Michael Phipps of OBOS has posted a status update and response to some community discontent. In his post, he explains why a new name has yet to be announced, why some of the status graphs have gone without being updated, and gives a general idea of what is left to be done.
OpenBeOS Responds to Community Discontent
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Mediakit alpha 1!
Lots of stuff happening with sorting out and evolving the project overall. These guys are so cool.
However, I’d love to see Michael complete the VM and spend some more time on that. I think his last code commit was like 3 months ago.
OBOS is a winning concept!
Keep up the good work
CS 450, here I come! Maybe after that class, I can actually contribute. Anyway, looks like things are progressing quite nicely.
Just curious to know what the name of your CS450 class is.
How can anyone who isn’t writing code complain? Hey, it is their free time and they are donating it to help the BeOS users. How on earth can anyone complain about something good and free? I think they are doing a great job!
They can complain that their expectations were highered for something that isn’t. People never pay for vaporware so is it OK for a company to do that? Everyone gets mad at companies for vaporware, why can’t people get mad at OSS for vaporware?
Basically for the new name and website, the things people have been immediately waiting for; espcially the name; he just says “Yeah it’d done, it’s good, don’t worry.” Honestly when someone says something like that without revealing anything that inspires worry more than anything else.
Did you even read the update NeoWolf? He states it pretty clearly what the delay is – getting NFP status in NY state.
Did you even read the update NeoWolf? He states it pretty clearly what the delay is – getting NFP status in NY state.
Is there any risks/dangers in releasing the new name to the public prior to obtaining non-profit status? I thought I should know this since I work for an NPO, but they’ve been around long before my time of course.
I’m not sure what the worry is – I would guess they’re concerned that someone would take the name.
In the current environment of ridiculous patents, maybe there is a reason to be worried.
I want OBOS on my Peggy!
Is there any risks/dangers in releasing the new name to the public prior to obtaining non-profit status?
I would assume they can’t trademark the name until they are some sort of officially incorporated body… I don’t think Joe Blow from off the street can simply trademark any phrase he wants…
I would assume the holdup is becoming an official non-profit organization, at which point they can trademark the name.
I wouldn’t bear any ill will against them for taking their time to make sure there aren’t any issues with their name. The last thing anyone wants is a repeat of the Phoenix/Firebird fiasco.
Thanks Michael!
If anything we should be proud of them for their professionalism. Knowing myself, if I had big news I can’t wait to spill the beans and announce it to the world. They’re taking their time to do things right. Yup no complaints here.
Yo Jefro,
It wasn’t a complaint, it was a wish! Which part of that very long sentence was to complex?
>>… I don’t think Joe Blow from off the street can simply trademark any phrase he wants…<<
From kernel.org :
“Linux is a Registered Trademark of Linus Torvalds.”
So, Joe Blow can trademark it.
It depends on your angle. Most OSS developers would welcome criticism for the sake of self improvement. Afterall, listening to real users and non-developers is how Apple and MS made their products more user friendly.
If the complaint is “lack of activity” in the development, then perhaps the team could find ways of being more vocal about their work. Hell if some of the programmers wanted to maintain a blog just to rant about whatever is bothering them I’d enjoy reading it, being a programmer myself but no where near their caliber.
Having never used BeOS, I was wondering if anyone could breifly outline the relative merits of BeOS as an Operating System. I have seen the screenshots and read blurbs here-and-there, but I have never come across any clarification about the hype revolving this OS. Can someone elaborate or link me to some information regarding the wonderful world of BeOS? Thanks in advance.
For it’s time, it was great in terms of things like multimedia responsiveness. Since then, Linux and FreeBSD have far eclipsed it. BeOS has horrible I/O bottlenecks.
Well, I can’t speak for everyone, but for my personnal reason it was only the “feeling”. More of a little toy I was extremmelly excited to discover. A undiscovered country that needed hobby programmers like me to fill the empty software area. That was a lot of fun. But when I needed to do some serious work, or play good games, I always rebooted in Windows.
So, long story short : a *toy*.
I know it was lot more for some people, but not for me. BeOS never attained a status where it was really useful for me. Yet, I can’t wait for OpenBeOS, just for the fun of fooling around again with it.
O my gawd,
They should have incorporated in Deleware, New York, yuck.
my 2 cents,
(Or maybe Nevada)
Donaldson
Now as soon as BEOS will boot and run on my dual Athlon system I will be happy.
“Linux is a Registered Trademark of Linus Torvalds.”
