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At least the Haiku project has a goal. Which is something many other operating systems are severely lacking. It is clearly stated on the Haiku website that they FIRST want r5 compat., AFTER that they will think about moving beyond thet. One step at a time.

And, that's why I don't really see myself switching to it. Haiku's technically awesome as far as a hobbiest project goes, but in the end it's a clone of a windows 98 era operating system. A lot of people in the community seem to want it to stay that way as well, which is one of my biggest concerns about haiku. It'd be nice to know for a fact that some modern concepts would be included and not voted down by the community. Having to manually download security patchs, for example, is something that I'd really rather not return to. They also seem really fond of the whole distro idea, which to me is the main thing which kept linux off the home desktop in the first place.

Haiku's technically awesome as far as a hobbiest project goes, but in the end it's a clone of a windows 98 era operating system.

Just because they are from about the same period, it doesn't mean that Windows 98 even remotely compares to BeOS.

It'd be nice to know for a fact that some modern concepts would be included and not voted down by the community.

If you spend some time at the Haiku forums, you'll see that they discuss directions to take the OS into all of the time, I bet even more so in the Glass Elevator project (plans beyond R1), though I haven't looked into that.

They also seem really fond of the whole distro idea, which to me is the main thing which kept linux off the home desktop in the first place.

Haiku will be the full package, a complete OS. Since it's open source, however, anyone is free to distribute their own flavour. Sure we will see alternative distros, like yellowTab's Zeta.

" it's a clone of a windows 98 era operating system"
What do you mean?
People tend to be tricked by formal names and years. E.g. from MS hype machine.

Windows 98 is based on ideas from 60s. Look at FAT from example. And at I/O implementation. It is even far behind of IBMs OS360 ideas.

NT (thus Win XP internally) uses ideas from first half of 70s.

And BeOS is based on ideas from 80s.

You can build over base design lot of funny and bloat, but it doesn't mean that OS is modern in design and ideas.

So, BeOS (and Haiku) isn't too fresh in its basis, but at least it is more modern than most of "modern" systems.
(litlle background - i dealt with hacking Unix 6 kernel at PDP11, servicing OS370 at IBM clone and VMS at VAX , so have some bits of historical picture:)

Edited 2006-02-19 02:23

OK, just to show that I'm not misninformed, just brassed off...

"Haiku will be r5 compatible, so any (non-Zeta) BeOS app on BeBits will work. There are tons of music players. Firefox is completely up to date and integrated into the system. Same for Seamonkey."

There's CLAmp. - Old, past it, wasn't too hot at the time, but was a passable WinAMP 2.xx clone.

There's SoundPlay - True BeOS designed app, more of a showcase for the media_kit than an iTunes replacement. Still charging for it.

New addtion on the block, Zetabona - more like iTunes, WMP et al, charging for it.

Firefox/Seamonkey/nVu/OO.org et al - don't get me wrong, full marks to all the devs that port these apps to even give BeOS/Haiku *some* air to breathe, but Firefox ain't integrated into the system, I doubt the leviathan that is OO.org will be either. It's come a long way since Paul was manning the project and Sergei and others have really worked hard on it, but hang around the community long enough and they know that these ports don't use their beloved OS quite the way it should be, or how it's meant to be.

"Buy? I haven't had the need to buy ANYTHING to use BeOS/Zeta on a day-to-day basis (I got Zeta for free as a member of the press and all). Drivers are abundant for BeOS-- yes, even wireless."

Well, see above for even some basic functionality. And no, VLC doesn't count. It's like any other port to BeOS, it doesn't fit in. Marcus Overhagen has since sold off the drivers he was working on (and selling) to yellowTAB. BePodder is a charge for app. Just seems like small scale, little apps that we take for granted on other OSes, there's a mentality of charge for on BeOS/Haiku.

"You know fairly little about the BeOS world, do you? Most up-to-date apps for BeOS/Zeta are freeware and/or open source. I can know, I'm a day-to-day BeOS/Zeta for 6 years or so."

Been using it since Be was in business, first heard about it 4.5. Tried PE, bought Pro, used it quite well for about a year or two. Then realised I just wasn't getting things done.

"At least the Haiku project has a goal. Which is something many other operating systems are severely lacking. It is clearly stated on the Haiku website that they FIRST want r5 compat., AFTER that they will think about moving beyond thet. One step at a time."

On this, I'll concede that Michael Phipps has got something right. Having a concrete immovable goal, and to be fair to the man, the project, yeah, it's a great thing. However, while that goal was good for the first year or two of their enthusiasm, the more this project drags on, the more it seems like an albatross. I'm struggling to grasp the point of making an OS binary compatible with an old way of doing things, just then to bin it all and modernise. Skip the recreation of the old stuff and leap into the new. But, as I said earlier, having a clear goal is a good thing.

"I'm sorry, but I'm having a hard time trying to define you as misinformed, or as a troll, or both."

Been using it long enough to be able to realise the faults of it is probably fairest to say. I use a multitude of OSes and I'm quite agnostic towards the lot of them. BeOS, I thought, would be my 'ausgang' out of the mire that was late 90s computing, but it never happened. I could probably write a post of equal length extoling the virtues of Haiku, but the hubris of the article angered me into kicking them in the pants instead.

The lasting irony of the Haiku/BeOS crowd is, they were on the bleeding edge of OS design at one point, but hang around the forums and BeShare long enough, and you'll see that it reeks of stoicism and conservatism. It's sad.

"there's a mentality of charge for on BeOS/Haiku"

That hasn't been true for a very long time. In the very beginning the plan was for BeOS to be commercial, like MacOS, Windows or the Amiga/Atari/etc. Nothing wrong with that. The times changed. Open source came along. Supply and demand. The big software houses that once had betas for BeOS retreated back to MacOS and Windows, and AFAIK have avoided Linux/*BSD, mostly. The hobbyists are coding out of personal interest, on whatever platform they prefer.

It's no wonder that FLOSS coders are flocking to a FLOSS platform, and that commercial ISVs are staying with the commercial platforms. BeOS is dead, commercially (if you discount the Zeta zombie), but to be born again as Haiku real soon now. Now is it commercial or open source? It's no wonder why everyone's hesitant to commit.

I've been a fan of BeOS since DR8.2, the first release for Apple PowerMacs, and using it myself since R3 (the first PC version). And I'm still using it as my primary OS. Yes, partly out of stoicism and conservatism. But also because of the qualities I perceive in it. I am well aware of its flaws. Eyes wide open or eyes wide shut, I don't know.

I'm rooting for Haiku, at the very least as a way to continue using my computer the way I like using it, until something sufficiently more awesome comes along. Like Haiku Release 2.0.

I try the latest and greatest Linux from time to time, and it never feels quite right, their desktop GUIs.