Ex-Be engineer Dianne Hackborn (now at PalmSource) gave an interview at the BeOSJournal.org and comments on many different things, including YellowTAB’s Zeta: “Personally I find Zeta depressing. From what I have seen, it is basically the work we had in progress at Be plus various things dumped on top. Unfortunately what we had at Be was half-finished, if that. I hate seeing all of the half-finished parts of the UI being thrown around as a real product.” Dianne is not the first ex-Be engineer commenting on Zeta’s potential (or lack there of). Another three ex-Be employees have also commented recently.
Another ex-Be Engineer Comments on YellowTAB Zeta
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Former Be developer: “BeOS is dead.”
That’s gotta be a real kick in the guts for the guys still trying to get it off life support…
Of course, he’s right. BeOS at one point had a chance of being a real contender, but let’s face it: the jig is up, and it’s now in the same place as the Amiga…
-Erwos
That is a hard kick in the guts as you say it, Erwos!
I myself am still doubt I should buy Zeta en use it instead of 5 pro…
It would be interesting to interview the engeneers who worked on
the BeIDE. How can a serious company release an operating system
without any control on the old development tools?
Actually, I do understand the feelings of the ex-BeOS developers and what they had in mind. But over is over. There are other owners of the code now and they decide what to do with it and what not.
It sounds a bit harsh I know but it’s like you build up a house and then some years later need to sell it again due to financial problems and whine/complain that the new owners made a hole in a wall where you as previous owner had other intentions with that wall. You have basically nothing to say anymore because it’s not yours.
It’s becoming more and more obvious that YT is just a bunch of guys with hex editers. Even if they manage to make big enough improvements, surely Palmsource will notice and sue them. I think the only reason that they haven’t been destroyed in court is because Palm dosn’t realy care.
The only BeOS that may have a future is OBOS, and the only reason that any of the BeOS systems have survived is the POSIX complience, which allows Linux stuff to be ported easliy. BeOS and Linux have a sybiotic relationship at this point.
I think that most ex-Be engineers pretty much share the same thought: At its peak (1999) BeOS was being worked on by several dozen highly skilled engineers, at a burn rate of 2 million dollars a month (this is public information, I’m not disclosing any big secret here).
Fast-forward almost 5 years ahead, Win2k and WinXP have been released, so have 4 versions of MacOS X, and Unix systems have made quite some progress on the desktop as well. Hardware has moved a lot at well, to the point where the same software elegance and tradeoffs aren’t necessarily required any more since many issues can be solved by brute force. In this context, the investment in bring up any OS up from scratch or even from a 3-year old codebase is going to be substantial, to the point where a whole lot of money will have to be put in the project before it can really be competitive. Assuming that you manage to work twice as fast as the other OS shops out there (i.e. with twice as many top-notch engineers as Be had at its peak), you still have 3 years to catch up with. That’s 150 million dollars to have something in 3 years that can hope to carve one or two tiny niches here and there. At that point you haven’t caught up with the compatitiion, you still probably need 3 years to catch up and pass them. Pour in another 150 million dollars.
300 million dollars. That’s the kind of number that many of us have in mind when it comes to evaluating the chance of BeOS starting to have a chance of stealing market share from other OSes in 2010.
Nice to hear the truth. Of course since Zeta doesn’t have the kernel code I wouldn’t buy it anyway since they obviously weren’t looking at the long term picture.
I’m willing to bet that the future of closed-source OS development will see the piecemeal approach. Scitech’s SNAP drivers alone would probably save years and tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in the effort to put out a new operating system.
They dont have the kernal source. > 1 gig bug will never be fixed, or if it is, it will be a weird hack. There is only two players left anymore, MS and Apple, unless you like futzing around with linux. I dont. I’m going Mac.
“Of course since Zeta doesn’t have the kernel code I wouldn’t buy it anyway since they obviously weren’t looking at the long term picture.”
I have been lead to believe that Zeta wants to replace the kernel with NewOS at some point, and many parts of the internals with OpenBeOS code, so they rather ARE thinking long term, but it doesn’t seem they have an exact, definitive timeline for this to occur (of course, I can’t say that for sure).
As far as the ex-Be employees are concerned, it really is like the House example given above. Zeta honestly thinks they are doing something worthwhile, and they are putting their hearts into it. It isn’t just a job for them, from what I’ve seen. And I think for a lot of ex-Be-ers it’s was or became Just A Job, not something many were really passionate about.
Who cares about the economic viability… I think Zeta is really only selling it to make enough $$ to survive, to ensure they can keep on working on something they love.
They haven’t given up even if others have.
> I have been lead to believe that Zeta wants to replace the kernel with NewOS at some point, and many parts of the internals with OpenBeOS code
No, this is not true anymore. Bernd made it clear recently that they won’t use such parts for Zeta. It is impossible to incorporate them correctly and still have 100% binary compatibiltiy with older apps.
what? I think binary compatibility is definitely something worth sacrificing for overall longevity.
BeOS is over. The brilliant folks who were behind it are no longer working on it, and rebuilding the old BeOS, especially with binary compatibility, is a total wasted effort with no commercial market.
Panther is nice. It’s still not as good as BeOS is in many areas, but OS X will be in a year or three, and at least it is “real” UNIX (for better or for worse), and has applications available for it.
Let BeOS die. All this “development” is not only a joke, it’s really insulting to Be and the original developers of BeOS.
