BeOSJournal.org posted a review of YellowTAB’s Zeta 1.0-RC-1 with many images (however the review does not state if it was the Service Pack 2 of the RC-1 that was tested, which has many USB and other fixes). Note to Mac readers: If under OSX you can’t read the folder after you uncompress the zip file, change the folder’s access attributes from the “Get Info” panel.
BeOSJournal Reviews Zeta RC1
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
it seem like he apply both SP
at least the software manager in the “Technical Findings” part shows service pack 2 as installed.
41 pages, geez… Anyway, the Zeta bootup screenshot brought a little tear to my eye, I miss the BeOS bootup progress screen
The decor, though, has got to go. Its so completely schizo! The scrollbars don’t match the rest of the style, and the purple highlights, while nice in theory, are over-the-top and clunky. Far from the understated MacOS-like elegance of BeOS R5.
For the first time I am really happy I did not buy it yet. Don’t think it is not (yet) worth that amount of money…
From what I’ve seen, the desktop looks quite spartan. It certainly won’t win any beauty contest, unless of course the other pageants are AfterStep, Fluxbox, XFCE and (horror !) Blackbox. Just kidding
More seriously, I wonder why these environments don’t use the power provided by todays video cards. How long are they going to assume that most people have a Matrox Mystique or a STB Velocity ?
Don’t think it is (yet) worth the money…
Made a mistake before!
Have they not heard of publishing information in web-pages in the BeOS community?
Indeed, he most certainly has. However, he has a bandwidth quota to keep within, and the size of the review in a zip file says a lot right there, considering his quota limits (you can’t get too picky about your limits when someone is donating you the hosting, and his limits would be blown within a day) and the number of people that are still interested in reading a full review, he needs to use mirrors to get it out to as many people as possible.
Thus, it comes down to budget limitations, not any limitation in knowing how or wanting to do a web-page display of the information. If he didn’t have all the interesting graphics, the size would be a lot smaller, but a lot of what’s in there really needs the pictures to appreciate.
So, if you really dislike the fact that it is a huge zip file, I suggest you offer to mirror it, but in a decompressed website format like you wish: all the links are local paths, and work correctly (he enlisted my aid in checking for spelling mistakes, etc. because he was tired) and require no real thought or work for publishing on your site. He will be more than pleased if someone does that, due to the quota limitations mentioned above, presuming an unmodified mirror. His intention of doing the review was to be informative, and he’s done that in a lot of depth, especially considering Zeta is a Beta. Go here for a list of current mirrors: http://forum.beosjournal.org/viewtopic.php?t=868&start=0
I’m sure if you announce it in that thread, he will be quite pleased (hope I’m not putting words into his mouth!)
You guys need to grow up a bit. Everyone knows that Zeta is a legal version of Dano, with goodies thrown in by yellowTab themselves (an installer, SVG, USB stack etc). All Zeta is is a RETAIL version of DANO – polished and ready for distribution. And that, my friends, is worth $99 (or similar) for the Deluxe edition. Dont forget that you get a legal version of GobeProductive, Squeezer, BeServerd, and other 3rd party apps which make the OS easier and more enjoyable.
And I think Spleeny is cute. So does my girlfriend..
What Zeta gives me is easy support on newer boxes. No more AthlonXP patches, no more P4 hyperthreading patches, this thing just works straight from the box. It has updated drivers, most of the better apps from BeBits, all on one single DVD. And there is a group of enthusiests (under the disguise of a company) who take a know distro and support it. There is no one else in the world doing this for the BeOS community. MAX and DevEd are just hacks for R5PE, you miss out on SVG, BONE, new MediaKit, USB and other stuff.
Besides, everyone knows that OBOS is where its at. And YellowTab will be the biggest OBOS distribution. They will learn with Zeta how to organise/publish/distribute/support an OS. BeUnited will also distribute OBOS, but they dont have the money to bundle as many goodies as YellowTab do.
They’re ruining BeOS! By making it so inflated and ‘patched’ they make it look like some kid’s Linux Distr0. Why can’t they let go… of all these decors, or redundant software?
