Dangers of Typecasting OSes 272
bjb writes "An interesting article has appeared on Byte's site on the dangers of typecasting operating systems. The article talks about specialization and purposes of Linux and BeOS. " Worth the reading, from the POV of dangers of stereotyping ideas/objects, in thsi case, putting BeOS throughly into the A/V corner, and Linux into the serve corner.
Re:Clueless journalists (Score:1)
Re:linux stops "spinning head syndrome" (Score:1)
I've been thinking also how cool it would be to get a palm machine and stuff around with assembler on it to the point of creating a mini-OS. I really love those little machines from the perspective that they're simpole enought to be able to do quite cool stuff with and feel constructive at the same time - just look at the PalmPilot linux project
Excuse me while I rant.
Sound familiar? (Score:1)
i.e. Windows...
Re:BeOS R5 will probably be more of threat (Score:1)
It's not laziness, either. It's a matter of priorities. Most computer users don't give a rat's ass about what OS they use. They just want a way to type a quick email to grandma, write up letters, and play games with a minimum of hassle.
Think of it this way: Say Ford Motors (used strictly metaphorically and not meant to be any kind of statement about the Ford Motor Company or its business practices in any form, shape, or fashion) sold you cars in kits. You pick out the parts, and they ship it to you. Ford doesn't guarantee compatibility with all the parts you get, in fact, you can buy the parts from any third-party vendor you want. So, you get this generic car kit and bolt it together, with your own little machine shop to make the parts to fit one another. In the end, you get a car that is built to your specs. You also gleened a great deal of knowledge about cars as you probably made quite a few mistakes along the way. That's like Linux. Now, say Chevy (same disclaimer as above)sells premanufactured cars. The only options are the basics, say A/C, power options, etc, but the car you get is what you drive home in and use immediately. That's the BeOS or Windows. Who do you think is going to win the marketshare battle? Sure, you'll have your small percentage of car nuts who go bonkers over their little kit cars, but most people look at their cars as just a tool to haul the kids to the soccer game, go to work in, or whatever. They don't care or even want to know what a fuel injector is and why they have one in the engine. This is not laziness. This is called priorities and interests. Take the package and use the tool. And that is how most people view their Operating Systems. They don't care about *why* or *how* an operating system does the things it does, they just want it to be the most painless experience possible. You make your own inferences.
The time you spent editing a configuration file, they'd rather write a letter and get back to mowing the lawn.
As for me, I generally take the path of least resistance in computer use. I use the BeOS and Windows95, because they are, for the most part, hassle-free. I have Linux, I never use it, it doesn't have any appeal to me (well, e is the exception). When I find a use for it (i.e. internet gateway/firewall/etc), then I'll probably be thrilled to use it, as from what I can tell, Linux and the various BSD's are very secure and are constantly updated to fix security holes. For now, though, Linux remains a curiousity and I can imagine that 98% of the world's computer users are the same, if they even *care* about Linux.
Re:If the BeOS only had... (Score:1)
Re: Count the apps?::troll (Score:1)
Re: I currently use OS/2 (Score:1)
Re:Thank God for those 1% (Score:1)
However, if you buy into the assumption that closed-source leaves me no choice, you're wrong. I always have the choice of not using that product anymore. If some large conglomerate decided to buy Be, Inc., completely redesign the UI along the lines of Windows 3.1, and then tries to charge $200, I have the option of no longer using BeOS.
However, I don't buy into the thought that simply because that _can_ happen means that it will, and that I might as well switch to Linux now because I'll have to switch later. It's a very speculative notion that can't be solidly argued. I've invested a fair amount of time, money, and energy in BeOS, and until it's being actively corrupted I don't see any reason to change.
How can BeOS go open-source? (Score:1)
Typecasting is human nature (Score:1)
The reason people typecast OSes the way they do is because of the problems that are best solved by the OS. Linux/FreeBSD/etc are strong server OSes. They are way too hard to setup and maintain as a desktop OS. Especially in comparrison to Windows or the MacOS. So it gets typecast as a server OS.