Steve
There are 3,000 apps on BeBits. If you lose them, you are toast, because most of these developers have left the BeOS community already. Zeta will be left with 100-150 apps which will render it _useless_ as an OS. OSes are used to solve problems not to be admired for their window decorations. Microsoft and Apple know this well, and this is why even XP can run MS-DOS programs (because they are businesses who still use such apps!) and Apple HAD to incorporate MacOS9 runtime support on OSX. Without binary compatibility you start from zero, and YellowTAB can not afford to do that. It would be a great business mistake. And a great feature for its engineers of course, but engineers are not the ones who make these decisions, management is.
had the source code to Dano (BeOS 6)? Isn’t Zeta based on it?
Now I am confused.
http://www.yellowtab.com/ has a news update.
>> I have been lead to believe that Zeta wants to replace the kernel with NewOS at some point, and many parts of the internals with OpenBeOS code
>No, this is not true anymore. Bernd made it clear recently that they won’t use such parts for Zeta. It is impossible to incorporate them correctly and still have 100% binary compatibiltiy with older apps.
You’re wrong.
Why should this be the case? OBOS will even be binary compatible to BeOS R5 as well and from what I know there are already some (very small) parts of OBOS being used in Zeta.
If you see value in purchasing zeta or using OBOS one day then fine do it. If not then don’t. Its really that simple.
people act like the views of “be’s engineers” are the word of god that must be followed and listened to. they are entitled to their views and the rest of us are entitled to not care about them in the least bit.
I did buy RC1 and I did it on “Faith”. As a former BeOS user I am willing to give YT the chance to get it right. Some people might call me crazy or stupid or whatever. It is my money and I did it because I would love it see Zeta have its shot. I did it knowing full well about the kernal issues, this does not effect me at this time but will eventually. So, I parted with my money. Time will tell if I am a sucker or not. I also plan to purchace software from companies/people who write for BeOS to support their efforts as well. We will see what they do…. But as for me the kernal issues and the VM issues will need to be addressed before I will lay money out for 1.5 or later. Choice people, it is all about choice. Take care all….
…now I’m Mac OS X. I have to say I’m much more thrilled about my Mac then I was ever with BeOS. Plenty of real commercial apps, the power of unix, yearly updates, beautiful interface, innovation. The other great thing is that a lot of former Be engineers are now working at Apple.
I only wish I had the bucks to get a G5…
I feel the same way. Yellowtab have made some serious mistakes with regard to execution but hopefully they will learn. Just read Bill Gates book and you will see even MS made some serious boo boo’s. Of course it is going to be much harder for YellowTab.
The kernel issue is a non issue in my opinion right now. In a few years it will be an issue though.
i strongly encourage those of you who have not read the innovator’s dilemna to do so.
one of the main points in that book (applicable to YT) is that there is an audience for a product that is simpler, less costly, and has fewer features than the mainstream.
Yellowtab, obos, are in a similar position. No zeta might not have all the features of os X, linux or xp but it still provides a pleasurable user experience and with minimal hardware requirements.
The largest markets in the future (for growth) are developing nations (china, india, packistan, africa, latin america). They want a cheap computer with a good experience and don’t really care about the views of computer elitists. OBOS and/or zeta could find a sufficient role there to keep the fight going if they play their cards right.
mainstream computers are overpowered, overpriced, and over featured. The needs of the majority can now be satisfied with a cheaper, smaller, and less feature rich set up. computer elitists…you are out of touch with the market and masses.
But as for me the kernal issues and the VM issues will need to be addressed before I will lay money out for 1.5 or later.
But, have you seen the date of kernel build? That shows Zeta doesn’t has the access to the kernel source code. Kernel is only part that is very important, so I ain’t going to pay for the old kernel if they don’t have any access to it.
Full ack!
I know some of the people involved with Zeta/OBOS, etc. and they’re all working very hard and believe in a future for Zeta/OBOS. Those people are not doing it for personal profit but are working very hard on their dream. I hope that there will be more choice and that “another world is possible”
Yep, maybe I am an idealist, but I’m not that unrealistic.
Hell, moving to GCC 3.x breaks binary compatibility. You expect Zeta to stick with 2.95 (or whatever it uses) forever? At some point (not now, but eventually) they will have to progress or Zeta and yT will die. I would rather have 100 good, modern apps available than 20 different text editors, hundreds of weird little utilities that arent that useful, uncompleted web browsers missing tons of features, and so on. You get my drift.
Look at windows, it must have 100s of thousands of programs, 90% of which are virtually useless for more than 95% of the users out there.
Provide *good* web browsing, chat, email and a few other keys like that and you have your bases covered for a good chunk of a potential audience. Add on and image viewing/editing app with a decent feature set, an MP3/music player, and dev tools, and you have even more covered!
It’s really a matter of quantity vs quality, of which I prefer the latter.
Now, the only excuse my PC-using friends give me for keeping with x86/Windows (vs moving to a Mac) is games. I dont mean 15 Solitaire clones, I mean UT2K3, Counter Strike, and whatever else it is the kids play these days. Computer games are probably one of the most difficult types of product to release, and porting them is that much harder. I dont expect anything besides Windows to be the main gaming system for most users for some time to come. (Well, except for consoles, which I prefer anyway) Wow did *I* get off-topic
I also bought RC1 on faith. Unlike David above I was never a full or part time BeOS user. However I’ve used just about everything else, in fact primarily Solaris.
