BeGroovy is running an article claiming that the BeOS source code was distributed via the BeOS-only chatting and file exchange application, BeShare, resulting in the shut down of the main BeShare server. Several people (and BeShare users) have replied to the article stating that there was indeed a leak some weeks ago, but there are two important makefiles missing in order to build successfully the whole system. They also claim that new features like an updated Media Kit and new versions of Interface Kit and App_server can be found there as well as many new drivers. Our Take: If all these new features are true, it is such a shame that Be was sold out to Palm before they could make a new BeOS release out of it. Leaks are never good of course, but the OpenBeOS guys may kill for pieces of that code!
BeOS 6 Source Code Leaked?
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Unless someone is truly disgruntled at Be, Inc., I don’t think this is true. The Anonymous poster who claimed to have a copy of the code, went on to state what was new in the code. Everything he stated, are the same things that I already knew would be in the next release, if there was one, because it is everything that Be made public as to what is available for BeIA. Someone may have said they had the source, and Ben, being a good supported, did what he thought was right. I applaud Ben for that. But as to the release of the sourece code, I highly doubt it.
-aourgthopher
This is burried in that current forum over at begroovy
<blockqoute>
I am Be’s General Counsel. I want to make it clear to everyone that there has been no purposeful leak of the source code from Be or Palm. First, Palm is not yet the owner of Be intellectual property, and does not have access to it to release that code even if it desired to do that, nor has it expressed that interest to date. Be still considers all of its source code as valuable property of the company, and any breach of it proprietary rights is considered a serious infraction. An infraction that we will vigorously pursue, targeting those that are legally culpable for those breaches and further violations of our rights.
I urge you all to treat this seriously, and know that we will not take lightly any further illegal redistributions.
By the way, as far as I know the owner of the Beshare server where it was found simply took down the link at our request – we are not pursuing innocent parties.
Dan Johnston
General Counsel
</blockquote>
Hehe, Dan at its best.
Yup, he is right. You can’t just leak such a thing. It is too serious. I just hope that no more leaks will take place.
I had heard that OpenGL and BONE packages (binaries, not source) were also distributed on BeShare the last 2 months, continously. I don’t know it first hand as I don’t connect to BeShare (last time I tried it was months ago – it is too croweded for my taste), but it was stated in some beos forums around the web.
This stinks! I hope this doesn’t mess up any possibility of palm developing be or someone getting the source code from palm… this stinks!
As for Bone and OpenGL, thoese are all over besahre, or were, i’m not sure about the smaller server but they are probley there too…
A while back I did a search for “opengl” and “bone” on BeShare. A number of results came back, claiming to be the geniune article. Several of the zip files listed there that claim to have OpenGL and/or BONE are really pranks being played by fellow BeShare users. One zip file is a seemingly endless set of nested zip files, while another zip file contains some humorous photos and an mp3 called (IIRC) “Bone Smasher”.
John
I look foward to the day I can find an operating system as much fun to develop in as BeOS. There really is no competition so far that I have found for its elegant simplicity. Hopefully the leakage wont affect the BeUnited folks attempt to license the source from Be / Palm.
Here’s hoping that we can soon go ice skating in hell
When someone want to stop to do something, he always find a reason.
This stupid reaction (close the server) only shows that “Ben” don’t
believe in BeOS anymore. There was no leak, just a guy who wanted a reason to stop.
[Be sure that if the code “leak”, I will be one of the first informed …
ans surely not a reason to “stop” but the best reason to believe in a future for BeOS]
In murky times like these, I’d expect the net to be covered with BeOS source code leaks. The fact that the leaks are extremelly rare still suggests that interested parties are still holding onto the technology (and not throwing it into the trash).
The million dollar question is – what are BeInc staff doing these days while waiting for the Palm deal to finalise? They’re not playing table tennis during office hours, thats for sure.
Damn shame.
“what are Be Inc staff doing these days while waiting for the Palm deal to finalise?”
They are learning the PalmOS API. I am not kidding.
“They are learning the PalmOS API. I am not kidding”
Oh god, the torture. What did they do to deserve this? The only thing worse than that would be to start learning OWL (or MFC).
My condolences.
Something about BeOS and ‘6’ in the same sentence makes me all tingly inside. I think that’s classified as ‘excitement’. Something no other OS of recent times has managed to do…
That heading had me real hopeful for a split second there.