The MacOS gets typecast as a toy OS because of its crashability and its running on doofy looking machines. B-)
Windows gets typecast as a general purpose desktop OS becasue you can do most anything with that a desktop user may want to do. Its relatively stable and as long as you have decent hardware and don't plan on changing it, Windows is relatively easy to install and setup. (Unless you run into a problem. Then it can rather difficult to fix.)
The BeOS on the other hand doesn't provide any solutions over what other OSes provide today. It is not compelling other than being easier to install and maintain than Windows. As easy to use as the MacOS and as stable as Linux. (Almost.) It doesn't solve any problems. Yet. Hopefully in the next few months it will solve a lot of problems for those who work with audio. There are a lot of really sweet programs poised to be released for the BeOS that fold/spindle/mutlate sound. This is the reason for typcasting the BeOS as THE MediaOS. It is not the Media OS yet, but if things keep going the way they are. It will be.
Having said all that I should also say I'm a BeOS developer (#1234) and zealot. It really is a good general purpose OS.
geoff
How can BeOS go open-source? (Score:2)
I know that when money is brought up people will respond with variants of "but there should be so much more to programming than money" or, alternatively, "look at Red Hat." But neither of those really points to an open-source BeOS being viable.
There is more to programming than money. But the fact is that all programs have development costs in time, and that time is always paid for: the payment is often simply hidden. If you are a high school student, your time is paid for by your parents; if you are a college student, your time is paid for by your tuition. If you are Richard Stallman, your time is paid for by MIT. This software may be free in the "free beer" sense and the "free speech" sense, but both those sense of "free" refer to the end user--not the developers. In a lot of the canonical cases of free software--written at or around college campuses--the development is (significantly) aided by the fact that the developers are supported by the institution.
If this wasn't the case--if the developers were full-time software developers not supported by an institution or by unrelated employment--how do they make money? Just by charging for manuals and support? This isn't a proven model, and the less ongoing support your software needs--support, I might add, of a sort which cannot be simply had for free on the internet--the less viable it is. And, unlike institutions, a for-profit company must eventually recoup its development costs. The FSF doesn't, because your tax dollars are at work keeping emacs going.
And, yes, let's look at Red Hat. They have given back to the open source community; I don't want to look into the Pandora's Box of how much they're riding on other people's coattails, but the fact of the matter is that they don't bear the costs of Linux development. They only bear the costs of developing their own contributions. How significant is this when it's compared to a company like Be? If we look at the S-1 statements, we can see that Red Hat's development costs for all of 1997 and 1998 were less than Be's costs for the first three months of 1999. This is not because Be is inefficient; it's because they're doing nearly everything themselves.
So the relevant question isn't whether or not BeOS would get drivers faster if it were open source (obviously, it would), nor whether an open BeOS could survive the company and mutate in different directions (obviously, it could). The question is: how would an open BeOS recoup development costs for Be? Whether or not it might be more philosophically attractive to have the operating system open (something some BeOS engineers have said themselves), Be, Inc. is not MIT. There is a point in the future at which they must not only break even but turn at least a modest profit in order to stay in business.
"But an open BeOS is independent of Be, that's the point!" Yeah, that's a good business case for not opening it, isn't it? Some of the argument against BeOS I've seen here is genuinely philosophical (while I don't agree with the "I won't use anything but open software" viewpoint, I respect it), but a lot has to do with the $70 asking price. If it came with the source code for $70, would that change that attitude? I'm skeptical. When Red Hat 6.0 came out, a lot of the messages I saw about it were pointing people to the places selling CDs of it for $5. There's a lot of free speech talk, but there's a lot of free beer walk. It'll be an uphill battle to recoup the $50-odd million development costs of BeOS as it is; how can it be taken open source without making that battle harder, or even unwinnable? I don't really think it can... but I'd be interested in hearing people's (non-flaming) thoughts.