I do not understand why the majority of respondents so far and other similar news items seem to have an attitude towards Zeta that’s at best reprehensible. What is the problem, that they’re charging money? If MS can charge $300 to regurgitate NT every 2 years Zeta are welcome to modernise BeOS for a third of that. Or is it just that they’re not Be? Be are not carrying the flame anymore, would you really rather noone did? Perhaps you’re suspicious that Zeta won’t tell you of their plans or specific technical details. Noone with proprietary code ever does (as you probably didn’t notice), yet somehow Zeta are all but required to reveal every design document and confidential contract before anyone will so much as consider dismounting their high horse.
It’s sheer ignorance.
As for the ex-Be engineer’s opinion I don’t see the logic of it, for one thing it’s formed from previews of at best a release candidate i.e. not finished product, which few have actually used yet (including myself) and frankly noone is qualified to judge it as one. Secondly, I can’t imagine a world where it would be “much better” to have work you’ve done thrown out. At best that’s simple defeatism, to my mind. A trait apparently endemic in the remains of the community, and if that is the case, BeOS certainly is dead but this time it’s by your hands.
But, have you seen the date of kernel build? That shows Zeta doesn’t has the access to the kernel source code. Kernel is only part that is very important, so I ain’t going to pay for the old kernel if they don’t have any access to it.
Yes, I have seen the date of the kernel. My current opinion is this. If they have no money to continue then they have no chance at all. That is why I did this on “Faith” and that is also why they they will have to address this before I will spend money on the next version. I will give them the bennifit of the doubt this once, lets hope they pull it together….
…and Mac OS X is the future!
Once there was a system which was superior and years ahead, it was based on revolutionary ideas and concepts, it had a beautiful look, it had tons of great software and it ran on perfect hardware…
…this was in the late 80ies, early 90ies and the OS was called NEXTSTEP! After that there was an interesting try to “reinvent” NEXTSTEP, it was called BeOS, but they failed (as well) – due to many reasons…
Luckily for us in the mid 90ies Apple came and bought NeXT and finally NEXTSTEP starts breathing again in the form of Mac OS X, including new ideas, new technologies, even better hardware, more software – seriously, what do you want more?
As an ex-BeOS user, I’m sorry to hear that a lot of Be engineers feel that the OS is dead and that continued development on it is pointless. But frankly, I hope I hope the OBEOS and YTAB (assuming that what they’re doing is legal, which is questionable) keep working anyway.
I think that by now, its obvious that little innovation comes out of huge companies like Microsoft (or Ford or GM). When they *do* innovate, its usually by buying smaller companies that develop the technology (DirectX, .NET CLR, in the case of MS). So we shouldn’t discourage small projects like these — they’re the source of much of the new stuff that happens in the computer world.
I also think that it is pointless to frame every discussion of OSs on how it relates to the masses. At this point, I’m fed-up with the masses. Time after time, they let better technology die in favor of more hyped technology(*). They have no idea of whats good, or what is good for them. Thus, I couldn’t care less if a progeny of BeOS ever hits the mainstream. If it has enough of a community to sustain itself, that’s all I need. As a Linux user, I’m happy now. If Linux never gets any bigger, I’ve still got all the apps I need and all the hardware support I need. I don’t care if it too ever hits the mainstream — to fulfil my needs, it doesn’t have to.
(*) This phenomenon seems to be intrinsicly linked with monopoly. I’m studying to be an aerospace engineer, and the engineering world is so different from the computer world that its not even funny. We don’t use antiquated tools and methodologies just because that’s what we’ve always used. We don’t care if a technology is “mainstream” or widely-used as long as it fits our needs. I think this is because the aerospace industry is highly competitive. We can’t afford to preserve the status quo because that would make us lose our competitive edge. Thus, the best designs and technologies suceeed, because the industry is a never-ending rat-race of corporations trying to out-do each other. In contrast, the computer industry is like the US car industry. They’re happy with using 20-year old, warmed-over designs, because they’ve got protection from competition. The government gives them a nice tarrif shelter, and people are always willing to buy their products just because they are “made in the USA.”
Rayiner hit the nail on the head. Whenever the masses take Path A, I take Path B, or preferably the opposite direction.
I don’t usually watch the extra DVD that comes with most movies unless I REALLY love the movie. That is how I feel with Zeta. I know it isn’t R6 or R7 or R8. I know it has limits and faults but I would be happy to add it to my collection. Software isn’t about a target or a limit. It is a progress that will never end. That is how we put a bunch of people to work who can’t work at any other job.
Really? I take the better path. Interesting that you choose Path B only to be different, not for any technical or logical reasons.
Eugenia:
Bernd made it clear recently that they won’t use such parts for Zeta.
Where/when did he say that?
It is impossible to incorporate them correctly and still have 100% binary compatibiltiy with older apps.
I was under the impression that OBOS was aiming at binary compatibility with R5 – or at least more than the 3-4% binary compatibility that 150 out of 3k would be.
Brend has been talking out of both sides of his mouth for a while now. At first he was saying OBOS is the future and they planned to the use kernel as soon a possible. Now this. He is always saying he supports the community in interviews, but meanwhile in private he sends threatening letters to developers.
I don’t particularly care about what Yellow Tab do – weather it’s the old BeOS warmed up or if it is innovative – the point is that there will be a usable version of BeOS available once again. I’m now running BeOS max and I have no problems with it. It’s just as usable as Linux – I use windows for games and DirectX Development no matter what other OS i’m using.
