What Would Happen To Linux If BeOS Were GPL'd? 298
j2demelo writes: "What would happen to Linux if BeOS were to be released under the GPL? How much competition, if any, would this bring upon Linux? I for one would love to see it happen. It would mean another low-cost alternative to Windows on the desktop, allowing computer manufacturers to reduce prices even more. We know Linux isn't currently ready for mainstream desktop use. Could the open sourcing of BeOS give it the kick-in-the-butt it needs?" Before you all start the advocacy wars, I'd like to point out that if BeOS was converted to an Open Source License, it would not mean the end of either OS by a long shot. Competition in markets usually means an improvement of the products in that market, that would mean that both Be and Linux would have to improve. What improvements would both OSes make and how would this affect the Open Source Operating Systems market?
Re:Can you believe a cnn article on goatse? (Score:2)
Assimilation is futile.. (Score:2)
Unfortunately, a lot of the cool things that BeOS can do are because of the overall architecture. It is highly unlikely that the fundemental unix like architecture of linux will change. Instead, we will have to wait for a preemptible, pageable kernel to get developed. Then wait for filesystems to get far enough along to support "interesting" things.
Linux's main problem (which is also the source of much success...
Anyways, one could claim that the Linux community is very good at cloning prior art, but not very receptive to radical developments of it's own.
-Chris
A different day in Slashdot... (Score:2)
Competition in Open Source? (Score:3)
Nothing would make me happier (Score:2)
I have used it before and love it, the only problem is that Be has a relativley small team of developers and they don't have enough driver support for the things on my existing computer, I would have to get another one to run it right.
I don't really see that it would compete with Linux in all that big of a way.
I remember an interveiw with Linus on a radio station here in seattle (99.9 kisw for those of you reading from here) where he said that he had created it because nothing else really suited the way he wanted to use a computer and he wasn't really trying to compete with windows he just wanted their to be more choices the same way that "Mac" is a choice.
Is this just a "what if?" question or has something been hinted at from Be?
one possible good result of this: (Score:4)
To argue for that, let me argue for a second against the opposite situation;)
Microsoft Word, though I'm not a fan, is an adequate program for manipulating strings of words. It has find-and-replace (my favorite missing feature in pine;) ), a spelling checker, etc. Without getting into my particular complaints, I concede that many people like MS Word. But MS Word *could* be a morally / aesthetically acceptable program to me for all its failings, but it's not now. Why? Because its default file format is obfuscated and proprietary, and requires someone else to have either their own copy of Word or a special limited-purpose reader, and is difficult on anything but a Mac or Windows-running PC.
That's lunacy. Analogies fail. It's as if
At any rate, I'd like to see an open sourced BeOS (not that it seems to be in the cards) if it would poke people with the idea that HTML, SGML, RTF, plain text and other such *un*obfuscated formats are the way to go. Documents in (even half-decent) HTML I think will be more likely legible than Word version X in 20, 30, 100 years.
Anyhow, the continuing rant
timothy
Re:Competition in Open Source? (Score:4)
Quite a bit actually. BSD used to tout the vast superioirty of their TCP stack over Linux. That's less true today than it once was. BSD folks love (loved?) to tout the superiority of ipf over ipfwadm and ipchains (rightly so), but I think iptables (new for 2.4) has it pretty well matched.
You'd need to read the linux-kernel mailing list archives for a while to realize there's actually a fair amount of synergy going on there, and the core developers do occassionally discuss.
A while back, as another example, BSD analyzed Linux's VM system (and criticized as well as complimented it where necessary). A lot of those criticisms were taken to heart.
As for Hurd... I don't know enough about Hurd to tell you whether it even contributes to the community with new, interesting ideas. And darwin is just FreeBSD with apple sauce.
YO SLASHDOT (Score:5)
Ask Slashdot: which is better, freebsd or linux?
Ask Slashdot: should i replace my NT server with linux?
Ask Slashdot: is mysql ready for the enterprise?
all of these discussions are just ploys to generate banner ad revenue. but, i KNOW that there have to be lots of decent stories out there getting rejected, just look at k5, it's pretty decent.
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a funny comment: 1 karma
an insightful comment: 1 karma
a good old-fashioned flame: priceless
BeOS vs. The World (Score:3)
So, why do I use Linux more that Be, even though I like it so much? One real reason - I know more about Linux, have more apps that I use a lot under Linux, and don't have a big enough hard drive to give both a respectable amount of space. So, in the future I may easily swith to Be full time (as long as they don't drop the OS for BeIA) and make use of the X server that has been ported to it for any X stuff I need. But I think Be really has a great product on their hands.
Well... (Score:5)
I think that more people cling to the GPL because of linux than the other way around. I don't see a lot of people screaming towards the HURD project, which is a pretty good concept.
I think that more people attack the BSD license because of what certain advocates say, rather than the licenses actual content. I am a BSD user. Anybody who has seen my car knows this.
I think that a lot of BeOS would get incorporated into Linux, but it would take time, especially considering the parts that are fundamentally incompatible, but that is beyond the scope of this discussion.
And BeOS isn't going GPL. Why don't we talk about if Solaris or SysV or HURD, oh wait, that is GPL, go GPL instead.
What would happen if every linux project switched to the BSD license? Would everyone leave linux and switch to BSD?
(BTW, I also have a Linux box that I use the hell out of)
Re:No Competition for Linux (Score:2)
This really isnt the case. BeOS itself is just as stable as Linux. Nearly everything runs as a server on top of the kernel, and if it crashes, it just restarts that server.
As far as porting the Be GUI to linux, it also couldnt happen. It would require basically recreating the Be API from scratch, and rewriting almost all of the linux kernel due to different ways of handling scheduling and threading.
In fact, large chunks of the Be GUI are already opensourced at opentracker.org, but porting it to linux would be VERY difficult.
With all these problems, doesn't it seem more likely that people would start porting the various linux libraries to BeOS? The end result would be the same really, but to assume that linux would be the better solution to start building on is probably incorrect.
