I was originally asked to write this article by Chris Simmons, aka Technix, Administrator and Editor of Haiku News Network (HNN), formerly The BeOS Journal (TBJ), a website focussed on Haiku-OS , the opensource implementation of BeOS that was formerly known as OpenBeOS.
He published it in his name, only mentioning I had submitted it, despite my having a journalist account on HNN and having been a contributor and moderator of The BeOS Journal. Furthermore any remarks regarding the German development upon BeOS called Zeta, from yellowTAB , were removed due to a strong bias against it that still persists today.
I am to this day not happy with the closure of TBJ's forum and disappearance of several years discussion of BeOS relevant to both Intel x86 and PowerPC platforms, including many valid and informative posts on the system's architecture, legal status, origins and future. The article was translated into several languages and republished in many countries in Western and Eastern Europe, and South America. Here is the article as I originally wrote it.
What Haiku OS means to me at this point in time, from the department of
"What do you mean did I run the OS before writing an article about it?"
To know this, I have to be clear what BeOS has meant and does mean to me now. It will always mean a young operating system that installed quickly and impressed me immediately after my first time booting with the R4.5 Live Demo CD ( I had BeOS since R3, but it was the R4.5 demo that really impressed me).
At that time I was using SuSE Linux, DR DOS, Windows 95, Rhapsody and Mac OS. It became my Media OS and I was happy working in BeOS. The media capabilities and speed of BeOS still impress me today.
I spent some years in Asia, away from computers and news until very recently. When I returned and began reading The BeOSJournal, I was shocked. Be, Inc. was no more, the BeOS was not available and there were no more upgrades to be found.
I learned that Haiku was to be the open source clone of BeOS R5 on x86 only. Ok.
I hope it can live up to the (perhaps excessive) expectations I have. The fact that BeOS doesn't run so well on my modern IBM ThinkPad, (except in Virtual PC 2004 in Windows 2000 where it rocks!), as it did on the earlier compatible equipment I used for BeOS before, does not change my high opinion of BeOS or expectations of Haiku.
I am looking forward to Haiku being my media OS, on modern hardware, with multiple fast CPUs and high memory. I am also looking forward to better networking than I know BeOS has now. In my earlier use of BeOS I never used it for networking or connecting to the internet, and had no knowledge of the problems others had and continue to have with it.
I have always felt BeOS was brilliant for scientific visualisation, as is done often on SGI and Sun workstations, especially for biochemistry. To use Haiku for the same purpose(s) is to me logical, and I hope this becomes a real possibility one day.
The area of artificial intelligence has always interested me, as has clustering; I am convinced Haiku could fulfill this application as well. I have often mused that if Be, Inc. had shifted focus to a "BeAI", instead of a "BeIA", things might have evolved differently.
An embeddable appliance-oriented Haiku? Why not, if people need it? A server/router/gateway OS? If it is possible I would use it.
What of Zeta ?
In the future is it possible to unite an opensource OS and a commercial one ?
Different kinds of licensing in a combined OS of Haiku and Zeta interests me.
Reading the official Haiku OS website FAQ and what is said in various chat rooms regarding Haiku, I can say all of my expectations are reasonable. It is open source and can be compiled to suit any specific set of purposes or needs. So far Haiku is an x86-only Operating System, but I know it can be compiled for other platforms such as Power PC.
What does all of this add up to? I think Haiku will impress me as much as BeOS originally did, and I look forward to seeing it develop into a full-fledged Operating System. I have made a point of not discussing any technical details of OS design here, without too much emphasis or analysis. Instead, I have discovered the inherent beauty in how BeOS has changed the way I use all operating systems completely. To that end, I feel Haiku will change the way many people use their computers.
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Thursday, April 15, 2004
TBJ How do I make BeOS look like this - Page 8,V
Hello all,
I will have to read this topic a few times before I think I have an understanding of it all.
But I will declare now, I never worked for Be, do not work for Palm, or anyone else. I am not a copyright lawyer either but I feel this forum needs a separate paralegal page something like Groklaw.
I run BeOS 5.0.3.
On an IBM thinkpad, (so my hardware is not a copy either :) )
With Windows 2k Sp4 (I hacked the boot screen, it says Longhorn M4 ), with Cygwin Unix/X11 on that (winBe if I ever find out how to compile it), SuSE 8.2/9/Sun Java OS Linux, and QNX 6.2.
