The OpenBeOS Translation Kit BETA 3 is now available. Many bugs have been fixed, including one in the Translation Kit which caused some applications to crash and prevented others from loading bitmap resources. Elsewhere, Waldemar Kornewald from the Networking Kit recently changed a file in the OpenBeOS CVS and posted a comment which is pretty self-explanatory.
OpenBeOS Progress: Translation, Network Kit
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’s always great to see progress in the OpenBeOS camp. I’m pretty suprised that the networking kit was this far…bravo!
Woohoo! Keep up the work, guys. You’re giving all of us much hope!
I can say Waldemar does a good job looking at the code, keep up !
Hey Eugena, – article idea …
I’m pretty confused about all these BeOS versions (yellow tab etc), how about an article to explain all the various bits of software that have grown out of (or around) the BeOS ‘thing’.
Just a thought.
Progress all over the place it seems… translation kit is more or less finished, Network kit has reached a very important milestone and most other parts are coming along pretty well.
Also not to forget, Java is on it’s way and we haven’t heard much of that lately, but a couple of months ago first Java app worked.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this year is the big one for OBOS! I got this hunch that the number of committers to CVS will increase by 50 more…
http://gravity24hr.com/obosbuild/
That’s just it. I thought it was cool to post it here.
Gein
> I’m pretty confused about all these BeOS versions (yellow
> tab etc), how about an article to explain all the various
> bits of software that have grown out of (or around) the
> BeOS ‘thing’.
This don’t need an article.
YellowTab’s Zeta is the original BeOS with extensions. YellowTab used the original BeOS-code, which they have licensed by Be – before Be was sold to Palm.
But Zeta is closed source like BeOS.
[Be]rnd from YellowTab think, that the mistake, which Be have done, is to publish BePersonalEdition cost-less, so that nobody buy the BeOS-ProfessionalEdition. They think furthermore, that one of Be’s mistake was, to put too much power in BeIA, instead BeOS. And at the third point, they think, that it was not so good, that there existing no computer with pre-installed BeOS.
Thats what YellowTab want to make better. They buy computer with pre-installed Zeta, creating only successors for BeOS and not for BeIA, etc. Zeta only exists for x86-computer today.
OpenBeOS is a rewrite of BeOS. Michael Phipps from OpenBeOS (OBOS) think, that YellowTab have no chance. If Be with a lot of more money in background and a lot of more developer have died, than it is improbable that YellowTab do it better.
So, OpenBeOS try to rewrite the complete BeOS R5.3 and call it then OBOS R1. Then they want to integrate new feautures for OBOS R2, OBOS R3, etc.
They want to be binary-compatible for x86-computers. Try to port the kernel to different architectures, etc.
The license, which they have choosen is the MIT/X11/BSD-license.
The developer of BlueEyedOS think, that the Linux-Kernel and XFree86 are so fast like the BeOS one. Only the added modules and features slow it down.
They think also, that the kernel-development need too much time. So, they want to create a BeOS-clone on top of Linux/Xfree.
One of theire visions is, to run BeOS-programs on BlueEyedOS and in the background normal Linux-programs.
Try my page
http://techstorm.beosmax.org
It’s a bit out of date, missing some links especially international ones, and I also need to change the link to the BeBook online. This is meant for starters.
I hope people realize how important the network stack is, for any modern os. And the Translation Kit is extremely important for BeOS. It’s one of the most BeOS-specific parts. The fact that development of the Translation Kit is progresing so nicely fills me with hope for OpenBeOS.
Hey, you know that the old saying for DOS was “it ain’t ready till Lotus runs on it”. What shall be the landmark application for OpenBeOS, that will mark the “it’s ready” milestone? I suggest Sequitur. Gobe Productive is nice, but Sequitur utilizes more of the BeOS-specific features.
As a long supporter/user/developer using BeOS, I congratulate the OpenBeOS Team. Nice work guys.
Actually, the old battle cry of the MS developer was <allegedly> ‘Dos ain’t done till Lotus won’t run’. Whether that particular true or not, the perception of Microsoft as a closed, anti-competitive entity goes waaaaayyyyy back.