Re:Assimilation is futile.. (Score:2)
The problem is that the innovation never gets accepted by the community at large. These innovations may be seen as too "unlinux" or "ununix". Because of that, even though they are better ways of doing things.... they get ignored and eventually die out.
The only way to thoroughly kill an opensource project is to ignore it.
-Chris
Re:Forgot to mention... (Score:2)
i ain't even going to apologize for the 4 scotch rant
Re:one possible good result of this: (Score:2)
That's lunacy? Sorry timothy, but methinks either your definition of lunacy has a very low threshold, or that you're a tad hysterical. Only readable on Windows and Mac machines? Fair enough assessment, but then again, that is some 95% of the desktop market.
I also think your analogy is a bit incomplete. It's like having an x-ray machine whose default output is proprietary, and is only readable by another x-ray machine from the same manufacture (ok, ok, I'm torturing the analogy quite a bit, I admit it), but this x-ray machine also has alternative methods of producing output with most/many/all of the same features, or even a sort of fail-safe mode with the information expressed in a standard, basic format.
I suspect I can still read a Word document in 20 years. Thirty? Who knows. But I suspect that in 100 years, we'll not only be unable to read present day word documents, we'll also be unable to read present day RTF, HTML, ASCII, etc. Media degrades, y'know. I think we have more important things to worry about over the next century than a particular file format, of all things.
I appreciate and respect your ideal of a open file formats, but if Microsoft wants to make theirs proprietary, that is their choice after all. There are open alternatives, and their reluctances to use them may well bite them in the ass one day. (I also fail to see how an open BeOS will lead the charge toward such openess of formats. Elaboration, please?)
Whew. I hate going on that long. Sorry 'bout that
-T.A.F.
Good OS? No, good users! (Score:3)
As linux will gain shares of the desktop markets, I fear this reputation will dissapear...
Furthermore, because of the graphic/multimedia nature of the BeOS I think it would be a much better fit for the desktop, especially if it become open source!
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Open source the world? (Score:5)
So, this is another case of nVidiaism. They have contracts with other people which disallow them from opening the source. Stop bickering about it. Stop dreaming about it. It just ain't gonna happen.
Even if it could happen, I wouldn't want it to. All you linux zealots would dive in and try and start 'fixing' things. Then we'd get a "microkernel" as large as that monolithic piece of shit linux 2.4.0.
-G
BeNews Editor
Linux is only free if your time is of no value
Re:Assimilation is futile.. (Score:2)
Important Be Improvement (Score:2)
I just don't see that happening.. unless they used a porcupine that, instead of needles, had pixie sticks. I love those things.
Re:Open source the world? (Score:2)
-G
Linux is only free if your time is of no value
Re:Assimilation is futile.. (Score:5)
But you are missing one exceedingly important point:
Linux != UNIX
In so many ways, from the kernel not implementing all of POSIX (only the "nice" or "clean" stuff), to the user space apps having a distinctively different feel (than say Solaris), Linux is significantly different already.
Linux is different enough to break a lot of stuff that depends on system installs, and each distro is different enough to make packaging a bitch. It is not, however, different in the ways that are valuable. Linux distros are all just variations of a theme.
I hate to say it, but it seems like Darwin of all things is one of the most creative things in the "scene". Hurd is probably close, but it's doomed from the start by being associated with "microkernels" (see my comment about killing/hindering a project by ignoring it). Unfortunately for Hurd, for example, they will not have the neccesary developer base to get the ball rolling and self sustaining for a long time. By that time, Hurd may very well be obsolete.
So here is my battle cry: Lets try new, INTERESTING, things, and lets do them in the Linux context. Lets not break everything by changing something. Lets try providing extensions to Linux, and see how they work out. If they don't work out well (because they are inelegant, not because they are unused), then rip them out. If they work out well, keep them in, and start using them.
There are so many good projects laying around, that are predominately dormant, that would be interesting to pursue. A completely random example that just popped into my head is the ill fated (killed by the fbcon hack) GGI project. Another interesting project is Berlin (http://www.berlin-consortium.org?).
What would happen if these projects had a significant hacker base to draw from? GGI is much more powerful and interesting than fbcon, and we NEED something to take the baton from X.
Anyways, enuf ranting.
-Chris
Re:Nothing would make me happier (Score:2)
Re:Will never happen... (Score:2)
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Re:one possible good result of this: (Score:2)
Hey man.. go grab nano [nano-editor.org], a clone of pico, it rocks man.. it is so great, it has search and replace, go to line (the two big ones) and a couple of other cool features. It even has a "pico emulation mode" where it looks and acts exactly like pico. So if you don't want a multi-megabyte editor or an editor with obsficated key commands, go grab nano.
Open Source Be? Happy Christmas, that's what. (Score:2)
It would be, just, the greatest thing. Unix/Linux/BSD could get on with what they were designed to do, be a multiuser operating system. We could all concentrate fully and properly on what ought to be everyone's number one concern: Making DAMN CERTAIN Win2K server/advanced server/datacentre server never gets a foothold. Keep that damn thing on the desktop, at most.
Use all these vast quantities of effort currently going into, well: making X do things it was not designed to do; trying to get open source drivers for video cards and having to reverse engineer things; ditto sound cards; in fact anything to do with persuading very good server operating systems to work on the desktop.... And point it towards doing great things server side. Let's see a damn good debugger for Zope; Some clever stuff to do with hot swap PCI; Lots of top notch hardware failure tolerant work; Innovate, dammit, you know you can.
And with the people that want to squeeze that last 5 fps? Or those who want to make nano-small virtual machines for running applets etc. Fine. Good. Great even. Use something that was designed for it from the ground up.
I guess that's the point. An open source Be would be just wonderful on the desktop. Unix is just wonderful on the server. Wouldn't it be great to use the right tool for the job?
Here comes the napalm....
Dave
assumptions (Score:2)
Yes, LInux has grown under the open source umbrella, but it still remains quite a few leaps and bounds from the reformity that BeOS possess...
Yawn (Score:2)
Be was going to revolutionize the world: It didn't.
Be was going to sell the hottest boxes: They stopped.