(Rude Turnip (IP: 209.3.52.—) wrote on 2001-10-09 21:11:59 OpenGL and BONE sightings)
[ A while back I did a search for “opengl” and “bone” on BeShare. A number of results came back, claiming to be the geniune article. Several of the zip files listed there that claim to have OpenGL and/or BONE are really pranks being played by fellow BeShare users. One zip file is a seemingly endless set of nested zip files, while another zip file contains some humorous photos and an mp3 called (IIRC) “Bone Smasher”.
John]
John, it was “AlienSexFiend – BoneShakerBaby”
It’s true that there have been lot of fakes. The reason why fakes came up was, that lot of ppl just came to beshare to yell “Bone/OGL beta? anyone?”
That was when Be was still developing on BeOS…and it has been till the last day of beshare.betonera.com …. at least I guess..because my IP has cut my flatrate and so BeShare is a bit “difficult” for me now…
LoCal
The worst case is:
– Be die (ok it’s already died)
– Palm don’t care about (Phoenix, OpenBeOS, BlueOS…)
– All the BeOS source go to trash
But it’s the more realistic case.
Who wins? not Be, not us, only Palm (which probalby will have the same end as BeInc soon)
The result: an intellectual crime.
Share the code as much as you can, it could help coders to make something which can
compete with MS shit if it’s not too late.
Spread it to the web , to OpenBeOS, to BlueOS… even if they can use it they can look at it and save time,
just because to read source code is easier and faster than reverse engineering.
Nothing personal Test but sharing the source about is a stupid idea. It’s a very good way to attract legal action and end up a lot poorer. It also says to the Development Community that BeOS Cloners are a bunch of thieves and we don’t want that now do we?
Far better to support one of the attempts to purchase the BeOS Source rights / license and do it legally. (See http://www.beunited.org)
Just think of that warm fuzzy feeling you’ll get inside knowing you’ve helped to make the world a better place…
Why was the code out there the first time? (Out of Menlopark)
———————————————————-
And to the people how downloaded/shared the code…
You go to hell, you go to hell and die!!!!!!
Test,
the worst case would be BeOS-Sources spread all over. If it is true, that code has been leaked, then Palm would loose it’s “good thinking” about BeOS community… they already think very positive about Beers…at least I’ve been told that.
For OpenBeOS, BlueOS, etc the eventually leaked code would be null and void, as they are not allowed to use it….
Support beunited that is the best you can do.
LoCal
I really do not care that the source is out. It will accomplish nothing. I agree with the above post and I think people should just support BeUnited. They have a great idea and I hope it will be realised.
-yt
Interestingly though, this is not the first time the BeOS source has been spread to the world. I remember chrish telling me about one time, when the entire BeOS 3 source was available on ftp2.be.com (with no password protection)
Maybe Be Inc was trying to hand over their IP to Palm and though, “Oh whatever, lets just put it up on ftp2!”
Yeah, now you know how the ex-Apple Newton folks feel. I had a copy of the *entire* source tree on an external drive. Somehow or another the drive got reformatted before it’s content could be backed-up. I probably shouldn’t have been rearranging drives at 3am. The days of trying to find free disk space on 200mb drives; I’m sooo glad they’re over.
Ok, i want BeOS support, evolution etc… I believe some ppl can do that (license it/recode like OpenBeOS), but i can’t believe in BeUnited somehow… just look on their projects. None of them really finished, most “no info available”, few “we’ve done this and that but we need BONE/other thing”… IF PALM will license BeOS to someone, i hope it will not be BeUnited (well at least not ppl who worked on BeUnited projects).
Sad but true
I hope OpenBeOS ppl will code something good
This is a reply to Shard: (no hard feelings dude, just some clarification)
BeUnited itself was never a failure, the devs doing the projects failed (and I hate to admit I was one of them). Every single “admin” of BeUnited spend _lots_ of their time getting it al working, making sure their part was done correctly.
Sadly, a lot of the devs were demotivated, or had to cope with programming during the working hours on some other OS then BeOS, which kills ya
The current team of BeUnited is not the same as the old one, but 50% of the old core is still there I think. Some fresh blood has been acquired as well, which will definitely be needed
To cut a long story short, although I’m an OpenBeOS guy, I sure would love to see BeUnited make it, and I would be probably be interested in helping them.
Support those guys, it won’t stop OpenBeOS from at least making a head-start in case the other options fail 🙂
maybe today’s BeUnited can do something with BeOS source, but it still doesn’t look too good when on their page none of their projects is finished (good that there are no start date/times, maybe it’s just me who have seen the same project’s infos there long time ago
In what way could we possibly support BeUnited?
