Haiku has its first distribution, but it's not coming from the Haiku development team. Pingwinek has just released GNU/Haiku 0.1.0, what is claimed to be (probably?) the first distribution of the Haiku operating system, coming from Poland. According to the Pingwinek home page, GNU/Haiku consists of the base Haiku system plus 40 packages ported from the Pingwinek GNU/Linux distribution, and it includes the GCC 2.95.3 compiler, several simple games, SDL, Midnight Commander, and ncurses. GNU/Haiku can be run from a HDD, in QEMU and VMWare or as a Live CD. Screenshots are available, and the images can be download from this page.
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Member since:2005-07-11
I don't mind anyone using the Haiku -source-. I don't mind if companies "steal" it and never give anything back, the source is still right here with the same license as ever. I also don't mind too much if people make bad derivates as long as it doesn't make us look bad too. In the end it's the people who work the hardest who get to decide what the future holds. That's usually the coders and not the distro makers. Anyone can make a distro.
The open-source freedom doesn't take away my right to have an opinion about the derivates, and Pingwinek's GNU/Haiku is the first, or the second, if you count Cosmoe's use of parts of Haiku.
Making a penguin-distro out of Haiku is pure debasing, confusing and right now very much premature. Just because it's allowed doesn't make it a good idea.
Big applications designed for multiple platforms is one thing, but adding the necessary system glue to make all of the popular Linux applications run on Haiku would be like trying to fit the Eiffel Tower on top of the Statue of Liberty. It would be one big mess. Sometimes less is more.
Member since:2005-12-31
Open Sourcing the OS is for a reason, to help it get finished quicker. Look at Linux & the success it has had because it is an open source project. Close source would mean slower development (& fewer developers/contributors).
The source is there & people are free to make their own distro. I have no issue with that, but there should be a few guidelines.
What bothers me:
1. Uses Penguin background. I always associate this with Linux distros. So, this had me confused. Needs something that is not a Penguin (or bird). A Tree would go good with Haiku.
2. Should state ALPHA CODE on the background so people know it isn't stable.
3. Using GNU/Haiku in the name. You don't see Linux distros doing this. Linux distros all have unique names (ie: Arch, Mandriva, Suse, Ubuntu, etc.). Haiku should be used to refer to or define the OS type (ie: another Haiku distro; just like Linux is used to say Debian is another Linux distro). What happens if you have 50 distros with Haiku somewhere in the name? (ie: Haiku XXXXX OR XXXXX Haiku). It would be confusing. Keeping the name unique is important.
In summary, when making a Haiku distro, 1. The message should be clear that Haiku is not Linux (different OSes) - do not use any symbols or graphics associated with Linux, 2. The distro is based off Alpha (Beta, or R1) Haiku code & 3. Not confuse the user by using Haiku in the name (too many distros with the name Haiku in it would confuse me).
Edited 2007-03-13 16:54
Member since:
2005-08-13
Why have it open source then? If the concern is people rolling their own then close the source down and do it internally. And I would care to imagine that not all post-BeOS people are so repelled by the gpl, im not. It did power a good deal of BeOS's command line.
"Does the fact that you feel nothing negate our feeling of hurt? "
What hurt? Someone was well within his rights to create something, and he did. Why not imbrace the fact people are doing what they should with open source, tinkering, creating, changing. And I don't feel nothing, im excited. The more usage the better. The more tinkering the better. I would like a day when I can run Haiku w/ and run my linux apps side by side. Nothing is wrong with that. The design of BeOS is unsurpassed, and if the Haiku project can duplicate and improve on it, then there is nothing but good things that can come from it.
Personally for me, whereas I loved BeOS, I never really liked most of the apps. A lot of things were shareware and such, some good open source, but not enough. NIH(not invented here) syndrome won't help Haiku gain acceptance in the market.