Why Open Source is crucial (Score:1)
That utterly misses the point. Open Source is crucial because of the distribution of control.
With BeOS, just as with any other proprietary, closed-source OS, you are at the mercy of one company for bug fixes, feature additions, support, etc. With Open Source, one company can decide to discontinue its distribution, but the software lives on, as long as someone wants to use and/or improve it.
No one organization can control Open Source. That is why it is destined to become the mainstream software model of the future.
Using proprietary software, particularly operating systems, is just too risky, when there are Open Source alternatives.
--
Get your fresh, hot kernels right here [kernel.org]!
You idjit! (Score:1)
Special about BeOS (Score:1)
I really like Be. It's a lot of what Windows isn't in terms of stability, speed and just general 'niceness'. The community is really good too. You can email the senior management of Be and get a friendly reply within two days: now that's service.
It's also a really excellent OS for teaching people about OS theory. I sat my father down with it and didn't have to tell him much to get started, and he's learnt heaps. That's like blood from a stone for people over 35.
Just for fun - hold down the left ctrl+shift+alt and click oin the Be button. You get a new option in the menu
- C
Re:Well.. (Score:2)
I have a story about BeOS
For a few months last year, I had been using BeOS as my primary OS on a PMac. It was clearly superior to Mac OS in almost every way. I had used Linux, but didn't particularly want to use it on my own machine.
One day I switched ISPs. My new provider used QMAIL as their MTA. Turns out the mail_daemon that comes with BeOS is buggy, and doesn't actually generate correct SMTP. Most MTAs can still parse it, but QMAIL is a little stricter. The result: I can't send mail from BeOS.
I reported the bug with Be's tracking system, but they assigned it a status of "Will Not Fix". This despite the fact that it's a pretty easy problem to fix.
So maybe they eventually got around to fixing it. I don't know, I stopped using it, having suddenly realized the importance of free software. That sort of bug just doesn't happen.
Re:Bear in mind that these are applications. (Score:2)
And if I want to tweak kernels, I can still use Linux. BeOS doesn't have to be the *only* OS; however, without meaning to offend, I think that many Linux advocates _do_ want Linux to be the only OS. This is a Bad Thing IMO.
No Linux advocate that I have dealt with (me included) want Linux to be the only OS. What many of us want is for Linux to be able to do everything. There is a big difference, but because this would put it in competition with every OS, some people think we want them all to go away.
Competition in Linux is friendly. We implement features, you imlement features. We get users, you get users. If we get lots of users, that's great. If some platform only has five Linux users, that's fine too, particularly since I'm sure those five REALLY REALLY want Linux.
Comment on not releasing library (Score:1)
Proxy is out there now! (Score:1)
I just wish (this is the third time I've written it today) I could get a php3 engine for a beos webserver.
Those Who Do Not Understand Unix (Score:2)
i.There's a lot of baggage on the developer who wants to develop cool apps
for the linux desktop, too. Even with GTK or QT, you're still writing to a
wrapper to a library to a library to a driver, just to get a reasonably usable
API.
I think that you're missing the point somewhere here, which is that this is a Good Thing. Let me repeat that: *THIS IS A GOOD THING*. [ in fact, this is how Win32 works as well..although much less elegantly.. ]
Here is the setup:
X -- this is a display server. It has a single purpose for existance: accept requests to draw stuff and carry them out. The network-socket method of performing drawing operations allows a very flexible system. Often one sign (IMO) of a good design is that stuff that takes lots of hacking and kludging to get working in other systems simply arises as a natural offshoot of the way a given system works. For example, X's network transparency -- you can fake it in Win32 and MacOS with third-party software; X requires no modifications or special-casing.
Xlib: A simple (AFAIK) wrapper library which makes X protocol calls nicer by wrapping them in convenience functions. It has no other purpose.
