OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/24945/A_Programmer_s_Introduction_to_the_Haiku_OS Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Thu, 23 May 2013 18:18:10 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Very nice http://www.osnews.com/thread?480930 http://www.osnews.com/thread?480930 Clear, straightforward and interesting of course, I really liked this article.

It's nice to see this kind of content here in OSNews besides the usual legal BS news ;) Thu, 14 Jul 2011 18:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (merkoth) Comments Haiku (+ This Article) = Woo Hoo! http://www.osnews.com/thread?480932 http://www.osnews.com/thread?480932 Good article! Detailed enough to be useful, but short enough to not be intimidating.

I've been following the Haiku project since it was first proposed (as OpenBeOS), but I have to confess that I haven't played with code on it for it for a long time. This article is just the reminder / kick in the pants I need to get the latest tools and code and get busy!

(I'm going to set it up in a VM, so I can also play with different numbers of VCPUs.) Thu, 14 Jul 2011 18:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Pro-Competition) Comments Haikuware links should work Real Soon Now http://www.osnews.com/thread?480936 http://www.osnews.com/thread?480936 For those not aware, Haikuware was hacked last week, so any of the article's links which point to it will not work. For now, anyone going to the site will be greeted by a login window, but the site maintainer, Karl, is working on resolving the problem. Thu, 14 Jul 2011 19:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (darkwyrm) Comments What a coincident http://www.osnews.com/thread?480940 http://www.osnews.com/thread?480940 I just started my Programming in Haiku Screencast series a few days ago.
You can find the Screencast as flash stream and downloadable here: http://www.haiku-screencasts.blogspot.com Thu, 14 Jul 2011 19:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Leszek Lesner) Comments RE: Haikuware links should work Real Soon Now http://www.osnews.com/thread?480942 http://www.osnews.com/thread?480942 Hacking Sony is one thing but Hacking Haikuware - some people are just c**tsEdited 2011-07-14 20:48 UTC Thu, 14 Jul 2011 20:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Gone fishing) Comments Google links http://www.osnews.com/thread?480951 http://www.osnews.com/thread?480951 Nice article, but why pipe all the links through Google?? Thu, 14 Jul 2011 21:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kragil) Comments RE: Google links http://www.osnews.com/thread?480955 http://www.osnews.com/thread?480955 Yeah sorry about that - the article was handed to us in Google Docs, and after finally replacing all the links (BY HAND), I made a boo-boo and lost all my work. I didn't feel like doing it all over again. Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments RE[2]: Google links http://www.osnews.com/thread?480961 http://www.osnews.com/thread?480961
Yeah sorry about that - the article was handed to us in Google Docs, and after finally replacing all the links (BY HAND), I made a boo-boo and lost all my work. I didn't feel like doing it all over again.

OT but couldn't resist...Were you using your new iPad when boo-boo happened ;) Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Shkaba) Comments RE[2]: Haikuware links should work Real Soon Now http://www.osnews.com/thread?480970 http://www.osnews.com/thread?480970 I know, right? Why don't they hack Microsoft sites or Apple ones this time? For a change. Thu, 14 Jul 2011 23:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (v_bobok) Comments RE: Very nice http://www.osnews.com/thread?481012 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481012 Yeah its great to see Haiku articles... and you're right and I think the Legalese articles are a necessary evil .. they just make me want to hurl sometimes. Fri, 15 Jul 2011 05:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (cb88) Comments RE: What a coincident http://www.osnews.com/thread?481021 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481021 Cool stuff! Parts of that blog is in German, might I suggest you change it? Keep up the good work, screencasts are great ;) Fri, 15 Jul 2011 07:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (eml.nu) Comments Great! http://www.osnews.com/thread?481025 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481025 Nice article, well written and thought out! I've been looking for a bit of time to start coding on Haiku, and maybe this is the little push I needed to get cracking! More of this please ;) Fri, 15 Jul 2011 07:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (daedalus) Comments Nice article. http://www.osnews.com/thread?481027 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481027 Good, pure technical read. Perhaps a bit too involved for a typical beginner (application rosters, media files), but then again - it is nice to see some of the more advanced stuff in an introductory article.

If I had to name one Haiku API feature as its distinct forte, I'd say Messaging. It is simple yet so powerful. I often miss the BeOS messaging design in other programming frameworks. Fri, 15 Jul 2011 08:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (matako) Comments Nice article, but... http://www.osnews.com/thread?481031 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481031 First, let me say that I like the article and Haiku seems interesting. The question I have however, is why would I, as a developer, spend time developing for Haiku?

I don't know the os, and I also never ran BeOS. From the website, it's not really clear what kind of hardware Haiku supports (well, except for the fact that it should run on x86 systems), and whether it is usable for day-to-day use. Is Haiku at this stage more of an experimental os that people run in a virtual machine? Or is it usable as a primary os?

