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Haiku Archive

Haiku Java Port Team Gets Seal of Approval From OpenJDK

The OpenJDK Porters Group approved by a unanimous vote the proposal submitted by the recently formed Haiku Java Team to port OpenJDK to Haiku. This makes Haiku the first OS platform to be sponsored by the Porters Group, and it means that the port is now officially part of the OpenJDK family of projects endorsed by Sun. The team already has a mailing list and a project home page; a mercurial repository is also on its way. Team lead Bryan Varner gives his latest update here on his blog.

GoBE Software’s CEO Clarifies

Yesterday we reported on GoBE Productive Software (I knew that) returning to the market with a new version, backed by an Indian firm. In addition, the source article claimed GoBE Software was closing a deal on buying the BeOS operating system from what can only be Access. During the night (as in, CET) Bruce Hammond, CEO of GoBE Software, sent me an email with a few clarifications, and I have the permission to reprint that email below. Read more for the email.

GoBE Productive To Buy BeOS?

Does anyone remember GoBE Productive? The BeOS boys and girls among us will certainly do. Well, with money from India, they're back. "Backed by new investors, a new team and deeper pockets, GoBe Productive is now back with a vengeance promising to shake up the Office space. Blue Lotus Software Solutions, the new company founded by a clutch of new investors and with equity participation by GoBe Corporation, has launched the product again from India." They will initially offer a Windows version, but a Mac and Linux version (using Java) are on the horizon. There is a more interesting bit at the end of the article, though: "Blue Lotus is already planning for its next foray and is negotiating to buy out the BEOS operating system from the promoters of BE Inc, which was the original owner of GoBe Productive, but were driven to bankruptcy as they were unable to compete with Microsoft." In fact: "We are in discussions to acquire the BEOS and hope to close the deal soon." Since I ate eggs this morning for breakfast, my jar of salt is still on the kitchen top, and most likely for the better: someone should call these guys and tell them that most likely, no one will answer the phone in Menlo Park. Instant update: More on the re-launch of GoBE Productive. The GoBE website sees no updates. Update II: My remark concerning phone answering in Menlo Park may be off the mark: welcome the corporate promoter, which, in this case, could refer to Access.

Mini-Interview: Haiku Developer Ingo Weinhold

Haikuware carries a Q&A of Ingo Weinhold, one of the main contributing developers to the Haiku Project. In this mini-interview, Ingo talks about his beginnings in the community, his motivations for adopting BeOS, his involvement in Haiku development, and a bit about his professional work too. He also gives a bit of insight about his Haiku-related subprojects, and expresses his determination to port the development tool chain and optimize critical services as the first steps to make Haiku usable as a full time OS for early adopters. “Being a professional Java developer and enjoying Java hacking,” Ingo also seems to be thrilled by the recently announced Haiku Java Team and the prospect of finally getting Java on Haiku.

Haiku Java Team Announced

According to a news post on the Haiku project website, a new port team is being formed to bring Java technologies to the Haiku platform. The goal of the Haiku Java Team is to port OpenJDK to Haiku, and they would like to see the port included within the structure of Sun's OpenJDK project. The Haiku developers have already been in contact with members of the OpenJDK Porters Group to pursue their objective, and a formal proposal has also been submitted for consideration by the OpenJDK project. The Haiku Java Team is an initiative lead by Bryan Varner, who together with Andrew Bachmann worked on the port of Java to BeOS in the past (demo video).

Haiku Webkit Port: Talking to Andrea ‘xeD’ Anzani

"It looks like the Haiku Webkit port initiated by Ryan Leavengood has entered a productive second stage of development, and thanks to the recent work by one of the new project team members, Andrea 'xeD' Anzani, tangible progress has been made as shown by the recent screenshot showing the HaikuLauncher application rendering bebits.com. I was curious about his work, so I went directly to the source and asked a few questions to Andrea; here are his answers." On a related note, Haiku now has a new nightly build archive.

Webkit Compiles on Haiku

Ryan Leavengood reports on the Haiku website: "I know I have been very quiet for a while in regards to my Haiku WebKit port, but that is because I've been in a long session of coding. I am happy to report that this weekend I finally got WebCore compiling for Haiku. So what does this mean? Does it mean the port is now complete? Unfortunately, no it doesn't." Update: Haiku gets a featured speaker spot and a booth at ScaLE 6x Expo

Gobe Productive Running in Haiku

Gobe Productive v2.0.1 now works in Haiku. "I've played with GoBE Productive for half an hour now, and it seems remarkedly stable. Gobe Productive is a unique piece of software, and one of the darlings of BeOS software. This will surely fill a much needed gap in the office suite department, despite the software's age! It's also testament to the vision of enabling backwards compatibility to BeOS application, and how good Haiku is at it."

An IDE for Haiku’s Future: Introducing Genestation

"As the development of Haiku keeps making noticeable strides, there seems to be no plan to include a direct replacement for the integrated development environment BeIDE that was bundled with BeOS. I have read here and there from a couple of BeOS developers about their intentions to develop such an IDE for Haiku, but nothing has trickled down so far in terms of code or binaries. Well, that's not the case anymore."

Understanding the Requirements of Multithreaded Applications

Haiku developer Stephan Assmus (Stippi) has posted the first in a series of articles on the topics of multithreaded applications. Stephan writes: "Though I am programming on BeOS since 1999, only in recent years I have slowly become more comfortable with various multithreading related issues in my programs. So I thought I'd like to share some of my experiences here for beginning programmers or programmers skeptical about multithreading. I hope to be extending this as a series of articles to help learn the benefits and pitfalls of multithreading. All with an emphasis on programming for Haiku's API."

Haiku Gets Samba, FireWire Support

Two interesting bits of news from the Haiku front. First, Haiku now has basic support for FireWire, thanks to GSOC student JiSheng Zhang. You cannot connect a FireWire hard drive just yet, though. Second, Russian BeOS hacker Troeglazov Gerasim has ported Samba 3.10 to Haiku, so you can now browse your Windows shares in Haiku, as well as share files through Samba in Haiku. IsComputerOn has the details, as well as some screenshots.

FalterCon: Impressions

"FalterCon 2007 took place on August 11, and it went quite well (IMHO, of course). Here I would like to share my personal impressions of the event, as well as make a few (somewhat) related observations. When the news of the WalterCon cancellation broke out and I read about some people being left with non-refundable air tickets, my first reaction was 'OK, let's do something with these guys'. A few emails later with Mike Summers, Bryan Varner and Urias, we had decided on having a community gathering which, as many of you know, was to later be called FalterCon (yes, pun intended). In approximately two weeks, we found a venue (and a good one!), had this website running, prepared some nice promo material, and were able to gather nine people willing to attend. All in all, I think we did pretty well given the very little time we had."

From BeOS to Haiku: the Once and Future OS Contender?

"There is a sub-genre of historical fiction one could loosely call 'what-ifs'. The computer industry also has a number of such obvious what if scenarios. What if Bill Gates and Paul Allen hadn't lucked into the IBM contract for DOS, which was the basis for Microsoft's eventual hegemony? What if the UNIX operating system hadn't split into several minor variants, but gone on to become what Linux later became, only a decade or two before? What if BeOS had gone on to succeed on the desktop...?"

The State of Haiku, Inc.

"A few days ago, everyone read about this year's WalterCon being canceled, which left people with non-refundable, non-transferable tickets (you can read Mikesum32's reaction here) in their hands. Fortunately for them, an alternative has now been set up, and they will be able to still meet, in San Francisco, on August 11th. The venue? Picnix 16, a Linux gathering. The name? FalterCon 2007. Read on for my thoughts on this."