If you were to believe some, BeOS is a dead Operating System. If this was the case you would expect numbers at BeGeistert to be dwindling, but the reality is different, the corpse is moving and this was the biggest BeGeistert yet.
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Thanks yet again for the nice report Nicholas. :-)
> This is rather different from the Amiga community which
> these days suffers from at least a vocal minority who
> are badly split and spew venom at one another. The once
> great Amiga community is but a shadow of it's former
> self and could learn a lesson from communities like BeOS
> (and also the BSDs) where different directions even if
> competitive are still seen as beneficial to the whole.
Sadly I have to agree on this. I find it very strange that certain vocal people seem to think that the delays or tough luck/financial weather which most smaller IT firms and also some Amiga firms had to go through were intentional. There seems to be an unhealthy degree of Schadenfreude (Taking joy of other people's misery and misfortune) within a vocal minority of the (ex-)Amiga community, even with rival executives taking the lead!
No commercial company delays potential incomes intentionally and in the case of Amiga companies there are 100's of hard working people trying to get things done, but the involved companies will not rush things to release a product with which they and therefor likely its potential userbase would not be satisfied with. AmigaOS has been neglected for many years before the current team started to undertake this enormous project to make AmigaOS a commercially competitive product again.
In reality there's alot to be happy about with regarding the current Amiga market. The current situation is alot more healthy than a couple of years ago when the development of new solutions (especially with regard to reviving AmigaOS) seemed hopeless. Now we even have various rival solutions receiving steroid injections. It's not all Doom and Gloom, even far from that. And very soon we will be able to taste the fruits resulting from thid long, tedious and sometimes merciless road the Amiga community had to go trough to reach this point. :-)
It's very nice to hear about development, both communitywise as softwarewise.
Obviously, OBOS has some more months before it's gonna be anything cool to look at, but they work really hard.
However, Yellowtab is indeed valuable in terms of marketing BeOS, unfortunately doing the same mistake as Amigaland. They're not releasing anything!!!
I would actually believe that OBOS R1 will be public earlier than Zeta R1
I agree. Making your product look like vaporware is not the best way to sell.They have those "Zeta will be out before you know it" announcements every month...and lie. If it's so close to readiness, why not release NOW? It would be lots of money.
Als: from the screenshots, it looks like BeOS is going back to R5 blocky tabs....too bad. 
> [YellowTAB] They're not releasing anything!!!
Maybe it is because it is not ready yet?
it is called BeGeisterer
"Geist" is the german word for ghost.
"Geister" is the german word for ghosts.
"geistern" is the german verb for ??? don't know how to translate that. but it is what a ghost is normaly doing (going around, beeing bad at people, etc)
"Geistert" is the german word for something that is ghosting around.
"Geisterer" is the german word for one or multiple ghost or objects doing "geistern".
i hope this is somehow understundable....
cheers
SteveB
Well, all right. It isn't ready. But then why all the "just wait one more week" status updates? They had them back in December too if I remember correctly. It has the net effect of making the audience frustrated and cynical.
The Be community is still fairly small these days, and lots of folks are familiar with other folk's names but have never seen their faces. It's always neat to have a face to place with a name.
Thanks for the pics. In the future, please consider putting names (rather than the somewhat silly quips) below the photos. Something like "left to right: Foo Johnson, Bar Biggsley,.." It's perfectly acceptable if you don't know everyone's name -- you can't know everyone.
Again, thanks. It's neat to see all that geek Be energy concentrated in such a small space. 
Begeistert? geee.. this means beeing inspired or to like something...
so the plural of BeGeistert would be BeGeisterte.
German: Ich bin begeistert.
English: I am inspired.
German: Alle begeisterten Menschen.
English: All inspired humans.
sorry... has nothing to do with ghosts
cheers
SteveB
I already wanted to write how, uhm, curious it feels as a German to see some German words used in these contexts, but these comments here make it even more hilarious (no insult intended =).
"begeistert" is an adjective meaning "enthusiastic", "avid", "thrilled".