I would really like yT to make a good go of it though – as already mentioned, they simply need a big enough user base to keep them going, and I believe they can achieve this. I think it could well require a ‘Personal Edition’ though as not many people will want to part with money for something totally unfamiliar to them.
One final comment is this…. I know OSX is good. I know mac hardware is good – but PLEASE stop trying to make out it’s a better alternative. It would be if people could afford it – I’m a student and have been for a few years now but I can still afford to keep my x86 box pretty much up to date with occasional upgrades. There is NO way I could possibly afford to own a mac and stay current – if Apple really want to grab some market they need to cut their prices. As it stands at this time and from my point of view, yT have got far more support from me than apple could ever hope to gain.
Good luck to you guys – I will be purchasing when I’ve raised the funds – a student discount could be nice
Let BeOS die (Steve Klingsporn) :
is a total wasted effort with no commercial market.
I don’t think OpenBeOS/B.E.O.S/FreeBee are for the commercial market.
yep. (204.111.16.—) :
There is only two players left anymore, MS and Apple, unless you like futzing around with linux.
No, you’re wrong. If you can count on linux, you should also count on *BSD. Well you can say two players because there are only two big companies produce desktop OSes that take up the most of the market share and there is no real player in free UNIX-like OSes. RedHat? no i don’t think so.
Or lack there of. Zeta has no vision, they’re just hacking at old code that already failed in the commercial market place once. Circa 1999 beos was innovative. 2003, it’s just old garbage. Zeta, innovate or go bankrupt.
You might want to add the comment of Rayiner Hashem to your news post as well.
“here is an audience for a product that is simpler, less costly, and has fewer features than the mainstream.”
[my emphasis]
That’s no longer possible in this market. There is no “less costly” option than Free Unix, your friend lends you the CD and you install as much or as little as you need.
The computer in the office and home is a very different thing from a toaster, or a central heating system. It has no one set purpose. Every few years some idiot thinks he’ll write down a list of what “ordinary people” do with their computers, build a special purpose appliance that does only those things, and then make a killing…
By the time it ships, consumers have discovered (as they regularly do) that their computer can do NEW things. Things the appliance didn’t anticipate. Worse still, despite being “easier” your appliance generates a lot of support calls. The grandkids / neighbours / guy at work who usually fixes their computer problems can’t help with your custom software & weird interface.
This happens over, and over again, and some rich people have become much poorer by not understanding it. The computer is _programmable_ that makes it special in a way that General Electric’s motor was not, that Edison’s bulb was not, and that probably no other invention ever will be.
3rd world countries are embracing Free Unix, because of the cost, and will stay with it because it lets them compete on a fair playing field. Will they mostly run NetBSD, or Linux, or …? Who cares, all Free Unix users win either way.
what about (a) building on atheos or (b) taking the most uptodate linux kernel, GUI, and building an beos like os around it.
personally i would build it using either POWERPC or SUPERH ISA.
BeOS is Dead? Wow… there goes 50% of my computer storage room and 3 bfs partitions. If it is dead then how can I still be using it?
BTW, the other 50% is used by Suse Linux and Windows. Windows I have because of my work.
Suse I have to play games on. 🙂 Diablo II runs faster on the same machine in Linux than it does natively on Windows.
Well, it is true. BeOS is dead.
But, we have a nice new platform, mimicking the BeOS features and advantages, and we have the code: OpenBeOS.
OpenBeOS is where the current BeOS distros will merge to, or so at least i feel. Everything else is just interim releases to satisfy the masses of the community.
I am still in the community, as are many many many others who code to the advantage of the future.
The BeOS legacy and tradition will live on. BeOS will not, it has already died. Unless Palm decided to sell the code to me for a few dollars (yeah, right.. that would be awesome, though).
The BeOS community will probably be split like this in the coming years:
YEARS FROM NOW:
Dano Base (Zeta, PhOS) / R5 Base (MAX Edition, etc..) / both
1 : 20/60/20
2 : 30/40/30
3 : 20/30/40/10 (OBOS, betas)
3.5 : 10/20/30/40
4 : 2/10/15/everyone else
4.5 : OBOS R2+ 100%, some dual booting with OBOS R1 or original BeOS
My guess, something like that.
Once OBOS reaches R2, it will be equal, or better than the then-current M$ offerings for most people who would ever run AltOSes to begin with.
Now, I am *VERY* certain that there will be (if not already) OBOS distros that may reach the R2 status before the OpenBeOS people get there.
We are moving into the future.. the long-term future. Now, only if we could get a few million to get this thing done a year or so sooner, we could beat M$ to market… or… better yet, come out just AFTER Longhorn.. maybe a month or so.. because there will be the typical mania involved.
Anyway, enuf said..
–The loon
YT has had a completely working version of zeta for over a year, and now they are SELLING RC1? ridiculous.
Just got Zeta in the mail today. But it won’t start on my Apple. Anyone have any ideas?
