YellowTab recently announced the opening of a “job centre” on its web site, with three jobs listed: Bug hunter, Builder Engineer and RAD GUI. You’d need to move to Germany and know German, but there are few actual jobs in alternative OS development these days, so bust out those “Learn German in Three Days Under Hypnosis” tapes, and get going!
Is osnews really the place for something like this..?
Well, this is an OS website, Yellowtab is pretty much the only company hiring for alt. OS development, so yes.
I agree …and it is still fun news …
Who is helping Yellowtab financially? I mean, they seem to be growing so fast that I wonder if they already have a lot of customers or somebody BIG is behind the company.
i am happy to see the company growing and to know that BeOS is not dead. It is a great OS and I think it has a good chance to make a comeback. I will buy a copy.
-2501
1. Financial Help:
I manage yellowTAB as good as possible and we don’t have one helping us in financial parts. We invest what we are possible to, and we grow as good as possible. When we don’t have enough money we just don’t invest. When we have we will invest it. About 70% goes into the reinvestment and 30% into deposit for bad times which we hope will not happen 😉
Next months we plan 4 new employees. My plan is made for the whole year 2005. It contains all employees in every single area. From the cleaner to the kernel engineer. In June we hired 3 new employees. And in August we get again 3 new employees.
We are not a shareholder company and we have no plans to be one. As we want keep the decisions we do very fast and in short ways. And to be honest, i don’t know one investing into a company like yellowTAB as no one is believing in us and our business. So we have to do it ourself. When i started i felt really sad that business partners do not believe in my idea but today i am MORE then happy that we got it working ourself. Best you can get working is that you do not have to say “Thank you” to one as this means you got it working yourself.
It is not only that we have 38 people working directly for yellowTAB, there are also plenty of others partizipating indireclty from our work. Look to developers doing commercial apps for ZETA, look to Mensys. Look to ebay germany, they have even an own chapter in Software/Operatingsystems which is called “Zeta”!! (which makes me VERY happy!! 😉 ). Look to all our resellers, we have by now about 50 REAL stores in germany where you can go in and buy ZETA.
The most difficult is to develop a market “around” the product and give business partners the chance make money with what you do. While our developers do a very good job i develop this things.
I cannot say where yellowTAB will be in two years. We have a VERY VERY VERY hard way to go. But we do that since about 4 years now, from a “one man show” to where we are today. So i have serious hopes that we can go where we want to be in 2 years.
2. Must speak german:
Thats not true. We have people speaking english, spanish, portugese, german, japanese, norwegian, italiano, dutch, chinese. If you speak english you are more then welcome in yellowTAB.
I know this is a little OT, but I went to their site and went looking for what products they’ve released. What I saw on their store page had an R1 in the product name, does that mean its an early release?
I’d like to try the product out when they have a final release.
Personally I’m impressed YellowTab has survived this long as it is–but to have the resources to hire employees? Nice! Good job guys!
No, R1 stands for “Release 1”, so it’s their Version 1.0.
yellowTAB doesn’t have the best of reputations in Germany, though – something to do with selling so-called “release candidates” to clueless home-shopping customers at full price.
I wish them all the best for the future, though. The future’s bright, the future’s yellow…
No R1 are Release 1 not RC1 (Release Candidate)
I was to slow
Cool thing Bernd is taking the time to leave his comments here… I don’t see Steve Jobs do that
I will definitely buy R1 once it’s out!
it aut allready. look the site!
In the post RAD GUI is mentioned but it is important to know, especially for developers of applications, that its about a RAD GUI DEVELOPMENT TOOL.
I wonder if such a development tool aids in creating kernel add-ons or other specific add-ons like for the tracker.
Development tools are needed to help developers extend the basic ZETA system with add-ons, applications, little tools etc.
I am really suprised, that YellowTAB can afford nearly 40 PAID developers, congratulations to that, I never had thought this was possible for an alternative OS.
i don’t think I will switch to Zeta in the near future myself because too many basic command line apps are missing YET which I am used to (mainly vim, but also irssi (=irc), micq (=icq) or cmus (music player))
However, I would really like to see a live-cd demo of zeta, is it planned to have one in the near future?
yellowTAB doesn’t have the best of reputations in Germany, though – something to do with selling so-called “release candidates” to clueless home-shopping customers at full price.