My take is that someone will take this Zeta and make his own polished distro (that Zenja called ‘hack’) based on that. Of course, it would be illegal, but at least it will be less horrible! Yellowtab has no passion for BeOS, in the sense that Be had back then… They are there for some money, they want all these desperate folk, BeOS fans to pay some money. It can’t be otherwise – THEY HAVEN’T EVEN LEARNED GOOD ENGLISH! I doubt new users (newcomers) will be impressed at all with Zeta. All new professional Linux distros look much better, and despite all the config quirks of Linux may even be more productive for the end user. Yellowtab, what have you done…
I’m not sure if I agree with that way of looking at it. It more looks like dano with a few attempted touchups in the form of hacks and software bundles. I really wouldn’t pay for it and I think the jury’s even still out on the legality of it.
i like spliney too…
it’s because it was me who rendered the background & logo 🙂
let’s just wait for the final release and argue then if zeta’s worth the money. k?
i just notice mirrors for the zip on the forum
i wonder if they/someone can post the zip unzipped somewhere
“They’re ruining BeOS! By making it so inflated and ‘patched’ they make it look like some kid’s Linux Distr0. Why can’t they let go… of all these decors, or redundant software?”
While I tend to prefer the R5.0 look as well, I find that I must disagree with your second comment. The selling pointof the deluxe version is the bundled software. The standard version is probably more of a fit for your needs. (Mine as well! I don’t need to sort through countless choices – just give me the best default!).
“THEY HAVEN’T EVEN LEARNED GOOD ENGLISH!”
Apparently, neither have you…and what does this slander have to do with Zeta, or the review?
Is Zeta licensed under GPL or LGPL?
I cant find anything about the license on their home page.
I cant find anything about the license on their home page.
It’s contained in the (zipped) review.
As Scot Hacker admitted for himself, every BeOS fan already has
desperately collected and archived every piece of both great and poor
software downloaded from BeBits: without this site, Zeta would have
been impossible. And without BeShare, the other open-sourced projects
of rebuilding BeOS would never have been possible, too: the first time I
connected to this P2P system, the sources of Dano were floating there
and incredibly shared by some notorious components of the
“community”.
It’s all pathetic: the lawyers of Be and Palm can only laugh and
continue laughing: they know that they wuold get nothing by
sueing this lamer, poor guys. An operating system for high-band
digital media on low-cost PC? Eh Eh Eh…
And most people inform others about yT and how they do not offer a replacement worth it’s money.
Everyones focus is set for one thing… and OBOS knows who they are. When we see OBOS hit R1, then people will most likely be jumping up and down like madmen… and so will I Weeeeee =).
Anyway… some of those that haven’t used BeOS before who buys Zeta might find it somewhat interesting and might become regular BeOS users =)
Let’s hope so anyway =)
Who knows… Stuff happens… Maybe for some ‘deluxe’ really means bundling absolutely regardless of its quality. Maybe there are a lot of people who’d find Zeta a good alternative to other OSes… But it won’t be groundbreaking as the original BeOS was. And that’s sad.
About GNU software and sources. As far as I know, there is a GNU C COMPILER (GCC) ver 3.2 or something like that in Zeta (and it’s not avaible for BeOS elsewhere). If I’m not mistaken, their (yT’s) GCC port is also under GPL license (if you are using GPL’ed parts in you program, the whole program inherits GPL license). If so, they (yT) have to include sources of GCC into the distribution (or commit them to the CVS with public access, or publish them somewhere on the Web). Am I right?
Yes I agree, that what yellowTab has done looks dismal by the review given. But let us not forget, this product is not completely out yet. As well, this is their first attempt at releasing an OS. Was BeOS R1 worth running home and telling your mother about? I believe not. We, the community, do need a company though to support consistent development of our beloved OS. Without fulltime developers we will never see Zeta/BeOS where it should be, in the spot light. Instead of bickering and finger pointing the community and especially the nay sayers need to make suggestions and point out where yellowTab is going wrong, so yellowTab itself can grow and improve.
My 2 cents.
Bels
1. GCC is lGPL which means you can compile everything with it and keep it closed
2. GCC3.2 is nowhere available public from yT afaik. As long as they use it only internal you can do nothing. As soon as yT put them to the Zeta cds they must make anyhow the diff available. But it is on yT HOW they make it available.
3. yT is a company based in germany so german law is the base for them. They do what GNU says in germany and how to use it. A LOT of lawyers work on that GNU issue and afaik yT is not doing any unlegal things with GNU.
4. They got mails from users who said they wanne see the sourcecode from gLibc, well it is downloadable. Also the diffs Be Inc made, they published the links by mail and also forwarded it to the people requested it.