(It's indeed a word using the word "Geist", "ghost". I think the historic comes from "von Geistern besessen", "possesed by ghosts" describing a high degree of happiness which then led to the verb "begeistern", "to enthuse", but I may be wrong.)
Hmmmm... Muss wohl neben meinem eigenen Geist gestanden haben, als ich dies geschrieben habe
Gruss
SteveB
I think beeing "possesed by ghosts" is not a high degree of happiness. At least at the time when they probably created the word "Begeistert", I think a ghost was something mystic and had not a meaning of something good (except "der Heilige Geist").
cheers
SteveB
so when is yellowtab going to be available? Any insights? Any business partners or oems (PC or otherwise) that might use it? It sounded like they had some interest in the past.
> so when is yellowtab going to be available? Any insights? Any business partners or oems (PC or otherwise) that might use it? It sounded like they had some interest in the past.
If I tell you I have to kill you 
"If I tell you I have to kill you "
how about a broad range like summer, fall, or winter 2003.
how about a broad range like summer, fall, or winter 2003.
if he tells you a year after 2003, then probably he wont be able to kill you, because the community will kill him
It's pretty hilarious to hear that it's not done yet.
Why would someone be so stupid that they market something by going out to all exhibitions and stuff only to answer people who ask "When and where can I buy" with the answer "I don't have a clue"....
Zeta is vaporware at worst or R5+some patches for all I am concerned until I see "we take orders now" on our new operating system.
But as everyone already know... YT isn't a serious company, if they were, they'd release something...
Correction....Exp/Dano+some patches.
They have looncraz of PhosphurOS fame working for them though, so it's probably gonna be good. (PhOS was great)
A bunch of people are using the beta (internal developers, duh). I talked to some on BeShare. It's pretty much fully functional. I think it's probably some redistribution issue.
in both the be and amiga camps (as well as any other where its come up) would be solved by simply not implying that something is "almost ready" when its still going to be awhile
a good philosophy would be "predict long and far and give the public a happy surprise when you deliver ~early~"
the sooner the public is told something is coming the sooner they expect to have it
They have looncraz of PhosphurOS fame working for them though, so it's probably gonna be good
You mean the looncraz who publicly said here that if it didn't ship by April, he'd leave the project? 
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=2826&limit=no
Yeah, Linux is good at this. "Release early, release often" is wonderful at feeding little bits to the public. I think the vaporware tactic is used to keep what little mindshare remains from migrating to something more alive.
Hmm, thanks for pointing that out. He doesn't seem to have joined OBOS yet, so maybe he's still on.
At least the MS PR department knows how to drive hype. You see screenshots of longhorn everywhere, you have "leaked" betas all over the place. The release date? Sometime in 2005 maybe.
They know how to hype a product w/o using the "real soon" tactic. That way people are excited about it, but they don't get cynical waiting for it. Something most of the other alternate OS companies need to learn.
Why would someone be so stupid that they market something by going out to all exhibitions and stuff only to answer people who ask "When and where can I buy" with the answer "I don't have a clue"....
>>>>>>>>>>
How long before Win2K came out were we hearing about Cairo? I'll give you a hint: 1995. Microsoft is already starting the Longhorn hype campaign, and it won't be out for another two years, at least.
that you are well now, and that you are still with us all.
It is a scary thing to choke, a friend of mine was chewing gum, when he began to choke on it. He was going all blue, but luckily my other friend who was a nurse was there who saved him.
Also great summary.
Schadenfreude and more about companies who promise more than they can actually deliver. Unfortunately Be Inc was the prime example of this. Promising alot and delivering VERY little in the way of hardware support and encouraging third party developers.
Firstly Be should have killed off their PowerPC pet-project alot earlier, secondly, they should have concerntrated on implementing FULLY Unix98 and POSIX specifications as to make life easier for those wanting to port GNU/*NIX/*BSD applications to BeOS.
This is ONE area where Apple has learn leasons. Even before the big boys jumped onto the MacOS X gravy train, Apple already had a small but vocal support group porting software to it and starting up new projects to utilise "MacOS Technologies" such as Caminio.