Yeah, I thought that was really unprofessional of them. I mean, selling a beta-version behind the scene isn’t a big deal, it’s acceptable. But marketing it as a finished product and shoving it to the avarage user is just a horrible idea.
I understand that they needed the cash. But did they ever think about things like satisfied and even returning costumers?
It’s pretty much the same thing MS did with WinME. But on a smaller scale.
I’m curious, could it really be possible to learn a language faster under hypnosis? (whether or not such a tape exists/whether or not that was a joke or not) Have there been any studies on learning languages under hypnosis and positive results?
It was a joke, BTW. I don’t really know whether hypnosis could really help you learn anything better.
@MaxAuthority: Bernd didn’t say there are 40 developers working at YellowTab. He said they have 38 employees overall “from the cleaner to the kernel engineer”.
Maybe it’s time we asked Bernd THAT question… you know, about kernel source.
I believe a good RAD GUI tool (and not just for developing GUI applications) is of vital importance to the future of the platform, and I’m happy to see yellowTab address that as something important. BeIDE and what exists for editing/creating GUI layouts for BeOS/Haiku/Zeta isn’t even close to being competitive at this time, and will scare away quite a few developers whom might otherwise think about committing time to creating or porting applications. While no tool makes for a good programmer, and a programmer/designer/whatever should know how to do things without using a tool, a good tool allows them to get more done in less time by eliminating the need to do the simple but tedious stuff computers are ideally suited to do, and focus on the bigger issues.
Of course, maybe I should submit my Resumé, as I’m working on one
If such tapes existed for Finnish, I would be ready topay a fortune for them.
Regarding yT: I am, too, impressed that they are able to pay 40 people!? I mean, that’s a serious operation there!
Is BeOS resurrected from the ashes??? Phoenix??
It just came to my mind: is there some company selling Zeta preinstalled? There used to be a small PCshop that would sell BeOS compatible systems… but I don’t know exactly where they are, now. They used to have a nice website…
In regards to language, one of the reasons they posts are in English is that it is mandatory for the people applying for these positions to have good English skills.
I should probably update the job requirements to reflect that…
Alan
I would like to know for sure, with a clear reassurance from PalmSource or whoever owns the BeOS source — that YellowTab has the source legally and has the legal power to sell and distribute the code.
I don’t think I will buy it if there is no CLEAR assurance that everything is legal. At the moment, there definately is some confusion.
mein Auto ist kaput!
Where do I sign?
Great work, there are people in the community who wish to congratulate you guys on a job well done.
Since this website is going down the same path as Slashdot (infested with teenagers), I’d just like to say a few words about some of the previous comments:
Zeta is selling to unsuspecting customers due to television infomercials in Germany. And how different is this to Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000 and Windows XP commercials? In my honest opinion, Zeta is better value than Windows 95/98/Me. I think that Bernd and Co. and shown great business capabilities, since they’ve managed to sell 85,000 copies of the release candidates. At 99euro a pop, that gives yellowTab a lot of money to work on R2 (and knowing the passion these guys have, almost all the money will go into R2).
I wont buy it until app <insert_app_here> is ported The BeOS world has a suprisingly high number of apps to allow self sufficiency (and most of the better open source apps are already ported when that category of apps was lacking). You can do anything from editing a CD, publishing a DVD, writing a report, doing finances, even play (some) games. There are a lot of BeOS users who at one stage or another used BeOS exclusively, so most of the application bases are covered. One thing you have to ask yourself – how much app functionality do you actually need. In most cases, 80% of the functionality is more than enough for 99% of the population.
Zeta is too expensive. You mustn’t forget that yellowTab are also including several commercial apps (Gobe Productive, Squeezer etc) and codecs. Speaking of codecs, most Linux distros wont play MP3’s out of the box, you have to go hunt for unlicenced codecs. With Zeta, you get support out of the box. Besides, how many alternative OS’s are there which are not based on FreeBSD/Linux? yellowTab have an opportunity to become interesting if they can survive until R2 and R3. That wont happen overnight. If you love alternative OS’s, and dont want to live in a boring computer world, than consider paying yellowTab for some computer entertatinment (think of it as paying for Theather tickets, to watch an interesting show unfold).