So, Joe Blow can trademark it.
Perhaps they’d simply prefer the trademark belong to the non-profit organization from the outset instead of a single individual.
Regardless, they’re caught up in some bureaucratic red tape. Give them a break.
It’s got a really nice (and well-documented “in lovely html”) C++ API.
[sigh]
XBe–Huh? Paraniod? Too is a word too.
I was talking about “OpenBeOS Responds to Community Discontent” Not you.
Once again I say that the community has no reason to suggest any complaints if they aren’t writting code. Once again I think they have been and are doing a great job.
For it’s time, it was great in terms of things like multimedia responsiveness. Since then, Linux and FreeBSD have far eclipsed it. BeOS has horrible I/O bottlenecks.
LOOOOL! I’d love to see you show that responsive GUI in Linux on a P450 with 64 megs of ram in KDE. How about displaying a couple of movies at the same time and still have responsiveness?
Linux and others are nowhere close to BeOS in terms of elegance and speed. In fact I think BeOS is still a couple of years ahead.
So the reason to why BeOS is popular and is a growing hype is because the ideas of BeOS is so new, it’s not a *Nix kernel in the bottom from the eighties… it’s made from scratch for todays needs not adjusted from the past to sort of manage the needs of today like Linux *LoL*.
Once you try it your simply hooked!
Beos was an exotic and sexy alternative to ms windows as opposed to unix wich most people find not exotic and not sexy even if it works better.
It’s fun and easy to use!
I’m sick of the winers like you. WHo TF cares about a F-ing name? Is that name so important to you that your undies are in little knots all over the place?
Frankly, Michael has shown incredible courtesy by coming out like this, expecially since the “complaints” were totally ridicolous and unreasonable. I just can’t figure this bunch of morons that whine and yap all the time and expect respectable people to answer their F-ing plea.
The user responsiveness is better in BeOS than in any other OS I have used (all Mac, Windows variants, and several Linuxes). The user is the central focus of the OS, not the behind the scenes internals. There is no “Wait” cursor. There is no need to wait for other processes to complete before doing something elsewhere in the system. The UI was very clean, robust and comfortable for such a youthful OS. It was designed to be VERY modular and therefore small, fast, flexible (you can make a usable OS in under 100MB), efficient and near real-time. File type management is handled better in BeOS than any other OS, ever. System-wide file translation feature that allows for modular expansion. Driver architecture doesn’t require a billion files dumped all over the system like Windows or a Unix. Libraries tended to be handled a little better (no junk sprawled all over the system) but this might simply have to do with youth (no time in which to develop DLL hell). The file system works almost like a database and offered functionality that was unseen at the time on Desktop OSes (journaling, customizable and “limitless” attribute support), real-time queries of drive content (on BFS volumes), easy volume management (no drive letter BS and no cryptic mount BS). The OS was easily ported to other hardware (was on PPC and x86 around the time of its demise and both ran exactly the same short of some driver and app availability differences). Had many other unique concepts that, sadly, didn’t get as much use as they should and could have (such as replicants).
For me, the list goes on and on. I was addicted after the FIRST day of using it. Sadly, the brilliant technical aspects were no match for the market conditions, Microsoft’s entrenchment and strong-arm tactics, the CHEAPASS nature of the alternative OS community in general (few people bought the OS or paid for the few superb apps that came out for it) and the very chicken & egg nature of introducing a new system that (rightfully) abandons backwards compatibility.
If Yellow Tab sells their upgrade/new version of BeOS, I will buy it for the simple addition of new drivers. If OpenBeOS becomes sucessful (releases a version 1) I will use it with much pleasure and contribute when I can.
Anyone any ideas of when an Alpha version could be released of OpenBeOS? Roughly, how long, say two years or later / sooner?
they predict that a beta version will be out by years end.
I know you were expecting this, but I’ll give you the generic answer: “When it’s ready.”
OBOS isn’t a company. They don’t set release dates nor do they expect it to be available anytime soon. We’d all like to see it completed and shipped tomorrow evening, but it just aint gonna happen. I for one enjoy following the progress of OBOS, and will enjoy it for as long as it takes to get to R1. It’s amazing what so few programmers have accompished thus far without any monetary compensation.
Where was I whining? I made a simple point. I never said anything abotu the importance of the name, I’d kinda like it if they could keep OpenBeOS but that’s a moot point. I didn’t say anything actually negative about the guy or OpenBeOS. It just seemed like he didn’t really say anything at all on the issue.