This discussion about added GNU stuff is so annoying, if you are so cool and well known in that issue come together with Chris and sue them, if not let it be.
I got a mail forwarded where Chris Simmons try to hurt yT and asked GNU.org and the free software foundation about that issue and that he want them to check the situation. Is that the “BeOS Comunity” ?
About the Review i can only smile. He compared Zeta with Dano and not with the existing R5. And he made a lot of mistakes which showed me that he have no real idea about Zeta. He just did one more step into the personal fight he try to have with yT
We should ask yT to publish all that mails he sent out to others and comments he made on BeShare. He made so much bad things that it is a joke that he is doing a review but mroe that people listen to him. He made a after all others did it quite often by now.
Eugenia btw i would like to see a review of Windows XP, could you do so please?
Thats my 2 cents about this guy, tbj and that review
Hold on for just one second. I will not sit here, read your slanderous comments, and let it go by.
Here is the original email that I sent to both GNU and YellowTab Inc.:
–start–
To: [email protected]
Subject: Potential GPL Violation — YellowTab & Zeta RC1
Cc: [email protected], [email protected]
X-Mailer: BeMail – Mail Daemon Replacement 2.2.5 Final
From: “Chris Simmons” <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2003 03:42:08 GMT
Message-Id: <442377646558-BeMail@talon>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=”windows-1252″
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Hello, not sure whom to address this to, but here goes.
I’m doing a review of Zeta RC1, created by YellowTab Inc. ( http://
http://www.yellowtab.com ) and noticed that there is not included any
reference to glibc ( http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/libc.html ) in
the installed OS on the hard disk, nor the CD.
The reason inclusion of glibc appears to be important in my mind is
that there are several GIMP modules included in an installed GoBE
Productive folder without the included src.zip that contains the C
source to said modules. By way of comparison, the GoBE Productive
installation from Gobe Software includes a src.zip that contains C
source to said modules; Be Inc. also included glibc source on BeOS R5
Pro CDs when they created them in the past.
I do not want to be an alarmist here, but merely want to correct the
situation so that a valuable company such as YellowTab does not find
itself in an undesirable situation in their commercial future. I’m
cc’ng this to both [email protected] and [email protected] in the
hopes that whomever from GNU that contacts me can be introduced to a
proper representative from YellowTab Inc.
Thank you kindly for your time and consideration during this very busy
holiday season.
Yours Cordially,
-Chris Simmons,
Avid BeOS User.
The BeOSJournal.
http://www.beosjournal.org
–end–
I do not feel I’ve “threatened” YellowTab Inc. in any way, and in fact Bernd replied within an hours time and gave me a URL online of where to find the source. Albeit it was a mirror location well known to the community but nonetheless he did reply swiftly. I’m glad he did. The GNU organization has yet to reply to me, but I will try to contact them again.
The reason I chose to send both parties an email is that dealing with (L)GPL material is important to handle correctly, no matter whom you are. The exclusion of any reference to these sources on a product that was sold commercially strikes in my mind as an oversight, nothing more, at this time.
A few clarifications about the review, as I’ve seen two things in various comments that are incorrect.
a.) I installed Zeta RC1, and BOTH service packs, before starting my formal review.
b.) I have no “personal fight” with YellowTab Inc. I have made no comments of this kind for months, and even back when I was asking where Zeta was in July, I tried to ask in a rhetorical way.
Thank you, everyone, for reading the review. If there are more issues I can help to clear up, please post your questions here.
-Chris Simmons,
Avid BeOS User.
The BeOSJournal.
Theres far more than glibc in Zeta thats GPL’ed. Theres the majority of the /boot/beos/bin directory. Its downloadable yes, but its the source for the R5 binaries. Now I haven’t tried yet but I’m going to right away, and I don’t know is Zeta can actually run on R5’s libroot.so (glibc). For a start the compiled binaries are different sizes but that may mean nothing. Also I think some of the GPL’ed binaries are newer versions than the diffs are available for. This again brings me to the questions of wheter yellowtab have the source for the main parts of the system in the first place. I wonder….
Hi Chris!
Thanks for the time to answer those.
Could you now respond please to what fye was asking on your forum?
I’ll quote him:
“YOU SAID THE RC1 WAS NOT ARRIVED AT THE 13TH OF DECEMBER, IF SO WHY DID YOU MAKE IT LOOK LIKE YOU HAD THE RC1 AND WAS PREPARING THE REVIEW ON EARLY OCTOBER?