Once the base was established, they should have appraoched companies such as Macromedia, and said, "how much will it cost you to port [products] to BeOS?", once that price is establish, BeOS writes a cheque and with in a year or two, the first stream of commercial software would come flowing, thus encouraging hardware vendors to create drivers and thus create a developer ecosystem.
Well, they did do that. BeIA was based on Real products, and included Flash. BeOS R5 Pro included Indeo video and the Frauhofer MP3 encoder.
Well, as wondeful as Mac OS X is, it does not conform to UNIX98 standards. If you check with the Open Group's web site you'll see very few Unixes do and NONE comply with UNIX03.
UNIX03 hasn't been officially released yet. Very few non-SYSVR4-derived Unices comply with '95 OR '93. POSIX and the UNIX specification are two very different things.
BeDoper stories. I suppose I should see why the domain is down.
Notes,
First, I'd like to say that I really enjoy using BeOS and would love to meet one other person who uses it too. But following the link and browsing the pictures, I'm not so sure now. Don't those guys like girls? Not a single female in any of the pictures...
Second, BeOS functions as a nice alternative to Linux or other Unix-like OSes. It's all about choices. I much prefer the file heirarchy of BeOS to Unix/Linux. And BeOS needs exclusive software titles, not ports of existing programs, to succeed.
Third, I am also concerned about the potential of Zeta to be vaporware. At the same time I was reading it would be "soon", Yellowtab was soliciting recommendations for hardware to support. At the same time YT was shown at select international locations, they were still negotiating for third-party software. To this day there's still no list of software included in the various packages, and the final hardware list has not been released. And they've had a close call or two with financing.
I have higher hopes for OBOS, even though it's farther away yet.
Best Wishes,
Bob
I can imagine it would look something like this
John Adobe Sixpack - "Good morning Yellowtab, my name is John Sixpack calling from Adobe. We've been hearing about the progress of your new OS and are interested in porting our software to your platform, but from the look of your website, you have 10 more years to go"
Berndt YT - "Was? Wie sprachen sprechen sie? Oh sorry, english I've heard about that langauge. Yes we have a product which is really good and kicks MS butt anyday."
John - "When is the scheduled release date. Will we have enough time to port any of our products close to your release?"
Berndt - "We'll be out real soon now, so please port everything"
John - "We have some concern of vapourware... can we get a demo and some info about the API and such so we can start working now"
Berndt - "I don't understand that much english, it's no vapourware that I know, oh and I hate MS".
John - "Ehrrr... okey... well, we'd really wanna do business here, can we see something?"
Berndt - "There are videos from one of our demos somewhere on BeShare, oh and we kick MS ass".
Does it take a NASA engineer to understand why 3rd party keeps away? Or why the rumours of vapourware is all around us?
John Adobe Sixpack - "Good morning Yellowtab, my name is John Sixpack calling from Adobe. We've been hearing about the progress of your new OS and are interested in porting our software to your platform, but from the look of your website, you have 10 more years to go"
Yeah, because Adobe's just thrilled about the prospect of spending millions upon millions upon millions of dollars to port and support BeOS programs in order to capture the apparently huge number of users who (1) use only the BeOS, not Windows or the Mac and (2) would buy the Adobe products.
Sheesh. Is it really that hard? I don't mean to be rude, but COME ON. It's a ton of money and there's no market.
Is the Pegasos pictured there?? Have they shown a BeOS clone running on it?
Geist means also "Spirit"... I think this fits a little better than Ghost into the meaning of BeGeistert...
RE: RE: Greg (IP: ---.lsanca1.dsl-verizon.net)
They only started to pay for mp3 support because one of the authors of an mp3 ecoding programme was raked over the coals by the Frauhofer Institute. As for Real and Flash, who gives a crap about plugins? what is more important, plug ins for end lusers or applications for people who want to use their operating system for its original purpose, aka, "Media Operating System". I'm sorry, but it isn't much of a "Media Operating System" when it lacks basic media tools.
