Be, Inc disolved the company and stopped public trading on Friday. They now sell the www.be.com domain name as well. The company will still live on for at least 3 more years (without employees, but with a Board of Directors in charge), therefore their trademarks are still active. However, this did not stop a team of BeOS German enthusiasts, BeOSOnline.com, to release a 230 MB bootable ISO distribution of BeOS and name it “BeOS 5.0.4”. Users should not confuse this release with any official means, as it is a plain BeOS 5.0.3 with additional developer tools and applications as found freely at BeBits.com.
German Team Distributes a BeOS Release as “BeOS 5.0.4”
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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40 Comments
2002-03-18 1:17 pm
2002-03-18 1:20 pm
2002-03-18 1:33 pm
2002-03-18 1:44 pm
2002-03-18 5:46 pm
2002-03-18 6:12 pm
Anonymous
Good to see that the BeOS fans are alive an kicking.
Dano looks 
very nice! So I’m STILL hoping for a release from Palm.
ciao
yc
2002-03-18 6:53 pm
2002-03-18 8:54 pm
2002-03-18 9:00 pm
2002-03-18 11:27 pm
2002-03-19 3:38 am
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2002-03-20 12:08 am
2002-03-20 2:41 am
2002-03-20 7:38 am
Wading through the verbose German, this is no more that Persoal Edition bundled with some free stuff that appeared after the inital release. Nothing new here.
If anything is going to kill BeOS it’s the plethora of “new” versions. I’ve counted four (or five if you this latest one). It’s hard enough establishing brand recognition and credibility with one version coming from one company let alone four.
“BeOS 5.0.4” is a very bad choice for the name of it, but I’m sure they have good intentions.
I have to disagree with Nick Oppen, this new release is good for the continuity of the original BeOS till we can have OBOS.
>>>If anything is going to kill BeOS…
BeOS has already been killed by Palm Inc., this is about waiting for OBOS.
My only reserve with this 5.0.4 release is how strange it is legally speaking. Palm Inc. owns the BeOS copyright, BeOS Pro authorized distributors may continue to distribute that last Pro version (as far as I know), and so may continue the free download of the Personal Edition. But who has authorized BeOSonline such a use of the BeOS trademarks and the copy and distribution of a 5.0.4 BeOS version? No one that I know…, weird.
While I dont believe that fragmentation will kill the BeOS, I seriously believe that it is a growing problem, so far we have:
OpenBeOS
Dano
BeOS NG
BlueOS
BeOS 5.0.4 Developer
ReOS
And these have all become available without any source code available. Imagine what is going to happen when the OpenBeOS source code is available for people to “fork”.
Just look at what the “Linux” world is like, Mandrake, SuSE, Lindows, Red Hat etc.
While I do believe that some people do have good intentions in their releases, e.g. BeOS 5.0.4, BlueOS. Some of the releases I feel are just attempts to “get a piece of the action”, so to speak, e.g BeOS NG, ReOS.
To these people I say, what are you hoping to achieve? Commercial Success? No, otherwise you wouldnt have chosen BeOS so early in it’s development. Fame? I doubt it, because OpenBeOS is considered the offical development. The only thing it will result in is the mess that is Linux, the tangled web of different distros.
Is this the way BeOS is destined to go? I’m affraid it may be!
Other than it’s unclear legality, I don’t see this release as a mess at all.
It’s great to have all the updates to date bundled in one iso, that is no mess, on the contrary it’s a very organizing effort.
What it is a mess indeed, is the comparison you just made Gavin, completely invalid. How can you compare a new beginning like OBOS and BlueOS with the rests left of the propietary BeOS?
You want to see a mess? How about Microsoft Windows3, Microsoft Windows95, Microsoft Windows98, Microsoft Windows NT, Microsoft Windows2000, Microsoft Windows Whistler betas 1 and 2 (extensively distributed), Microsoft Windows XP, and all their sevice packages.
Linux is an essential mess, not because of its many implementations, but because of its lack of organization.
There is no mess with BeOS and its successors yet, so don’t panic. Go to the http://open-beos.sourceforge.net/news.php“>OBOS and check out how order is accomplished.
