The BeOSJournal.org spent a solid 2 hours with Simon Gauvin, and finished up the second part of the interview. The first part can be found here.
Interview with Simon Gauvin of beunited.org, Part II
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
This IS good news for BeOS! Once mac OS X had Java built in, we got tons of Java apps. No they aren’t the fastest apps around but they are mostly solid and useful (LimeWire, ThinkFree Office, etc).
Nice news. Great scoop BeOSJournal.
I don’t ask this to troll but because I’m seriously curious. It looks like the Be engineering team ran into a fair number of problems while trying to port Java to the BeOS. What is BeUnited going to be doing differently? Did Be simply not put enough engineers on it or were there deeper problems?
Does anyone know if there are plans to port Mono (http://www.go-mono.com/ ) to BeOS?
That’s sick. Why would you ever want BeOS to get mono.
Hehehe…I could’t resist.
Why not? It is a software project and C# is a pretty nice language IMO. The more, the merrier.
Get it? Mono? You know? The disease?
Of course the more the merrier, starting to look like making BeOS a primary work OS is not so bad after all if you look like a developer or whatever, there are still the other OSes as backup for the other apps.
So the mighty Sun is finally giving BeOS the time of day. I always thought they should have done for BeOS what they did for StarOffice, a spoiler or levelizer to MS.
I will believe that there is a working Java installation from any developer when I actually see it running on my BeOS. I am an old-timer on BeOS, I have seen *countless* projects promising great things, but none were delivering. I do not believe or trust anyone and anything anymore when it comes to BeOS. I will believe when I see it with my own eyes.
Sorry for sounding negative, but my long experience in the BeOS community does not allow me to be positive regaring anything-BeOS.
…I have seen *countless* projects promising great things, but none were delivering. I do not believe or trust anyone and anything anymore when it comes to BeOS. I will believe when I see it with my own eyes.
The BeOS projects are having a hard time attracting more developers and interest.
Ie the Themis web browser project (http://themis.sf.net) has been developed for more than 2 years and still only got two developers, despite hard work on attracting more developers.
They announce for help on front page and in different forums.
Maybe osnes could try to help such projects by advertising on osnews, perhaps a new forum for such things?
When I think of it, a in-depth look at the BeOS web browser scene could be needed?
>Maybe osnes could try to help such projects by advertising on osnews, perhaps a new forum for such things?
There is already a BeOS forum on OSAlert. Click on OS Forums menu on the left.
As for providing “special” reporting about such things for BeOS, is not what I will be doing because first it is not relevant to the overall OSAlert audience, and secondly, I did that with both BeNews and BeUnited. It never got anywhere, even at the “high times” of BeOS in 1999 and 2000.
As I said, I have completely lost faith in BeOS vapourware projects.I had too many of them to deal with. I will believe when I see them.
Lol
I’m still trying to figure out what posses people to name it mono… couldnt they have thought of something better? 
Still, great news for BeOS! I cant wait to see java on BeOS
there is another kevin?
it’s a germ bug thingy that makes you sleep alot and incurible something like that just so you know eugenia
Kevin,
Mono means monkey in Spanish. From the logo that they have on their home page (http://www.go-mono.com), it looks like that’s where it comes from.
Koki
I cannot believe that people still think that BeOS can come back from its ashes. I am sure it is very exciting to entertain this idea but let’s face it, it is not going to happen and even if it does happen, it won’t matter. Okay, in the best case, in a couple of years from now, OBOS will have reached version 1. But OBOS will only be the equivalent of BeOS 5 while MS-Windows and Linux will have evolved and improved.
The new linux kernel (2.5) has new and very exciting capabilities, why don’t you bring your experience of BeOS and contribute to the Linux project in areas where Linux is weak?? Now I am sure that many people are going to say that I am a party pooper and that I sold my soul to MS. They would be wrong (I was supporter of BeOS and did invested some many in the BeOS “dream”). But I had to go back to reality at some point…
Sure. I’d gladly go back to OS/2 anyday before even looking at a stinking Linux distro. OSes are dead only to those who no longer use them. Since I run BeOS and OS/2 as my main 2 OSes, it would seem all of my equipment is dead. Sure seems like that electric bill shows them as working fine. Let’s not beat this horse again. If yu can’t use the OS, fine. But it’s not dead if it keeps pumping out news. To me, Windows and Linux are dead. I never use them. My BeOS machines and OS/2 machines still do things that your Linux and Windows boxen will NEVER do. Plain and simple.
I wonder, are these words spilled here by eugenia and Pilou the same sort of arguments that Professor Thorvalds heard back in the days.
As for all OpenSource projects I can say this, obos looks interesting enough as it approaches the design of an operating system with a new approach, new research and lessons learned.
The thing that will help it suceed is this sort of press, it will only make us workharder towards our goal, and sadfully beos r5 is still one of the most .. well.. im still looking forward to a comparison between say gentoo with reiserfs and so on to see what this age old dead dinosaur called beos can do. compared to an allmighty unice.
We’re trying something new here, give us the benefit of the doubt.
Cheers
Robert
Um, Linus Torvalds was a student, an undergraduate, I believe, not a “Professor”.
We are not “different”, we’re better.
Mod up, please
Don’t just Think Different. Be Different.
linus thorvalds is nowadays a professor…
Pilou, what does linux have to do with Microsoft? And yeah.. I personally think if we used beos parts on a linux kernel, it would be just another of the 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000 linux distros.
And if I wanted Linux, I’d get linux. If I wanted Windows, I’m sure there’s someone pushing it off on me, I get it all the time. But, this persuasion for us to give up, just steels our resolve even more.
Besides, I don’t wanna be using linux, when bill gates comes looking.. Bill gates, “BeOS is a threat”..
yeah… we sure are.. but we are not fool, linux is his next target. We know this. Put it on a linux kernel ya say? HAH! Never!
We HAVE a kernel, and we have the future of operating systems(and you think we didn’t take the 5-obos transover into consideration?, hey.. I don’t get paid to think, there was only one word “Be”)
Some people smile because they acutally like it, like me
real nice interview, all go just like i want with BU. Simon is the man (not to say that helmar was not).
however the ideals that were BeOS will come back in modern operating systems. There will be a usuable, responsive, and lightweight OS, I am just not sure if it will come from Linux, or Be projects.
As much as I loved Be, creatiing an exact clone of Be is a bad idea. Developing a OS with the intent to push the envelope of usability, features, and speed is what created Be. Although Be is still the fastest and most responsive desktop OS to date, it is now lacking more and more as OS X and Windows caught up.
Any new OS projects that want to create a desktop OS for alot of people needs to understand that just copying Be, Windows, OS X, will not be of any use. You have to go beyonnd what Those companies did. Be did that. You need a vision of what the next desktop should be.
Evan did you ever bother to read the mission statement of OpenBeos?
its aim is to be binary compatible with beos r5 and to be “better” than it…
new technologies, new research , paradigms shift…
>Any new OS projects that want to create a desktop OS for alot of people needs to understand that just copying Be, Windows, OS X, will not be of any use.
OBOS goals are not another copy of BeOS. They have plans to go far beyond that. You got to start somewhere though and saying we will be x times better than anything else before having something to build from is just plain stupid.
So the first step is to be a replacement for the current BeOS distributions. After that the innovation starts.
First, yes, what has Linux to do in a *BeOS thread ?
Anyway, let me tell you again, Linux itself is NOT the solution.