That about it for Sunday morning. Waiting for my copy of Zeta to arrive in the mail any day now.
You can get vim here:
http://www.bebits.com/app/2693
And mICQ here:
http://www.bebits.com/app/2905
Command line IRC would be nice, but there’s a quite good GUI IRC client called Vision (it reminds me of a simplified version of BersIRC – which is appropriate, as BersIRC shamelessly apes quite a few Be icons).
I’m not really sure why you would want a command line music player in Zeta.
There used to be a small PCshop that would sell BeOS compatible systems… but I don’t know exactly where they are, now. They used to have a nice website…
Probably Frizbe, they stopped selling hardware though. Could have been BeMachines as well.
It seems that BeOS is back and I am glad to hear that Bernd answered my question. You don’t see that very often.
Well, if they are really selling copies and the Be community still active, I think that they really have a good opportunity. Bernd and his team has done great so far and I hope they continue to move forward in their efforts.
I hope the same results for Amiga OS 4.
🙂
-2501
I wonder what will be instore for R2, maybe yT could have like a development feature roadmap ?
I would like to know how frequently yT puts out new releases if anyone here can tell me.
It would be nice to see some more in-depth reviews of Zeta, its been a while since I’ve seen one. I would really like to know if there is a good e-mail application now, and how well FireFox works with Zeta. I am also interested in software development and multimedia support in Zeta, a short article with pictures or videos showing someone develop a C++ program in Zeta would be nice.
Most of the reviews I’ve seen so far were from former BeOS users, so they tended to skip over points that are important to Windows and Linux users interested in Zeta.
I would really like to know if there is a good e-mail application now A lot of BeOS users swear by the OBOS MailDaemonReplacement http://www.bebits.com/app/2289 which uses the native BeOS attributes which allows you to search, query, organise etc emails in a much nicer way than anything I’ve seen on other platforms.
how well FireFox works with Zeta Due to various architectural differences between a native app and Firefox, the developers had to work around certain conflicts to get firefox working under BeOS (add-on limit, single threaded GUI, etc). After all the work put into Firefox (some of the multithreaded fixes needed for BeOS have been backported to other platforms), Firefox today under Zeta is an amazingly responsive app, more so than under Linux or Windows. The BeOS porters did an amazing job to get Firefox more than up to par, in my opinion it’s more responsive than the Windows version.
I am also interested in software development and multimedia support in Zeta. It’s BeOS and uses the BeAPI (various kits, including media). The BeAPI was the star of BeOS (some would say the killer app for BeOS). It’s a very solid and powerful API. Zeta includes a PDF of the Programming the BeOS developers guide, plus a lot of sample code. Zeta includes a full development kit (IDE, visual debugger, RAD tools etc).
Most of the reviews I’ve seen so far were from former BeOS users Yes, its hard to get an unbiased review when it comes to alternative OS’s. What’s great for me may not be so great for someone else, and vice versa. I think it deserves a chance, since it would be a shame to see such an elegent OS die.
is there any chance to make yellowtab 100% x86-64 native, support sse exclusively, etc?
@dan
In an earlier interview on OsNews by Eugenia with Bernd Korz they wanted in the far future an 64bits version and a step-up to the GNU4.x compiler toolchain. This means they will have to switch to the compiler toolchain first and then build a special 64 bits version.
To answer the SSE thing: the new kernel builds upon the processor patch mechanism to effectively use the special registers a CPU can harbor. This means that memory copying routines makes use of the faster instruction set like SSEx, 3DNow etc. The new kernel of ZETA is called Venture and its speed was optimized to even sometimes 40%!!
I don’t know if more special routines will be used specifically by the media tools/programs or translaters.
I hope they will step-up their driver development for 3D because its the next major feature of any Media-OS. There is something going on with Mesa 6.x.x and nVidia cards upto NV18 but I don’t know if ZETA eventually is going to use that as well. Mesa is open source and there are no more developments for it since december 2004.