Were you lying at that time or did you have a ‘stolen’ RC1 in your hands or is there another reason to this?”
Full post and thread here:
http://forum.beosjournal.org/viewtopic.php?p=5624#5624
Looks to be a valid question.
Thanks in advance,
Gein
If I remember correctly, GCC is GPL, and GLIBC is LGPL.
I was neither lying at the time, nor did I have a “stolen” copy of Zeta RC1.
-Chris Simmons,
Avid BeOS User.
The BeOSJournal.
Thanks
So, what did you have? A beta copy?
Gein
Well Gein, I guess it’s all a matter of naming!
After all, if RC1 and RC2 are betas (functionally thought to be complete, but still not 100% satisfied with it being gold) then what he had was pre-RC1, whatever it was called. In any case, it’s reasonable to assume that the declaration of what they called it as being anything other than pre-RC1 doesn’t change the fact that it was likely less complete than RC1, so you may call it as you wish, as it was an earlier version not intended for resale.
My Zeta T Shirt arrived today! 🙂
Now that I have broadband up and running thanks to the 2nd update patch and I’m running on all pistons with Zeta, I see that it can be viewed from many perspectives. I have no idea about the legality of what Zeta has done. I have no idea what market potential there is for Zeta. But, just as a BeOS user who dearly wanted to be able to use it on modern hardware (including printers and scanners), Zeta has potential. As buggy as it is right now, it is wonderful using it on my Athlon.
As the first Release Candidate, I expect bugs, so that doesn’t bother me at this point.
Someone made a slur about Zeta not knowing English, which was uncalled for. But, there are a lot of typos and not-quite-right English dialogue boxes, etc. Those are just things that need to be reported and will be fixed.
You can customize your install of Zeta to your heart’s content, which is a big plus – you need not have a big Linux type of install if you don’t want to.
There are, of course, problems…but it’s mostly the lack of updated applications or stable applications. Web browsers – Zeta people have said that’s what is needed the most right now. I don’t know, perhaps there are things I don’t know, but it seems to me that if Firebird was really zeroed in on for stability and spedd, it could be the one.
At any rate, I’m anxious to see what Zeta will be at 1.0. Just as a BeOS user, without any other considerations, despite the bugs, etc., it is fun using my modern hardware, printing, scanning. Whatever Zeta’s fate, I’m having fun and hope to be having more fun as new Release Candidates come out.
Everyones focus is set for one thing… and OBOS knows who they are. When we see OBOS hit R1, then people will most likely be jumping up and down like madmen… and so will I Weeeeee =).
Of course, feature-wise, R1 of OBOS won’t differ much, if it does differ in the first place, with R5 of BeOS. Yeah, like I would care about OBOS….
GCC is GPL, but that doesn’t matter. Copyright law doesn’t allow the GPL to apply to code compiled by GCC, even though the GPL applies to the GCC code itself.
<quote>
b.) I have no “personal fight” with YellowTab Inc….
</quote>
….you are hypocritical……
I wonder how YellowTab has done Zeta translations to other languages than English and German: http://beos.ziew.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=202 – here are screens of Polish Zeta translation. It is simply horrible – looks like it has been done with some kind of automatic translation software. Bad flexion, bad ortography, no accents, and only some of the strings are translated. If you want to buy Zeta because it is translated to your language ask YT for screenshots first!
>> here are screens of Polish Zeta translation. It is simply horrible – looks like it has been done with some kind of automatic translation software. Bad flexion, bad ortography, no accents, and only some of the strings are translated. <<
Sounds like an opportunity for you to perhaps assist in the translation, and earn a copy of Zeta, and perhaps more…
I had the same complaint about Blue Label Emulator, and I fixed the problems with the English Translation and earned a copy of the software and upgrades for free.
Plus, I have some pride in that I contributed to the product.
Do they really expect someone besides diehard beos-fans to pay any money for this crap(well, it is)?
When I for the first time saw the new installer they did for BeOS, I realized that they didn’t have one single clue about what they were doing. And I wasn’t the only one who noticed this. Many people tried to give them some good advice, but they just wouldn’t listen.
I remember when the first versions of BeOS came out for the x86. I remember how amazingly professional and well put together it was (and still is!) and unlike windows it was something that was modular enough to keep growing and changing. And most important of all it was simple and easy to use, yet giving me the option of digging deeper into it to do more advanced stuff.