The solution is NOT about which OS, but more how many. Just see how many viruses there are now for Linux… There is no 100% secure system, not even Linux or *BSD. Of course it has lots less holes all over, but it can be taken down like others. The key here is technodiversity, just like biodiversity prevents the agriculture of a whole country to be devastated because they only raised one single crop instead of different varieties in different places, and a virus hit this precise crop. We won’t gain if we replace Windows by Linux, it would still be a monopoly of some sort (even if I don’t expect Linux World Domination *grin*).
Holy Maccaroni.. there is nothing more stuck up on the earth than a decent BeOS soldier. Yes, BeOS is dead. No, an OS is not dead to someone only because he doesn’t use this OS – that would mean Linux is dead only because I personally don’t use it..?! Not quite… BeOS turned into a pet OS, although with a comparatively large community. The reason being that it didn’t start of from scratch at some students dorm desk and evolved but because it is slowly degrading from a once commercial product, still, it is a pet OS now. There is nothing much you can do with BeOS nowadays (yes… despite the trillian-gazilion-dabble-diddlie-million “apps” from Bebits), this starts off with hardware support. BeOS is “dead” as far as the definition applies in context of OS usage.
If it’s dead, then tell me why people still download it:
http://www.bebits.com/app/2680
Once again, BeOS is NOT a pet OS, I use it daily for everything I need, I watch DivX, I burn CDs and other things on my “old” K6-2 350.
About apps: well I don’t need all the funky stupid “apps” windows has, I have everything I need, and what I don’t have either I port it ( http://clapcrest.free.fr/revol/beos/shot_xemacs_beos_x11_02.png ), either I write it ( http://www.bebits.com/app/2430 ). Instead of moarning about lacks of apps, learn how to code and do some so there will be more.
About hardware support: Solaris x86 has way less support than BeOS has, and it’s still sold. And BeOS is still gaining hardware support (like we recently got awesome Radeon drivers).
So stop trolling on things you don’t know all about.
you cant really compare IT to agriculture can you… j/k
BeOS isn’t dead. End of story that. Drivers? New ones pop up every day, and yeah.. bebits is the place to put them, so get with the programme!
But first, you got to know you can’t bury it.. when there is so much “os magic” involved.
and we got the +5 potion. Yeah, we all know some people go into places to troll, don’t with us. Not our fault you don’t eventually want a job to go with that skill you claim to possess so greatly.
Eugenia, mod down the “beos is dead” trollers….. and every subsequent time they come in. You know only be is “gone”. That’s all. And, It’s OSAlert, that means, “it’s OS NEWS” duuhhhhhhhmeeesss.
Let’s talk about the obos milestones like they talk about the other OS milestones and cut the “i’m impartial, yet, not impartial” carp. and the political OS jingoslurs. I knew about java2 on obos/beos before anyone else, it was my query that happened to find out about the work that’s been done even before announcements. So, You will see it Eugenia, but I doubt you’ll believe it…
This is a BeOS thread. Let it “be”.
l8r
why not ? in IT too there are GMO (XP service packs :p)
There are viruses, desertion of diversity for a small range of crops, …
yes and then we have another interesting theory to envelop into our discussion then, genes and their fight for who’s most fit to continue and then spontaneous mutation (aka. cancer most of the time) enviromental factors (think tjernobyl, tunguska) and last but not least _evolution_ , natural selection would propose unice, but gentic selection would propose beos/qnx etc.
I’ve played with ‘many’ different OS’s The ones I keep using are
#1 BeOS – It’s easy to use & the work-arounds I’ve had to learn are not that bad. I foresee a bright future for BeOS-related OS development & will support what I can.
#2 FreeBSD – It works, always! It doesn’t have the hype/momentum of Linux, but I can use all of it & most Linux apps., so why use only Linux?
#3 OS/2 – It works like a charm on my older stuff. It does more than I could ever do with early ver. of Windows, & things I can’t do with the newer Windows.
Yes, I use W2k Pro, but mostly to sync. with my Ipaq (a deal I couldn’t refuse), & Win98 for a few games, but generally I avoid these because they’re just a pain to use!
To me, this is great news, as it ‘can’ mean that I can do more of my daily work/surfing/playing in an environment I enjoy using. At the very least, I’m sure lessons will be learn & development of other projects enhanced, so in the long run, nothing but good will come of these efforts.
Guess what, I still do BeOS R5 installs, for myself and for friends if they are interested, although this happend only once so far this year. Acknowledging that BeOS – at large – is no more, is neither “good” or “bad” as such, it is simply a matter of fact. I don’t care whether another million drivers pop up every day on Bebits or not, the issue does not lie with having 2, 5 or 50 NIC drivers, BeOS users always knew how to arrange themselves with that issue. The point is that there are no new CPUs, chipsets, GPUs, SCSI, RAM size, etc.. supported. Of course, if you only take 5 minutes to browse through the entire BeOS issue you know that and iam sure you did, so please don’t pretend otherwise, because I cannot take you serious in that case. If you are fine with tempering around with ancient hardware for the rest of your live that is fine with me. But from an up to date point of view BeOS is dead, OBOS is not yet alive in the sense that it would be usable in any way as a whole(Damn it, not even BeOS R5 Pro was considered usable in many areas). Of course you can tamper around with what is there, but don’t fool yourself and, please, don’t try to fool me…
I have been planning to maintain a distribution of OpenBeOS the day I deem it “usable” on the desktop, and to be honest; beunited.org will have slim to no effect on my decisions, though I may try to meet some of their standards myself. I certainly don’t see myself happily giving the source to them for their “analysis”.
I understand that BeOS may not be where yuo need it to be but saying that new drivers are irrelevant and then listing lack of new GPU support as and issue seems a tad contradictory since many of those irrelevant drivers being worked on are Graphics card drivers. Most people wont be able to afford Hammer or Itanium processors for a while so new CPU support is fairly irrelevant for now. RAM size is certainly an issue thats fair but SCSI is not really relevant to most peoples systems (yes it may be for some enthusiasts but realisticly the mayority of PC’s use IDE). I would say the main problem for future support at the moment is the USB stack.
Mono is called “Glandular fever” in the UK. Just in case Eugenia is more familiure with that term.
I’ve seen Java running under BeOS. Both the PersonalJava and Metrowerks versions. They both ‘work’ to a certain extent, and I’m happy enough with that. I’d still like to see a fuller, modern implementation however.
I’m sick and tired of Linux and Windoze users claiming BeOS is inferior. What… BSOD got to your brains? Seeing everything in blue? Try yellow for a change…
As for Linux: give me a distro that doesn’t crash KDE after the first day of use and I’ll take it. Until Linux becomes a _STABLE_ desktop OS… let us BE!
I assume you are referring to the Java downloads deep on Metroweks site! I haven’t tried them yet, are those 1.2 & no Swing?
Eugenia: “As I said, I have completely lost faith in BeOS vapourware projects.I had too many of them to deal with. I will believe when I see them.”
“Hell hath no fury……”
You know, I’ve got a very well working memory. For starters, I use W2K since it is available on many maschines and I can probably count BSODs with my 10 fingers, on all of them together, that is. I had BeOS running parallel as long as hardware allowed, now it is on a dual PII 333 for toying around, only.
Let’s browse my memory through what can be found as well in the old benews.com forum. There, you will find that it was the general perception of the people that the point releases of the R5 were not exactly stable / bug free, I know that even Eugenia posted that as her finding back in the day.
Actually, I consider people kinda trollish if they keep talking about BDOS with current MS products, where current means W2K and XP. It doesn’t serve the argument if you try to down current Windows versions with the problems of their precedors and it doesn’t make you look like you know what you are talking about.