Be was going to challenge Apple on their own hardware: They didn't.
Be was going to be THE "Multimedia OS": Disapeared from sight.
Be was going to take the x86 world by storm: Not even a breeze.
Be was going to break down the initial-investment barrier by releasing a no-price version: Nobody cared.
Be is going to become an important embedded OS: We'll see.
Fer goodness sakes - they can't give it away, why is making it Open Source gonna change things?
A couple of headlines, a two-day wonder, a surge in downloads then pretty much the same things that's been happening all along to Be - not much. First it'll get picked over for whatever goodies can be gleaned from it, a few more zealots will join the Be camp, a couple bug-reports will be sent in, several even with a pointer to the relevant code. Beyond that - snoozer.
There are lot's of kewl OS's out there ranging from LISP machines to Oberon to nano-kernels - nobody cares .
Be does offer more then the typical niche-OS but nothing so incredible it's a must-have. It doesn't scratch any itch that can't be scratched otherwise. It doesn't offer any dramatic price or performance benefits that can't be papered over with the standard quantities of green-stuff. It isn't a developer's-dream or a user's-delight or an administrator's-joy: It's nice enough at all of these but it's not so outstanding at any of them to make it an imperative.
Worse yet it's a horse in an increasingly crowded field. Aside from the MS stable of OS's (what - a dozen or so variations out now?) there's of course the Linuxen, various BSD's, Apple's dark-horse Darwin/MacOS X, QNX, and a couple of bajillion boutique & school-project OS's. Be is just one more small-OS trying to make the jump to the big-leagues.
More power to it but Open-Sourcing ain't gonna be the break that makes it all happen for them. A half-dozen commercial OS's have been Open Sourced in the past year or so & none of them have benefited greatly from it. Heck, Apple even packages their Darwin for x86, a platform they're not even on & the active outside developers on it can be counted on one hand - a maimed hand at that.
I honestly like Be - they've got some great stuff, but I just don't see them getting much out of Open Sourcing, certainly not enough to chance chance eroding their existing advantages. It may be A Good Thing in the big order of the universe but in the pay-the-bills world it wouldn't seem to be a prudent move for them.
Damn it all, you ignorant CLI-zealots!! (Score:2)
Say you have just downloaded 100 pics off your digital camera, and they're named pic00001.jpg through pic00100.jpg - and say you have a GUI filemanager with thumbnail display of graphics... tell me, how is your CLI going to help you pick out the 10 pictures you took of your dog faster than I can point and click on the 10 icons with a little picture of my dog inside them?
Tab-completion only works when you have files with dissimilar names.
Grep only works on text files.
Ls only works if you don't need to preview your files in any way - I guarantee you it's faster for me to double-click on 20 different mp3s to hear the first few seconds than it is for you to type (including tab-completion) mpg123 St[tab]n[tab]*beep*[ctrl-D]G[tab]-Girl[tab][enter] . Same goes for images.
Not to mention being able to select many files with vastly different names (such that wildcard globbing wouldn't work) and manipulate them - there's another operation where GUI filemanagers are a definite plus.
Re:YO SLASHDOT (Score:2)
lots of decent stories out there getting rejected, just look at k5, it's pretty decent
kurroshin fuckin' sux. it is the most boring, pedantic, bombastic, navel gazing drivel imaginable. 100% philosophizing, 0% news. Yes, sometimes slashdot runs out of interesting things so they run some Katzian bullshit or some BeOS bullshit, ok: but don't compare it to kurofuckingboremetodeath. Who are you, signal 11?
Re:one possible good result of this: (Score:2)
Well, if you still have the computer you used to create them, or some equivilent, then that's probably a good bet as long as you use a storage medium that'll last that long. Otherwise, i sincerly doubt it. Thanks to MS's obsessive alteration of the
If you really want those documents 20 or 30 years from now, i suggest you print them and put them in a cool, dry place away from sunlight. ASCII files will probably still work, too.
-ben.c
Re:Assimilation is futile.. (Score:2)
I'm trying to point out that innovation in neccesary for Linux to not become stagnant. Just like you said, we don't want to copy windows. We want to take the small subset of GOOD ideas from windows and run with them.
I think that linux is doing an awesome job in the realm of simple web/dns/file servers... but that can also be done by a set top box. Lets try doing something interesting, and lets push the envelope a little bit.
A lot of very interesting projects get killed way before their time because they are preceived as being too slow. Hell, with an expodential increase in computing power, do we really need to care about each clock cycle anymore? Isn't it more useful to concentrate on getting INTERESTING things done pretty well, then something BORING done way too well?
Sure sure, you can optimize things all you want, and in many cases optimization is a very good thing. Optimization, however, is best done by computers: for example the compiler level, or done at a very high (Design) level by people. Microoptimizing every detail of a system is not only silly, but it is broken.
Scratching the itch is definately what drives the linux community, but it is also what holds it back in some way. Being driven to fix particular incarnations of problems in software is a wonderful way to limit your thinking to what is "inside of the box". We need people to think outside of "what is accepted" and we need people to listen to them when they do.
I know that I have some fairly excentric views here, but they should be voiced.
Maybe I'm just getting senile in my old age.
-Chris
http://www.nondot.org/~sabre [nondot.org]
Re:Assimilation is futile.. (Score:2)
You're right, of course. But I still have to mention this interesting symptom of shifting attitudes:Spotted at Linux Today [linuxtoday.com], which was quoting FUD^wZDnet in turn.
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Very little will change. (Score:5)
Linux and BeOS are made for different sorts of people. BeOS is to Unix (Linux in particular) what MacOS is to Windows, in terms of simplicity of interface. We won't get into superiority arguments between Windows and MacOS users.
BeOS does not follow standards that are close to anything in the Unix world. In fact, now that I think about it, MacOS X seems to be a lot like BeOS. People who use Linux want a free, light Unix to use on their hardware. People who use BeOS want MacOS with bash.
