30% cheaper too (No, UK sales tax is only 17.%) I thinks its nice to be one up for a change.
On a more serious note, the points above are all good - we have a digital TV infrastructure and agreed standards in the UK now for both satellite and terestrial transmission. When you also take into account the lack of scan-lines on the US transmission system, whilst widescreen would be great for the US the quality wouldnt be so. Now you yanks could always buy some from the UK and use a NTSC->PAL converter but I doubt any americans would pay the prices we have to. Still, why TV makers cant make their firmware upgradable i dont know.... It cant be that hard. And WHY are TV's still hardwired to be PAL _or_ NTSC and not able to deal with both.....
Well, whilst everyone else bitches about the fact it hasnt changed much (NO its not meant to have groundbreaking stuff, its a point release kids) a few observations on the FreeBSD version.
Having been running this for about 5 hours now (having had 4.6 previously) I can safely say that its startup time is far faster, its snappier and more responsive, and re-enabling Java / Javascript hasnt made it crash as I am accustomed to. In fact it hasnt crashed or locked up at all yet which is impressive in itself. This is good. In fact it's very good. It does exactly what a point release should do - fix bugs and improve stability and speed. Nice one Netscape.
I think you've been watching too many films - most people would demand tens of thousands as its far easier to get away with. Millions is hollywood and people that havent thought it through. Most people in the UK that have been caught, have tried to set up systems to withdraw the ransoms from cash machines in several hits, and have been caught by the cash machine cameras. Not very clever as the cash machine is the perfect way to get the cash away from a random unknown location...
I'm surprised no one on Slashdot has brought up the fact that 2.4 gigs is the band that Bluetooth is using. Seems a shame they didnt see it as an opportunity to use the technology...
(The 1.0 Bluetooth spec was released last month and development kits are available even if a little expensive due to being first generation!)
Humbug! Its open because anyone can contribute. Just because a specific collective of developers outnumbers the independant ones, doesnt mean it isnt open. This is 'Open/Free software' politics getting daft again...
Why not? Its not imaginary technology, so you can safely assume its there. Britain isn't a technologicaly backwards country - we did invent the computer remember? Also, it doesnt have to be a perfect system - if something sounds *close* what the hell, just record it and figure it out later. Has it occurred to you that you dont really need to monitor ALL calls? Part of the purpose would be to be able intercept any calls in particular you want to, without having any red tape to deal with, or anyone aware that you're at it.
It is *very* lightweight and *very* stable, two things that all desktop operating systems at this time are not (with perhaps the exception of BeOS but lets not argue about that one right now) It is stable to the point that it can run for years, and survive drivers misbehaving and other *core* system components being changed. Linux is pretty good, but not *that* good.
Unfortunately with QNX they were going the right way, but I feel that this decision to use linux is not the right one (even though I love Linux) - Note that the decision appears to have been made by management and as such is hoping to ride the current Linux [hype/bandwagon/frenzy] that appears to be in evidence.
Yes, but check unmetered.org's news and you'll see that BT *did* actually plan earlier to provide ADSL flat rate for 30UK per month. I believe the register and NTK carried the article too.
Not entirely true - there have been several cases where tv owners have been using satellite or cable and as they arent using aerials have refused to pay tv license. As you can imagine the courts puersuaded them otherwise....
Not true. For updated compatibility, examine : http://www-classic.be.com/support/guides/beosrea dylist_intel.html The actual features (Apart from the extra harware compat) while not actually stated explicitly, have been mentioned at various stages in Be newsletters etc.
Having been using the release for some months now I can heartily reccommend it. If I can only get emacs-20 ported ok I'll be a very happy chappy.
Why do people immediately have to scream Open up the BeOS source? It has many disadvantages as well as advantages :
1) It has controlled and organised design and strategy - Something the open source model doesnt do well is promote _designing_ systems and maintaining them. Can you see an open source project creating a GUI + API like Be's from scratch in anywhere near the time? They group would argue via email forever about details and eventually abandon the project in favour of another X port (because its avaliable)
2) Because it is commercial it can be adopted more widely than 'unsupported' (in the legal sense) free software by companies.
3) Hardware companies are happier to supply proprietry specs for writing support for commercial systems rather than free ones.
People should stop bickering about the 'principle' of it being closed source and take it for what it is and look at both sides of the story subjectively.
Firstly, not all official developers have received R4.1. Not even close. Around 100 have - I only got mine as I'm developing PCMCIA drivers.
Secondly, Be are not refusing to release the lib at all, they just waiting to finish testing it (ever heard of QC?) Why should they pre-release a development version for the edification of one application?
How about checking things are right before ranting like fsck - Another typical slashdot winge *sigh*....