And yes, jugding from the overall capabilities that you are offered not only system-wise but app-wise, BeOS is inferior. An OS never stands on its own, it is only a basis for apps and only makes sense in connection with the available apps. This does not mean BeOS is completely useless but as an overall experience it is veeery inferior to everything available on the market today, be it Mac, Linux or Windows.
I will not even consider arguing about this because people more in the know than me said so already years ago, you can find that in the old benews as well, written by prominent people like S. Hacker, etc… there is virtually nothing left of the advantage the BeOS once had – not speed-wise, not-filesystem-wise, not stability-wise, etc… arguing this is something I would like to see detailed out, but you can’t.
And people, please stop telling that anybody complaining about the lack of drivers or apps ought to program themselves. If I am on a Linux install and something is going on my nerves, I would never dare to complain about a lack of effort on something people do as volunteers in their free time.
On the other hand, if something does not work in Windows I rightfully complain because they do a living with it. Can you follow? Have you ever bought software and upon hitting a bug you called the hotline where you were told to fix the mess yourself which you then happily did subsequently..?! These people must be rather rare… BeOS was commercial software, and if everything had panned out as planned there would have been all commercial products for office, audio, video, etc… – so on a commercial system app and OS-wise I rightfully claimed to have things sorted out, ESPECIALLY drivers. Now, with OBOS things have changed, still, you cannot ask people either to learn programming or take it as it is, because in the best case you would want to re-atract all the previous users – those were never devs as target market and even less if BeOS had really taken off. So if you want to continue with OBOS were BeOS stopped, don’t tell me to prog myself what I need. Instead, I compare what the others have to offer and that is certainly more. Executing this choice is not flaiming.
Having said that, I am absolutely not against anybody developing whatever he likes, go fot it. Only, it cannot be that it is not possible to speak out a matter of fact in this forum and being called a troll for it. BTW, calling someone a troll is no argument in itself and it is not even a remote challange to an opinion. Calling for a moderation without supplying some sort of challenge to the argument is outright weak.
If you don’t see any advantages with BeOS don’t use it. Personally I think it beats any other operating system I’ve ever used.
Sure you can do everything in other OS’es. Then again you can probably write great programs in Brainf**k. It’s just a choice how you want to spend your time in front of computers and what you wanna do with them.
The Glass Is Half-Full.
———————–
“You know, I’ve got a very well working memory. For starters, I use W2K since it is available on many maschines and I can probably count BSODs with my 10 fingers, on all of them together, that is. I had BeOS running parallel as long as hardware allowed, now it is on a dual PII 333 for toying around, only.”
You do not state how long you have been running Windows 2000, how many machines you actually run at one time, whether the machines are for production work, personal, or both, nor if they run constantly.
“Let’s browse my memory through what can be found as well in the old benews.com forum. There, you will find that it was the general perception of the people that the point releases of the R5 were not exactly stable / bug free, I know that even Eugenia posted that as her finding back in the day.”
I would like to at this time enter into evidence Exhibit “A”, two url’s that point to http://www.bugnet.com, an online repository of bugs in various products, tracked by a database, and kept up to date on a daily basis.
Typing the following two queries produces these results:
“Windows 2000” (50 results shown of 50 maximum, with more likely.)
http://www.bugnet.com/cgi-bin/search.pl?query=windows+2000&results=…
“BeOS” (0 results shown.)
http://www.bugnet.com/cgi-bin/search.pl?query=beos&results=50&index…
“Actually, I consider people kinda trollish if they keep talking about BDOS with current MS products, where current means W2K and XP. It doesn’t serve the argument if you try to down current Windows versions with the problems of their precedors and it doesn’t make you look like you know what you are talking about.”
It’s interesting that you choose to ignore the past renditions of software that Microsoft has released, and only focus your argument on products that were produced in the past 3 years, instead. Now, let me point out something before I go onto my main points. Microsoft has had over 25 years of experience producing software, with a majority of that time spent on developing operating systems, in one form or another, from DOS, to present day Windows, to the future products they are working on now, that will apparently change the way we deal with computers. But, that last point is not relevant, for the moment.
What is relevant is the history of our adversary.
I choose the word “adversary” carefully. I think of Microsoft as an adversary who’s sole goal in life is to eliminate the perceived threat to them, that being entities such as Linux, BeOS, Amiga, and MacOS. It has been legally proven that Microsoft is a Monopoly. It has further been demonstrated that Microsoft has wielded their enormous power in the market to obiliterate beyond doubt the key position that Be Inc. was striving to achived for the ten years of their BeOS development lifespan, namely as installed peacefully alongside another OS.
“And yes, jugding from the overall capabilities that you are offered not only system-wise but app-wise, BeOS is inferior. An OS never stands on its own, it is only a basis for apps and only makes sense in connection with the available apps. This does not mean BeOS is completely useless but as an overall experience it is veeery inferior to everything available on the market today, be it Mac, Linux or Windows.”
Can you back up your claims that BeOS is inferior “not only system-wise but app-wise”? I agree with you that on it’s own, an operating system does not stand alone, and that the applications really do make a difference. In this regard, I would like to enter into evidence Exhibit “B”, the naming of wonderful BeOS applications that no self-respecting geek, let alone BeOS user, would not use, if using BeOS.
1.) SoundPlay. (Winamp users can drool freely now.)
http://www.bebits.com/app/156
2.) Process Controller. (Task Manager, eat your heart out.)
http://www.bebits.com/app/313
3.) BeShare. (Makes using Kazaa look downright primitive, -and- has a great atmosphere.)
http://www.bebits.com/app/1330
4.) GoBe Productive. (No other office product is as tightly integrated, and easy to use.)
http://www.gobe.com
5.) SpicyKeys. (Once installed, you will never go back to using ordinary shortcuts again.)
http://www.bebits.com/app/385
So, yes, you are right, when you say that a system is not complete until you also run the applications for that system. Speaking as a long time BeOS user, I can say with authority that these applications make using BeOS a dream come true. I spent an entire year using BeOS as my sole OS, nothing else, and loved it. Sure, there were moments when I wanted to play Diablo II, or some other great game, at the time, but as far as using an OS is concerned, BeOS rules. It is fast, stable, responsive, and best of all, flexible to the user. It doesn’t ask much of you when doing some operation with your files. It doesn’t get in your way. It doesn’t try to hold your hand with a plethora of dialog boxes that need an answer for every aspect of the installation process. It -just works-.
I will admit that the candy look of MacOS is very appealing to many people, whether they are new users, or long time gurus. It’s nice to have a shiny system that you can show off once in a while. I hereby enter into evidence exhibit “C”, the upcoming DockBert, and it’s likeness to MacOS:
DockBert on BeBits.com
http://www.bebits.com/app/2825
Recent discussion on BeShare has indicated that it is likely to be folded into upcoming versions of openTracker, BeOS’s file management system.
<SNIP> Read more in my next comment. (8000 character limit per post.)
“I will not even consider arguing about this because people more in the know than me said so already years ago, you can find that in the old benews as well, written by prominent people like S. Hacker, etc… there is virtually nothing left of the advantage the BeOS once had – not speed-wise, not-filesystem-wise, not stability-wise, etc… arguing this is something I would like to see detailed out, but you can’t.”
Again, you correctly point out the obvious, in that the BeOS of old is no longer around. This is true. But did you hear the news today? openBeOS is moving on up baby. It’s got more moves than an aging latin disco dancer, and more lives than Felix the Cat.
