In his latest (and final) BeView column for Byte.com, Scot Hacker takes a harsh look at the way Microsoft’s Windows Licensing Agreement has affected Be’s business with Hitachi and other PC vendors, as well the entire OEM hardware landscape. While the Hitachi relationship was no secret, this is the first time Be has divulged way in which Microsoft’s sinister bootloader license kept BeOS from shipping on dual-boot machines from Hitachi, Dell, Compaq, and Micron. Be, Inc. nearly had deals with other major OEMs, and this is the first time JLG has told the complete story of Be’s involvement with the DOJ case against Microsoft. Hacker adds: “I had a final column farewell attached to the end of the piece, but Byte removed it for some reason. So, quickly: It’s been a great ride with Byte, and I’d like to thank all of the readers who have supported the column over the past 2.5 years. There is still life beyond Windows!”
Be Speaks Out on Microsoft Bootloader Practices
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Although I doubt Be would sue M$, I wish they would! I’d even donate to that cause!!
Scot,
I’ll miss your monthly column and I wish you the best in finding another job.
mechman
well, i may be using their products sometimes, but believe me that i’ll advocate for the free and stable OSes in every situation i’ll meet. As i’m going to work in IT consulting, i’ll never recommend Msoft OS or solutions. they’re just too bad.
Yes, the government created the Microsoft monster, and now they seem so enamored of it, that they’re incapable of containing it. So awed by the supposed innovation, the grandeur of the taxes coming from Redmond, the claims that the computer industry would collapse without Microsuck, they stumble and fumble and look like the oafs they are.
The gubmint created Microsoft because it created a near-infinite term of copyright monopoly for “creators”. Try limiting copyright of computer software to 3 years, or denying any copyright protection without an application and published source code (as with patents), and see if the monopoly continues to be a real problem. Or abolish the dirty compromise against the public’s right to reproduce bits, and see how that goes.
I guess Scot likes rubbing salt in an open wound. Be didn’t die because of that bootloader BS, it died because it gave up and entered an experimental and unsure IA arena. In my opinion, Linux isn’t even at the stage yet where I would put it on some computer newbie’s box from the “MegaStore” but it’s getting damn close. They also haven’t let that stop them and continue to grow by leaps and bounds daily. They didn’t say “Ah well, MS is big and mean, and bullying everyone else, so lets cry and give up too.” Not to mention Linux is 10x better in the big name software/hardware vendor support. BeOS didn’t have a networking implementation, any major hardware accelerated graphics API’s, a small driver set, and an even smaller software company support base. BeOS was about 40% complete as I see it, when they were asking companies to defy MS and put their balls on the table. Which kinda puts the other great features that are still better than Win/Linux now, in the shadows. I still hold firm that that should of really done more work and tried a little harder before they went for the gold. ESPECIALLY before they gave up and shifted focus. The real sad legacy to BeOS is that it had more potential that most other OS’s, it just didn’t wait until it had trained&gained long enough. Let this be a lesson to other OS companies, don’t enter the ring until you’re ready to fight, because if you get knocked down, no matter how much bitching you do about the technicalities, you ultimately beat yourself.
On a happier note, I think the GNU/Linux people have the potential to take the MS arena, if they would just unite at some point and really create something beautiful. It’s great that there are a billion different open source programs glued together to make one distro, but like all things glued you still see and feel the cracks. It would be really neat as a side project to make a special distro that the big boys work on together to make everything fit like a glove. I hope something like that happens soon.
Be failed with its database engine, its 3d kit, its own
tcp/ip stack, its “replicants” technology; the Media Kit
is full of bugs.
These are serious technical reasons for BeOS’s failure.
How could Be do anything but try and enter a new arena? They were forced to make some money and wait to see if the government could do their job. If you put BeOS on any one of those manufacturers computers they’d probably still be alive today! You can’t make enough money to support development selling to an extremely small niche of users. Doing more work and trying harder requires money. They obviously weren’t making enough trying to sell the OS to us. So they had to do, what may have been a (horrible) gamble at the time, the IA thing on the chance that it may make them some cash.
The only reason Linux/GNU survive is because of it’s open source. However that has major drawbacks as well, which are very apparent when one decides they would like to try it out. I, for one, never see Linux being anything near what BeOS ‘could’ have been. A fast streamlined OS that doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to understand.
As for the failure of the database engine, I don’t really understand this. BeOS’ journaled file system was one of the strongeast points of the OS. And the 3d kit was being worked upon when they shifted gears to IA. I guess you could spout off about this, that, and the other if you want but the real reason BeOS failed is one thing and one thing only, MONEY! After all, it’s what makes the world go around! ;^)
mechman
If there’s one thing to account for Be’s failure, it’s MANAGEMENT.
Be went public and (with the dot-com madness) chased after this great new frontier of Internet Appliances and forgot about BeOS. They transformed themselves from an OS company with a lot of promise into a dot-com with no product and no future.
Be put all their eggs in one basket with BeIA and abandoned BeOS. The only word from Be was the lip service about BeOS not being dead as they completely neglected their developer community and their customers. With BeOS no longer a priority, developers started dropping like flies and the previously growing revenue stream that BeOS was providing turned into a trickle.