Window Manager: One of the most villified aspects of the whole system because there are so many of them. A window manager (follow closely here) manages windows. It draws cute little frames around them, lets them be moved and resized, etc. This is generally its entire function. This may be accomplished with direct Xlib calls or not depending on the preferences of the window manager's author. Note that these are generally hairy beasts that people looking for an easy API probably want to avoid anyway
Widget Set (Qt, GTK+, etc): These use Xlib to draw useful things on the screen, such as buttons, dialog boxes, etc. Most programmers will use these, and they generally (except for monstrosities like XForms) have a nice simple API. The underlying layers can be ignored for most purposes. Issues like the fact that GDK is just an Xlib wrapper aren't necessary for new programmers to immediately grok as long as they can understand how to use GDK. [ the reason for wrapping Xlib again is to provide greater platform independence ]
So, in sum:
X server - displays stuff
Xlib - lets programs talk to X server
Window Manager - manages windows
Widget set - draws cute buttons, scrollbars, etc.
The thing that marks this as UNIX is not any feature of the complexity of the interfaces -- they vary by interface -- nor is it a silly amount of layering -- Win32 does this..it has a window manager (hidden from the programmer) and the common controls are essentially a widget set which uses Win32 drawing calls (Xlib) to do stuff -- but this:
** EACH FUNDAMENTAL SET OF OPERATIONS IS CONCEPTUALLY AND PROGRAMMATICALLY SEPARATED FROM (although not independent of) THE OTHERS. ***
If you have the kind of godawful mess that the Win32 API makes, where all levels of functionality are mixed together in the same place, it ain't UNIX. If you have programs that try to do 500 different things poorly (think IDEs or mail readers that know about SMTP and POP) you're using programs which are not UNIXey. If the you're outside the aegis of UNIX.
Why is this good? Programs that do a single thing well are simpler, easier to write and debug, and easier to use in unanticipated circumstances.
I'm personally interested in the Hurd; it looks like they may be going to out-UNIX UNIX and probably eliminate the worst cruft at the same time. Remember what I said about features arising naturally from a design? In the Hurd, several features that people have been trying to hack into Linux 'just happen', the most notable examples being userfs-type stuff and [I believe] per-process mounts. This is a Good Sign, although the Hurd is currently about five or ten years from being ready for general consumption
Daniel
Re:Quick, to the Adam Westmobile (Score:1)
I think this is good... (Score:1)
Re:A Powerful Meme (Score:1)
One interesting point in the article is that the author claims not to wish the difficulty of a Linux install on anyone. Having installed Slackware (more than 20 machines), Red Hat and SuSe, I really don't see the big deal. I would wish the learning experience on anyone, because I have no patience for people who do not know what they are doing and who have no wish to learn. How hard does the point of a computer NOT being a toaster or an appliance have to be driven?
I respect the BeOS, and wish it well, but they have a handful of apps and a consistent interface. Linux has thousands of apps, and an inconsistent interface. Methinks that Linux can narrow the interface gap before BeOS narrows the app gap.
Re:Linux typecast (Score:1)
Most of them (in my experience) don't even know how to change their desktop wallpaper.
As for Linux installation, I have worked professionally doing tech-support and i much prefer installing Linux to windows. Windows 98 or NT are fine and dandy if everything goes according to plan, but frequently it doesn't. If NT screws up and can't use the network card, it sometimes takes a long time to mess around with it to get it to work, whereas with Linux it takes a lot less time to fix something.
Most of the people i worked with thought this too....In trying to make windows ultra-friendly, they've crippled it in many ways.
I think one of the big reasons there are complaints about Linux' install process is that many people don't actually install their own OS until they decide to try Linux. How can someone be expected to install ANY OS if they don't even know what a partition is? I've helped out many many people like this.
Since Windows is (unfortunately) pre-installed on most (x86) machines, average joe user often never installs windows.