A lot of people seem no to like this because of the viewpoint that they dont like the fact that the software is being deemed part of the computer - what you're forgetting is that you're already doing that - point in case BIOS code and video driver firmware for example. These are pieces of software that are just as important to the running of the computer, and also removeable/replaceable. The only difference is that you dont have to explicitly accept an EULA to use them. When the Open BIOS project gets somewhere will you all be returning your EEPROMS to award for a refund? The best solution is to ignore all the crap and either buy machines which dont bundle MS software, or to build your own.
Slashdot Mirror
> they soon will be closing their doors, probably forever
If you had bothered to read the press release and aqaint yourself with the facts prior to your "guess", you would know that it is stated that Be intend to wind up the company after the sale goes ahead.
> will soon be learning why it is that Free Software is such an important concept
You forget that most of the apps and drivers for the BeOS were written (as freeware) by the same people that write freeware for the other free operating systems. They all understand what the deal is, but you evidently don't understand them, or their motivations.
> and you can also guarantee that they aren't going to be interested in the desktop portions of the OS. Palm makes handhelds.
Palm can look at the desktop OS and see a product. Any product is worth something so they sure as hell won't "bin" it. Even if the only value is releasing whatever they can in return for goodwill from people and image. That in itself has value. And yes, believe it or not, despite being in a backwater in the UK, I had heard a rumor that Palm made handhelds, but thanks for letting me know.
> and the time and effort spent writing drivers and Be specific applications has just been flushed down the proverbial toilet.
No, The time spent was a gamble on something good that they believed in that sadly didn't pay off. Most importantly, it was fun, and secondly most of the programmers wrote portable code. Thats not time wasted
Developers who give their effort for free for ANY os, whether linux, Be or windows deserve respect for it. Whatever happened to solidarity? Why do linux 'advocates' insist on trying to take a higher ground when writing any free sofware is not about competition?
There has been little Be desktop development By Be Inc. but there has been a fair bit in the way of application and driver development by the exceptionally talented community of Be enthusiasts. (Their like Linux enthusasts but without the foaming at the mouth)
> if Palm doesn't continue BeOS development, how
> many people are with me? Anyone?
Conjecture.
If you were a Be user you would already be irate. Be Desktop OS development effectively ceased after R5 over a year ago. Theres been no improvements or development or support. All their energy has been directed at BeIA which you wouldnt have seen anyway.
My hope is that palm may release / open source the desktop os for community development as I doubt it fits anywhere into palms business plans.
As for Palm, well they've been in the market for a new kernel for a while now, and BeIA being very slick is perfect for them. Its established (technically, not commercially) and deals exceptionally well with real time media and networking - the kind of things Palm want to build upon for appeal.
The real question is where does that live the desktop OS that showed som much promise? As expected of a slashdot reader, I';ve got to say 'I hope it going to be made open source/GPL/Free/wibbleware' or similar words. Well, who knows... I just hope it doesnt vanish away... Press release here.
When you decided to create C++, you did it because you saw a requirement for a new language and fulfilled that requirement. With advances in technogy over the past 20 years since designing C++, can you see the need now for a new language and why?
~Pev
> The free version will not include some codecs, Opera and the G2 Player. The expanded version will include these.
Its all very well being anonymous and saying such things, but no-one knows what will be included yet, not even you. Codecs I have no idea about but I doubt they'll be excluded. As for Opera - its still in beta and definately not distributed with the system, and G2 player isnt even available yet.
1. Check facts.
2. Think through.
3. Make conclusions.
4. Press submit.
~Pev
> Commercial success at what cost?
... Be is Free Software parasite. ... ... they all want this or that application open sourced so that they can port it to BeOS. ... ... Does anyone else see the hypocracy in this? ... ... BeOS relies on free software but fails to play fair ...
None. Commercial implies that it is a business. Businesses make money for people that do the work and invest in the product. Business != Charity.
> What about the user who pays for an operating system but isn't allowed to modify or even redistribute it?
Again. This is COMMERCIAL. Does buying a book entitle you to photocopy it and give it to your friends to read? No.
>
>
>
>
No. That is the USERS wanting things, not the company. The OS itself does NOT rely on OSS material. Things like the GNU tools are bundled, but most of the OS is proprietry. A couple of drivers and the pcmcia stack are OSS code, but this has either been donated to Be inc. for use, or they have licenced (with money) the code from the original author. This is very fair.
> If users want Free Software then they would not choose BeOS.
No, let me check. I seem to remember that the announcement meant the OS _is_ about to become free.
> Users want Free Software.
Indeed. Feel free to argue yourself into a corner anytime.
To make a last point - if you decide to make your software that you write open source, that is up to you. By doing so you are declaring its there for others to use as they see fit. You dont expect anything back in return. You yourself in complaining about the validity of making use of OSS code are arguing against its principles. making code availiable means exactly that - you cant have it both ways.
