This is a little different OpenBeOS newsletter than normal. All three of the articles are opinion pieces and they are all on very related topics. “What about the OpenBeOS community?” “Yet Another Rallying Cry (maybe?)“, “Press, PR, Progress and Purse“. Additionally, Xentronix announced that they stopped work on their audio editing application, SampleStudio. They collect donations via Paypal, and after they reach the amount of $250 USD, they will open source the application (one of the top-25 apps ever written for BeOS). Check a screenshot here, taken from my BeOS installation.
New OpenBeOS Newsletter; SampleStudio to Go Open Source
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Sample studio had a lot of promise as a Cool edit replacement for Beos. This is definetely a steal for $250 worth of donations. I wonder how portable the code is . . . .
Probably not much. Is not exactly trivial porting gui code to and from the Be API to/from other platforms.
And especially if Frans has used the BeOS Media Kit to do stuff under the hood, the porting effort would be even more difficult.
This app is important for OBOS, Zeta and BeOS R5/Dano users, but the rest probably will have quite some trouble porting it anywhere else.
When Gobe and Adamation had to port their apps from BeOS to Windows, they saw that their code was pretty much unportable, as the BeOS API is quite unique on the way it does things. I know for a fact that Gobe had to rewrite part of the BeOS API on top of Windows as a wrapper in order to port GP3. So any native BeOS app that is quite complex (as opposed to “simple and small”
is difficult to be ported elsewhere.
Too bad everyone doesn’t use the SDL or wxWindows programming interface.
Since this is being open-sourced, maybe we’ll see more developement of this application. The main problem I had with SampleStudio is that it didn’t write straight to the harddrive, but kept the wav data in memory, therefore making it useless for large files. This may have been fixed in later versions, or could be fixed by a knowledgeable user if it is opensourced. Anyways, I see this is a good thing for the BeOS community, the more quality opensourced apps for the BeOS the better.
This reminds me, whatever happened to OpenGobe Productive????
Gobe Says No… For Now
from BeUnited’s front page ( http://beunited.org )
Posted: beunited.org – Monday January 20 2003 – 11:14
beunited.org talks with former Gobe CEO Bruce Hammond have unfortunately not resulted in Gobe releasing any source. Gobe has refused to sell the BeOS 2.0 source base citing that it cannot risk any competition if the BeOS source was ported back to any other OS. “The door is not completely closed, said Simon Gauvin president of beunited.org, as we will re-visit the offer in 6 months and see where Gobe as a company is at that time”.
beunited.org wishes to thank all those who participated in the Pledge drive that made this discussion possible.
>Too bad everyone doesn’t use the SDL
SDL is not exactly suitable for what Xentronix had in mind. Frans is a C++ programmer, and he likes neat interfaces. I have worked with Frans and I know that he does have an eye for details.
> or wxWindows programming interface.
There is no wxWindows for BeOS, neither Qt or a working/native looking GTK+ toolkit, so they could not have chosen any of that.
I used to use BeOS, since i bought a Geforce 4MX, i can’t use it
There aren’t any drivers for it …
I think this is a major fault in BeOS (hardware support)
Still waiting for this driver though
You could use the VESA 2.0 driver with it, but it will just be slow at 60 Hz. ( http://www.bebits.com/app/1105 )
YellowTab Zeta is said to have support for GeForce4. But that will come at a cost as Zeta won’t be free to download.
For Linux, I quite like this application for audio editing, along with Audacity:
http://rezound.sourceforge.net/ (both apps use toolkits though that they don’t come as standards on all distros)
OSNews hosted an audio article about Linux a few months ago: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=1511
“Still waiting for this driver though”
at some point SciTech was in talks with the fine folks at BeOS regarding the adoption of SciTech SNAP (back then it was called SDD). Nothing materialized at that time but I would assume that the SNAP architecture must be portable to BeOS . If this assumption is accurate Scitech SNAP should then provide plug-n-play support for all currently supported chipsets – For those so inclined here is the url http://www.scitechsoft.com
i quite liked what i saw of samplestudio when i tried it recently, and i agree with the cool edit pro comparisons made. this is not a bad thing as cool edit pro is quite frankly one of the most intuitive pieces of software i’ve used. hopefully, samplestudio can reach a higher potential by going open source, with eager-beaver hackers working on it, but i was always under the impression that it was to be a commercial product? this is good for the low on cash, but i’m curious as to what frans is planning next? anyway, kudos to him
I need an app equal to Sound Forge. I don’t think this is it. But… since it’s the most agressive attempt yet, I will put some money on a donation. I hope Frans and others continue to develop it once it is opened, at least as a spare time project. I will now go looking for explanations to why they’ve given up on it and if Refraction is next for the abandonment pile… I must say, though, thanks for the effort, guys (Xentronix)!