As to advantages… What, did they suddenly just drop off the face of the earth? The BeOS is fast, fast, fast. It is still stable and has never had serious corruption in the event of a power failure, unlike Windows, MacOS, and some versions of Linux, where suddenly turning off the power is a Bad Thing. The magic of this mini-miracle is due to the excellent journalled file system it uses, which others have wholeheartedly copied in attempts to use on other OS’s. At the time of it’s creation, BFS was an amazing thing, far ahead of anyone else. Today, others are just now starting to catch up. We won’t see these great features in any version of Windows for quite some time still, and even Linux only recently obtained this particular feature, as seen on OSAlert here: http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=1575
“And people, please stop telling that anybody complaining about the lack of drivers or apps ought to program themselves. If I am on a Linux install and something is going on my nerves, I would never dare to complain about a lack of effort on something people do as volunteers in their free time.”
I think he merely suggested that instead of complaining about something, it would be better if you helped solve the problem. As to why there are not enough drivers to go around to all the alternative OS’s, that is due to the vicious circle, as noted above, and how Microsoft owns the market, thus hardware manufacturers only cater to them.
“On the other hand, if something does not work in Windows I rightfully complain because they do a living with it. Can you follow? Have you ever bought software and upon hitting a bug you called the hotline where you were told to fix the mess yourself which you then happily did subsequently..?! These people must be rather rare… BeOS was commercial software, and if everything had panned out as planned there would have been all commercial products for office, audio, video, etc… – so on a commercial system app and OS-wise I rightfully claimed to have things sorted out, ESPECIALLY drivers. Now, with OBOS things have changed, still, you cannot ask people either to learn programming or take it as it is, because in the best case you would want to re-atract all the previous users – those were never devs as target market and even less if BeOS had really taken off. So if you want to continue with OBOS were BeOS stopped, don’t tell me to prog myself what I need. Instead, I compare what the others have to offer and that is certainly more. Executing this choice is not flaiming.”
BeOS was not only commercial software, but was available for FREE in the form of BeOS R5 Personal Edition. Please check your facts, and realize that Be Inc. did not have much room to move back then. Microsoft literally snatched the cup of achievement from their grasp, many times. Remember the boot loader issue? Our very own Scot Hacker wrote about that in his article:
“He Who Controls The Boot Loader” – http://www.byte.com/documents/s=1115/byt20010824s0001/
No one expects people to just pick up a book and start coding. But for real choice to happen, it will take time for everyone’s hard work and contribution to filter through, and coalesce into the operating system we are all dreaming of. One that provides real choice to the reality we slug through today with Windows, and it’s EULA ridden landscape.
“Having said that, I am absolutely not against anybody developing whatever he likes, go fot it. Only, it cannot be that it is not possible to speak out a matter of fact in this forum and being called a troll for it. BTW, calling someone a troll is no argument in itself and it is not even a remote challange to an opinion. Calling for a moderation without supplying some sort of challenge to the argument is outright weak.”
I hope you see my points as counter-point, and are willing to discuss them one by one, as I have with you. I would certainly not call you a troll. You are welcome to your opinion(s).
I urge everyone to think on this, and see what the future of BeOS has in store for us all. I predict it will be an exciting time, both for users, companies, and developers. I look forward to it.
-Chris Simmons,
Avid BeOS User.
The BeOSJournal.
Who cares if BeOS is dead or not. It’s OpenBeOS we care about. If beunited.com can port Java 2 to BeOS, it will practically mean that OBOS will have Java right from the beginning. Just like Mozilla, OpenOffice, GobePro. and many other apps. Which “new” OS (like OBOS) has all these apps right from the beginning? Did linux have all those in the beginning? Anyone remember how linux was originally? (What I mean is that it is pretty lame to think that OBOS will never catch up with the big dogs…)
Chris, couldn’t have put it better!!
Now it is certainly true that Windows has maybe 10x-1000x more apps than BeOS, but so what, it needs them.
The work I do on BeOS needs only a small number of tools, BeIDE (could be better), PE, Process Controler plus a half dozen other wonder tools & Tracker addons. My requirements are modest. I haven’t even begun to explore Gobe, MP3 & Sound player, media stuff as I have dev work to do & miles to go.
I could (& did) do the exact same work on MacOS but no money for new HW, already been there & still pissed with Apple with 4 old macs in the closet & I hate replacing perfectly good SW just coz SJ wants me on the newest OS. But that old 68K SW works like a treat on Basilisk so that gives me a few more thousand apps. Anyway I always loved the old mean Mac SW WriteNow, Nisus even Word1.0.
I could do the exact same work on Linux but no time to explore the infinite universe of free stuff but maybe one day.
I could (& recently did) do the exact same work on W2K but I hated using the desktop so I moved where I was more comfortable. With W2K esp if on the web, I also would need to continuously be checking for all the usual nonsense that torments Windows users & I would need Firewalls, Virus checkers, anti Advert tools, defrag tools, web clean up tools. With Windows, I spend 10x more time maintaining the darn thing.
A good Windows pc needs loads of utilities just to keep it from filling with trash, spyware, timeoutware, etc etc. I don’t want to waste my time on that, but I do miss VC IDE & other Java dev tools, multiple monitors etc.
end of rant
Simon, I wouldn’t wanna go into detail on how many maschines run what software, simply because it is on good enough record that W2K doesn’t suffer the same short-comings as W9x/ME did due to the underlying structure. So, please spare me that bid.
It is interesting how smart it is only to refer to W2K and XP and it is 100% valid – check who is still on W9x, “noone”. Why would I talk about these? Apart from that, I did aknowledge that these do suffer the problem people hate them for – otherwise I couldn’t have talked about assigning their short comings for other versions. You have to deal with the situation of today – this goes for Windows and BeOS equally. W9x support is officially halted by MS, what more needs to be said. If I wanted to be hard with you I could go a step further and say that for what you want the target is 2005 minimum and if I wanted to fairly compare things, probably even W2K isn’t on anybodies boxes anymore but the successors of XP.
Apps. Yes, Sound Play is great. I mentioned that I set up one system for a friend this year. Actually, he was meant to be the “DJ” at his sister’s party but his oooold PC wouldn’t play mp3 smoothly in Windows – so we bought a BeOS compatible sound card and it worked just fine…
I never said there are no apps at all, only, we all know there were never enough – do you remember the long time editorial at the top of Begroovy asking for the “killer app”? Do you remember Eugenia’s effort with the “small developpers”..? This is symptomatic for the desolate app-state BeOS was suffering and there ain’t no way talking your way out.
If you can name 5 or 10 apps here that fullfill all your computing needs I have to tell you that the number of people who can live with these apps alone is rather limited – not that these apps are bad, but if you want to widely succeed with an OS, you have to look at the big picture, meaning at what the PC-users in general demand – Sound Play alone won’t save the day.
You know how Steinberg stepped out, the C4D port died half way through, Mediapede died with UltraDV, lack of decent browsers back then, that funny trick-animation program was halted, lack of ISDN support propably deterred the better part of Europe… all this stuff was badly wanted and needed to make for a fully fledged OS.
As for the advantages of the BeOS, they didn’t mystically dropped off the face of the earth, they are still there as features and in funcionality. They are only no more “advantages” in so far that the rest of the OSes made big strides in catching up or even surpassing the BeOS.
I know that there are many old-time BeOS users who come to Osnews and therefore I hate that you force me to re-iterate every single fact out of which I didn’t made a lengthy explanation, you sure know these things for yourself. There has been more than one article writen by Hacker featured at Benews about the file-system. While it is true that there were (are) some amazing features to it, there always had been mourning about the fact that devs harldy take full or even remote advantage of the BFS capabilities.