In regards to another’s comment up there, if revealing the name endangers their becomming a non-profit organization than he should’ve said something. The thought honestly didn’t even cross my mind as I kept reading.
There’s a difference between whining and making what looks to me like a valid comment.
Thanks Julan, I really appreciate that.
BeOS = the best OS user experience I have had on a computer. Nothing else comes close and Apple and MS will take another 10 years to get to where BeOS was with Version 5.0
I’m not talking Gimmic UI effects, I’m talking getting the most out of modern hardware with real task processing. It’s simple to use and very elegant.
I really admire the programers working on OpenBeOS especailly considering the circumstances under which they work. They are keeping the BeOS experience alive. If I could program I would be in there with them in an instant but my speciality is Tech support and Music and with current Opera production commitment’s I don’t have time for anything else. Still they have a No.1 advocate as there is nothing more I could want other than using a form of BeOS as an audio workstation which I think is what BeOS (or it’s derivatives) will really excell.
> If I could program I would be in there with them [snip]
Actually, there’s probably a lot of interested folks who *can* program, but who still aren’t in there with them: application-level programmers — folks with domain-specific knowledge but no systems-programming knowledge.
Wait till you can actually boot and run OBOS; my bet is that app programmers will then come out of the woodwork. I mean, it’s a neat platform to program for, ya know?
Wait till you can actually boot and run OBOS; my bet is that app programmers will then come out of the woodwork. I mean, it’s a neat platform to program for, ya know?
I don’t mean to Troll but it was always a neat platform to program on, and yet very few commercial companies released software for it. I know there were several small companies who released software but I don’t remember seeing anything from a company I’d recognise (apart from Gobe who rock(ed) ).
The most important thing for BeOS for me was the fact you would actually do what you want without having to learn to work with it. That combined with multimedia capabilities i’m still looking for nowadays. Within what was available you just didn’t feel limited, more inspired, and the feeling it gave me was it suddenly was Summer inside the pc.
Hope these projects will want to recreate not just BeOS, but also this perception and inspiration, really focusing on the desktop, not as a sibling/legacy of the server or professional version. People want hassleless intelligent use of their time, and BeOS just came very close to that.
The difference between the situation with Be Inc. and OpenBeOS is of course its openess. No secrets, no focus-shifts instead the possibility to actively influence the direction of the project. Good, I say.
Steinberg was working on a version of Nuendo for BeOS before the famous Be Inc focus shift shafted that project. On the same hardware the Beta BeOS version ran rings around the Win2K version (I wonder why?). This app would totally rock my world or even a version of Cubase SX which we have on Win and Mac OSX (the core being based from the Nuendo engine).
Another app that did see daylight was Tune Tracker and look at how that turned out. Radio Automation without the $80K price tag. This software really shows the potential of BeOS and it’s derivatives and no, and I repeat, no other OS platform can offer this.
That coupled with what Sander said “That combined with multimedia capabilities i’m still looking for nowadays. Within what was available you just didn’t feel limited, more inspired, and the feeling it gave me was it suddenly was Summer inside the pc.
” is what makes the BeOS experience.
Sort of off topic.
Will Zeta have DivX support?
DivX works under BeOS… codecs are available for it…
…BeOS was a fantastic experience. Even by today’s standards, it has features that just aren’t available in modern OSes. Some are getting closer, but not there yet. File attributes are totally awesome.
From a user perspecitive, the GUI is very responsive, zero noticeable lag on low end hardware. Everything is intuitive, software installation is a snap. Usually you just copy the proggy into a directory and run it. No need for uninstall routines, just delete the proggy. Workspaces are really nice, like having multiple desktops available. I’d typically run my file sharing and web browsing in one, have good ‘ol Soundplay jamming tunes in another, use my graphics apps in another. It was amazing how many apps could be running at one time with no noticeable slowdown. I had Adamation’s Personal Studio, which was a video editing program. For $35, it was great. Could have used a bit more polish, but had so many more features than the other consumer level programs and cost half the price. It was all real-time and had ten layers for whatever media you wanted, not like the competition which usually had 2 dedicated audio layers and one video layer.
The main problem with BeOS is the lack of modern hardware support. That was the major holdup for alot of people. Unfortunately, my old BeOS pc blew up in a power surge and I haven’t played with it since. Most of the stuff I do is in Wn XP at the moment, but I’m looking forward to Yellowtab’s Zeta and OBOS. I’m definitely going to be getting back into it once a product is released.