I’ve done my part. Now the rest of you help out, okay? 😉
Wow, not bad.
Once OBOS is an organization and can accept donations, that will be a great step forward for them. I mean, I’m sure there are lots of people willing to donate to this project; people who have wanted to help but cannot do coding (like me).
I was wondering, how do you people feel about this type of business model: People write an application and give it away for free, but if you want the source code you make a “donation.” Once the donation gets large enough, the source gets released under GPL. How about once it gets REALLY REALLY high, you release it under BSD license?
Anyone have any opinions about that style of software business?
Thanks,
-Bruce Leeroy
I personally think that it’s a terrific business model. The person who wrote the program gets what he wants and the community gets what they want. It also encourages diversity and innovation because people might not want the source for “the same old application”. I would have asked for more than $250 for this program, but whatever they find is enough for them. It’s simple economics.
Let’s say that the developer asks for $1000. After a month, he only gets about $900 and the developer changes his mind on opening it, OR suddenly an investor gives him $10,000 to buy the code and rights. What happens with the $900 people have already pledged for? Where, when and how people get their money back?
That’s a really good question, and one that I don’t have a good answer for. I guess there would have to be some sort of contract with the developer, and a transaction system setup so that the people who donated could get their money back. Right now the system is based on trust, which is good imo because lawyers don’t get involved, but the topic could raise an interesting debate.
Are there any plans too port Open BeOS the PowerPC?
It would be good if they did because that’s ware BeOS got it’s start, and it would be a boost to both Open BeOS and the PPC platform. It could run on Power Macs (both old and new) The Be Box, IBM RS6000, Amiga ONE and Amiga upgrade cards, and the Pegisos.
Hi folks,
Under what license? I couldn’t tell from the announcement. If it’s BSD, I’d be happy to donate.
Yours truly,
Jeffrey Boulier
There’s an idea for a business to facilitate the other business idea: a source code escrow company.
Say I’ve developed application X. I agree to open up the source for $1000. I give my code to the escrow company (SourceCrow), and they collect monetary donations from the public. When the money reaches $1000, they give out the source, and hand me my $900 (they need to take their cut).
If the donations never reach $1000 by some set deadline, the money goes back to the people, and they burn their copies of my source.
Of course, this may all be fantasy – I can’t name anything other than Blender (and now maybe SampleStudio) that opened their code this way.
>and they burn their copies of my source.
You got to be kidding. In this scenario, the developer would never want to take the risk, so he will never sign up with the escrow company. It would work better, if the developer give the code AFTER the escrow company has collected the needed money.
Jacques Lema: Linux is definitely not for my mother.
It really depends on what your mother does. If you mom just surfs the web and listen to music and do email, I don’t see how she *couldn’t* use Linux.
Jacques Lema: In the end, Linux created people who are not only grateful to their gurus, they are really dependent on them until they become one.
This is a pathetic generalization. I learn Linux from reading how-tos, manuals and articles. Yeah, it took a lot of time and effort, but it was fun for me. But I certainly didn’t depend on *one* guru (nor do I remember who my gurus are or would I call myself a guru).
So if I read a Windows manual, would that make me become a guru’s student?
Jacques Lema: Artists were definitely not going to use this OS.
Artist is a very relative word. It depends what defination of art you carry. Some 3D artist prefer using Linux especially for rendering… they certainly are artist and not forced to use it.
Jacques Lema: But at the same time you feel a bit angry about the guy who created the configuration format for sendmail.
If you don’t know how to configure sendmail, you may as well resign as a artist and maybe become a…. “artist”? Besides, there are many GUI configurators for sendmail. IIRC, Mac OS X Server has a good one.
Jacques Lema: It is just a shame they did not inform you about the others and that any attempts to flee are so severely punished.
Those “punished” are “punished” only because of their miscalculations on what’s right for them. Besides, most religions allow people to opt-out (very few allow for opt-in :-). Islam being the biggest exception.
Michael Phipps: Of the three companies that sued Microsoft, Be, I believe, had the strongest claim for damages.
Actually, Sun has the strongest case having memos written against the adoption of Java by key Microsoft figures. Be on the other hand wasn’t even mentioned by Microsoft prior to the antitrust case.
Michael Phipps: They were forced into bad situations by illegal practices
No, they were forced into bad situations by… [see quote below]
Michael Phipps: some questionable management practices.
Ditto. As well as terrible terrible terrible terrible marketing. And that’s an understatement.
Well, doubt it would work. Most developers want a continous stream of profit that grows, not one payment and that’s it. Just say I made a piece of software and offer to open it for $1000, after getting $1000, where can I get money to feed my family when that $1000 finishes?