The writing was on the wall for me when Steinberg cancelled Nuendo. When Be “refocused”, they got rid of their audio evangelist who also happened to be Steinberg’s liaison to Be. Steinberg, like everyone else at the time, was left completely in the dark by Be, sitting there with a product almost ready to ship. Steinberg abandoned BeOS because Be abandoned BeOS, plain and simple… not because BeOS wasn’t shipping on Dell’s desktops.
Maybe Be didn’t realize it, maybe they didn’t care, but they were sadly mistaken when they decided they could afford to abandon BeOS and their supporters. Guess Gassee will just have to blame someone else and sue… the American way. Doesn’t surprise me at all.
The focus shift made not only Steinberg leave but also Maxon with Cinema4D. And there are enough reports that say BeOS versions of Cubase and Bryce were there too.
CuBase would probably be a blatant lie since Nuendo was hard enough to port and CuBase is much much much harder because of it’s being tied to the udnerlying OS and HW. But one more unfounded rumour or one less, what’s the difference in a world of noise
Regarding the article I can’t seem to reach byte.com currently thouhg I look forward to reading the article very much. Don’t expect to learn quite many things though, the illegal MS practices are known well enough (to people without blinders, that it).
It’s all so easy to point the finger of blame at Be themselves right now! – But I believe that had the MSBLL been less restricting Be would still be around, BeOS would be their main focus – and BeOS would be far more widely supported!
Be made some pretty stupid decisions from “our” point of view. But for their business – the focus shift was a last longshot hope of survivng – it helped them last a couple extra months, but in the end it failed! – Had they “just cotniued” with BeOS maybe they would have got a few extra things out before they “died” – but the outcome would have been the same. Remeber Be’s aim was to make money – BeOS was draining what they already had, and very little was coming in from it. It wasn’t a “mistake” just a longshot hope to survive!
Farewell Be, we hardly knew you!
Now that BeOS is dead a lot of people who would once have had nothing bad to say about it have returned with more balanced opinions.
So we find out that they always meant to fix serious filesystem bugs, but they didn’t show up in the default configuration so it wasn’t urgent
We find out that they had metadata journaling (like Reiser) but not the option of full data journaling (like ext3) nor a FFS-like fast-but-safe mode.
JBQ allegedly tells everyone that “pervasive” threading feels more like being forced to use threads where they are inappropriate
Pretty much everyone now admits that net_server was junk and the BONE replacement overdue. (But not Michael Phipps from OpenBeOS. He sees net_server as adequate, not something OpenBeOS need to do better)
Combined with the outspoken opinions from developers leaving the sinking ship (media kit is too buggy, no-one knows how to ship R6 anyway) this doesn’t paint the same rosy picture many users preached for years. If R5 was this bad (and it seems it was) then why did users evangelise this OS regardless?
It will be interesting to see how/if second system effect shows itself in the many operating systems being written by Be engineers in their spare time. To me BeOS seemed like another MULTICS, a project conceived in foolish pride.
NoBeForMe and the other lynchers,
Has it not occured to you that realising you’ve made mistakes and addressing them is normal. Everyone does it. Be probably did that in the past with BeOS. Be, especially towards the end didn’t have a lot of resources to throw at the BeOS’ shortcomings.
Some people are going beyond criticism. They’re being meally-mouthed and plain uncharitable. Not nice characteristics in a person.
“If R5 was this bad (and it seems it was) then why did users evangelise this OS regardless?”
Well it’s not a hard question is it? Why would they evangelize this supposed piece of dung…mmm?
“Why would they evangelize this supposed piece of dung…mmm?”
Perhaps it stinks less.
BeOS’ flaws haven’t made it less useful to me (for the tasks I put to it.)
I’ve been a BeOS user for about a year now, and it is STILL the most stable operating system I have ever put on my machines. Linux users are almost required to be programmers (or at least know waaay too much about the OS itself). Windows, is, well… …a steaming pile of Windows. Be was new, somewhat familiar, easy to use, kick-in-the-crotch-but-still-standing stable, and the fastest (that I’ve seen) you could hope to get in a free operating system. I have yet to find any other platform capable of mixing audio playback, video, extremely fast filesystem activities, and could still boot to a full GUI (with minimal HD grinding) in under 10 secs. And the basic fact that you didn’t have to reboot every frickin time something got reconfigured is terrific.
For me, BeOS has been a pocketknife do-it-all platform and I’ll be using it for years to come, whatever its next incarnations may look like.
Wombat Wrote :-: “It’s all so easy to point the finger of blame at Be themselves right now! – But I believe that had the MSBLL been less restricting Be would still be around, BeOS would be their main focus – and BeOS would be far more widely supported!”
BeOS and the OEM’s would have been bogged down to high hell with phone support calls about lack of drivers, “this doesn’t work with my new card” calls, “this os sucks I bought a $1000 computer and there isn’t any games or major applications for it!” It would have been a media feeding frenzy on Be. That whole philosophy of, “what we don’t have now will come when we’re popular” never has worked, and it never will no matter how much you prey for it to. You always win on raw strength, popularity is just free advertising.