It's also not really clear which programming languages are available on Haiku, besides C and C++. Fri, 15 Jul 2011 09:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (snowbender) Comments RE: Nice article, but... http://www.osnews.com/thread?481036 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481036 Well, I'd like to develop for Haiku, purely to support their efforts. There are so many small applications on other platforms which are taken for granted that Haiku simply doesn't have, or has an old version of. And you get that warm, fuzzy feeling of writing software for a small community who would really appreciate it - a feeling that isn't available in the Windows shareware world for example.

As for the OS itself, it's still in Alpha so no, it's not really set for daily use yet. I run it natively on my machine, but I had the luxury of a spare PC lying around to use for these things. There's always a risk that it can mess up, or not be fully compatible with your setup, so a virtual machine is probably the way to go for now... C and C++ are the main languages, and Python is there too, though I haven't heard much about the GUI toolkit support (Qt etc.). Not sure what else is available, but I'm sure more will show up. Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (daedalus) Comments RE[2]: Nice article, but... http://www.osnews.com/thread?481038 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481038 Qt port is available on Haiku, not sure about the development tools, though. http://qt-haiku.ru/ Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (v_bobok) Comments RE[2]: What a coincident http://www.osnews.com/thread?481040 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481040 I fixed it. Thx for reporting Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Leszek Lesner) Comments RE[2]: Nice article, but... http://www.osnews.com/thread?481043 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481043 C++ is currently the language of choice for writing GUI apps for Haiku at the moment, but there are other languages available for other uses, including Lua, Pascal, Ruby, Python, and Perl.

There is a GSOC project which is working on bringing GUI bindings to Python and a few other languages. I have a similar project with similar goals, but a totally different implementation which should make it really easy to write bindings and make improvements on the API at the same time. The Lua bindings are 75%-90% complete. Fri, 15 Jul 2011 11:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (darkwyrm) Comments RE[2]: Very nice http://www.osnews.com/thread?481055 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481055 Well, I could ask who has the current ownership of all the BeOS IP and if there are any patents which could threaten project like Haiku.

But I won't.

I don't think I'll be doing any BeOS/Haiku coding, but I think it is great to have such articles on OSnews again.

It is interresting reading some of the ways Haiku works, how it has some of the elements similair to Mac OS X/systemd and current Linux desktop distributions.Edited 2011-07-15 12:53 UTC Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Lennie) Comments RE: Nice article, but... http://www.osnews.com/thread?481079 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481079 If you are new to programming AND Haiku I highly recommend this tutorial series:
http://www.haiku-os.org/blog/darkwyrm/2010-09-08_new_series_lessons...

It is a nice intro to programming, using basic Haiku applications as examples. You can get the whole series as a single e-book, which is very convenient. Fri, 15 Jul 2011 16:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AndrewZ) Comments RE[3]: Very nice http://www.osnews.com/thread?481081 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481081
Well, I could ask who has the current ownership of all the BeOS IP

It's all owned by a Japanese company, ACCESS, and for all intents and purposes it is mothballed and forgotten.

When YellowTab released Zeta, all they did was write letters.Edited 2011-07-15 16:29 UTC Fri, 15 Jul 2011 16:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AndrewZ) Comments RE[3]: Very nice http://www.osnews.com/thread?481085 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481085
Well, I could ask who has the current ownership of all the BeOS IP and if there are any patents which could threaten project like Haiku.

But I won't.


First, you obviously did ask the question. At least, you put the question in people's minds.

Second, I tire of people raising "patent threat" questions about open platforms that mimic closed solutions. For example, I am a fan of Mono and it shows up endlessly in discussions about that platform.

A software API is not patentable (and generally not even copyrightable). These kinds of "non-asked" questions really confuse this issue. Implementing a specific API generally does not expose you to any more patent risk than writing a wholly original work with similar scope for a similar purpose.

To answer your question, Palm (now HP) owns the historical IP BeOS I believe. Does that mean that we need to worry about HP bringing legal action against Haiku. Maybe. Is this threat a specific one that raises the risk in developing Haiku. I do not think so.

The chance that Apple will sue instead is just as high or higher. I am not picking on Apple, they just seem to be the obvious party with the greatest potential competitive interest to a successful Haiku project. Patent trolls and dying vendors are even more likely. There is nothing special about the company holding the rights to BeOS.

Let's use Mono as an example. I have been listening for years now to naysayers warning against using Mono because of the risk of Microsoft suing over patents. As a Mono proponent, I am at best too stupid or naive to understand the threat according to these people. Perhaps I am simply insane. Often, Java has been specifically mentioned as the safe and sane alternative. Is it really?

Well, Android is designed around the Java ecosystem and Oracle is now suing Google for patent violations. So, not so safe after all. But Oracle is at least the creator of Java (or has the creators rights) so perhaps some may see this as proof of why you need to worry about implementing other people's specifications. Sadly, it is not so simple.

Microsoft has in fact attacked a half-dozen Android users (companies) and successfully negotiated licensing deals with them. Now they are going after Samsung, the largest Android handset vendor. Microsoft makes more money off Android than it does of Windows Phone 7. It is possible that Microsoft makes more money off of Android than any other software company. (I do not know at all but I wonder who is making more).