I don't think GPL'ing BeOS will change that. For most people, the attraction with BeOS is that it is so foreign... I have been quite curious about it. However, there is a cost-free version available for download, and it will even install itself in spare partitions if you please. Freedom to modify the code will improve userbase very little.
Of course, I'm talking only about workstations and servers here. Maybe it turns out that BeOS is remarkably scalable, and fits well in the embedded world. This will of course change the prospects of Linux making it into embedded electronics.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
Re:linux == middle ground (Score:2)
The average user i.e. someone like me, or my wife wants something that CAN do everything. It doesn't HAVE to do everything well, but it DOES have to do it REASONABLY well. Windows has that, MAC has that does any other OS?
I don't think so.
I DON'T want to dual boot, I want to use a single STABLE (sorry windows) OS that has lots of app's. I (as an average user) DON'T GIVE A SHIT about who owns what, what license it's under (almost true,i care, but if I really want the software, the license is irrelevant, even though I usually disagree with it) but I do care about cost, stability and USABILITY.
Bloatware, BSOD's, and incompatibilities are the BANE of modern software. These "features" are what causes people to stick with what they're given, cause, it's easier, AND 'cause there really isn't much of a difference anyway!
*CAVEAT** Written from the viewpoint of Joe Blow User and His Wife Jane.
Re:YO SLASHDOT (Score:3)
-Elendale
Isn't Be already competition to Linux? (Score:2)
Just because Linux is open source it doesn't mean it's in a special class of it's own - it still has maintenance and other costs associated with the TCO that Windows and Be have associated with them.
Linux developers should think this way because if they did, then Linux would be much easier to use than it is now.
Cheers,
Daniel.
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Daniel Zeaiter
daniel@academytiles.com.au
http://www.academytiles.com.au
ICQ: 16889511
Re:Assimilation is futile.. (Score:2)
Linux != UNIX
Actually, that Linux != Unix was implicit in my point. If Linux == Unix then it would have had an installed base as a cost of that decision. The fact that Linux != Unix is precisely the tragedy. Since it isn't Unix it didn't need to inherit all the baggage but instead of throwing all that legacy out and looking for new ideas, the community embraced the legacy as a shortcut to "legitimacy".
Re:It's not just about the licenses... (Score:2)
And anyway, sometimes you have to let your work go. If you want to do more than one or two things for the OSS community you often need to leave it to others to take up your work whilst you go and do something else. Bit like children. You just have to let them go. If the code's any good and the function compelling enough it will leave you anyway (yes including Linus and the kernel he started). Get over it.
Re:Assimilation is futile.. (Score:2)
Far more than that - have you seen NetInfo?
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Re:Amiga as a link? (Score:2)
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Re:one possible good result of this: (Score:2)
I just want to point out that the reason there's so much bad HTML code out there is, HTML was never intended to express attributes of page layout, or really, physical appearance at all. A standard word processing program these days does more than process words; it also allows you do do desktop publishing, choosing the precise layout of your text and other elements. Trying to force layout into HTML is a difficult hack to accomplish at times (peruse my home page if you don't think I know what I'm talking about).
HTML is not the standard format that will replace Word's proprietary format. Microsoft wants a hacked-up version of HMTL to replace it, primarily because HTML has become a buzzword of sorts, but then you run into exactly the same problem with reading that format that you now have with Word - you'll need either Word or Internet Explorer in order to read it properly, because it will break all the standards and specifications the other browsers strive to adhere to.
I don't have the answer. I just know that HTML isn't it.
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Re:Competition in Open Source? (Score:2)
In any case, BeOS does have some major differences, so it would naturally bring new ideas into the mix. At this point, I think that would be a very good thing.
The fallacy of competition (Score:4)
Re:BeOS needs apps (Score:2)
High-quality word processor - Check...(Gobe)
Spreadsheet - Check...(Gobe again)
Good web browser - Not completly ready, but hows opera 4.01 sound?
Add these together, with a few great high end apps, and many apps ported from linux, and you end up with a hell of a good OS, even for newbies. With the new BeOS networking and OpenGL, I see no reason at all why Be should not be a great OS, for anyone. IMO, Linux could learn a few things from BeOS, and vice versa. BeOS could teach linux how to be good on the desktop, and Linux would teach Be how to be a great Multi-User OS, which is the only thing that appears to be lacking from Be. The apps will come, eventually. I could use BeOS 100% of the time already, if it werent for games. I sense a new wave of game development ahead though, because of the new OpenGL implementation in Be, which is BTW faster than either windows or linux, and has no drop in framerate even when running in windowed mode.
Re:Thoughts on all the bickering... (Score:2)
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BeOS is a different critter (Score:4)
BeOS was developed as a multimedia OS, and Linux was developed as a Server OS. The optimizations that are required for one would destroy the other. ie you can have the kernel doing the majority of it's processing with a video render or have apache running at full speed.. not both.
To paraphrase the perl advoticy article... there is no one OS for every task. Just like PHP is easier than Perl for certian projects, BeOS is easier than Linx for certian tasks.
To clarify for our non-geek readers... Both a hammer and a screwdriver will put a screw through a board... but only one was designed to do so..
Dave
btw: no I can't spell... I code for a living
Whats the point of being grown up if you can't act childish sometimes? ---- Dr Who
Re:maybe then we would get some video drivers (Score:2)
Which graphics card did you get that BeOS doesn't support?
Writing graphics drivers is really icky business. Even when you do have documentation, it is frequently cryptic, and missing important bits. Even docs from Intel, which are about the finest I've seen anywhere, often omit small details (like the formula for calculating the coefficients for the pixel clock PLL).
Don't have documentation? Congratulations, you're SOL, and reduced to disassembling the BIOS ROM, or picking through the source code contributed to the XFree86 Project. And if you think having XFree86 source code makes driver writing cake, you may care to have a look at the v3.3.6 code for the NVidia GeForce, or the v4.0 code for the SMI Lynx (which has whacking great bugs in it). Or best yet, the code for the NeoMagic laptop chips. (Note that this is no slam against the XFree86 guys; I'm just pointing it out that it's not a panacea.)