The same was true for the BeOS SMP – while there were probably more devs who cared about that on BeOS than on other OSes, it was still hardly well-spread, one of the reasons allegedly being that it was so difficult to get right.
So, some of the most important features were never really taken advantage of, especially the most prominent ones. It is this sort of unfortunate things that came together and where the BeOS only used to shine in theory. You need not educate me on BeOS features, I had it since 4.5 and I read all the BeOS pages on an regular basis. Talking about theory…: A media OS in the year 2000 ought to have 3D support – major disadvantage. Even while it was in the works, Be Inc. could have used the Q3A demo as teaser for the masses, but they decided to keep it under wraps – Q3A was the major big deal at that time and still rules benchmarks even nowadays…
I certainly do know about the availability of PE and my facts about this were never wrong. One fact in this context is that PE came real late and it was only the last effort to try and keep the once planned _solely_ commercial product alive. Let’s say all those millions of copies had resulted in millions of users – do you beleive that all of a sudden the commercial companies that bet on BeOS as a platform would have followed in offering their apps for free as well..? No. GoBE, Personal Studio, etc, … all these guys meant business.
The only reason why BeOS is real free today is because the ENTIRE BeOS thing including all 3rd parties went down the drain by now and that is why you have them for free, partially unfinished as they were. This still doesn’t change the non-dev / non-geek background of the once target audience and I doubt that there popped up millions of devs only because PE is freely available. This is a completely different matter opposed to what is going on with Linux current and potential user base-wise.
Again, just like Sound Play doesn’t save the day, neither does the “power off”-miracle alone.
Judging from your signature, all this wouldn’t have been needed to be said, you know all that for yourself. And again, the assessment that BeOS is no more when applying a reasonable scale of what makes an OS healthy and to consider it in fair use is not good or bad, it is a snapshot of the status quo – this is not an assessment of quality but of mind-share and quantity. So, here I am again, saying that with all what is reasonable while not denying the current users the capacity to keep on using BeOS or dev for it, BeOS is dead and OBOS is not yet alive.
What’s BTW? I always see this word in all place. Anyone can explain me what’s? (Sorry for my ignorance, but I not was born knowing
)
Michael Vinícius de Oliveira
BlueEyedOS Webmaster
By The Way, I come from England supposedly speak proper English & I don’t know half the web shorthands used either so don’t feel too bad. The web has a way of making English into gobbledygook (nonsense).
Perhaps someone can help me with LOL, or perhaps I should RTFM.
BTW mean By The Way
on to top that, I just installed the OBeOS 1.0 developers edition and was proud to see my geforce 2 supported, but my integrated network card wasn’t (intel chipset). To top that off everytime I hit “:” I got a weird “o-!” character or something like that. I guess I will wait a few years. I really liked BeOS I was using 4.5 for awhile, I think it’s a great system but it needs some hardware support (more than it has now). I can’t code or else I would probably help out in the efforts. Congrats to the OBeOS developers .;… good luck
Simon, I wouldn’t wanna go into detail on how many maschines run what software, simply because it is on good enough
record that W2K doesn’t suffer the same short-comings as W9x/ME did due to the underlying structure. So, please spare
me that bid
Sorry mate, but this is not me… you have mistaken me for someone else.
LOL = Laughing Out Loud
RTFM = Read The F*cking Manual
you can use http://www.acronymfinder.com, it’s cool.
>>>Perhaps someone can help me with LOL, or perhaps I should RTFM.
and I should read the comments better…
What kind of f-ed up KDE install do you have? I’ve been using KDE for years, and currently have been using beta1 and beta2 (with Qt 3.1 beta2 no less!). Even with my current setup (which doesn’t seem to be really supported, because I had to edit some of the kstyles to compile with Qt 3.1) I’ve never had KDE crash. The worst I’ve ever seen is the occasional instability in Konqueror.
>on to top that, I just installed the OBeOS 1.0 developers edition and was proud to see my geforce 2 supported, but my integrated network card wasn’t (intel chipset).
I don’t know what you mean with oBeOS 1.0 dev edition. I do hope that you don’t mean OpenBeOS because OpenBeOS hasn’t released a single OS yet. Period.
I think you downloaded some homebrewn hacked together BeOS.
Chris, you know that I was a long-time BeOS user (for around 4-5 years) and I appreciate a lot of BeOS software, but I feel compelled to respond to your post about applications.
SoundPlay. (Winamp users can drool freely now.)
Really nicely done application. I registered it and used it continuously. Still, its playlist interface was always much weaker than Winamp’s, and I’d gladly trade in the support to play multiple files simultaneously or backwards (cute but inherently worthless) for some of the wonderful visual and audio plugins that Winamp enjoys I’d much rather have Winamp from two years ago than Soundplay today, and Winamp is still advancing! For all its current problems, Winamp3 has a lot of neat features, while Soundplay is stagnant. End of story.
ProcessController
I won’t argue this one. Wonderful utility.
BeShare. (Makes using Kazaa look downright primitive, -and- has a great atmosphere.)
They’re not directly comparable, since BeShare is much more like Direct Connect than Kazaa, but I will say that Kazaa has much, much more advanced networking code. BeShare is a server-run P2P app; Kazaa is much more like Gnutella, except that the network layout is extremely intelligent and the user gets a great experience. True, the Kazaa program itself is loaded with spyware and other crap, but try Kazaa Lite or a program along those lines if you prefer. And if you want a BeShare-like program, get into Direct Connect.
GoBe Productive. (No other office product is as tightly integrated, and easy to use.)
Bought it, used it for like six months, went back to Office. Gobe had some nifty features–the live layout being the best–but was simply missing too many useful features for me to use it full-time (not to mention that the BeOS could never correctly print curly quotes to Postscript for me). Plus, compatability matters to me; end of story. If you seriously believe that Gobe Productive is a better product than MS Office, especially in today’s world (although it’s not just the compatability), I think you need to get your head examined.
SpicyKeys
Nice application. Of course, you can find 40 billion programs just like it for Windows.
UniversalScroller
How on earth could you not mention this one? The most convenient scroller of all; not to mention definitive proof that R5 throttles dragging and scrolling events (that’s bad; thankfully, Dano fixed that, but you wouldn’t be using illegal software now, would you?).
It is still stable and has never had serious corruption in the event of a power failure, unlike Windows
You do realize that NTFS has been journaled for years, right?
Chris, your problem is that you try to argue that the BeOS is great because of all the potential it has. The problem, though, is that the reality of using the system is far different. Other than “Be in my Stereo”, tell me how most users are going to benefit from BFS’s database? I’ll give you a hint: my dad’s not going to download a program to convert his ID3 tags to attributes. Tell me why being able to play a few movies simultaneously is really that useful. Tell me why you think that Windows, with its thousands upon thousands upon thousands of applications, somehow doesn’t have applications like those you mentioned. There are a lot of things to love about the BeOS, but face it: the “golden era” is over, and those of use who lived with years of false hopes and broken promises have moved on.
Other than “Be in my Stereo”, tell me how most users are going to benefit from BFS’s database?
Email:
– My email accounts have multiple “inboxes”, and I have a predefined query that shows me ALL unread email on my machine
– Email information, such as Subject, To, From, etc is stored as attributes, for display by ANY application, including Tracker (file system browser)
MP3s:
You mentioned this
People:
– I can find contact information by querying the filesystem
Audio CDs:
cddafs downloads CD information for me, automagically, and presents it as attributes to the raw audio files or converted mp3 files
And, since these are file attributes, ALL applications, including the Tracker has access to it! On other platforms, you have proprietary formats and solutions to these issues. And, I can query on these attributes. NTFS may allow attributes, but, they are “hidden” from the user. (most people don’t even know they exist). And, you can index certain attributes, to increase the speed of a query. And, the file types I’ve mentioned are only a small portion. Images, movies, … can all have standard attributes, and be queried.
