Submitted by Only a few weeks after the first release of ZETA 1.21, Magnussoft has just announced some details of what can be expected from the next version of ZETA. According to the announcement, the central piece of ZETA 1.5 will be what magnussoft calls project MediaFire, a completely new application for CD and DVD burning, the long awaited multi-user capability and an upgraded SAMBA implementation.
Magnussoft Announces Next Level of ZETA
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Focus people, we need FLASH7+ in the BeOS/Zeta/Haiku world, edit: just realized that they have slashed the prices to 29 instead of 99 YAY! ill get it as soon as it arrives.
edit: hmm seems that its just the update cd that costs 29, they keep milking its users the yT way…..
Edited 2006-11-08 00:22
Getting Flash on such a small market requires hundrends of thousands of dollars of pay to Adobe to do the port. Magnusoft doesn’t have that kind of money to pay for just 1 part of the OS only. Same goes for official ati/nvidia 3D support. These require money because special agreements must be in place, because the market is so small for Zeta that these companies don’t have an incentive to do their ports out of their own pockets.
So, please get real when you request features. Request a port of the open source BlueZ stack for example, or a SIP client. These are more doable.
“hmm seems that its just the update cd that costs 29, they keep milking its users the yT way…”
How dare they ask for money to pay their employees…
How dare they ask for money to pay their employees… –stew
You mean, ‘how dare they ask for money to sell something their license to sell is still unclear on….’
I fixed it for you!
–bornagainpenguin
Regarding Flash support, Gnash may come to the rescue some day.
Actually, it won’t. Flash is an extremely complex and close-architecture piece of software. Gnash, at best, will be like WINE is today: unstable and not fully compatible.
But the main problem is the LICENSE of the Flash creation application. Each flash animation created with Macromedia’s application can only be legally viewed by Macromedia’s players only. Gnash does not have the legal right to render these animation that the web is full of today.
So, GNU must also create a Creation application, not just a Player. And this is such a daunting task, that in my mind, even taking database space talking about this issue over here, is useless. It will never happen, not realistically-enough for most PC users at least.
Being I don’t have any adobe/macromedia flash creation tools to verify that assertion, it does beg an interesting question. Just because the content creator accepted such a license, why would the person who views that content be held to the same license agreement? If there is a stop gap solution that allows me to view flash media on an unsupported platform, I don’t give a rats ass what agreement the creator of said content entered into.
Taken further, why would the GNASH people need to create Flash creation tools to satisfy a license they aren’t bound to. They could take the same road the Kaffe/GNU Classpath people did and say it’s purely academic and not intended to be a replacement technology. Maybe Magnussoft should throw some cash at the GNASH developers instead of at the adobe lawyers. Just thought.
Is such a license actually enforceable?
BTW, the Mozilla Foundation seems to be interested in being able to bundle Gnash:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash/2006-01/msg00197.html
> Is such a license actually enforceable?
no
> BTW, the Mozilla Foundation seems to be interested in
> being able to bundle Gnash:
They wussed out and are now looking at bundling the recently opensourced Adobe flash-9-only player with mozilla instead. Puuuuuuu
Is there an open-source flash9-player from Adobe around? Where?
“Gnash does not have the legal right to render these animation that the web is full of today.”
Just because it’s in a license doesn’t mean it’s actually legally valid. I’m fairly certain that in most countries Adobe/Macromedia have no legal right to tell content creators how their work can be viewed. It’s like if Sony said movies made in their digital cameras cant be viewed in non-Sony gear.
Now, there might be other issues, such as patents and reverse engineering, but restrictions on viewing and rendering in and of itself is most certainly not legally enforcable. Adobe/Macromedia does not own the content I have created and they have no legal jurisdiction over it.
There are already dozens of ways to create swf files without using Macromedia/Adobe products, so that’s not a problem. Please check out http://www.osflash.org for more information.
Also, I’d like to see a link to some information on that restriction that you claim is placed on swf files. I simply can’t believe that such a restriction exists.
sweet. I may actually get this release if it works well.
Eugenia: “So, GNU must also create a Creation application, not just a Player. And this is such a daunting task, that in my mind, even taking database space talking about this issue over here, is useless. It will never happen, not realistically-enough for most PC users at least.”
We might be drifting a bit off topic, but there are at least two projects trying to do this already:
http://www.uira.org
http://www.flameproject.org
I love seeing all the “updated from Haiku” and “added fix from Haiku” in the notes from magnussoft!
Reminds me that even though Haiku R1 hasn’t surfaced, Haiku is still having a very positive impact on the BeOS/Zeta community.
The more code that is shared from Haiku, the more relevant it becomes, and the more support it has indirectly secured from 3rd parties.
I understand the need to release new versions of Zeta to retain interest, but it just doesn’t seem like there is truly enough in that list for a “1.5” – many items listed are mainly bugfixes and updates…
I love seeing all the “updated from Haiku” and “added fix from Haiku” in the notes from magnussoft!
Yes, Bernd and the Haiku guys are really working together at the moment, you can see it in the mailing list where they have various discussions and post new pieces of code to test.