“That’s no longer possible in this market. There is no “less costly” option than Free Unix, your friend lends you the CD and you install as much or as little as you need.”
i don’t agree for several reasons. first i considered zeta and obos, the latter will probably also be free. secondly support counts. A lot of clients might want support. third hardware has cost. Linux needs a lot more hardware than beos (at least most distros). if you can get a kick butt experience using obos or zeta on a 500 mhz celeron you still save money compared to a p4 running at 1.8 ghz running linux. Last is complexity. Linux is more complex than zeta and takes more time to use. linux ends up “costing” more in the time it takes you to do things.
there is another issue. All zeta needs to do (obos does not need this) is to earn enough to survive. i don’t know the run rate but if they sell zeta for $15 then make $1.5 million with 100,000 copies (not that much for the 3 billion people in the developing world). If they sell cheapo pcs too (like they are) they can get to those revenues quicker.
i really like bernds strategy. He is avoiding all of be’s mistakes. He is focusing on a large potential market (developing world) as well as hobby and multimedia. And he is offering pcs with beos bundled. There were never enough multi-media users out there for be to get back its 150 million quick enough, be’s strategy.
why does this individual’s opinion carry any weight?
those who actually read the article will note that she was not at be inc. for long nor were her contributions significant to the operating system.
i also noticed that she is commenting on a product that she does not posess. she is merely sharing her views on zeta from afar. yellowtab has taken a lot of time to adapt the source code into what they at least think should be in a product. i don’t think they spent it twiddling their thumbs until now only to release an operating system that is identical to the one be inc. had created. there has been a lot of talk on these forums about file versions and dates being the same as those in dano but and i have not touched zeta so i also cannot comment but i think we should give yellowtab the benefit of the doubt for now and not make brash comments such as dianne did.
frankly i think eugenia’s word should carry more weight at this point in time. at least she has actually sat down in front of zeta for a period that would make her qualified to critique it not to mention she sees things from a user’s standpoint and has to be more accountable to the public than a bummed out programmer.
in closing: this interview should not change people’s decision to buy or not buy zeta. yellowtab is one that will be getting the next beos out to you and nobody else so supporting them helps to continue the beos legacy but you shouldn’t throw money at them if zeta does not have merits worth purchasing. only you are qualified to assess said merits. get crackin’
ps: my shift keys are both broken
“No, you’re wrong. If you can count on linux, you should also count on *BSD. Well you can say two players because there are only two big companies produce desktop OSes that take up the most of the market share”
Fallacy. What you state here is A) market shares proof a product is a ”real” player in a market B) this is static data.
If A would be true, then why did MS killed off BeOS with their antitrust & OEM appeal to force. Why are the Halloween documents Real? Is McIntosh not a player in the audio market because of their less than 1% market share?
If B would be true, then why did MS as company started off with 0% market share and won ~90%? Why does GNU/Linux have won market share because companies, individuals, NGO’s and governments run it? Why does the world change anyway?
This besides the fact that market share isn’t easy to to get known; lies, damn lies and statistics.
Can you proof A and B?
>There is no “less costly” option than Free Unix
“Linux is only free if your time has no value”
That’s probably true for most OSnews readers but not for me.
My time is costly, very costly.
The time needed to get comfortable with Linux, reading all the man-pages etc. would probably cost me ~700.000$. I rather pay the few bugs for WinXP Pro, thank you.
I followed the BeOS mailing lists and newsgroups a while back and Dianne was always offering helpful and smart advice. This was a nice little interview to read.
By the way, this woman has such an attractive intellect — are there any pics (no, not that kind) of her on the web? Just curious.
>>>why does this individual’s opinion carry any weight?
>>>those who actually read the article will note that she was not at be inc. for long nor were her contributions significant to the operating system.
It actually carries a lot more weight than all the other more famous ex-Be’ers combined (i.e. even more weight than JBQ) — because this individual stayed until the last day of Be Inc. and then went to work for PalmSource. This is not about whether she knows kernel hacking better than JBQ or Manuel Jesus Petit de Gabriel (he is the real kernel master who taught JBQ about kernel hacking). The timeline gives you much better information.
>>>i also noticed that she is commenting on a product that she does not posess. she is merely sharing her views on zeta from afar. yellowtab has taken a lot of time to adapt the source code into what they at least think should be in a product. i don’t think they spent it twiddling their thumbs until now only to release an operating system that is identical to the one be inc. had created. there has been a lot of talk on these forums about file versions and dates being the same as those in dano but and i have not touched zeta so i also cannot comment but i think we should give yellowtab the benefit of the doubt for now and not make brash comments such as dianne did.
Remember that she worked until the last day of Be Inc. and she CURRENTLY works at PalmSource, where the source code is — she has legal access to the last daily build of BeOS/BeIA. And she merely comments that all the warts and bugs on the last daily build of BeOS/BeIA are still present in zeta. How did she know that — yellowtab tells us that this function doesn’t work and that function doesn’t work.
I’ve ordered Zeta simply because I consider it to be a stop-gap measure until OBOS matures. It allows us to use BeOS on newer hardware, and should be satisfactory for the next 24 months. I believe that most of the BeOS world has similar intentions to myself.
Yellowtab also realise that they cannot have any long term plans which do not involve OBOS. Thats why they are adding value to a base BeOS distro with their apps, which you cannot get anywhere else. This way when OBOS reaches release stage, they can become an OBOS distribution. This is the only viable roadmap YellowTab can follow as a commercial business.
BeOS is dead. Zeta is an interim solution which will keep us going for the next 24 months. The future is with OBOS. Linux distributions are dropping / abanding desktop support in droves – who will cater for the desktop and home user markets? There is a vacancy, a need for a simple, elegant, fast OS. OBOS is positioning itself nicely to fulfil that void.