There's tens of thousands of Linux contributors. There's only 100 or so people at Be, who really are dancing as fast as they can.
Schwab
Re:Nothing would make me happier (Score:2)
You do not need to see the source code to the BeOS kernel to write drivers for it. In fact, our device driver API is dirt simple. You can read about it here [be.com].
In fact, you can find programming documentation for all of BeOS [be.com] on the Web site.
Schwab
BeOS GPL'd (Score:2)
Linux is still a Unix clone and has all of the benefits and shortcomings thereof. And before you get on your horse and claim "BeOS is based on Unix too!", it is not. Nor is it based on Linux, BSD or any other clone of Unix. Be did implement a Born Again Shell so BeOS could run most POSIX compliant programs. However, that's where Unix compatibility ends. BeOS was written from the ground up, including the kernel, with performance in mind. From a programming perspective (I have over 25 years experience, I might add), BeOS's API wins hands down over all other major operating systems. As for BeOS's lack of drivers and applications: Anyone with technical knowledge of the hardware can write a driver for BeOS. There is documentation on Be's Web site and many examples, BeOS and the development tools are free for the time it takes to download. If there is an application you would like to see on BeOS, by all means write it!
I personally don't think either BeOS or Linux would benefit from BeOS being GPL'd. In fact, I think that BeOS might suffer from too many ingredients in the pot. For example, if I install Red Hat using the "Gnome Workstation" option, it takes up somewhere in the neighborhood of a gigabyte of storage space. This is heinous bloat, most of which the average user (or even programmer) would never use. But trying to make heads or tails of what packages are actually needed would be impossible for the non geek.
What if lawyers.... (Score:2)
Imagine if the legal sharks out there stopped pursuing lawsuits that are based upon dubious claims and wholly intended to make their clients a fast buck? What if they suddenly became ethical and just flat out refused to work for companies like Rambus? What if socialists who are busy in some cities suing firearms companies, for supposed damages because hood rats are using guns to kill each other, just couldn't find a lawyer worth snot to pursue the case for them?
Guess what, it ain't gonna happen so why waste time wondering about it?
Or how about this, what if D-O-G spelled cat?
Lee Reynolds
What's relevant is free already (Score:2)
To quote from Be's website:
However, Companies who develop software for BeOS desktop PCs are encouraged to take advantage of free resources like BeOS Personal Edition, BeOS development tools, and more. It is possible to create quality BeOS software without paying a dime.
If you think there's no applications, check out http://www.bebits.com
Re:Problem with Be (Score:2)
And I suppose you drive an electric car because petrol engines are 100 year-old technology.
Re:Competition in Open Source? (Score:2)
That's not exactly true. Darwin can handle multiple forks on file systems that support it, uses a Mach kernel and most importantly has a great innovative driver framework (IOKit), designed for support of Firewire and USB (hotplugging, dynamic loading and unloading), which both don't work well with Linux.
Re:Very little will change. (Score:2)
Maybe it turns out that BeOS is remarkably scalable, and fits well in the embedded world. This will of course change the prospects of Linux making it into embedded electronics.
Be is already putting a lot of effort into the embedded market (perhaps more than developing BeOS itself for the PC). Ever heard of BeIA [be.com]?
Re:Forgot to mention... (Score:2)
Open source development depends on the people (Score:2)
So what happens if you open source BeOS depends almost entirely on how good the guy who leads GPL BeOS. I'm not trying to say that Linus is the only one who's done any work on Linux (indeed, as many of you will hasten to point out, most of "Linux" doesn't even have anything to do with the kernel), but he has been responsible in a large part for keeping people interested in the OS, and getting them to help out. It's just like a business. You've got crappy management, it doesn't really matter how good your product is.
I would like to see two things happen (Score:2)
2. The focus of Linuxdevelopment is moved to serverapplications, while BeOS takes over as the GNU desktop-OS. Also try to move them towards a common Windowing-system, common tools etc.
Market the two as two sides of the same thing. GNU/Be (Try to pronounce it), the desktopOS and GNU/Linux the serverOS.
Kind of like Win98 vs. WinNT, only both much more stable.
I do believe in Linux as a desktop-OS, but we don't have the best foundation available.
Now.. BeOS will not be GPL'd anytime soon.
How dare you?!? (Score:2)
Re:Yawn (Score:2)
As to using, all of the folks who I know that have actually used Be for any length of time have raved about the OS but lamented that it wasn't really applicable to them 'cause it didn't do everything they needed. At least in the various *nix camps it's getting to the point where one can run in it most of the day & reboot into the other OS only occasionally; isn't it worse for the Be folks? (Be-en?, Be-ites? Be-exxians?)
Re:one possible good result of this: (Score:2)
I'm just pondering what an ASCII X-ray would look like :-)
Re:It's not just about the licenses... (Score:2)
As far as I know Apple has published the source to all the BSD stuff they have touched. The closed source parts of OS-X are things they wrote in house (like DisplayPostscript, er, DisplayPDF I mean, the OS 8 compatability box, and the candy coated GUI).
That is pretty much like the TiVo people giving back the few Linux kernel mods they did (I don't think they gave back the filesystem, since they use a kernel loadable module there, but I donno for sure). I know they don't give back their candy coated GUI. A shame, because there are a few little tweaks I would like to make...
Yes, with the GPL you are required to give back changes in many cases. With the BSDL you are never required to give them back. So Apple is either "being good people (at long last)", or "playing the PR game". TiVo is "walking the fine line guided by their lawyers".
Does the TiVo make you uncomftrable?
Re:Damn it all, you ignorant CLI-zealots!! (Score:2)
Re:Open source the world? (Score:2)
Could it be that, while BeOS is better than Linux, OpenBSD is better than Be? That would account for the situation you just described. Or, possibly, they all have their advantages, and OpenBSD just happens to be the best OS for serving up their website.
Get a clue.