I am Kevin! Your an imposter!
lol. i’ve been here for a ling time… since Eugenia took over atlease.
that should have been long not ling. woops.
Email:
– My email accounts have multiple “inboxes”, and I have a predefined query that shows me ALL unread email on my machine
– Email information, such as Subject, To, From, etc is stored as attributes, for display by ANY application, including Tracker (file system browser)
I can do this exact same funtionality in my e-mail program. You mention that yes, you can view them in Tracker, but you don’t mention why you would want to. Tracker is general; it simply can’t provide all the e-mail viewing options I want, like bolding unread messages, etc. etc. Why would I use a general interface over one that is made specifically for the type of work I’m doing? It’s the same reason why Winamp3’s support of video files doesn’t make sense; the playlist, cross-fading, and other features that I want for my music simply aren’t applicable for video files. BeOS fans used to always brag about how Tracker could view their e-mail, but why is this useful? Designing a tool for a specific task is much better than trying to design a tool for every possible task. Look at Sony’s Universal Remote and just try to tell me that it’s more useful than having one remote tailored for your TV and one tailored for your VCR.
MP3s:
You mentioned this
All I know is that I spent much, much more time managing the attributes of my MP3s than truly benefiting from them. Winamp3 and WMP9 allow database access to MP3 metadata, but do it via standard ID3 tags. Moreover, XP can display the ID3 data in Explorer. How is constantly running “synch attribute to ID3 tag” scripts really that useful?
People:
– I can find contact information by querying the filesystem
And I can query contact information by using my address book program. Again, why is the ability to do it via the system’s built-in Find panel useful? Sure, it’s neat, but don’t confuse the two.
Audio CDs:
cddafs downloads CD information for me, automagically, and presents it as attributes to the raw audio files or converted mp3 files
And every decent CD player or ripper for Windows will do the same thing. Except that they’ll use ID3 tags, so if you put the music on your iPod or MP3 CD player or whatever, the metadata can still be accessed. Not true with the BeOS facilities.
And, since these are file attributes, ALL applications, including the Tracker has access to it!
You’re proving my earlier point: you’re talking about cool potential rather than examples of it being useful. If it’s truly that great, you should have no problem describing a few useful things you can do with BFS’ capabilities (and I don’t mean in theory, but that a user can do today with the BeOS) that you just can’t do on other platforms. And no, saying “I can search for a person using Find rather than a propietary program” isn’t such an example, because it’s no more useful than simply using an address book program (and actually is less useful, since for the generality, you lose some useful interface features specific to, say, an address book).
Images, movies, … can all have standard attributes, and be queried.
Being able to quickly search for a given item is one very useful feature of the BeOS, I admit. But that’s simply indexing. You have yet to demonstrate why BFS’ features (user-defined and editable attributes, etc.) ever passed from “this is cool technology” to “this is useful technology.”
Yummmmy…BFS….
I wish Mac OS X had BFS =)
Every topic, that has nothing to do with Be, these days there always seems to be at least one fool posting something to the effect of:
“W@S OS ru7z U!!”
“[email protected] has thousands and thousands of programs – this OS never dies it just keeps getting better and better!”
“W@S OS is so much more advanced than every other OS, especially now that we have Radeon drivers.”
So I thought I’d return the favor – Mac OSX (NeXTSTEP) rocks. There are lots of reasons as to why its great and I’m not the only one with this opinion. In fact a group whose opinion might make more of an impression to the Be crowd is Apple who also chose this OS over BeOS.
bkakes/others:
If nothing else, the fact that MS is moving to a SQL/database based file system shows that there ARE good reasons to have it that way. And I honestly think people would prefer to have the ability to search for ANY content FROM anywhere, not just in specific applications.
I think it would be very useful and cool to hit “Ctrl-f”, type in someone’s last name, see it come up and compose an email right there. Or, search for “hip hop” and have all the relevant ogg’s come up and drag them over to that same address record to automatically generate an email. It gives us the dream of truly application independant data.
I agree that in BeOS it was more of an unrealized vision because noone took advantage of it (because of so few users, chicken and egg syndrome). But the potential was definitely there.
And I love my Sony universal remote
Yes Mac OS X is awesome. Why oh why can’t I convince Apple to give me a Mac to be a roving evangelist?
I am not you. You are not me. We use different platforms. We have different needs.
I need:
the os not to crash. PERIOD!!! Redundant work due to crashes is the greatest loss of time for me. At this, I get violent (note the dents on my Win box)…
pointer/input responsiveness. If I click on something, I expect it to be clicked. As far as I’m concerned, the system does not have the option to ignore me while it grinds violently across swap-land. Be’s mouse never skips (you can probably create a scenario where this happens, but only under MAJOR loads that other systems would be completely overwhelmed with). Either way, I’ve got no problems.
fast booting. yeah, beat 8 seconds MS… heh I’ve spent more time waiting for an ALT-TAB to take effect in Windows
clean UI. XP is an ugly duck that just gets uglier as time goes by. Window frames & toolbars getting scribbled and drawn over… I’d almost rather it crash.
BFS. I love it. The subtle uses of actively-updated file info make the UI feel smarter. No more:
open properties…
check value..
back to dos, delete some stuff
close properties..
open properties…
check value..
AAARRRRGGGHHH!!!
It makes you want to put a bullet in your own head!!
Be’s info boxes & volume bars gently fill & drop without reopening the window after every shuffle.
Right-click access to EVERY mounted filesystem. A truly beautiful innovation MS didn’t have the 2cents to implement.
Have you ever tried to put Win98 on a P166. It’s so funny it hurts. But BeOS works (even with accelerated OGL on some)
———I could go on and on and on…
Now today (yes, October 7 2002) Amiga still exists. NetBSD still exists. OS2 still exists. Solaris still exists. All of these are different and have users somewhere in the world. Whether you acknowledge them or not, they are as valid a user as anybody else. They are alive, and so is their platform. For learning, teaching, working, playing, everyone’s not going to get along. So stop falling into the Microsoft rhetoric of ‘Win does everything’ (my suffix ‘poorly’)
Find me a system that runs like BeOS, and I may switch.
Or, maybe I’ll just say ‘I like my Be just fine’…
If nothing else, the fact that MS is moving to a SQL/database based file system shows that there ARE good reasons to have it that way.
I would never argue that it’s not a good idea. I’m just pointing out that people who claim that the BeOS is better because of, as you put it, unrealized potential have severe flaws in their reasoning. The sad reality is that very little that BFS provided made the BeOS a substantially better offering than other choices on the market. Thus, using such “features” to argue that it’s a better product for users is asinine.
If/when Microsoft introduces such features, you can bet that they will benefit the user in tangible ways, or else the features will be largely ignored (as happened with Active Web and a myriad of other attempted features).
It gives us the dream of truly application independant data.
You don’t need database functionality for application-independent data. I can read, for example, a Windows Address Book without database queries. A database will just (hopefully) offer standard and convenient methods of doing so. My assumption is that the real reason Microsoft’s adding the SQL functionality, assuming it happens, is to mainly help users in managing their ever-growing number of files.
And I love my Sony universal remote
Assuming we’re talking about the same, big, completely context-sensitive remote, you can have it. Even the most basic heuristic evaluation reveals many, many problems.
I would never argue that you and I have the same needs. But I feel strangely compelled to respond to a few of your comments:
the os not to crash. PERIOD!!!