If you want to see a mess, that was Vb in the uni labs i work in today not working because of day light saving… yes thats right setting the clock back an hour killed VB…
As for ReOS, as far as i can tell, its just a distribution method for OpenBeOS and other software. Not even really a fork so much as a different distribution.
I forgot Microsoft Windows Millenium in Bill’s mess.
Yes, ReOS is a very nice tool, not a fork yet. And Dano doesn’t count for it was a leak. So this is the “mess” left:
BeOS NG (not released yet)
BeOS 5.0.4Developer
Wow! What a mess!
5.0.4 DE isn’t really a fork either, it’s PE with OpenTracker, more drivers, updated GCC…. Stuff you would download for 5.0.3, and the main (working) bits of the first OBOS patch. Kind of a hybrid step towards OBOS. Simirlarly BeOS NG is 5.0.3 with more drivers etc. The real forks are: OBOS (the one I’m rooting for), BlueOS, and the other Linux based one the name of which I forget.
SwitchBlade
I say GREAT news for the newbie BeOS user. The R5.0.4 is BeOS PE with some great goodies to get the newbie going. We are all hoping for the great R6.0 but even now I fear that it will not happen. It is still my suggestion that BeOS users should mail a polite letter to Palm Inc and encourage them that the best plan would be to open source the Be Operating System. It is so close to being a great OS. Palm’s benefit would be to attack it’s rival Microsoft. They are trying to kill Palm too.
The real forks are: OBOS (the one I’m rooting for), BlueOS, and the other Linux based one the name of which I forget.
Other Linux based one? What are you talking about? Haven’t heard of another.
Kevin
Now they don’t need to hack it around to install BeOS on its own BFS partition, either making PE bootable with Neiras hack or by installing from MS Windows into a BFS (I only checked out the first way). It should be easy now with this ISO.
I don’t agree on writting that letter to Palm, lots of letters have been already written and Palm’s attitude have been rude towards BeOS users and developers. PALM HAS ALREADY KILLED BeOS. We don’t need Palm, OBOS is growing fast, so just ignore them, Palm is disappearing soon anyway without anyone pushing them, they are sillier than pandas.
I don’t know either of a Linux kernel based BeOS project, other than BlueOS.
>You want to see a mess?
>How about Microsoft Windows …
>Linux is an essential mess ..
>you want to see a mess, that was Vb ..
Hmmm .. looks to me like the “messeses” are also the successful ones!!
Perhaps there’s a lesson for BeOS here?
Organization, that’s why Microsoft is a success and Linux on the desktop is such a permanent failure.
This “BeOS 5.0.4” is NOT a fork. Its BeOS 5 with some updates.
When BeOS NG is released, its the same; BeOS 5 with some updates and a new installer. That way it’ll save you some time from downloading things and they’ll likely install on some newer hardware that a vanilla R5 Pro or PE wouldn’t. Thats not a fork, its a SERVICE PACK.
These Unofficial BeOS Service Packs are just here to bide a little time until OpenBeOS is ready. OpenBeOS *is* the OFFICIAL BeOS, unless PALM actually decides to DO SOMETHING (not gonna happen).
I believe ReOS is more like an update manager that will slowly turn your R5 into OpenBeOS as new parts of OpenBeOS are finished.
BlueOS is the only thing you could consider a “fork”, and its vapourware; so we’ll have to deal with that when and if it even happens.
Basically any app you down load from BeBits will work on any LEGALLY available version of BeOS. Unless they say otherwise, which their is a couple of apps that require BONE/DANO. But an illeagle leaked version of an OS is not a fork either.
Comparing the few available versions of BeOS to Linux distros is just wrong. The difference between any two legal versions of BeOS that are currently available, is like the difference between a retail RedHat CD and a cheap bytes RedHat CD. NOT like the difference between RedHat v. Slackware; its just not ANYWHERE that extreme.
<blockquote>Linux is an essential mess, not because of its many implementations, but because of its lack of organization.</blockquote>Distribution makers can provide the order. Unfortunately most of them don’t. It’d be nice a distro to try to push Linux in a desktop direction that isn’t a second-rate Mandrake.
You want to see a mess? How about Microsoft Windows3, Microsoft Windows95, Microsoft Windows98, Microsoft Windows NT, Microsoft Windows2000, Microsoft Windows Whistler betas 1 and 2 (extensively distributed), Microsoft Windows XP, and all their sevice packages.