> Try my page
> http://techstorm.beosmax.org
But on your side are no screenshot of OBOS. 🙁
But there existing one, which show the OBOS-libraries on MS-Windows:
http://open-beos.sourceforge.net/news.php?mode=display&id=298
(Btw: I think it would be nice, if BNickName updated it and show us some newer one. Or better: publishing a OBOS-version of libbe.so for BeOS) 😉
Greatings
Steve
Yeah!
Hopefully with OpenBeOS comes the BeOS-Hype back.
Ooops… that’s something completely different! But, AFAIK (I used Lotus 1 2 3) all DOS versions could run Lotus. Or? Am I mistaken?
I haven’t heared of it for some time now apart that is has been LGPLed.
What’s the state of this project, is there still work being done?
Slightly OT, but is there any sort of BeOS Human Interface Guidelines and stuff online? or something to give me a detailed example of the philosophy of BeOS UI design? I’ve heard its praises sung many a time, but it wasn’t compatible with my hardware so I’ve never had a chance to run it.
Hi Max!
Yes! The project continue in development, but we are in few active members. Now, under LGPL, we want more BeOS developers to do the heavy work in APIs, etc.
More informations about our status read:
http://www.blueeyedos.com/about/gmcolumn.html
Thanks!
Michael Vinícius de Oliveira
~ BlueEyedOS.com Webmaster ~
Hi Michael,
Seems like you’ve quite far with your project. Just by curiosity, what is your feelings about OBOS and how will that affect your OS of choice futurewise.
I think from the standpoint of where B.E OS started, it was probably a wise decision, but at the point we are now, wouldn’t you say OBOS has come quite far?
If OBOS hits R1 with nice stability within a reasonable time, would that make you consider a “switch”?
Check this out if you want to see BeOS in action:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/2q00/beosr5/beosr5-1.html
Or Ars’ R4 GUI reivew:
http://arstechnica.com/beos/reviews/1298/r4gui.html
Yes, there is something in the works for a Human Interface Guidelines book. I am working on it, off and on, between other projects (both BeOS-related and non). The title is “BeOS User Experience Guide” as I hope to cover things a little more broadly (not just UI design, but experiencial guidelines). I released a taster of it some time back, but since then it occurred to me just how much more I need to do (LOTS) before I can consider it “feature complete.” I’m hoping to get it published like the other BeOS books of the past were published (with free on-line versions).
For now, I have been advising people (who want to have preliminary UI guidelines) to read the Apple Human Interface Guidelines book(s). Be adopted many more GUI ideals from Apple than from Microsoft (ie: text selection via mouse is very smart and easy, yet they missed out on the great text controls via keyboard that Windows has always had). But really, BeOS is an ideal (almost) mixture of Apple and Microsoft ways, or at least, I hope OBOS becomes that ideal (adopting all the keyboardability that Windows has and which no other OS has matched so far).
I would avoid “modern” and “hyped” features and concepts while trying to decide on how to design your apps for BeOS. ie: avoid eye candy, avoid clutter, avoid the “ease of use” additions to Windows XP, etc. The current Apple has been keen on throwing away all of their smarts in UI design and replacing them with “sex appeal.” Microsoft is just getting more and more cluttered in their misguided attempt at making things more easy for users (ie: providing hyperlinks to all the options on a sidebar, in text phrases, is not the right way to go).
Old Apple had lots of things right.
BeOS goes with the following concepts very heavily:
1. Modularity
2. Multi-threaded UI and core processes
3. Simplicity
4. Spartan UI (not cluttered)
5. Drag and drop
6. Accept first click as standard (maybe not a rule, but I recommend it)
7. Conservative color/effect use (instead of glossy, brightly colored and drop-shadowed animated surfaces, BeOS goes for readability and efficiency, though lots of people are really drooling over Zeta’s SVG graphics capability).
Not all apps use all the same concepts to the same degree, of course.
BeOS also has the best window management I’ve seen so far ie: pop a window to the back of the z-order by right-clicking on the title or border, taskbar button grouping (where do you think MS got the idea from? MS also did it poorly), an excellent implimentation of Focus Follows Mouse, etc.
Etcetera.
Thanks Jace et al. The BeOS User Experience Guide sounds like it will be interesting.