Me, too. Hence, I run WinXP, which I’ve crashed (or needed to reboot) about 1/30th of the times I crashed the BeOS. I know Eugenia, and I know her experiences are similar. And it’s not like the (former) Be employees will back you up on this one, either…
fast booting. yeah, beat 8 seconds MS… heh
Yeah, fast booting is really nice. Of course, Be’s was always more than 8 seconds for me (about 15 or so), and WinXP’s is under a minute, so I can’t imagine that most people care that much, especially given that you said BeOS never crashes. Do you habitually turn your computer on and off hundreds of times a day? You could just use Stand-By or Hibernation, you know (except that Be doesn’t support it).
clean UI. XP is an ugly duck that just gets uglier as time goes by.
I love WinXP’s look, but maybe that’s just me. Be surely wasn’t ugly, but XP has soft colors and fonts that make it pleasing to look at for hours on end.
Window frames & toolbars getting scribbled and drawn over… I’d almost rather it crash.
Not sure what you mean by this, but I suspect that you don’t, either. Resize IE and compare it to how “beautifully” NetPositive resizes. Or any program using (the otherwise fantastic) liblayout.
BFS. I love it. The subtle uses of actively-updated file info make the UI feel smarter.
I agree with this completely; I love node monitoring. Of course, my problem was that what you mention didn’t happen for FAT drives. So I’d be downloading a file to a FAT drive and Tracker would be wrong until I re-opened the window. And, of course, there was no “Refresh” option.
Have you ever tried to put Win98 on a P166. It’s so funny it hurts. But BeOS works (even with accelerated OGL on some)
Have you ever tried to put Be on an Athlon? Or are you suggesting that it’s more important to be able to use a computer you can’t buy anymore than a new and fast processor that costs $100?
———I could go on and on and on…
This I strongly doubt. You mention a few specific things that are nice, but are all comparatively small when looking at the big picture. I could just as easily say that Windows is better because it doesn’t throttle Window dragging like Be does. Sure it’s true, but it doesn’t make for the strongest argument. Nit-picking at a few of the relatively unimportant details where the BeOS may have the upper hand isn’t going to convince anyone.
They are alive, and so is their platform.
So your argument is that having a number of users greater than zero equals an alive platform? Great! I should go buy an NES and wait patiently for all the great new games that will be coming out…
[i]Or, maybe I’ll just say ‘I like my Be just fine’…
You’re more than welcome to your choice; no one’s going to force you to change. I personally couldn’t care less what you run. It’s when you start to make assertions of that system’s superiority (which many people here have) that I’m going to to respond.
Why would I use a general interface over one that is made specifically for the type of work I’m doing?
You asked before how most users would benefit from the BFS. I told you how I do, and how others I know do. I use a “general” interface, because it suites me, and does everything I need. That may not be the same for you, but, you can always download one of the MANY email apps on BeBits for what you want to do. And, it is useful for the fact that I can run queries on it. It is also *not* in a proprietary format, in that any app can access the email, since, other than the attributes, it is a standard mail message, header and all.
You should use MP3 ArmyKnife for your ID3 tags. Since I don’t have many MP3s on my box, editting some of the attributes through tracker is no big deal for me.
People: It is useful because EVERY app has access to this information. Can you easily use your contact information from one app to another? Maybe, if they support eachother. Under BeOS, all apps, by default, support People through the storage kit.
CD: Wow, I don’t have to use a CD player to get that information. It just happens when I mount the CD. ID3 tags are set as attributes on the file itself. Simple.
Why is this useful? I don’t have to worry about organizing my files in directories. All of my People are in one folder. I can create queries for later, to give me information I need, and, when I add a new Person, it shows up in my query automagically! Remember, you can save your queries? If you’ve never done this, then I could understand why you may think the Find is nothing special.
Same goes for email, which I think I stated earlier.
But, remember, what you find useful, and what I find useful, may be two (and probably are) different things.
All I know is, that I am MUCH more organized and productive under BeOS, than I ever was under Windows.
bkakes:
“I can’t imagine that most people care that much, especially given that you said BeOS never crashes. Do you habitually turn your computer on and off hundreds of times a day? You could just use Stand-By or Hibernation”
You know, I was going to type this but you beat me to it
“I love WinXP’s look, but maybe that’s just me. Be surely wasn’t ugly, but XP has soft colors and fonts that make it pleasing to look at for hours on end.”
Its true everyone has their own tastes, I prefer OSX’s combination of various shades of gray and aqua.
“Have you ever tried to put Be on an Athlon? Or are you suggesting that it’s more important to be able to use a computer you can’t buy anymore than a new and fast processor that costs $100?”
Actually I have done this. Running it on an Athlon wasn’t hard at all. Making like my Radeon, Sound Blaster Live X-Gamer, Linksys NIC, ATA 100 Bios was a completely different matter all together.
Arougthopher:
“It is also *not* in a proprietary format, in that any app can access the email, since, other than the attributes, it is a standard mail message, header and all.”
Then that means MP3 isn’t a proprietary format, neither. I’ll get into this being unique to Be in a minute.
“You should use MP3 ArmyKnife for your ID3 tags. Since I don’t have many MP3s on my box, editting some of the attributes through tracker is no big deal for me.”
Are you saying that the tracker itself has built-in ID3 tag edition or that it uses those wonderful Be Attributes?
If its merely a case of the latter then I don’t see what good that does you. You burn a music CD and poof your well organized attributes are gone. Try sending the file to a friend not using BFS – again no more attributes. However using ID3 Tags doesn’t have this problem.
I can do the same thing in OS X with HFS attributes for my MP3s but what is the point? I can’t send my attributes to non Apple users. However, one thing I can do in OS X, that you haven’t made obvious to me is possible in Be, that I can index my mp3 files which lets me search within the ID3 tags from Sherlock*.
*Since this actually uses a different program than the finder (the tracker equivalent) then I guess that might encroach on bkakes statement of i’d rather use a robust single purpose app than a luke-warm multi-purpose app.
“People: It is useful because EVERY app has access to this information. Can you easily use your contact information from one app to another? Maybe, if they support eachother. Under BeOS, all apps, by default, support People through the storage kit.”
Yes I can easily use my contact information anywhere I please. The address book here is a Service/API just like the Keychain in OS X. I can access my address book in any application I like. Furthermore, unlike in Be, the address book format is based of off LDAP v3 so I can query non Apple directories and also share my contacts with non Apple users. Which again is something Be does not do.
You still have not shown me anything that Be can do that is unique that OS X cannot do as well – while allowing you to share it with other users who are not on the same platform.
Great! I should go buy an NES and wait patiently for all the great new games that will be coming out…
You could go buy a NES and search for some good old games on ebay. Or do you need new games for a NES to be enjoyable? wouldn’t think so.
NES is still a very popular gaming console that people all over the world still enjoys (never understood why though, but that’s not the point). And many of my friends still prefer SuperMario Bros on the NES over GTA3 on the PS2.
So the fact is that newer isn’t always better, and another fact is that most commersial software companies doesn’t know when to stop(cause they need the money to keep flowing in) so all of a sudden, newer is big, bloated and less usable. That’s where is see one of the big benefits of OpenSource, it doesn’t have that pressure on it.
With BeOS, I have a stable, fast and usable system that I can enjoy using for years without ever changing a single piece of hardware. Alive or not.
This vince guys said:
“Are you saying that the tracker itself has built-in ID3 tag edition or that it uses those wonderful Be Attributes?