BeOS and Linux (Score:2)
BeOS is clearly superior to any other OS in terms of multimedia. The fact it is free for the masses is already a big +. However I suspect that this hampers some threads of development. Specially integration with other OSes. If this barrier would be overturned then I believe we could see BeOS suddenly appearing as a *NIX visual interface. There are lots of things on *NIX that demand good quality graphics and sound. And *NIX is surely not the best for that job. Even Linux still looses a lot here. Having the BeOS sources. people could try to overcome these limitations by combining tasks between *NIX computers and BeOS. BeOS is probably the nearest OS to *NIX in this field so that integration could be quite powerful. Imagine a powerful Beowulf cluster calculating 3D virtual worlds and BeOS stations showing it... Yes it is possible now. But still I believe that open source would make a much better job. Specially on what concerns kernel interaction. Clusters could be more tightly integrated for example. Maybe BeOS would be not a station but a cluster member with different tasks.
Re:Competition in Open Source? (Score:2)
ipf and iptables are both branches from Darren Reed's ipfilter. One could get ipfilter up and running on a Linux box before, but now it's in the kernel and rightly so, in my humble opinion.
The big difference in iptables and prior linux firewalls is that ipfilter is a keep state firewall meaning that one doesn't need to keep track of TCP/syn, TCP/syn+ack, TCP/ack flags to "guess" a genuine connection's status.
Re:remember the Red Hat to buy Be rumour? (Score:2)
Re:It's not just about the licenses... (Score:2)
Anyone who wants to can download TIVO's kernel mods, but the GPL really only requires them to give it to people who have the binaries.
If TIVO wanted to be jerks, they could require you to send in the UPC code for your TIVO before they would mail you a floppy disk with the kernel code on it. Of course, that would actually be more work for them, and it would be bad press, so there's no advantage.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Re:Yawn, my ass. (Score:2)
Can't argue too much there.
or DOS -> OS/2 -> NT
Wrong. DOS was not the foundation of OS/2. OS/2 had a layer that could emulate DOS calls when the programs were run but it was written from the ground up. I'm not going to argue too much on NT taking from OS/2 as many parts were canabalized like the filesystem but NT is a different horse with a very different design.
or MULTICS -> UNIX -> MINIX -> LINUX
BeOS is written from scratch with out all the age-old crap underneath. I'd say in the time they've been on x86 and the rate their gaining that Windows AND Linux just better stay the fuck out of the way.
Many OSs have been written from scratch. Technical supperiority does not lend oneself to being the market dominator. I believe market dominance has more to do with how many apps users want or need are avaliable on that OS. The free/open source OSs are the exception as many users wrote the applications they wanted. What is the BeOS's killer app? It might be a great OS but without a killer app it has no future.
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
Re:one possible good result of this: (Score:2)
You are saying that preservation of historical documents is not important? I would bet that even now there are Word/WordPerfect/WordStar/etc documents being trashed because people just don't have the time to hunt down the proprietary viewer to read them.
Re:It's not just about the licenses... (Score:2)
More then required by the GPL and the binary module exception, yes.
My point wasn't that TiVo are bad guys (I don't think they are), but that what Apple is doing with BSD is pretty much the same thing TiVo is doing with Linux, so if one doesn't like what Apple is doing, don't think the GPL on Linux saves it from the same fate.
I do admit Apple could have done "worse", but that wasn't what the previous poster said. The were upset about OSX, and wanted to stick to GPL'ed things to prevent that.
Sure, and if they wanted to be jerks they would take a hard stance against hacking the TiVo and see if they could get all the bad press iOpener and CueCat got too. But they have the totally reasonable stance "if you open it and play with it that's cool, but if you break it don't call customer support for anything other then laughter".
A shame about that no-ethernet and no-firewire thing though.
Re:Damn it all, you ignorant CLI-zealots!! (Score:3)
is that the command you were looking for?
hope that helps...
Re:YO SLASHDOT (Score:2)
Two in the space of a week? (Score:2)
Advantages of BeOS over Linux:
1) It's faster. As someone who has used (and tweeked) most of the popular Linux distros, I can say that BeOS is certainly faster.
2) It has more "creature comforts." Stuff like attributes on the FS, the simple API, and obsessive attention to details like good drag and drop, good interoperabiltiy between apps, standardized interfaces, etc, really shows up in the amount of polish the OS has.
3) It scales. If you're an intermediate user, use the preferences menu for everything. With it, you can set up a telnet/NAT/ftp server with a couple of clicks. More hardcore than that? Edit the text files directly.
/etc and vi are only a terminal away.
4) It has a good app-base. A lot of the most common desktop usage apps are there, and a most of the apps are high-quality and useful. Also, almost all POSIX-text-mode apps are easily portable, so BeOS has ports of nifty stuff like compilers, language parsers, imaging libraries, and even full-blow subsystems like SANE. Plus, it has SAMBA, Apache, and dozens of other common *NIX apps. But wait, it gets better. There is an X server that is being worked on (on hiatus pending release of BONE and the new network API) and a port of Wine on the way. Lastly, BeOS currently rules the roost in terms of innovative audio apps.
5) It is easier to manage. I see
Disadvantages of BeOS vs Linux.
1) Linux will always have superior networking. BeOS just wasn't designed to put an emphasis on processes that simply move data around (TCP/IP stacks) and no matter how well designed the new network environment (BONE) is, the 3ms task slice (vs 50ms for Linux) and the pseudo/kinda/maybe realtime sheduling will work against BeOS here. But that's okay, its a client OS anyway.
2) Linux (even better, FreeBSD) has superior filesystem performance. A process that simply moves data around the filesystem will get about 20% better performance on ReiserFS than BFS. That's okay too. Unless you're a file server, you don't notice the lowered performance. Again, the OS simply wasn't designed to put a priority on just moving data around. As such, you'll see Bonnie scores 20% lower, but with half to a third of the processor usage.
3) It still doesn't have as many GUI apps. Browsers are limited to Opera 3.6.x, Netpositive, and Opera4 (soon, maybe) Of course, there is always Mozilla, and the BeOS builds are progressing everyday. Recently, BeOS has been getting some more support in the app area, and if BeIA pans out for Be (which those anti-BeOS idiots would know, if they ever read BeNews, has been getting a LOT of industry support) then we could be seeing more desktop apps out.