“third hardware has cost. Linux needs a lot more hardware than beos (at least most distros). if you can get a kick butt experience using obos or zeta on a 500 mhz celeron you still save money compared to a p4 running at 1.8 ghz running linux. Last is complexity. Linux is more complex than zeta and takes more time to use. linux ends up “costing” more in the time it takes you to do things”
One does not need a P4 1.8 gHz to run Linux, neither for GNU/Linux, nor for a GNU/Linux distribution, nor for KDE/GNOME. What one needs for KDE/GNOME, i’d argue for KDE 3.x (faster than 2.x) a 500 mHz with 256 MB RAM with a moderate eyecandy is pretty much OK. Regardless of other aspects of the hardware which is also important.
“Linux distributions are dropping / abanding desktop support in droves – who will cater for the desktop and home user markets?”
What? RedHat stops, Fedora starts. Futher nothing has changed afaict.
> Manuel Jesus Petit de Gabriel (he is the real kernel master who taught JBQ about kernel hacking). The timeline gives you much better information.
JBQ was at Be two years before Manuel join in the Be team.
Manuel and JBQ and the rest of the guys were always discussing kernel and other developments when they had the chance, but that does not mean that anyone was teaching anyone else. Indeed, Manuel is a great developer as other Be engineers were amazing too, like R. Jason Sams, Pierre, George…
And I’m quite sure that the future will tell me to go with OBOS! Mac OS X is definitely a very nice OS, but what people seem to ignore is that what OS X needs a G5 to do, BeOS needs a PII to do.
And sure, Intel/IBM just Looooove that the systems continue to drain power and more power from the CPUs so they can continue to sell their CPUs.
However, figuring how “slick” BeOS/OBOS is, I’m surprised that things such as Symbian don’t get replaced…
You people may give 2 cents to whatever, I give my 20$ to OBOS, and I guess many of you negative people have to get together to compensate those 20$ now don’t you =)
It’s all about choice =)
BeOS is dead,that’s ok.. but not his spirit.. hence the flood of comments
My question is will Zeta run ok on my 3 G Dell dimension?
BeOS 5.03 and Max 3.0 do not report the proper CPU speed and the system clock runs way too fast causing my email to be dated in the future
If Zeta can address some of these HW glitches then it is worth the money. Longer term OBOS offers a lot of promise.
Apple is where I started but I don’t think I could ever go back to such a closed/controlled HW/SW system even if the cost were roughly comparable. If Apple were to open up the HW side and go with Intel then I could consider it but I really like Spec’ing and configuring my own HW (but not to the point of writing drivers
MSFT will never be favored in this household simply for ethical reasons even though I used to admire them.
“Just got Zeta in the mail today. But it won’t start on my Apple. Anyone have any ideas?”
Zeta does not support PPC machines. There is no way to make it run on a Mac.
Ask that question to the dedicated folks that still write new apps/software for BeOS. For them, BeOS isn’t dead.
Tell that to the radio station that is buying me Zeta and Tunetracker 2 Pro.
I think that most of the ex-Be engineers look at the efforts of OpenBeos and Yellowtab through their business eyes. Yes, it is very unlikely that these efforts will pay off as a huge commercial success, but there are stil people that follow it, and desire an alternative. I know people that refuse to send email and surf the web because they are tired of getting bit by MS virii. Theres a lot of people that just enjoy the hacking aspects of it too.
One thing that kinda surprises me though is how so many computer people just yank the cord and completely stop using an OS that they once used so often. I have 3 computers right here. A dual-G4, OS X. An AMD XP running Be. And an AMD Duron running win2k. Am I the only computer nerd that likes to be surounded by computers of all sorts, and OS’s of all sorts?
Why is there such a big focus on ex-Be engineers???
Sure, they know a lot, but letting them take this much space?
i think it’s unnecessary.
On another note, the only thing with great potential is OBOS, and that is something most ppl seem to have realized. And of course YellowTab has a chance to survive, if they continue to do good stuff for BeOS and incorporating OBOS tech as time goes, and maybe do some app-development on their own, a little like they do now. And like Apple does now…
yT is offering an improved version of BeOS today that will run on a lot of modern equipment. As an end user my experience of using Zeta will be what counts not questions about the kernel and so on.
I find it strange that Zeta is compared with OBOS. Zeta at lease has a kernel, the kernel for OBOS is not yet finished and there is no indication of when it will be ready, one year, two years, three…?
Zeta will run a number of machines, OBOS won’t yet run on anything.
I really hope that OBOS succeeds, it will guarantee the future of the platform as no one will be able to lock the source away in a forgotten dungeon just for the sake of doing so! But progress seems painfully slow and it looks like we shall be waiting for it for some time yet!
It is possible to buy Zeta today despite the sheer awefulness of PayPal!
Count me in with Rayner Hashem, Matt Lacey, vasper, ryan [who have I missed?]. The rest of you sound like so many vultures picking over a carcass. OK, so BeOS is officially dead but will always have its devotees. I care less about your market opinions & doomsaying & your snide remarks about Bernd. I don ‘t expect Zeta RC1 to be perfect but am anxiously awaiting its arrival. I’m grateful for Yellowtab’s work & I will support all other BeOS-type efforts.
I agree completely with Rayner – (first and maybe last time in my life!) – and every point he made in his post except the “made in USA” detail, which I think is irrelevant. A monopoly is a monopoly, no matter if it’s from USA, Pakistan or Mars. I know “USA” hits a lot of raw nerves these days, but let’s try to be rational.
