Bernd Korz has announced that he will cease all development on Zeta [German], which effectively means Zeta will no longer be in development. Korz already wanted to quit development on Zeta when YellowTAB went belly up, but the numerous requests from customers to continue development eventually dragged him across the line. However, after the spat with Magnussoft, enough is enough for Korz. He states that he is not sure if and when the service pack to Zeta 1.5 will be released. He also states that he is not sure if and when he will open source or give to Haiku his contributions to Zeta. He explicitely states nor yT, nor Magnussoft own the source code to his work. My take: While I can understand Bernd, I am also sad to see this happen. For the little money and manpower Bernd had at his disposal, he did a magnificent job in making Zeta a usable operating system. I already knew this was about to happen, but a sad day it remains for Zeta users.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-24
"""
That's got to suck for all the people who bought into Zeta.
"""
My thoughts exactly. What about all those enterprise customers who now have no upgrade path?
They'll have to migrate to Haiku, no doubt.
But large scale migrations are always full of unexpected difficulties.
This does, indeed, suck.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-10-09
What enterprise customers? Not that I disagree with your logic, but I'm not aware of any "enterprise" customers who bought into Zeta. Any who did ought to go outside and shoot themselves in the foot a few times, just for good measure.
I've got no sympathy for anybody who used Zeta in an enterprise deployment, that's pure insanity.
Member since:2005-11-13
That's got to suck for all the people who bought into Zeta.
They probably should've known better. Haiku might survive because it is a hobby OS for geeks, but as a business venture, Zeta never had a chance. If the most we can hope for is that a bunch of OSS apps get ported, it doesn't hold much appeal for anybody except those who want to gawk at 10 videos playing at the same time with no frame skipping 
Member since:2005-07-24
Member since:2005-12-31
All things considered, Bernd performed a good job. Yes, he made mistakes which I think were from inexperience and some things could have been done better on his part. And he was shady on the license agreement with Be Inc, but I think he didn't want to jeopardize the deal ( by giving out too much info or details ) - who knows for sure his reasons?
Having Zeta & Haiku would have given a greater presence to BeOS. Now it is upto Haiku to attract users & developers. Well, I guess this is kinda good in a sense, because now you only have to support Haiku for programs & applications.
Well, Bernd could still release 1.51, but with less features. Hopefully so, to benefit those that upgraded to 1.5. I'm not sure how far along they are with 1.51 to release it. Should just fix as many things possible and then just release it "as is" ( even if unfinished ).
As for giving Zeta source to Haiku project. Have to be careful here, because I believe Bernd had signed a license agreement with CEO of Be Inc, allowing him to use BeOS 5.1 ( Dano ) code. Which actually belongs to Access now. And do not want Access to accuse Haiku of taking / incorporating Dano code in their OS. So, depends on what is open sourced and should be carefully examined by Haiku before even considering acceptance. ( Ndis Wrapper would be nice though ).
Edited 2007-04-03 00:36
Member since:2005-08-26
"Bernd performed a good job"
A good job at what, exactly?
Running companies and investors into the ground while managing to keep his own shirt, insulated from liability? Yes. He was good at that.
Courting developers and fostering a developer-friendly environment? Uh, NO.
Working collaboratively with FOSS entities to get legal access to source code and the backing of existing developers for porting code to Zeta? Hell NO.
Raping the goodwill of the BeOS community with used-car-salesman tactics? Oh heck yeah.
Finally the community can start to heal from the years of splintering. The only viable option (and many of us have been saying this for years) is Haiku. I just hope everyone learns a lesson from the Amiga camp and let's this go. There is no business opportunity for the (LONG) dead BeOS / Zeta code.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:
2005-10-09
That's got to suck for all the people who bought into Zeta.
Oh well, best wishes to all involved, even Bernd. I don't agree with how he's handled things (understatement) but I don't wish him ill, either.
That said, people who paid for Zeta have now (officially) been left out in the dark. Come say hello to Haiku, it's going to be your new best friend!
I hope Bernd is "generous" and donates whatever source he can (has rights to) to Haiku, but I certainly don't demand it. Either way, Haiku will continue trudging along and moving forward.