4) It doesn't have as large of a developer community.
5) Be's role in all this is iffy. The focus shift hurt, but if those anti-BeOS idiots would ever read BeNews, development on BeOS is far from stopped. Right now, there are the game_audio, OpenGL, BONE, and Java2 SE ports all being worked on. I can guarentee you the slate of distros being released with Linux 2.4 will not have all these updates.
Then there are the ties. Of them, the most annoying is probably hardware support. Yes, BeOS supports less hardware than Linux. No, you can't buy any of that unsupported hardware outside a flea market. Aside from the 3D part of the NVIDIA chips present in all my computers, all of my computers have full support for BeOS. And this isn't all standard hardware either. My PIII motherboard is one of those MicroATX all-in-one jobs from a fly-by-night company. Hell, it took me half an hour just to find out who made the sucker. Yet, everything from the network chip, the sound chip, the graphics chip, they're all supported in BeOS.
Re:It's not just about the licenses... (Score:2)
B) You'd still need man hours to port all of the drivers. BeOS drivers are very different from Linux drivers.
C) As I recall, the XFree86 license doesn't require you to redistribute code, so its not like any vid cards will get supported that aren't already.
Re:Open source the world? (Score:2)
Re:Very little will change. (Score:2)
Give me a break. If BeOS was lead by a core team focused on keeping it BeOS-like, then it would kick serious ass.
Re:YO SLASHDOT (Score:2)
2) It's not.
3) Slackware all the way.
Re:The fallacy of competition (Score:3)
Re:Assimilation is futile.. (Score:2)
Leave Be Alone! (Score:2)
In my humble opinion, Be is greatly superior to both Linux and Windows. Before I'm moderated down as Flamebait, I want to point out that I have a triple-boot system, and have the experience in all three to make a pretty valid asessment.
Windows is sort of easy, very popular, and has excellent driver support. If it was honestly as bad as people say, it wouldn't exist because people WOULD look elsewhere. Windows is at least good enough for the unwashed masses.
Linux is an interesting experiment and a powerful *nix, especially for the money. The problem is it IS hard to use. Even KDE and GNOME only scratch the surface. It is a system built on a very old specification, and it shows. Users (not newbies, just users) want to use the system, not tweak it endlessly. Recompiling the Kernel, Libraries, and Apps to get good performance (mine sucked until I did the above) is time consuming, overly technical, and more than even many power user would be willing to do. Linux is a great *nix, but not a great Desktop OS.
Be is the youngest and still has a ways to go, but it shows the most promise. I fear it will die off because of Windows dominance or a shift to IAs by Be, but I hope not. It is very responsive, contains no overtly legacy code, has an Object Oriented API, boots in seconds (while MS tweaks Windows to get 3x the boot time), and is very stable. The only reason I don't use BeOS more is its small Application support and the fact that I haven't figured out PPPoE on Be yet and I can't live without my DSL.
I see an Open Source Be being disected and pasted on Linux (Bad Idea), being fractured as hackers paste on *nix concepts (Worse Idea), or being left to die by a community already focused on Linux (A Tradjedy). I hope Be makes it, but I don't think that the magic balm of OSS is the key. More likely Be would die a quick death as OSS, especially after the proprietary code (from other companies) is culled to keep copyright lawyers happy.
Re:BeOS vs. The World (Score:2)
B) Linux has crashed more often (devel kernels) than BeOS. What kind of stunt are you trying to pull. BeOS has been rock solid ever since DR8 (which was three or four years ago) Of course, it could be a problem with your hardware, in which case I suggest no buying a Packard Bell next time.
C) The filesystem is fast (somewhere between ext2 and Reiser, closer to ext2) reliable, and feature filled. It has features that are still in the developmental stages for ResierFS. What more do you want?
D) "emulated under Linux." That's the whole problem. The BeOS GUI isn't great because it looks spiffy, but it has a level of "Zen" unmatched by any Linux GUI. In Linux, it pains me to use the GUI sometimes. I end up just using xterm. But in BeOS, the GUI just feels so homey. (Of course, there is the terminal there too)
Re:Assimilation is futile.. (Score:3)
Re:Important Be Improvement (Score:2)
Re:Yawn (Score:2)
Re:X windows (Score:2)
Re:X windows (Score:2)
>>>>>>
Well, they work. And uh, I can load them. And umm, it doesn't crash when using them... BUT, they look aweful, all jaggedy. And its not just the lack of anti-aliasing, X fonts genuinely suck. But they DO work.
3d graphics are extremely fast
>>>>>>>>
No they are not. Even Windows 2000 (which isn't exactly the pinnacle of OS design) is 30% or so faster. And that's only because NVIDIA was nice enough to give X some pro-caliber drivers. (BTW, the NVIDIA drivers are around 20-30% faster on average than the stock XFree ones for 2D primitives)
stability is good
>>>>>>>>>>
I'll give you that.
X remote display works well even over a modem link
>>>>>>>>
True.
and even the notorious X bloat has been put on a diet
>>>>>>>>
Wow. Look mom! I lost 200lb and I now only weigh 350!
There are many well known defiencies, such as limited suport for drawing primitives, lack of alpha channel support, not to mention lack of dynamic resolution/ color depth changing
>>>>>>>
Which all other windowing systems have had forever
but they are all comming down the pipeline
>>>>>>>>>>
Real soon now!
Not to mention that it is still a bitch to configure and for something that has been worked on so much, it is quite underhwelming.
Re:X windows (Score:2)
Re:Yawn (Score:2)
A half-dozen other OS's managed the exact same feat before Apple started giving folks information: If they all could do it why not Be? Either Be's engineers aren't as hot as they profess or they're just trying to duck responsibility for their exiting that market. Of course that fact that Intel pumped in a big shot of funding about then and got a board seat wouldn't have had an influence, nooooo.
As to Apple killing PREP/CHRP/etc. - what about Motorola & IBM? It was a troika - even if Apple knifed it's own baby the rest had their own projects that Be could have gone to.