They are supposed to be in talks with Palm. Can’t help here.
Their website is up to date. Can’t help there.
The driverfund is full to the brim. The ATI driver is on hold. There’s no update on other driver projects. I donated some money, I can’t code. Can’t help more.
So what do you guys suggest when you talk about supporting BeUnited?
(ithamar, Shard…)
As ithamar puts it BeUnited itself didn’t fail… but you also have to consider the project page is NOT up to date. Just take a look at BePDF for example. It’s a BeUnited project in constant evolution, with new versions and improvements showing up regularly, and there’s even a dedicated pool of people to translate new strings in newer versions of BePDF each time.
Just give the driverfund a look too… It looks like BeUnited could raise an interesting enough quantity of bucks… why doesn’t this money get used more? Because the developers are not asking for HW to develop with? And who are those developers? Well, the very same people than those working on other BeOS continuation projects: OpenBeOS, BlueOS, etc.
I believe BeUnited is the best placed team to licence the code, if Palm agrees to do so: they’ve showed ability to launch and monitor projects, even with poorly motivated developers, showed ability to raise money, to get nice articles from Be engineers (well, huh, ok, mostly JBQ
), to set whole useful resources for developers, etc. They’re just the victims of what has been happening to BeOS since about 1 year + a half, just like the BeOS users are victims of this, too. There’s no one I want to throw the stone at, but the people who deserve it are definitely not the BeUnited people.
If the Palm deal falls through for any reason (most likely because of shareholders voting NO), then Be will file for bankrupty and dissolve shortly thereafter. Assuming for a second that no one buys the source code for BeOS/BeIA at firesale prices during bankruptcy liquidation…what will the legal status of the code be? Will it become public domain since there is no legal entity to claim copyright?
Personally if I was a ex-dot com’er and had some money laying around (enough to live on and not worry about ‘working’) and could afford it i’d buy the source just to work on it and release binaries.
Heck maybe spend the years it would take to make it opensourceable… ah a coders dream.. no deadlines, no pressure, just coding fun… 
There are allways people who think they are helping, when in reality they are just harming everything
I doubt this will have any affect on the Palm/Be aquisition – which still hasn’t taken place yet.
A little interesting bit of info is that there are rumours that Sony is considering purchasing Palm. Ok, it’s only a rumour, but it was once only a rumour about Palm buying Be, so keep your mind open without getting too excited.
If Sony purchases Palm, it will, in my opinion, be much better for the future of BeOS. Sony has allways been rather “involved” with Be. They liked BeIA enough to use it in their failure of a Internet Appliance, and they have allways liked BeOS/BeIA along with a huge dislike of Microsoft. Now, I know that the “dislike” of another company is a stupid reason to invest money in an admittedly “sinking ship”, at the moment (in financial terms) but Sony is a company that has cash to spare, and would be able to invest in a side project, which is the only place BeOS will be at this point in time.
Another possibility is that Sony may be more open to allowing BeUnited to aquire a license to develop BeOS. As I said above Sony have allways been interested in BeOS, because it excells in their main area, Media! I’m sure they wouldn’t want it to just die.
I’m holding out a lot of hope for the future of BeOS! If I had to bet on a horse, it’d have to be BeUnited. The group seems extremely professional, most importantly realising that it’s all very well developing BeOS, but for BeOS to actually start making ground it’s going to also need to get more serious applications developed, and so are also going to develop applications for BeOS (please, a new web browser, PLEASE!!). BeUnited is essentially what the name implies, BeOS users, developers, abd BUGs united to fight for the BeOS.
Things are raring back into life in the BeOS community!
I’ve read all the statements and all the queries,all that senses as a “hate” on intelligence. YES PEOPLE YOU ARE RIGHT ! BeOS isn’t for free, but everyone of BeOS fans WANTS BeOS ALIVE NOW, QUICKLY, no matter the costs…
So because i’m kind of warez”r 😉 i give for free to anykind of persons who wants to test… this Beta of BONE…Anyone who wants this pls, give me a sign here and i’ll contact you…Remember this is intended for testing purposes,maybee as a reverse engineering subject…So anyone interested ? And pls, NO COMMENTS , OK ?
WAREZ IS FREE !!!
send me a message on http://www.streamload.com my user is wildcrazy