Good luck yT! I can’t wait for the R1 release and hope it will be received well by the BeOS community and new users. I do believe that there’s a place for Zeta in the computing world and I really want it to take off with lots of sweet native applications.
I’m ordering Zeta when I get my next bonus. A little cash strapped at the moment but I am soo keen to get my hands on a decent OS. Now all I need is Opera 8.0 on BeOS and I would be very happy.
Yeah, it was Frizbe. They had a very useful website, frisbe.net or something, where you could see exactly what hardware is supported in BeOS. It was a complete database. Such a shame it’s not available anymore.
Never heard of BeMachines?!
That site has only moved to here:
http://www.bedrivers.com/hardware/
I don’t think the Frizbe hardware database is gone, it just has a new home: http://www.bedrivers.com/hardware/
Hmm, the internet isn’t as real-time as I thought…
thanks. but far future? if beos is going to be as legacy free as possible, why not develop it exclusively for x86-64 long mode, where it has access to additional registers.
also how does os x moving to x86 change the equation?
Actually mp3 out of the box isn’t that great and for your information every Linux distrobution that has XMMS with it supports mp3 out of the box. At least the ones i’ve used, which are several.
I hope the RAD tool you’re referring to isn’t MeTOS! IF that’s distributed with Zeta and it’s of similar quality to what’s available via BeBits, that will put yT in a very bad light
as it’s mostly eye candy and horribly unstable. I can’t comment on whether or not it creates trashy code, because it never survives to the point of successfully creating code on my machine, because of either deadlock or crash of some variation.
BeXL exists, yes, but it hasn’t been updated sine 2000, and labeled as a version 2.0 beta, when in actuality it should have been labeled as an alpha release. I bought it at the price of $35 (I’m such a sucker) because it held promise, it generated code from GUIs drawn, but it, too, is painfully unstable, and it frequently generates output that won’t build from within itself. I don’t believe you can still purchase a key to unlock it at this point, but it doesn’t really matter.
As of yet, no GUI-generating RAD tool (depending on if you want to call them that) for BeOS that’s been released to the public comes remotely close to the quality required to make it productive, because of usability issues, documentation, stability, or any combination of above; I’ve probably left something out. At the moment, BeIDE is the most powerful and stable available IDE for BeOS, and to the best of my knowledge, yellowTab has no rights to that or the underlying code, and has no code for that. Thus, it’s very simple to see that they need to either have an outside party creating a viable IDE/RAD tool, or they need to create one themselves, or when the time comes to switching over to a newer version of gcc or something they upgrade in the system breaks applications that includes BeIDE, they’ll be left out in the cold.
yellowTab would be much better off not distributing MansonWare (as unstable as Charles Manson) that covers the required categories, and instead limiting what’s distributed to the few things that are known to be stable enough to be useful. Usability flaws for the GUI of an application usually can be worked around with experience, but unstable software by its very nature is unuseable, as the user feels like they are(and might as well be) tiptoeing through a mine field, fearing that they’ll have a limb blown off or be completely blown to bits (32 or more) if they look at things funny. While there are many zealots that proclaim the beauty, etc. of the BeOS API and programming model, it definitely requires more comprehension of certain things dealing with threading issues and all that goes with it than the “inferior” systems that are single-threaded. Single-threaded GUI applications are often not as responsive to the user, but then they’re often suitable, and allow someone to create something useful without having to learn too many concepts all at once, which often results in unstable software. Would noobs write better applications that are single-threaded? Maybe, maybe not, but the added complexity of writing properly threaded applications would be one less thing they have to tackle, and they could spend more quality time using a debugger, because they wouldn’t have to worry about debugging threading problems at the same time they’re debugging algorithm problems
So, while the BeOS API may be deemed more “elegant” by some, and it certainly is smaller than many, it makes up for that in terms of the required complexity of dealing with multiple threads, as a GUI application is forced to have a minimum of 2 separate threads (one for the main application thread, and another for each window).
That’s cool having you here, Bernd! Nice to know too that german is not absolutely necessary. To learn C++ should be easier
Good luck ZETA!
Es wäre mir toll, aber ich weiß Informatik nicht.