Yeah, BeOS -is- the best desktop OS on x86 in many aspects. Win2k is excellent in many areas, but BeOS has so many advantages, and it really is a pleasure to use. I’m saying this as a Win2k user, I know what I’m talking about. BeOS is still more pleasure. BeOS makes your computer more noble.
The “Made in USA” comment wasn’t a slight on the US. I’m just pointing out that its another reason why US car companies don’t need to innovate — they’ve got a pretty cushy position as it is.
“”Made in USA” comment”
i agree with everything else you have to say but i am not so sure the US car companies have a cushy position. of all the major auto producing nations the US may have the highest market share of foreign cars (i think its around 30-35% largely due to toyota and honda).
ryan:
). if you can get a kick butt experience using obos or zeta on a 500 mhz celeron you still save money compared to a p4 running at 1.8 ghz running linux.
Sure, a p4 would be more expensive if you already have a celeron, but if you have to buy a new machine and have the choice between the two, I practically guarantee you that the p4 will be cheaper. Why? Because they’re currently producing them in mass quantities, and that makes them cheaper (compare old SDRAM at Fry’s to DDR, for example. It’s slower, crappier, and much more expensive). You don’t always get good deals on yesterday’s technology.
Besides, claiming that the 500 mHz Celeron will give you the same level of performance is 1.) really, really stupid or 2.) you knew the truth but decided to make an outright lie. Sure, the BeOS windows would be nice and responsive, but the apps themselves wouldn’t be any faster! It’s not like responsiveness = productivity. Play some full-screen movies, some intensive games (if the BeOS could), do some compiles, render some 3d scenes or movies….the Celeron will get spanked. There’s more to life than dragging and resizing windows, you know.
Max:
My time is costly, very costly.
I don’t mean to be too rude, but this had me laughing like crazy. “My time is so incredibly valuable that I’m going to read OSnews and read/post comments about a tiny OS.”
Anonymous:
what people seem to ignore is that what OS X needs a G5 to do, BeOS needs a PII to do.
This is such bullshit; it’s the same crap that ryan was peddling earlier. Render a DVD’s MPEG-2 stream on a G5 and on a BeOS P2 (if you could) and tell me which one is faster. Or try a compile. Or maybe video chat (again, if you could). Or run Quake 2 (since BeOS doesn’t support Quake 3). Or play multiple large-sized movies at once (none of the 256×256, low-quality, no-advanced-compression speciality hack demos that Be used to give). Enjoy watching your BeOS machine get spanked beyond belief. Yes, OS X’s windows resize more slowly (if you don’t count the BeOS’ flicker and the ugly crap that Net+ and many other BeOS apps leave behind while resizing because there’s no double-buffering), and its icon notifications are slower. That doesn’t mean the BeOS is faster; it means certain things are more responsive. Great for you if you do nothing but resize windows all day, I guess.
The BeOS fans always claim that the BeOS has some magic pixie dust that makes everything all fast. Wrong. The interface is very responsive because of the kernel design and because it’s an extremely simplistic drawing model (compared with, say, OS X’s double-buffering and compisiting). That doesn’t make it fast for everything. The BeOS had relatively low file I/O speeds, and people doing compiling comparisons good CPU-intensive activity) back in the day noticed that they were far slower on the BeOS. It’d be fun to see some more benchmarks of real apps, but, of course, they don’t exist outside of the slow BeZilla.
Zenja:
Linux distributions are dropping / abanding desktop support in droves – who will cater for the desktop and home user markets? There is a vacancy, a need for a simple, elegant, fast OS.
If there’s a vacancy and the market’s so ripe, why do you think that the Linux companies are abandoning it (to the extent that they are)? Maybe it’s because they realized that consumers don’t want the hassle of application/hardware incompatability. And Linux has a hell of a lot more compatability in both areas than the BeOS currently does.
If there’s one thing ex-Be-enthousiasts should have learned, it is to never again put all their eggs in one corporate basket. At least we can still use our x86 systems, but I seriously can’t understand how an ex-Be-enthousiast could ever recommend MacOS as a logical next step. Not only do we get locked in into a proprietary software system, we even get proprietary hardware. No thanks.
If there were a 49$ MacOS version which ran on my current systems, then I would definitely try it out – but not for anything serious.
I thought the drawing was done by the app_server and not because of the kernel speed.
app_server in dan0 is way faster than the one you will find in R5, no its not doublebuffered, its that fast.
Howdy,
First, you may want to try out Zeta and then rethink your comments.
And I know from experience that a Celeron is faster than a pentium4. I have a 3GHz pentium4 machine to my left running WindowsME/2000/XP, and my system at a measly 2GHz with BeOS is considerably faster at ANY given comparable task.
I get over 200fps in Quake2 here, and about 50 on the other machine, with the same video card! (and same memory, like I swap back and forth based on my needs between the machines).
I don’t compile in Windows, so I can’t tell you anything about that.
My old Celeron 1GHz is faster than the pentium4 system here, and noticeably so.
I rip DVDs and encode them simultaneously, and still finish ripping a DVD on BeOS faster than the pentium4 (I was ripping a movie that I couldn’t get to show on BeOS due to my experimental driver setup… took forever).
My system’s display is never anything other than lovely, thanks to the double and triple buffering used for graphics display (triple buffering in my apps, double for the system).