RE: Chris (IP: ---.bur.adelphia.net)
Who said MacOS X conformed to the UNIX 98 Specifications? Most commercial UNIX's only conform to the UNIX 95, and Solaris, IIRC is about the only one conforming to the UNIX 98 specification.
What Apple has done, however, is make life easier for those porting applications from *NIX/*BSD to MacOS X. Had BeOS taken that approach there would be a OpenOffice.org port instead of the "oh, we're waiting for a GTK2 port" excuse they hang from their website. Had BeOS had the necessary framework witten from day one, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Hence the reason why I said that BeOS/Yellow Tab need to approach companies and cut the likes of Adobe and Macromedia a cheaque to pay for the porting of applications. Adobe and Macromedia are not charities and if they want the applications on their platform (with a small market) they need to show them the money.
RE: Bobthearch (IP: ---.zianet.com)
People DON'T want new applications, they want to use the same applications but on a different operating system. Unless you can promise a user that within 2years you can create a Photoshop replacement with all the features and plugin support, don't even bother about attempting to create it.
I guess I feel differently than "people" then. If I want to use Photoshop, I can already do that in Windows. If I want to use OpenOffice, I can already do that in Windows or Linux. etc., etc.
One of the major attractions I have to new and different operating systems is to have access to a ~new~ and ~different~ set of applications. To make a new OS that really stands out, you need applications that stand out, not the same old titles found everyplace else.
Of course there needs to be apps that fill common needs, such as an office suite, browser, and Photoshop clone.
Each operating system has it's own potential strengths and weaknesses, and you can't really take advangage of these if the software isn't custom-coded.
That's just how I look at it...
Best Wishes,
Bob
One could easily say that OpenOffice.org is more than adequate. Heck, just look at Wordperfect Suite compared to Office XP. IMHO, Wordperfect Suite IS the superior product, however, you can drum that mantra into their head for as long as you want, however, it won't change the fact that people want to run Microsoft Office because that is what they're used to.
Imagine if one didn't encourage established third party developers the operating system we are talking about, aka, BeOS, how are you going to sell a completely DIFFERENT product to established Adobe customers? or established Macromedia customers? what will your angle be? how can you justify the re-training required? there there enough compelling improvements to justify the investment?
These are questions that the customer will ask, and whether you like it or not, people aren't going to jump on some 1.0 version of some application developed by a group of "enthusisasts". Companies are conservative and by hooker by crook, they aren't going to make strategic shifts in their investment unless they see a real return.
Lets look at Linux for example. How long did it have to wait in the wings for it to be finally considered a "possibility" in the enterprise? if you are Joe "Photoshop replacement" developer, are you willing to wait 7years before your application is taken seriously? do you have enough money to fund yourself for many years of losses? is there a venture fund out there run by someone willing to give an enthusisatic developer a shot at developing his/her own company?
These are things you have to ask yourself before assuming that some how "unestablished" software houses will rise at a reasonable speed to meet the demands of customers. BeOS has proven that unless you have the established third party software houses on bought, you might as well close up shop and save your pennies.
Real wasn't a plugin. Wagner, the BeIA core interface, was almost entirely based on Real stuff. BeIA had Personal Java, too. Too bad MS and Compaq killed it.
Oh great, yet ANOTHER "blame Compaq and Microsoft" for Be's bad business decisions. Instead of blaming all and sundry, how about the "loyal BeOS supports club anonymous" accept that they made some stupid business decisions that ultimately caused their own demise.
Real was a plugin, plain and simply. Unless you can point to something more substaintial than a "player" for real media, that is all that was included with it. Get used to it and stop re-writing history.
I assume you know the story. Yes, Be made bad business decisions. But Compaq and Microsoft were behind BeIA's failure. Microsoft did it even before with blocking Hitachi's OEM BeOS. Compaq sold the technology and the secrets with which they were entrusted by Be to Microsoft. That is undisputed. Pray tell, what could have they done to survive? Sell used cars? Be never made a profit throughout its whoe existence, despite all the investment.