-Doviende
"The value of a man resides in what he gives,
and not in what he is capable of receiving."
Can we still.....? (Score:1)
I enjoy typing them against Linux devices.
*Carlos: Exit Stage Right*
"Geeks, Where would you be without them?"
Typecasting Users (Score:5)
The following is an excerpt from a mail I sent to the author after reading his article:
Something that I think that this typecasting touches on, is the conception of the "user". What we may have is not the typecasting of OSs, but the typecasting of "users" in a way which does even more damage. If OSs are marginalized, maybe a company or two goes under, but if people are marginalized, then voices go unheard and people are no longer able to excercise power thru computers, wether it is making web pages, sending love letters, or writing Free Software. I find the alienation of people a much bigger threat, and something which not only the marketers, but the pundits for each OS or "user" propogate.
In a Windows only world, the "user" is a consumer, passive and accepting of choices presented to them by the market. They are not supposed to create, contribute or otherwise influence the development of the computer, and their use of it, other than thru the very hollow power of the dollar. In the Linux only world, the technocrat wields alot of power, the user is expected to share the mania of computers that the developers have. This is just as disempowering for many, because instead of being confronted with opaque surfaces, they are inundated with complexities.
The same thing happens in a BeOS only world, as it also has a very specific conception of "user". Something very similiar to Apple or Windows with a more sophisticated technical edge. We should be careful not to typecast BeOS as the third part of a Hegelian dialectic of the "user", the synthesis of two opposing concepts. We should not do that with ANY OS for that matter, because that action STILL will produce a single conception of the user which will alienate and isolate many people.
As Linus and others have pointed out, Linux world domination should not be about being the only OS, but about making the OS a choice, by allowing all different types of people choose the computing platform they want, and which suits their needs. These platforms should then be able to interoperate with one another, so that no one "user" ever becomes dominant. Obivously, this is not what the present personal computing market looks like, but I think it's something that we can all achieve.
free as in free speech, not free beer (Score:1)
--
Re:Clueless journalists (Score:1)
Mneee... IMHO although emacs is extremely powerful in its field only a few people will actually get more productive from spending time learning how to properly use it, in particular developers and may be a few minor user groups with strange software requirements. A journalist is not supposed to know emacs. IMHO emacs is included with most Linux distros only because linux is still centered on developers as it's primary users. As for c-shell... I wish it has never been written, the world might have been a much better and happier place
Re:Too bad for the BeBox owners (Score:1)
I'm not suggesting that it's necessarily bad to allow groups of people to improve things, but I think that a truly inspired API and a group of clueful kernel developers can foster many or most of the "improvements" that you'd potentially see from an open source development effort.
I've used proprietary OS' in the past that Did The Right Thing so well, I haven't seen any successors really match them. Granted, most of them aren't in use now, but I'd be happy to just see us learn from the past. I have yet to see one OS that was a panacea for everything, and I don't think I ever will.
For example, if there were an OS that combined the job scheduling flexibility of TOPS-20, the self-diagnostic mechanisms of LISPM's, the security of Multics, and the UI of the Xerox Alto, you'd be ahead of most of what's out there.
Why don't you have such a thing? Because people don't learn from mistakes, and allow creeping featurism to distract them from their core goal.
On the not learning front, I count the Linux TCP/IP stack as a prime offender. It has come a heck of a long way, but slow start still doesn't seem to work right, and option handling is still coming along. Would it have been such a crime to learn from the BSD stack? I think not. The MS-Windows interface is another grand example - at least the Mac had human interface guidelines that were consistent.
On the creeping featurism front, I think that all the Unices are potential losers. Don't get me wrong, they're a damn sight better than most of what's out there, but does a _kernel_ REALLY need to be 2MB? GEOS managed in 120KB.
I think we sometimes miss the forest for the trees. A good proprietary OS is fine, if the API and the vendor support are decent. In much the same way I promised to pay for phone calls when I grew up, I'm willing to pay for an OS that is robust. That shouldn't threaten anyone who wants a free one.