The SCO Group case against IBM, Novell, Redhat and others is scary.
At the time I purchased my OS's and all the applications and drivers, everything was legal, publicly available for free or fee, and in worldwide usage.
I have installed and setup up systems for other people, for some 12 years now. I streamline an OS and it's shell by cutting out anything it can live without. I keep it up to date by upgrading software and hardware.
I am legally allowed to do this because when I pay for a product the manufacturer has a contract with me to have provided a service or device which will perform the functions I have been led to believe it is designed for.
For a computer, that list of functions it extremely big and complex.
If any one claims their computer device, or OS is a multimedia one, it has to perform audio and video and graphics.
If a desktop, (more than implying DTP), it better handle foreign scripts, including ligature stacks (Sanskrit, Tibetan), right to left (Arabic, Hebrew) and top to bottom (Mongolian, Japanese). And display that on screen, and be able to print it.
If internet able, the device or OS has to support network protocols and devices, and be prepared to keep up to date in all developments, especially now for the increased need for security against new models of virus and worm designs that will cut through our antivirus and firewalls like a razor to silk, and even more important, for wireless and DSL products.
To what extent are the various post Be versions illegal, when without necessary modifications, the product is no longer usable ?
Will Palm sue me for installing Bone ?
I haven't yet, but without I'm never going to be able to use my Speedtouch 545 DSL gateway/router, via ethernet eepro100, or orinoco wireless pcmcia.
Without an upgraded TCP/IP protocol stack, BeOS is vulnerable to Distributed Reflected Denial of Service Attacks, and therefore, to run a system capable of breaking international law and causing damage to other people's intellectual property is in itself illegal in several countries, and will be in a lot more soon.
The responsibility for damage caused by a compromised PC, called sometimes zombie, may fall on the owner of the PC, not the author of the system service with the security flaw.
Will Palm sue me for installing a network stack that might prevent more of their intellectual property being leaked or stolen ?
I have no moral stance here, I am trying to be purely pragmatic.
If the work done by individuals since the sale of Be Inc., including that legally definable as theft, is preventing the same intellectual property theft from happening on a much wider scale, Palm are unlikely to waste court time and expenses on, as one journalist recently stated "bizzare legal actions against communities of volunteer programmers".
I have spent some 24 years using various computer platforms, the entire subject is at the same stage of evolution as an adolescent teenager, that still needs help to change it's clothing.
I got tired of Microsoft a long time ago. They write brilliant programming languages and applications, but should never have gone into the OS market.
Linux and Unix should have scrapped the X windowing system in 1994, ten years later others are waking up to this, but X11 on Unix/Linux is the only reason I can see for the problems in X11 on BeOS, or Windows, or Qnx, and the only problem I have with KDE.
BeOS and QNX are by comparison extremely superior in stability with respect to their intended usage, as embeddable Media and RealTime Fault Tolerant OS's.
And it looks like BeOS has no certain future, because of exactly what ?
This is where I invite all of you in this topic to answer me.
Will Palm release BeOS 5.2 ?
If so, for which platforms ?
To ignore X86 and PPC is to devoid a large and valid code base of a widespread platform.
To concentrate on Palm devices and ignore Nokia would cut their market in half.
Finally, two months ago a user in New York asked how to modify the bitmaps used for window elements on their BeOS desktop.
During this time, a lot of people who probably are very good at their work, a few of whom may have worked for or with Be, and from what I can gather have made valuable contributions to the functionality of the OS, have been locked in a near personal war of politics not unlike the flame wars in asian Linux user groups recently.
Some of you are possibly capable of writing something like Windowblinds for BeOS. In the two months this discussion took, a pro could have got a beta out (If the pro programmer had no family, infinite finance and servants ? :) )
I possibly will contact some of the people who posted in this topic in the future (watchout - if I get my BeOS time machine embedded in my Nokia, I will question you in the past :) ) because I have loads of driver problems et cetera and a few of you seem to be very good at writing or rewriting BeOS.
My final question goes to the original poster tbb,
Did you get an useful answer to your question ?
I will have to read this topic a few times before I think I have an understanding of it all.
But I will declare now, I never worked for Be, do not work for Palm, or anyone else. I am not a copyright lawyer either but I feel this forum needs a separate paralegal page something like Groklaw.
I run BeOS 5.0.3.