With Zeta, yellowTab obviously tries to change all this. They attempt to make something that looks like a linux distro a 15-year old buy put together to impress is buddies on IRC, only that it’s not even using the linux kernel.
It’s so badly put together, and inconsistant that it makes me want to cry. I know that BeOS is still in there somewhere behind all the abandonware, half finished badly designed apps and ugly decors. But who cares about that if they don’t know what BeOS once was?
You should take a look around at other OS’s and desktops. Take a look at WinXP, Gnome(sorry KDE), OSX and even BeOS R5. What does these little buddies have incommon? They are well planned and thought through. None of them are perfect, but they are lightyears ahead of what you are doing, because they have a target and they focus on that target.
How much extra support staff do you think that MS would need to hire if they included a trial version of let’s say Logic Audio with Windows Longhorn? Sure, it’s a good product, but would it make sense to include a trial version of something that isn’t even available for the specific platform anymore? It would only make people mad when they find out that they like it but can’t buy it. And Microsoft would be the ones getting in trouble for this, not Emagic.
I just don’t get it. Please, yT, tell me who are you aiming at with Zeta? Where’s you target?
Why can’t you focus on making a clean usable product instead of this mess?
If you want to make an OS for the general user (bad idea), then give them a browser, java, mediaplayer, simple graphics app and a few simple games, also support for a LOT of hardware. if you want to make an OS for media producers, then give them an image editor (refraction), a sound editor or even better a hdd recording software, and some quality drivers ranging from semi-pro to pro equipment. as long as you keep it SIMPLE. the user don’t want to choose from every app ever made for BeOS, including trialware that aren’t even available for purchase.
Something that you obviously haven’t given much thought is the desktop. Besides dockbert(which is more looks than functionality) it still functions the same as it did in R5. There is so much that could be done to the BeOS desktop. Like a modular tracker with different views for music, pictures, email etc. a modular deskbar which has been thought through from a usability point of view. An improved search panel. Improved keyboard support (you can’t do much without the mouse in BeOS you know). There’s so much things that can be improved in BeOS, some things that still could blow people away in a “I didn’t know my computer could do that!”-kind of way.
Take what made BeOS strong, polish it, make it more mature more modern, and it will make the OS even stronger. Don’t cover it up with apps and ugly skins.
I know that a lot of money has been invested in Zeta, but I can’t honestly tell where they went. It’s not a product I would proudly show anyone.
And don’t give me the “It’s not ready yet”. If development is going in the wrong direction, it is going in the wrong direction, if it goes even further in that direction, it can’t possibly get any better can it?
To stuff my $$$ in a coffee can and wait for the next big thing .I find it hard to believe thet they have apps like T-Racks in there,I mean what could be more frustrating to a new user than having some crippleware commercial app included that has no chance of being registered at any price,one that makes an annoying beep every few seconds,maybe thgey dhould put that holy grail of BeOS abandoned cripple ware in there too,Ongaku, a realtine sound to midi covnerter that produces intermittant sound and silence every 10 secs.Or maybe some of the old SoftJee stuff that will omly play their demo files,all this is a sad reminder that the commercial devs left BeOS like rats off a burning ship after the focus shift.And what’s up with this dockbert thing? I myself prefer AutoPilot fot a dock type app,ecer since Zathros turned me onto it a few yrs back I have had it living at the top of the screen on all my BeOS machines,with links to everything I frequently use.Also that Jukebox thingie seems kinda unnecessary when you have Soundplay,it looks like a rip off of similar Windoze and Mac apps,Where there is no Soundplay.What about Rack747?DynamicComposer at least works ,kinda.Stadio is pretty dead as a whole too but it does work.hehe I guess they DID put Ongaku in there LOL what a waste!The developers of that app have evaporated into the ethers afaik,and I have been trying to Buy, borrow or steal that one for years.
Is the Gobe Productive included the full deal or is it trialware?Last time I looked the GoBE site said they did not sell or support any BeOS products anymore.Which I never Understood excepy that maybe they were afraid they would alienate M$ or it’s users by offering a product they already had sitting there.
At least I had the foresight to gather up a good repository of BeOS Software before it all dissapeared,I missed a few but I can still have a pretty complete BeOS experience,and a lot of old boxes I couldn’t afford at the time that really rock, under BeOS can be had for a song on Ebay,Like the twin PII or PIII Dell Precision 410 servers I been seeing there,for a little over $100.The ones I picked up were just a supported video card away from being a smokin’ BeOS box.and IMO that’s a better thing to spend your $100 on!