P.S.: This was written on a BeOS/Intel machine.
A Powerful Meme (Score:2)
This does not diminish what Linux has to offer. People who love Linux will continue to love it, even after a lot of new users have returned to their original OS.
What the writer of this article neglects to mention is the vast amount of hardware that Linux will run under vs. BeOS, which runs on older Macs and a pretty good array of PCs. (Someone from the BSD camp should post a reply to this to point out that BSD is the most ported OS in the cosmos.)
Other reasons for Linux being more popular (right now): 1. Cheaper. You can try it out, then go buy a full distro later, or not at all. 2. More press. Microsoft hasn't started an anti-Be task force. No one has heard of Be in the mass media since Apple threatened to buy them.
Linux share will grow on both the server and desktop side, but until installation, maintenance, and UI are improved, most users will run after a few short days left alone in the Colloseum. Penguins bite.
Re:I currently use OS/2 (Score:1)
See, I've been an OS/2 zealot for about the past 5 years, or whenever Warp came out. I loved it and used it as my home desktop of choice. I personally found the UI to be quite nice, and CONSISTENT. (Having been a Mac developer, that was important to me.)
I've basically switched to BeOS, with much soul-searching. Even with my paying IBM for quarterly updates, the support options were horrific, although I imagine the pricing is about the same as M$.
If OS/2 _really_ had Win32 interoperability, I might still be using it, but BeOS speed, flexibility and POSIX mostly-compliance are great things to me. It feels like the best of both worlds - If I want to port some UNIX hack, it's straightforward (EMX is fine, but only part of the picture.) If I want a nice UI, the BeOS UI rocks.
That having been said, my corporate web/mail/meeting maker server has been running OS/2 for 2 years without incident (security or otherwise) other than a power supply dying. I don't necessarily expect the BeOS to ever be that kind of platform.
I have to concur that the perception of OS/2 is exceedingly unfair. It's super-stable, and the virtualization is unparalleled, though I guess the VMware people are trying really hard to parallel it, as it were.
But..even getting past the fact that many or most
Re:I think this is good... (Score:1)
Re:Typecasting is human nature (Score:1)
A major part of what is going to make the BeOS the Media OS is it Low Latency. The T-RackS review over at leBuzz (http://www.lebuzz.com/archive/tracksreview.html) has a comparrison of running T-RackS under the BeOS and Windows. Because of its low latency the BeOS version is MUCH more usable than the Windows version on the same hardware.
(leBuzz is the place for information on audio on the BeOS.)
geoff
Re:Give Be a chance (Score:1)
I think, though, that a lot of linux users are missing the point. Linux is a GREAT server OS.
I find you guilty of typecasting, as charged.
(I shall define great as being able to be used by most users immediately after install).
Not only do I disagree with your definition , but do I have to remind you about System 7? I mean , you could use it right away, for about five secs...
I have tried linux. I don't have the time to invest into setting it up or tweaking it so that it works.
I don't want to misunderstand this. Are you saying you have no time to learn?
Have any of you checked out the specs on Be? Be uses a 64-bit Journaling File System. It has pervasive multi-threading, pre-emptive multi-tasking, and excellent use of SMP. It already has a security/multi-user architecture set-up waiting for a time when it will be usefull.
Many have said that they could not use X. Well if you go to the BeWine page you will see that they have ported X-Windows over and are working on a port of Wine as well.
I think we can agree that X is a non-issue. Lack of X Windows is not why Be is weak.
I will finish with this last thought. Please remember that the OSS dev model transends all OS's. Just because an OS isn't open source does not mean you can't design a good app for it. The only reason there aren't a lot of OS apps on Be is because THEY HAVEN'T BEEN WRITTEN YET (and/or ported). Before you start thinking of how to flame me, remember that linux too was once really young with no apps, and that it took time before mainstream users started to notice it.