What engineering did Microsoft contribute to Android? None. What Microsoft specification, operating system, or development framework did the Android guys implement to attract all this attention? None.

Yet, you can use Mono to develop not only desktop and server apps for Linux and Mac. You can use Mono to develop mobile apps for iOS and Android. No lawsuits. In fact, Microsoft (a senior employee) has stated explicitly that Mono on Android is ok and that the Microsoft Community Promise was created to encourage exactly this kind of activity.

So which option turned out to be safer? It is hard to argue that Android would have attracted a greater number of lawsuits if they had based the platform on Mono instead.

This is not an anti-Java, anti-Android, or even (explicitly at least) pro-Mono comment. My point is actually that everybody is at risk from software patent claims. Patents are not like copyrights. It makes no difference at all who authored the software specification you are implementing. Your biggest threat is probably not the obvious vendor involved in the ecosystem but some other vendor that has no commitment to (or actively competes with) that ecosystem. Your biggest risk is being more successful with a patent holder that sees you as a competitor.

TL; DR

Who cares who owns the patents for BeOS. Haiku is neither safer nor more at risk because those patents exists. Haiku (and all software) is at risk because software patents exist in general.

Please stop raising the specter of patents for every project that strives for compatibility with something else. Fri, 15 Jul 2011 16:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tanishaj) Comments It did not age too badly http://www.osnews.com/thread?481108 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481108 it did not age too badly for a 20 years old API ;-) Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (benoit_schillings) Comments RE: Nice article, but... http://www.osnews.com/thread?481177 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481177
From the website, it's not really clear what kind of hardware Haiku supports (well, except for the fact that it should run on x86 systems), and whether it is usable for day-to-day use. Is Haiku at this stage more of an experimental os that people run in a virtual machine? Or is it usable as a primary os?



Last I checked they had imported most of the Linux and BSD hardware driver stacks, though there was a bounty out on orting the Gallium3D video drivers.

So, yes a VM would be your best bet to run it, but it should b able to boot on anything that boots Linux, key word there being should...

As for why you would want to run it or write anything for it:

1.) As yet another couriosity.

2.) Pet project maybe?Edited 2011-07-16 03:30 UTC Sat, 16 Jul 2011 03:28:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kivada) Comments RE: It did not age too badly http://www.osnews.com/thread?481192 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481192 Its aged, and it was aged 10 years ago. Still using "const char *" for all titles for example. C++ evolved, the BeAPI hasn't. Sat, 16 Jul 2011 09:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (konrad) Comments RE[2]: Nice article, but... http://www.osnews.com/thread?481199 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481199 Ah... ok... that about the drivers was not really clear. In any case, I will check it out sometime. It does seem interesting! Sat, 16 Jul 2011 10:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (snowbender) Comments RE[4]: Very nice http://www.osnews.com/thread?481257 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481257 As mentioned in the parent above... BeOS IP is owned by Access, a Japanese company. Sat, 16 Jul 2011 23:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Xeon3D) Comments RE: Nice article, but... http://www.osnews.com/thread?481259 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481259 I probably could use Haiku as a Main OS. To be honest, most of the apps that still don't exist, have online versions (Office -> Google Docs; MSN -> meebo, etc..).

Having said that, I've run it sucessfully on hardware ranging from P3 1Ghz (actually they were Celerons but..) with a gig of ram (a bit overkill I know), to a Q6600 with 3GB and GTX260 with onboard Realtek sound and network with no issues at all (apart from the non-existing 3D acceleration).

Due to the ported stacks from BSD et al... I think that Haiku hardware support is actually preety good if you don't own any "exquisite" hardware.

Tonight I'm gonna actually try and have a go at running it on my MacBook Pro mid-2010. Sat, 16 Jul 2011 23:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Xeon3D) Comments good news http://www.osnews.com/thread?481273 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481273 good to see this post. was/is a big fan of the API. it's clean consistsnt and easy to learn.

I do alot of programming on other systems these day and find myself wondering why even some of the most modern ones lack some of the concepts put forward by beos's subsystem layout and APIs. Sun, 17 Jul 2011 04:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (YNOP) Comments RE[2]: It did not age too badly http://www.osnews.com/thread?481538 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481538 I don't remember C++ introducing a new basic type for strings. Are you confusing with sdt::string by any luck - which is not a C++ stuff but a STL one. Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (phoudoin) Comments RE: It did not age too badly http://www.osnews.com/thread?481540 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481540 Indeed.
You guys did a good job then.
This is all your fault if this API is still alive - whatever demographic numbers.
:-) Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (phoudoin) Comments great article http://www.osnews.com/thread?481547 http://www.osnews.com/thread?481547 Hey, great article. Easy to read and educational. Thanks.

About Haiku OS, you said the project's been ongoing for 10 years and is only in its 3rd alpha release? Yikes, in Internet Time, this means it will be several generations before they come out with a first production release. I understand how it's a labor of love for those involved but for the rest of us, we'd feel more comfortable about using Haiku if they'd put a standard release out there. Tue, 19 Jul 2011 15:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (benali72) Comments