Also, you may want to realize that BeOS is not currently targeting the mass market. And yellowTAB is just trying to make a buck (which is why I quit). They couldn’t care less about making a great product. They just want something ‘good enough’ so that they have as low of support costs as possible.
Of course, when I left there still wasn’t a support structure in place. And they threw away my Updater, which is fine, I’ll just take it elsewhere and maybe get paid this time for my hard work. I will still try Zeta, just to see if they are actually gonna improve themselves any at all. I would like to see that happen.
–The loon
I don’t know why everyone says “I agree with him” when he’s FOS. The only thing you said true is “use what’s best for your purpose.”
Aerospace competitive? How many US companies are in the aerospace industry now? The worldwide aerospace industry? It’s merged from 40+ players in the 40’s to 3 today in the US. What do we have now? Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and Northrup-Grumman. LocMar got the F-22 contract but the other 2 get the subcontracts. Oh that’s REAL competitive. It’s so stagnant the only thing keeping it alive is US military contracts.
Don’t even mention tariff’s. Boeing is the only US producer of US airliners and they get so much protection it’s not even funny. Then again, Aerobus is little more than a semi-private government agency as well, with all the protection and subsidies that implies. Might as well call it “The European Union Aerospace Agency” while Boeing is “The US Aerospace Passenger Agency” and Loc-Mar is the “US DOD Aerospace Agency” and Northrup-Grumman is “The US Aerospace Sub-Contractor Agency.”
Air industry innovate? Yeah we see how the supersonic commercial airliner went. What advances have spun out of the aircraft industry since the 70’s? As in civilian spin-off’s and not the stealth crap which benefits no one. Nothing. All of the advances you can name are subsidiary – guidance, navigation, communications, electronics, etc. None of them are actually in the aerospace realm (frame, propulsion, etc). All of the US military advances are still spinning off stealth which is a 70’s technology. Let’s see another fiesty upstart like Grumman come in and build the lunar capsule in the aerospace industry. Ain’t happenin’.
Your whole field is limited to figuring how many seats we can fit on a plane at price-point X. Whoopdie-doo I have a phone in the seat’s back, LCD screens for showing movies, and 6 less inches for my legs. It took 30 years to innovate that?
Competitive vs the auto industry? Toyota just took over the #2 or 3 spot. BMW is in the top 5 now. We’re seeing massive advances in style and function and a drastic shift in market positions. There is so much competition in the auto-industry now, I just bought a new car for $500 over invoice. The 80’s and 90’s had such ugly, emasculated, eco-junk running around. You can actually look at a car and differentiate it from its neighbors now. Features in comfort are evolving with every yearly release. The past 5 years have seen widespread moves by major auto makers to push alt-fuel vehicles into the mainstream.
Competitive to the computer/ tech industry? There is absolutely no way the “innovation” in the aircraft industry can compare to what’s happening in the world of computers. The largest tech companies are infinitely more innovative than any aerospace firm. Just 5 years ago.
As far as the term “the masses” go, it is usually used by those who have a higher opinions of themselves than those around them do. Notice nobody ever includes themselves in “the masses.” If it was all up to hype, Apple would be #1.
As far as BeOS goes, some people will use it, most won’t. Like someone else said, it’s the new Amiga: irrelevant. It’s greatest contribution – the file system – is going to be implemented in Longhorn and is happening incrementally in OS X.
I have spoken to them before (Metrowerks) and Be took over the BeIDE’s development circa R4.0/4.5 and MW had little of nothing to do with it after that point.
Be even removed the XCOFF linking that was in the MW ‘mwld’ on the PPC platform for some reason (less work to maintain?.) The guys at MW seemed to know nothing about this at all….
Spookily I have a copy of CodeWarrior that was free on the cover mounted DVD on a British Computer Mag., and it’s SPOOKILY like the BeIDE. I can really see the common roots now (I had only used the MW CW Palm edition previously and that seemed completely different to me.)
Let me think for a second here…
Unix – 70’s
Linux – 80’s
Windows – 80’s
BeOS – 90’s
OBOS – 2k
So if I get this straight… OBOS is dead because it’s brand new and not stuck with old heritage that slows down everything???
Ahh, so logical.
I can live with some child diseases knowing that after a while when it matures the system will be outstanding!
good point
the market is showing that it takes 20-30 years to get a new OS architecture/model, structure, product whatever to the masses. Obos and zeta are right on track.
“In contrast, the computer industry is like the US car industry. They’re happy with using 20-year old, warmed-over designs, because they’ve got protection from competition. The government gives them a nice tarrif…”
As an employee of a company that supplies parts to automobile companies around the world, I can vouch for this comment being complete and utter BS. If you are such a student of aerospace, you should know that automotive has taken the lead in material and electronics engineering. You should also know that products cannot just be half-assed developed and thrown out to the public. Massive amounts of testing, validation, documentation, and yes *governmental* regulations need to be met and approved. Add to it the fact that much of the really good stuff never makes it to the consumer level due to the fear of product lawsuits. In addition, if you want to spout about tariffs, investigate Japanese tariffs on foreign goods.
>Unix – 70’s
>Linux – 80’s
>Windows – 80’s
>BeOS – 90’s
>OBOS – 2k
well.. since linus torvalds startet developing linux in 1991, it’s pretty unlogical to say linux is “80’s” ;P
and OBOS isn’t finished yet, it’s far from that, and no one knows how it will be. ofcourse it sounds nice, but every project like that sounds nice in the beginning, doesn’t it?