On an IBM thinkpad, (so my hardware is not a copy either :) )
With Windows 2k Sp4 (I hacked the boot screen, it says Longhorn M4 ), with Cygwin Unix/X11 on that (winBe if I ever find out how to compile it), SuSE 8.2/9/Sun Java OS Linux, and QNX 6.2.
The SCO Group case against IBM, Novell, Redhat and others is scary.
At the time I purchased my OS's and all the applications and drivers, everything was legal, publicly available for free or fee, and in worldwide usage.
I have installed and setup up systems for other people, for some 12 years now. I streamline an OS and it's shell by cutting out anything it can live without. I keep it up to date by upgrading software and hardware.
I am legally allowed to do this because when I pay for a product the manufacturer has a contract with me to have provided a service or device which will perform the functions I have been led to believe it is designed for.
For a computer, that list of functions it extremely big and complex.
If any one claims their computer device, or OS is a multimedia one, it has to perform audio and video and graphics.
If a desktop, (more than implying DTP), it better handle foreign scripts, including ligature stacks (Sanskrit, Tibetan), right to left (Arabic, Hebrew) and top to bottom (Mongolian, Japanese). And display that on screen, and be able to print it.
If internet able, the device or OS has to support network protocols and devices, and be prepared to keep up to date in all developments, especially now for the increased need for security against new models of virus and worm designs that will cut through our antivirus and firewalls like a razor to silk, and even more important, for wireless and DSL products.
To what extent are the various post Be versions illegal, when without necessary modifications, the product is no longer usable ?
Will Palm sue me for installing Bone ?
I haven't yet, but without I'm never going to be able to use my Speedtouch 545 DSL gateway/router, via ethernet eepro100, or orinoco wireless pcmcia.
Without an upgraded TCP/IP protocol stack, BeOS is vulnerable to Distributed Reflected Denial of Service Attacks, and therefore, to run a system capable of breaking international law and causing damage to other people's intellectual property is in itself illegal in several countries, and will be in a lot more soon.
The responsibility for damage caused by a compromised PC, called sometimes zombie, may fall on the owner of the PC, not the author of the system service with the security flaw.
Will Palm sue me for installing a network stack that might prevent more of their intellectual property being leaked or stolen ?
I have no moral stance here, I am trying to be purely pragmatic.
If the work done by individuals since the sale of Be Inc., including that legally definable as theft, is preventing the same intellectual property theft from happening on a much wider scale, Palm are unlikely to waste court time and expenses on, as one journalist recently stated "bizzare legal actions against communities of volunteer programmers".
I have spent some 24 years using various computer platforms, the entire subject is at the same stage of evolution as an adolescent teenager, that still needs help to change it's clothing.
I got tired of Microsoft a long time ago. They write brilliant programming languages and applications, but should never have gone into the OS market.
Linux and Unix should have scrapped the X windowing system in 1994, ten years later others are waking up to this, but X11 on Unix/Linux is the only reason I can see for the problems in X11 on BeOS, or Windows, or Qnx, and the only problem I have with KDE.
BeOS and QNX are by comparison extremely superior in stability with respect to their intended usage, as embeddable Media and RealTime Fault Tolerant OS's.
And it looks like BeOS has no certain future, because of exactly what ?
This is where I invite all of you in this topic to answer me.
Will Palm release BeOS 5.2 ?
If so, for which platforms ?
To ignore X86 and PPC is to devoid a large and valid code base of a widespread platform.
To concentrate on Palm devices and ignore Nokia would cut their market in half.
Finally, two months ago a user in New York asked how to modify the bitmaps used for window elements on their BeOS desktop.
During this time, a lot of people who probably are very good at their work, a few of whom may have worked for or with Be, and from what I can gather have made valuable contributions to the functionality of the OS, have been locked in a near personal war of politics not unlike the flame wars in asian Linux user groups recently.
Some of you are possibly capable of writing something like Windowblinds for BeOS. In the two months this discussion took, a pro could have got a beta out (If the pro programmer had no family, infinite finance and servants ? :) )
I possibly will contact some of the people who posted in this topic in the future (watchout - if I get my BeOS time machine embedded in my Nokia, I will question you in the past :) ) because I have loads of driver problems et cetera and a few of you seem to be very good at writing or rewriting BeOS.
My final question goes to the original poster tbb,
Did you get an useful answer to your question ?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