I’m not zealously trying to defend Zeta, but much of the criticism here (especially by thos who have not used it) is too harsh.
It is not like a Linux distro where have to do a full install. In fact, you can customize your install to your hearts content. I’ve installed three times, just to see what some of the pre-set installs were like. The third time I picked every app by hand, so what is on my hard drive is only what I chose to put on it.
GoBe is the real thing, not trialware.
There are bugs, typos and many things that need fixed but, for God sake, it is only RI and they’ve already put out two patches – give them a break.
To turn things around, why would I want to get some old PIII on eBay when I can run this on my modern Athlon XP, use my late model Epson printer and scanner, be on broadband, burn CD’s and DVD’s, watch DVD’s and listen to and share music, use my Radeon 7500 64 MB video card and current sound card????
The point rain was trying to make here is that most of the things that’s bad with Zeta are issues they’ve [yT] brought on themselves
Had they just focused on the areas where they don’t do any harm, Zeta RC1 (it’s actually Developer Preview 1, i.e., pre-alpha) wouldn’t be concieved as so amateurish. Instead of translating _badly_ to a zillion languages, translate a couple of languages _good_, and complete. Add few vital apps, and enhance them for Zeta while including them in the distribution (things like localization).
“airmchair CEO” – whatever. These things shouldn’t have gotten out in the first place!
I think rain has some good points. I hate to see BeOS drown in all the crappy software, decors and eye candy. I think it’s cool to have some decors, but please, don’t add a 100 ugly when we want 5 nice ones (like the BeOS R5 standard).
I want to give Zeta time, and I believe that they can manage something, and I know its RC1. I am afraid when R1 is released, everyone got this high expectations. But let’s wait and se!
yellowTAB: Please don’t forget the BeOS way – We don’t want a over-runned OS with all this “XP-like-stuff”!
By the way, thank you for your work in trying to keep BeOS alive!
Petter H. Juliussen / ConneX
Head of BeOS User Group Nordic
I agree that Yellowtab would have done better to do less and do it well.
Is Zeta worth it?
I bought it and I tried it but I find that I am running Fedora and (may god have mercy on my soul) WindowsXP rather than Zeta so I guess not. If you like BEOS you should like Zeta (internecine strife and petty hatreds aside)
It is not mandatory to install all the junk software on the CD. It is provided as a choice and these early pre-releases are aimed at people who should at least put that much effort in to the installation.
Not everything works though on every combination of PC.
Zeta is only at SP2 and its come a long way quickly.
You could end up stuck in VESA mode and hardware 3D may well *never* work. The installer may just silently kick you into a frozen blue screen or the dreaded KDL.
I wish YellowTab luck for trying to ‘kill the virus’ as they say on their site.
I hope they make a go of it but Zeta, thanks to the new tracker I guess, does not run like a rocket on low end hardware and the basics are far from feature complete.
Zeta looks great though and being BEOS it has a real joined up desktop that does something useful (it is almost like having an apple computer on an intel box) it is worlds apart from the Linux desktops which just seem like pretty ornaments around a terminal session.
You know, it’s not 1998 anymore, there has been a farily stable and polished consumer class windows version out there for over 2 years now. One would have to do a lot more than giving people a stable OS to bring them over from windows. That was a huge sellingpoint back in the days, but it isn’t anymore. You can’t focus on the regular users with an OS like BeOS anymore, not with the current app base.
We all know what makes BeOS a great OS, and it is still my personal favourite. But it has to do something that windows can’t, something vital. And theres really not much to do for the general user anymore. But there are a lot of niches to target, the media creation niche is a perfect one to focus on. Graphics production could be a hard one, cause photoshop is the defenite standard in the industry and people are religious about it. But music recording studios and movie production studios would be a lot easier since there is allready a lot more competition going on there, and people are used to switching to a new system every now and then. we have the perfect OS, there’s just the need for apps. and with some money on the pocket, it wouldn’t be that hard to create a competetive product.
my point was that zeta don’t have any focus. it’s lost somewhere in the late 90’s trying to kill off windows 98. well, things have changed. there’s still a place for BeOS, but it’s not the same one as it once was. you can’t impress people with a rotating cube anymore.