The only thing I can add is that the owner of the source would have to predefine the terms of the usability of the source, ie: no matter who gives me money on this software, the license will be: X or whatever license once the grand total is reached. It would be up to the software’s owner not to be too greedy. The terms would have to be predefined from the get-go: if a company wants to buy your source & ask you for support (the support is what you’re really selling,) you must insist that the code be released under a BSD license where it would be free for all (even for commercial purposes.) I figure that most companies can handle writing their own apps, it’s just that when a speicalized piece of software comes out, the company may want to integrate special features or other things that they don’t have the time to develop.
It’s really not that great of an open source business model, but it’s just an idea I had. Yes, you’re right, software programmers want a constant money stream so that they can keep on feeding their families.
Getting a really good Open Source business model defined right from the get-go would prevent economic crisis for companies like Mandrake.
There are probably 5-10 games I can think of that I would absolutely DROOL to have the source to: ANY of the 5-star series, Master of magic, XCOM (freeCOM looks great,) Red Alert, etc. I think it’s fantastic that some Open Source people have spent the time to redo the entire game for multi-platform releases, but most don’t have the rights to the GRAPHICS of the games.
A lot of Open Sourcers want to give out the games they created for free, problem is artists are already starving, asking them to do it for free isn’t very appealing for them.
i dunno yet.
-Bruce Leeroy
Especially since I use Cool Edit Pro 2 a lot. I hope to scrounge up a little cash for this project out of my tax returns. I’m also convincing the radio station I do a show at to buy Tunetracker 2 for on-air use, and I hope to settle with Marco soon, as well.
Crikey, if this app works out, and BeOS gets a JDE 1.4 compiler working well, this machine is getting reformatted.
Marco Nelissen Sues Sandwich Boy
http://www.404company.com/bedoper
ReZound you say? wow I’ll add that to the list…
GNUsound
Gnome Wave Cleaner
mhWaveEdit
Audacity
ReZound
It may be a generalization, but it’s not pathetic. The fact is, most people nowadays are really busy. Some people have a combination of motivations and time that allows them to learn Linux on their own, but I would venture that most (or at least a significant portion of) Linux newbies testing the waters don’t (feel they) have the time to learn. I have read some good “transition” articles and know the basics of Linux, but having a Linux guru at my summer job showing me how to do stuff directly was much more productive. I could learn, maybe, the rules of English grammatical usage by reading a lot of books, but that would be much slower than having someone teach me beforehand.
As for the religious comment, take history into perspective if you’re really looking to include more of the world’s religions.
It may be a generalization, but it’s not pathetic. The fact is, most people nowadays are really busy. Some people have a combination of motivations and time that allows them to learn Linux on their own, but I would venture that most (or at least a significant portion of) Linux newbies testing the waters don’t (feel they) have the time to learn.
Well… I still don’t think it is fair. These same people did spent a lot of time to learn <put your favorite OS here> and some even spent much more time to understand the intrinsics of it. Nonetheless, every large company that I know have a helpdesk staff to help people with things that you might think ridiculous.
Yes… Linux (and any Unix-like OS, for that matter) takes a little more time to understand than MacOS and not everyone wants to take the time to learn it, but once you do it, it “just works” like the alternatives.
Yes… Linux (and any Unix-like OS, for that matter) takes a little more time to understand than MacOS and not everyone wants to take the time to learn it, but once you do it, it “just works” like the alternatives.
But Mac OS X gives you the best of both worlds!
Also I don’t see windows users switching to linux much ether.
All I can say is download the free version of Acid express, and just be amazed. Its one slick application…beautifully multithreaded, the best.
I prefer Wavelab lite…
… to Cool Edits latest offering…Mind you though there’s is some pretty expensive loop/sequencers/samplers I’ve seen one application go for $3000…its able to extract the melody from a sample! Now we need something like that BeOS…maybe some AI?
OpenSource and Business don’t mix…Business is about profit, OpenSource isn’t. You need to create a market for an OpenSource product…like support costs etc, etc, etc.
Let’s start with Half-Life/Counter-Strike heheh.
Michael
Well, there should be enough Windows users moving to Linux to make it the fastest growing desktop OS in the past couple of year. Meanwhile, Mac still looses market share, even with OS X giving you the best of both world.
And to LackOfKnack, I can configure a installation of Linux to make it easy enough to use, and give these instructions
1) Press that button, the computer would on, and login would be automatic. (logins automatically to, for example, Window Maker)
2) Click on this icon to connect to the Internet.
3) Click this icon to browse the net, but you must do (2) first.
4) Click this icon to mail my aunts in Perth, Canada and England, but you must do (2) first.
5) Click this icon to play that idiotic CD. Use ear phones while at it. No, mom, I don’t car if it hurts your ears cause that songs hurts mine.