~Pev
Q: As stated in the FAQ it runs in windows and does not need repartitioning... what's this?
A: If you read the FAQ, it states "you'll be able to download BeOS 5 via a Web browser and store it as a file within the Windows file system." so the money is it on being a filesystem implemented as a file under windows that the kernel will be able to mount."Thats able folks, not have to so you ll still be able to use BFS in a partition as most geeks will want to.
Q : I still don't think that it will gain widespread acceptance until it is Open Sourced.
A : Why? look at all the major OS's that are commercial successes - Windows, MacOS, qnx et al. They have not needed open source. Linux does not need open source to be used. How many users actually use the source. It aided its development and growth, but not its usage. If you wish to argue about the closed-ness of api's for writing drivers etc on the BeOS, dont worry as Be are very good at supplying full documentation and sample code as required
Q : Is Be doing well from a commercial viewpoint?
A : At the moment, not especially, but are heading towards critical mass steadily. People try to compare linux companies IPO's with Be's - this isnt really relevant as the stock price in linux case was brought up by hype and is not a true indication of revenue coming into these companies and is a debatable point whether it ever will be.
Q : But it's difficult to find anywhere in retail outlets.
A : But very easy just to call be, order one and have it arrive on your doorstep
Q : But how free will this be?
A : RTFFAQ - totally free for non-commercial and personal use.
Q : But is this an attempt to garner marketshare by giving the product away?
A : Probably. Who knows or cares. The fact is that unless you are microsoft, desktop OS's dont make money. Embedded ones do.
Q : If there's no less than 3 different Linux distros that run on G3 Macs, why can't Be get BeOS on 'em?
A : Because Be have no support from the hardware vendors. If they are have a commercial product that has a problem for a user, they are liable. Hence, if thats due to lack on info they cant get, they are stuffed. Linux etc. dont have this problem because if it doesnt work, it doesnt work, and no-ones liable.
Q : Whats missing from this "cut-down" release?
A : Well, it hasnt been announced but its easy to make a good guess - not a lot. The faq states We do plan to offer for sale an expanded edition of BeOS 5 containing a variety of special software components and other valuable utilities. The dev tools etc are there and as the distro is 40-60M (and all the be system binaries are only 20M) it should all be there. The missing things will likely be extra non-vital tools + utilities. The cut down bits are likely to be all the sounds/videos/images + source that are normally on the cd (an separately available anyway)
Q : the free version is really like a demo
A : No its not. Go read the FAQ before talking rubbish.
Q : Now that Be is concentrating on the Internet, what about the JDK promised here?
A : Well, I've heard its taking them a little longer due to the Stinger/IA push. Expect something RSN.
Well, thats about all I think I can add for now. Hopefully this should blitz some of the speculation and unfounded rubbish people have posted so far :-) That is assuming people read others posts as well as just posting their own opinions hoping to appear knowledgable.
Peace out, and try tasting the OS sometime soon if you havent already,
~Pev
Well, if you mean the Intellimouse explorer, yes. The USB->PS2 converter works exactly as you'd expect and lets you use it as a normal ps2 mouse. Under USB I dont know, but if it helps, I run my one using USB under the Be OS and it behaves absolutely fine.
~Pev
Quit complaining - in the UK there are five channels to choose from and five channels only. You dont realise hat choice you have....
~Pev
Well, I'd like to take this opurtunity to be childish and blow raspberries at our cousins across the water in the US and point out that for once its nice to be ahead of the game. The US gets new hardware, new software, new films, new videos all much sooner than the UK + europe. Also generally 30% cheaper too (No, UK sales tax is only 17.%) I thinks its nice to be one up for a change.
On a more serious note, the points above are all good - we have a digital TV infrastructure and agreed standards in the UK now for both satellite and terestrial transmission. When you also take into account the lack of scan-lines on the US transmission system, whilst widescreen would be great for the US the quality wouldnt be so. Now you yanks could always buy some from the UK and use a NTSC->PAL converter but I doubt any americans would pay the prices we have to. Still, why TV makers cant make their firmware upgradable i dont know.... It cant be that hard. And WHY are TV's still hardwired to be PAL _or_ NTSC and not able to deal with both.....
~Pev
If you read the BBC website, it states :
Question Bill Gates
Paxman could ask your
question on TV - BBC 2,
8pm,
the 17th. Include name
and town
So PLEASE get it right and include *real* name and town. If you dont, you wont even get a look in.
~Pev
Well, whilst everyone else bitches about the fact it hasnt changed much (NO its not meant to have groundbreaking stuff, its a point release kids) a few observations on the FreeBSD version.