If its merely a case of the latter then I don’t see what good that does you. You burn a music CD and poof your well
organized attributes are gone. Try sending the file to a friend not using BFS – again no more attributes. However using ID3
Tags doesn’t have this problem. ”
Umm..You can edit attributes from the tracker if you want. AND there are front end type apps to do this in more pleasant ways. AND you can go back and forth between ID3 and BFS attrib for mp3s, so you can very well send mp3s to non-beos users and retain the work you put into it.
“I can do the same thing in OS X with HFS attributes for my MP3s but what is the point? I can’t send my attributes to non
Apple users. However, one thing I can do in OS X, that you haven’t made obvious to me is possible in Be, that I can index
my mp3 files which lets me search within the ID3 tags from Sherlock*.”
Ofcourse you can serach by attributes..in the case of mp3s, thats ID3 info thats been attrib’d. And unlike Sherlock, its fast.
People who don’t know the BFS usually make stupid comments ala, “What good is that?” and “I can do that sort of thing in blahFS”. Granted, many BeOS users are themselves unaware of the serious coolness that the BFS is. Just a simple, yet everyday example…email filtering. I have saved queries (which work exactly like a folder) to sort my mails. And the BFS lets you do some wild queries. Did i mention fast? Sure, you may be able to sort mails in x email app..but doing it in tracker has no load time..no anything..right click on a folder..see your mails..read..etc
Trust me…being able to create customs attributes per file type..and even make your own filetypes with attribs…it’s a VERY good thing. Again, like so many things in BeOS, you just gotta experience it to understand. Sounds like a cop out i suppose, but it’s true. Reminds me of Kraftwerk (in know what i mean..dont worry if you dont).
No matter how pretty OSX might look, or how many apps you can pirate for winXP, it’s not gonna come close to matching BeOS.
Anyway, I dont care if you want to use whatever OS for whatever you do. I dont doubt they work for you doing what you do. But comparing Sherlock and its ability to look at id3 info to BFS is kinda sad.
ok, this is why i rarely comment anymore. everyone has their own opinion, and most people, including myself, like to stick to those opinions. but, I posted a comment. a reply to a question someone else asked: Other than “Be in my Stereo”, tell me how most users are going to benefit from BFS’s database? I tried to explain how I personally, and maybe others, user BFS’s database-like structure. I gave a couple of examples. I’m sure there are more, but email and people are what I primarily use BFS attributes/querying for.
but, since I have openned this box, I will reply once more:
Are you saying that the tracker itself has built-in ID3 tag edition or that it uses those wonderful Be Attributes?
If its merely a case of the latter then I don’t see what good that does you. You burn a music CD and poof your well organized attributes are gone. Try sending the file to a friend not using BFS – again no more attributes. However using ID3 Tags doesn’t have this problem.
The ID3 tag system is in the file name/directory structure, which can co-exist with BFS attributes. (A file has to have a name) So, I have attributes and ID3 tags. And, when you burn a music CD, you loose your ID3 tags as well. Now, if you burn a data cd with MP3’s on it, you can keep that information. But, I can burn a cd with BFS on it, and keep my attributes. You say, “but what else reads BFS volumes besides BeOS?” at the moment nothing. if I were to share a CD, I would use iso9660 or joliet. but, for myself, I would use BFS. And, since my filenames contain the ID3 tags, when I made a copy for someone else, they would also have all of the song information.
However, one thing I can do in OS X, that you haven’t made obvious to me is possible in Be, that I can index my mp3 files which lets me search within the ID3 tags from Sherlock*.
The BFS is indexed. I can query non-indexed attributes as well, which, I’m assuming, you can do in OSX.
Which again is something Be does not do.
LDAP is network based resource, and OS independent. I can look up LDAP information in BeOS as well. Any OS with network support “should” be able to access information through LDAP. But, that has nothing to do with the benefits of BFS, which is what this thread started as.
You still have not shown me anything that Be can do that is unique that OS X cannot do as well – while allowing you to share it with other users who are not on the same platform.
When did I every say I was comparing anything to OSX?
… well I guess you made your point. You took my comments as out of context as I took yours
Vince , just for you : BeOS 0wnz j00!
I feel soo much better that we’ve gotten that out in the open. Now do you think you get BeOS to 0wnz my network card?
in other news, palmsource and sony today announced that sony is investing in palmsource.
http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=22277
The only way for OBOS/BEOS to become a popular OS is to not to provide a lot of applications, but the best ones ( one very good browser, one very good/word compliant office suite,….).
The MacosX doesn’t have many many apps but those one are very cool. The mac users don’t complain about a lack of apps cause they often have the best apps.
Perhaps beos could have the same apps than macosX, but devs or company don’t want to spend time to provide a beos version.
So, the solution is to have more platforms running in beos. What plateform ?
1) java (hope coming soon) for dev app(netbean, eclipse, togetherJ,…), servers (tomcat,etc).
2) Gnustep for user friendly apps written with Cocoa(cool apps !!!).
Adopting gnustep would be THE way to develop on a alternative viable plateform cause gnustep will target MacosX(the most important),linux and beos.
I don’t know if such a project exist, but it seems that the gnustep architeture permit to port gnustep to beos using the native Beos widget.
I think that’s would be a major step to the beos revival.
Nice to see a productive comment.
GnuStep is afaik not ported to BeOS as of yet. but the implications is great!
interoperability/compatability with other apps of the gnustep standard.
But this im not sure of , is macosx’s Cocoa framework really .. gnustep compliant?
Java is underway so we have some really sweet implications there already.
but everything else you have said is really… head on..
To offer a commercially viable operating system with all of the productivity applications a user would need.. and then develop the others for graphic designs and so on.. good point..
get in touch with me and we could talk some more..
cheers!
Robert
Thanks for the interesting comment about Java.
I agree that Apps are really the crux of the problem for any OS to be adopted. After all, they are the things that get your work done. If you can’t perform the tasks you need, then it’s not worth having an OS that does not support the apps. That’s why beunited.org has taken the initiative to collect what we would consider ‘critical’ apps for users to have. Those apps like Mozilla, OpenOffice, Gobe Productive, and now Java.
Although Java is not an App in the technical sense, it does (as you pointed out) provide a host of possible ‘ports’ of apps that exist that are quite important. Those apps, mostly in the development area, are important for increasing developer use of BeOS, and for entry into any Educational area.
As for frameworks like gnustep, I’m afraid that the BeOS API is something of a small ‘miracle’ that developer just love to use (once you get past using threads). I don’t think we will see gnustep or Cocoa ever appear on BeOS. If anything, I think we will see continued development of the BeOS API with the release of OSBOS that will rival those other frameworks.
Thanks again for your thoughtful comments.
Simon Gauvin
Yes, I believe the Beos is great, that the beos dev love to use it that’s that ‘critial’ apps are developped with the native beos api.
Anyway,
1) The purpose, is not to replace the beos api but to provide another framework for compatibility.
2) I thing there is not enought beos developper (compare to other plateform) so ‘critical’ apps (like mozilla or openoffice for beos are late in developpement).
3) I don’t thing a commercial org will take a financial risk to port a big app to Beos (most of their engineers surelly don’t know about beos api and the target is too limited).
4) The gnustep/openstep API is known to be a very great API (perhaps the best one) and i’m sure, devs who love beos api love the gnustep api too (great oriented object designed and objectice c is far cleaner than c++).
5) The goal is not to persuad beos dev to use gnustep, but just to use apps developped for the MacosX plateform (like chimera, open office, and a lot will come). It’s even a far more important target (audience speaking) than the linux desktop user.
Thanks for your comments.
Djé Ang