Really good, mutual benefit, you name it.
I understand the need to release new versions of Zeta to retain interest, but it just doesn’t seem like there is truly enough in that list for a “1.5” – many items listed are mainly bugfixes and updates..
You do not seem to understand how big an update multiuser is. BeOS is a single-user OS, and making the OS multiuser is a HUGE undertaking. I’d say it warrants a 2.0 designation even.
Edited 2006-11-08 08:31
Has Bernd paid you off Thom?
As far as I see, they’ve taken open source code, made changes, offered binaries for testing, with a possible contribution in the future. Maybe that happens after ZETA is released, just to make sure they get some more seats…
If Bernd and ZETA want to really work with Haiku, they might want to work from the same repo for their shared code.
Beta wrote:
-“As far as I see, they’ve taken open source code, made changes, offered binaries for testing, with a possible contribution in the future. Maybe that happens after ZETA is released, just to make sure they get some more seats..”
well, that’s perfectly fine with the MIT licence since it allows reuse as propriety software. and the Haiku project picked that licence, so I doubt they are upset.
since Magnussoft doesn’t have to contribute back, I’m just glad if they do. particularly since I believe that later when Haiku has become stable and somewhat mature, and if Magnussoft Zeta is still around, they will base Zeta on Haiku rather than r5/dano. if this happens, my hopes are that Haiku and Zeta devs will have established a good dialogue and code exchange. worst case scenario would be that Magnussoft adopts and enhances Haiku, while not contributing any of those enhancements back.
I have absolutely no problem with them not doing so!
I have a problem with people claiming they are doing more than they are, when they haven’t, at all, contributed back.
When code appears in the repo, i’ll praise them, but not before. This has happened before with yT, as a cheap marketing/PR ploy.
I have a problem with people claiming they are doing more than they are, when they haven’t, at all, contributed back.
They clearly state on their changelog what they’ve gotten from Haiku, no?
Besides, they’re keeping BeOS alive by having a product out for which BeOS programmers can code. That’s something, no?
BTW: weren’t they supposed to donate their Intel Extreme driver?
http://haikunews.org/1202
BTW: weren’t they supposed to donate their Intel Extreme driver?
I suspect this is the primary example that Beta is referring to, although the circumstances behind this are probably misunderstood, or unknown by many.
I do not really know the full story, but I think it’s safe to say that yT did in fact attempt to donate Intel Extreme code to Haiku – but it ultimately did not actually get added to the Haiku repo. The reasoning for the latter are where things get somewhat fuzzy.
I have heard grumblings over the quality and/or completeness of yT’s Intel Extreme code that was donated and some tidbits about the circumstances under which it was developed possibly being some reasons it did not make it into the Haiku repo.
Now, Bernd and magnussoft are at least attempting to add additional hardware support to the Haiku intel_extreme driver (written by Axel) – so maybe this entire mess will be put to rest once they start submitting their patches back to Haiku (which also has not yet done – possibly because the new hardware support is not 100% working)
Edited 2006-11-08 19:50
You do not seem to understand how big an update multiuser is. BeOS is a single-user OS, and making the OS multiuser is a HUGE undertaking. I’d say it warrants a 2.0 designation even.
While its a big change and probably would warrant a 2.0 version #, BeOS had the beginnings of multiuserness already in it. Just wasnt used iirc.
I hope it works well.
While its a big change and probably would warrant a 2.0 version #, BeOS had the beginnings of multiuserness already in it. Just wasnt used iirc.
Well partly perhaps, like fileowners, but nothing doing something with it. AFAIR, Be wanted to implement multi-user but didn’t see a way to do it without breaking things. Personally, I think it should be doable with some ugly hacks, and PhosphorOS did it after all, but it does take some effort to make user’s directories hidden from other users et al, and not just switch wallpapers around. I don’t actually know how far it’s implemented in Zeta though.
Edited 2006-11-08 19:03
Well, i’ve purchase every Zeta ’till yT went bankrupt. Now i’am disappointed the way Zeta evolve, the GUI is still a crap, most new applications are useless and buggy, a lot of new things are comming from the BeZilla guys and Haiku, your website suck as hell…
And the worst of all, all your (minor) pseudo-improvements cost a fortune to upgrade (Post, Tax..)
I think i should have gave all that money to Haiku, it would have be used more wisely.
Sorry Magnussoft :’|
Perhaps off-topic, but how was that community-intervew with Bernd coming along?
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=14165
You just don’t see it, necessarily, under their name. They often mail code directly to one of us to check in.
You just don’t see it, necessarily, under their name.
This is somewhat unfortunate for yT and magnussoft as they are not necessarily getting the press they need.
There also appears to be some minor friction there that might need some work from a marketing perspective…
I got this back with 2 bounced email to Magnussoft in the last 36 hours:
“Hi. This is the qmail-send program at iss1.patsplanet.com.
I’m afraid I wasn’t able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I’ve given up. Sorry it didn’t work out.
<[email protected]>:
This address no longer accepts mail.”
Not sure what the problem is, but it does not make it seem things are stable there yet by any means.