Having been running this for about 5 hours now (having had 4.6 previously) I can safely say that its startup time is far faster, its snappier and more responsive, and re-enabling Java / Javascript hasnt made it crash as I am accustomed to. In fact it hasnt crashed or locked up at all yet which is impressive in itself. This is good. In fact it's very good. It does exactly what a point release should do - fix bugs and improve stability and speed. Nice one Netscape.
~Pev
I think you've been watching too many films - most people would demand tens of thousands as its far easier to get away with. Millions is hollywood and people that havent thought it through. Most people in the UK that have been caught, have tried to set up systems to withdraw the ransoms from cash machines in several hits, and have been caught by the cash machine cameras. Not very clever as the cash machine is the perfect way to get the cash away from a random unknown location...
I'm surprised no one on Slashdot has brought up the fact that 2.4 gigs is the band that Bluetooth is using. Seems a shame they didnt see it as an opportunity to use the technology...
(The 1.0 Bluetooth spec was released last month and development kits are available even if a little expensive due to being first generation!)
~Pev
Humbug! Its open because anyone can contribute. Just because a specific collective of developers outnumbers the independant ones, doesnt mean it isnt open. This is 'Open/Free software' politics getting daft again...
Why not? Its not imaginary technology, so you can safely assume its there. Britain isn't a technologicaly backwards country - we did invent the computer remember? Also, it doesnt have to be a perfect system - if something sounds *close* what the hell, just record it and figure it out later.
Has it occurred to you that you dont really need to monitor ALL calls? Part of the purpose would be to be able intercept any calls in particular you want to, without having any red tape to deal with, or anyone aware that you're at it.
~Pev
Why? Jutify "QNX is a horrible operating system"
It is *very* lightweight and *very* stable, two things that all desktop operating systems at this time are not (with perhaps the exception of BeOS but lets not argue about that one right now) It is stable to the point that it can run for years, and survive drivers misbehaving and other *core* system components being changed. Linux is pretty good, but not *that* good.
Unfortunately with QNX they were going the right way, but I feel that this decision to use linux is not the right one (even though I love Linux) - Note that the decision appears to have been made by management and as such is hoping to ride the current Linux [hype/bandwagon/frenzy] that appears to be in evidence.
~Pev
Yes, but check unmetered.org's news and you'll see that BT *did* actually plan earlier to provide ADSL flat rate for 30UK per month. I believe the register and NTK carried the article too.
~Pev
So you think that if I just got sky and ran a composite video monitor and speakers, instead of a TV that I *wouldnt* get hauled up in court?
~Pev
Not entirely true - there have been several cases where tv owners have been using satellite or cable and as they arent using aerials have refused to pay tv license. As you can imagine the courts puersuaded them otherwise....
~Pev
Not true. For updated compatibility, examine :a dylist_intel.html
http://www-classic.be.com/support/guides/beosre
The actual features (Apart from the extra harware compat) while not actually stated explicitly, have been mentioned at various stages in Be newsletters etc.
Having been using the release for some months now I can heartily reccommend it. If I can only get emacs-20 ported ok I'll be a very happy chappy.
~Pev
Why do people immediately have to scream Open up the BeOS source? It has many disadvantages as well as advantages :
1) It has controlled and organised design and strategy - Something the open source model doesnt do well is promote _designing_ systems and maintaining them. Can you see an open source project creating a GUI + API like Be's from scratch in anywhere near the time? They group would argue via email forever about details and eventually abandon the project in favour of another X port (because its avaliable)
2) Because it is commercial it can be adopted more widely than 'unsupported' (in the legal sense) free software by companies.
3) Hardware companies are happier to supply proprietry specs for writing support for commercial systems rather than free ones.
People should stop bickering about the 'principle' of it being closed source and take it for what it is and look at both sides of the story subjectively.
Peace,
~Pev
Firstly, not all official developers have received R4.1. Not even close. Around 100 have - I only got mine as I'm developing PCMCIA drivers.
Secondly, Be are not refusing to release the lib at all, they just waiting to finish testing it (ever heard of QC?) Why should they pre-release a development version for the edification of one application?
How about checking things are right before ranting like fsck - Another typical slashdot winge *sigh*....
~Pev
A lot of people seem no to like this because of the viewpoint that they dont like the fact that the software is being deemed part of the computer - what you're forgetting is that you're already doing that - point in case BIOS code and video driver firmware for example. These are pieces of software that are just as important to the running of the computer, and also removeable/replaceable. The only difference is that you dont have to explicitly accept an EULA to use them. When the Open BIOS project gets somewhere will you all be returning your EEPROMS to award for a refund? The best solution is to ignore all the crap and either buy machines which dont bundle MS software, or to build your own.
~Pev