What are you talking about? You’re just listing the various versions of Windows! I could just as easily say:
BeOS DR7
BeOS DR8
BeOS PR2
BeOS R3
BeOS R4
BeOS R5
and say “what a mess!” (even more if you list the beta names, like you did for Windows for some unknown reason). The only thing Microsoft really screwed up with Windows’ naming was Windows 2000, and that’s because they discovered partly along that they weren’t going to be able to do what they wanted to do (unite the lines) in the timeframe they had. Hence, the 2000/Me confusion. But I’d hardly say it’s a “mess”.
You just answered yourself, the BeOS list you quite ‘easily’ posted is not a mess: number 5 goes after 4, that is what I am talking about. And you are only addressing the naming issue here, which in Microsoft IS a mess (lets leave behind compatibility), you’d hardly say it, I say it.
Microsoft Windows is not a complete mess, Microsoft obviously has a global coding organization for every of its OSes, and a very good one despite some criticism. Although an interesting matter if related to a whole OS organization, I didn’t bring the MESS discussion into this thread, it was a poster complaining about the Beosonline updated BeOS release, which I believe is an effort that brings a bit of order.
Who is able to mirror BeOS 5.0.4 for us?
You just answered yourself, the BeOS list you quite ‘easily’ posted is not a mess: number 5 goes after 4,
Sure, because it’s one product! Windows 95 and NT are totally different products, for example; sequential numbering doesn’t quite work out in that case. I hardly think the average person had much trouble figuring out which is newer: Windows 95 or Windows 98. Quite the opposite.
which I believe is an effort that brings a bit of order
It’s definitely a nice effort; in my opinions, one of the great failings of the BeOS was Be’s inability as a company (mostly because of support liability and whatnot, I presume) to sell an install of the BeOS loaded with the important free (and maybe shareware) applications. You’d install the system, play with a few demos, screw around a bit, and then say, “Great. What can I do with it?” Linux distributions, for all of their many faults, do a better job of this.
Personally, I’d love to see an OpenBeOS distribution that starts up with a nice interactive program (maybe a Flash file) that shows the BeOS way of doing web, e-mail, AIM, etc. One that comes pre-configured with a launchbar-like application with good defaults. Things of that nature. There isn’t a person on the planet who’s going to be satisfied with MediaPlayer for MP3s, for example, so why not include SoundPlay or CL-Amp? Same goes for a good image viewer, e-mail client, and whatnot.
Maybe it’s just my perception, but it seems computer users are in general a lot less patient nowadays. If someone bothers to install the BeOS, you’ve got to make it work for them from the get-go…you can’t expect that they’ll scurge through the net looking for the basic things they need.
I do agree that there’s a lot of Linux distribution out there. But the fact are that it is easy to take the kernel, wrap up a set of tool and call it a “Distro”. While I think there is a distro for every needs, I think it is nice to set choices. People have been trap with MS for such a long time, with all their new version, wich I may call “Updates”. So when It comes to alternative OS, I think it is nice to have a choice. The big point is that people are trying to make an alternive way to MS business. BeOS have a few “faces” by now, so is Linux. Nothing wrong here.
Regards.
There’s the official R5.0.3, then there’s OBOS which will replace it step by step and maybe BlueOS being a true fork/alternative.
Everything else listed in that other post are simply installers or re-distributions. BTW, it looks like there won’t be a BeOS NG (see http://www.insidebeos.de/deutsch/news.html ) after all. No problem for me. We lose a crappy installer (going by the screenshots) and save some more confusion.
I wished the R5.0.4 wasn’t releases in this form. Why didn’t they just build an update that is simply installed on top of R5? No legal hassles, no confusion.
If anything is going to kill BeOS it’s the plethora of “new” versions. I’ve counted four (or five if you this latest one). It’s hard enough establishing brand recognition and credibility with one version coming from one company let alone four.
———
Excellently put. I was disappointed enough when they handed over publishing to third parties. I totally agree.
What he said!!!!
saber could you please translate a bit of the insidebeos.de news about NG? Their news dates are all rumbled up, I guess the latest german news concerning BeOS NG is not from 17 Maerz 2001 but from 2002.
I had forgotten about the google translator, great service!