IBM was going to ship their hardware with OS/2 & AIX (and did ship - indeed at one point it was actually possible to get a beta MacOS release running on the IBM hardware.) To this day they're shipping nearly-CHRP motherboards one can buy, complete with PowerPC's. They're also using them in their own servers, every day.
Motorola was subsidizing MS's port of NT and planning a big line of Mac-compatibles that would have been just prime for Be. Indeed Motorola took a big hit when Apple dropped licensing. Had Be produced a reasonable business plan Motorola would have been happy to cut their losses (and get revenge on Apple.) Be didn't & missed another opportunity. Again, one can today buy nearly-CHRP motherboards from Motorola, complete with PowerPC's.
Be didn't cut it because they mis-predicted the market - over and over. Nobody wanted a "Media OS" that didn't have basics like a decent word-processor, nobody wanted something that was like nothing else. Be still suffers from not enough applications and no overwhelming sales features (a clever FS & lots-o-threads does not cut it!)
Linux & the BSDs had a strong heritage to build upon & a ready-built community of CompSci students familier with unix & the wonderful GNU tools.
NeXT had Steve Jobs, the VC money, and after about the same set of mis-steps Be made but ended up with a really stable OS that was very portable & a dream to develop on.
Apple dicked around for 10 years & finally got bought by Next for a few negative-million bucks. Be never really had a chance against Next; it was sexy but had nothing to offer Apple but more of the same - another unique OS with limited compatiblity & an even smaller set of applications.
Sorry - Jean-Loius may be a smart fellow and may have come up with a fine boutique-OS but he's no great success at running the company. There's been a series of opportunities that Be has missed & it's not showing any signs of getting savvier.
Even going into the embedded market is a big gamble. As you noted, Linux et al is heading into the same place and with a whole lot more mind-share. QNX and others are already there - don't think they're going to let their lunch get taken from them without a fight either.
Be is a neat OS but unless they pull a rabbit out of the hat they're down the tubes, fast or slow. OS-2 Warp was awesome also as it circled the drain.
ps Other folks have the respect to stand behind their own words - loose the "Anonymous Coward" and come out into the light.
Re:Yawn (Score:2)
Re:X windows (Score:2)
B) I use Netscape6.
C) XF86Setup won't help anything. I have no problem using xf86config, it's a perfectly user-friendly program. Even the XF86Config file is pretty friendlY (nicely commented) What my problem is that there is no setting that allows you to set your refresh rate, and X-4 is limited to VESA modes, which means that getting anything above 75Hz on your 1152x864 monitor means getting modelines. Of course, modelines have a 30page HOWTO explaining them, and not everybody has a BeOS machine they can access and steal modlines from. (BeOS autodetects monitor modes) Its a moot point anyway. XFree86Config only exists because X is too stupid to detect anything for itself. About the only thing that should be there is fontpath.
Re:Two in the space of a week? (Score:2)
Re:It's not just about the licenses... (Score:3)
This is by far the most inane argument I have ever heard in terms of OS choice. Perhaps you prefer linux because of ReiserFS, or its support of your hardware, or perhaps another chooses BSD because they prefer its style of system management or toys like netgraph. Or Solaris for its scaleability, or HP/UX for its cluster capabilities. You have no technical reason at all, you even admit it's based on nothing but ideology. My god, I hope to never hire people like you.
And BTW, Darwin is open source.
--
Re:Forgot to mention... (Score:2)
scenario: I just got a whole bunch of new pages for a publication submitted from an author I'm soliciting work from for a book I'm publishing. This author is a complete wiz with the publishing app, and also submits templates for me to use for the book as a whole. So my secretary got his new chapters and templates, copied the whole shebang into the source folder and cvs committed it. I cvs update my copy, now one of his templates has a typo, whups it screwed up someone else's chapter. Or maybe it was my last change to the templates that screwed things up
I just did several different operations on a list of files that would have scrolled off my screen long ago on a CLI, or I would have had to open a new term and copy and paste into other command lines to do so. Yes, perhaps you could train me on new ways, new scripts, new tools to do things solely with the command line, but what I just did feels natural to me. There are some tasks I wouldn't dream of using the GUI for, and a great many tasks I am just too reluctant to use the CLI for.
--
Re:Yawn (Score:2)
--
Re:Yawn (Score:2)
Yup - and he was head of Apple France before that. Unfortunately when he came to Cupertino there were, er, "cultural differences" (let's just say he doesn't get a lot of Holiday cards from his peers back then...)
Anyway, after that he jumped ship, took a bunch of Apple engineering talent with him & set out to pull a Steve Jobs (reinvent the Mac-but-it's-not-a-Mac-we-swear.) Unfortunately as we've seen big-time success has eluded him though he has managed to hang in there.
What direct effect he had on Apple Marketing I don't know but those were the days when Power Computing was blowing the pants off of Apple in marketing.
Re:X windows (Score:2)
They also had to give up on NeWS, they were the biggest user of NeWS other than Sun, and in fact used it far better and cleanly merged GL into it.
Re:POSIX complience (Score:2)
Re:Assimilation is futile.. (Score:2)
Re:X windows (Score:2)
Re:Assimilation is futile.. (Score:2)
B) Who cares if those capabilities are native? Technically, Linux doesn't natively have a GUI. Does that make Linux GUI's any less good?
Re:Yawn (Score:2)
Along the way I need to get at files on a variety of servers (primarily AIX, NT, & Netware), interact in some constructive way with an Exchange server (IMAP & vCal are fine), print to a variety of network printers and be a good corporate network node. Synching with my Palm would also be nice.
My biggest criteria for an OS & applications is compatibility - I need to be able to exchange standard business file-formats (read: MS Office)
- flawlessly
with others. I can't ask them to make special provisions for me - I need to be able to read & write in the lingua franca of the commerce world.So - can you do those on your Be? I mean, this is all well & great if you're living in a box somewhere but for those of us who are working all day with others how does Be hold up? I'm not being rhetorical - I honestly don't know & am curious. A few years ago when co-workers had it they eventually dropped it but perhaps things have changed since then.