I used to think that lack of drivers would be a good reason for a vendor not to ship BeOS. But then I thought about it – if you’re shipping a system, you’re gonna support that system and *not* any additional hardware or hardware changes made by the new owner of the system.
If I buy a Dell system without a burner, then add a burner and have problems with it, it’s not Dell’s problem. I have to go back to the manufacturer of the accessory. In this example, the pressure would be on the burner manufacturer to say, “Sorry, I don’t have drivers for that – but we’re working on it!”
Think about it – getting onto a mainstream vendor’s system would have put more pressure on vendors to write drivers. It would have opened up a whole new world for BeOS. Then all anyone could complain about is lack of apps.
The next thing MSFT has to do now is relentlessly claim that BeOS failed to thrive in the marketplace beasue of something BeOS did. It is blame the victim time. MSFT applogists will now claim that it was due to management or features or poor quality or whatever.
The purpose of this is to try to build a case before the public that MSFT was innocent of any antitrust liability.
The BYTE article is important evidence from an antitrust standpoint.
It is especially likely that MSFT appologists will blame management since managment will likely be the ones offering testimony. To Be’s credit the mangement were VERY careful to avoid making comments that could come back in the form of testimony later on. Once the case is filed (if it should be) then MSFT will supoena every document it can get so that it can build a case to reflect that BeOS failed because of mismanagment. Since PALM purchased only the IP of Be, PALM should not be liable to many supoenas…. however Sakoman may be distracted from his job at PALM by a lot of such legal requests.
Be really did have an excellent management team. They managed to survive for many years by skillful response to changing market conditions. They had a very professional IPO unlike some of the wild rides provided by some others. THEREGISTER.com has some interesting comments on Sakoman’s qualification for the PALM position he now has. BeOS is a very impressive OS and so was the company.
Note also that the distributors of BeOS were companies like GOBE and ACABAR and they are not out of business. It is possible that they may be able to continue to distribute BeOS in conjunction with Palm rather than Be. How this would proceed is not yet known but the simple sale of the Be IP does not pull BeOS off the shelves. PALM has to define the future of these agreements.
Oh well…
So which actual 100% flawless opperating system do you use lucid?
the bottom line in my mind is,although beos doesn’t have the number of apps that windows does it does have enough to get the job dome for most things,and even excells at audio playback/mixing. for what i basicly use my home computer for(graphics and audio/multimedia) there will be a place for BeOS for many years to come,and from what i see going on, folks that are into beos (but much more skilled at programing than i)are working everyday to overcome the shortcomings of the system and improve upon it(a perfect case in point is all the fine games Eugenia has posted on bebits this year)now i have plenty of games i can screw around with in my spare time,they work much better than similar freeware games do on my win98 box ,as a matter of fact MOST things seem to work better than in windows, linux stiil takes a rocket scientist to even download and install software,even in their so called package managers,these things are nothing like the one Be gives you,i have yet to make these things work any more than about 10-15% of the time
YOU CAN BET YOUR ASS THAT M$ KNEW THIS,
WHY THE HELL DO YOU THINK THEY PUT UP A ROADBLOCK AT EVERY TURN TO STOP BE?
WIN ME’S SOLE USEFUL PURPOSE IMHO WAS TO STOP PEOPLE FROM DOWNLOADING PERSONAL EDITION AND RUNNING IT FROM A DESKTOP ICON!
MICRO$OFT MIGHT CONSIDER LINUX TO BE A PAIN-IN -THE-ASS,BUT THEY WERE DOWNRIGHT TERRIFIED BY THE BE OPERATING SYSTEM,FOR THE SIMPLE REASON THAT ANY JOE-SIX-PACK LIKE MYSELF COULD DOWNLOAD IT,AND(hardware willing)RUN IT EASIER THAN WINDOWS,TO THE POINT(as i did on the pc i use mainly for audio)OF TAKING WINDOWS COMPLETELY OFF THEIR SYSTEM
RIGHT ON SCOTT! YOU HIT THE NAIL RIGHT ON THE HEAD!
re: Bleh…
> died because it gave up and entered an experimental and unsure IA arena
I think it was a mix of the two.
> BeOS didn’t have a networking implementation,
yes it did (net_server). It was not great (BONE) but it did.
> any major hardware accelerated graphics API’s
Yes it did, I happly had my v3 running in r4/4.5
> On a happier note, … that happens soon.
Personally I don’t see that ever happing, which is why I’ve started looking at AtheOS and oben.
bah no edit button. Just want to add, if people picked up on BeOS (it was shipped with Dell etc) then Be Inc would of NEVER NEEDED TO GO INTO THE IA MARKET!
It seems rather odd that despite JLG telling the guy representing the DOJ that it would be better for him to comment on the Boot Loader License, and that he actually thinks browser integration is a godd feature, thet the guy just said, no no no, just sit out front and do what we say!
The fact that he was classed as a “technophobe” is another odd thing! – Something definately isn’t right. I wouldn’t be surprised if MS prevails or just come out with a “slap” on the wrist, so to speak!