Let the moderation begin.
I agree, Be can be a great OS(but can Be be all it can be?), but please, for the love of all that's holy, ixnay on the "it works right out of the box" thing. Didn't anyone watch Kung Fu as kids? You think Kane was born good?
Re:Nothing precludes Open apps on BeOS. (Score:1)
Incidentally, although I'm not writing this on a Be machine, I love GoBe Productive. True, it's not as feature rich as Office, but what it does it does very well.
D
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taking advantage--a meta-level (Score:1)
Not so. Everytime a user loads an app or system which is improved from having been subjected to tweaking or recoding, etc., by ANY member of the open source coders, said user is "taking advantage" of open source, on a secondary or tertiary level. Simply because there is no "meta-level" activity is hardly the same as not benefiting/taking advantage.
A simple analogy. I'm an amateur chef, my wife does not cook. Simply because she never uses my cooking tools hardly means she has not taken advantage of them when eating some souffle or creme brulee or napoleon I've prepared with them.
This is a particularly surprising glitch in logic given the otherwise evident erudition of the author of the original article.
Thanks, Steve
Re:Typecasting where deserved. (Score:1)
Re:The power of Linux... (Score:2)
Re:BeOS has a chance... make it free!? (Score:1)
Re:He was talking about the average joe...... (Score:1)
Re:The power of Linux... (Score:1)
Absolutely not! I know it's open source, so I know that other people with more time/skills/inclination than me can fix problems, add features. AND if I need something badly enough I can get it done. Perhaps myself, perhaps by paying one of my IT guys to do it.
Re:If the BeOS only had... (Score:1)
Re:I think this is good... (Score:1)
By the way... Talking about NT, has anyone taken a look at reactos [reactos.com]? it is supposed to be a clone of NT... Its also, not the first Opensourced OS attempting to run windows software. But this one seems to be progressing... (whereas previous attempts, have come to a standstill for, seemingly, a year now)
Java is _still_ being typecasted... (Score:1)
I always thought that it would be nice if companies started coming out with native Java compilers; that is, ones that didn't make you target a virtual machine. (Not *everything* needs to run everywhere!) Microsoft did this with Visual J++ 6.0, and immediately got flamed terribly for something I actually thought was a good idea. So right away everyone backs off on this so they don't piss Sun off, and now we're stuck with Java, the nice language that isn't really good for much if you want native performance and don't give a dink about some user on a weird machine/OS being able to use your app.
Anyway, the point of this long spiel is that often the media isn't to blame for typecasting, but the originators themselves. i.e. Sun with "write once run everywhere and damn you if you want to go native", and Linux users constantly crowing about server prowess, Be doing the "Media OS" thing, etc.
- Slarty
Re:Too bad for the BeBox owners (Score:1)
Of course, GEOS would fit the kernel, library and app in about 300KB and have room to spare.
'nuff said
Re:Actually, I do kernel things too (Score:2)
As stated in my previous post, you don't need to recompile the kernel to add drivers to Be, or need access to the kernel source to write drivers. Most drivers are kernel modules loaded at boot-time, analogous to "modules" under Linux.
I have already said that I recognize that sometimes things _do_ need to be tweaked in the kernel - but I think that for the vast majority of _users_ who don't do kernel tweaking, BeOS is fine. Linux isn't going away any time soon, don't worry.
Re:I currently use OS/2 (Score:1)
That makes no sense, becuase BeOS has less Win32 interoperability than OS/2 does. BeOS may be faster, but it's certainly not more flexible. It doesn't run any DOS or Windows 3.1 apps, and I don't think it has XFree86 or all those ported Unix apps. For every 1 BeOS app there are 20 OS/2 apps. For every 1 piece of hardware that BeOS supports, there are 10 pieces of hardware that OS/2 supports. OS/2 is definitely more flexible than BeOS.
As for the UI, the BeOS may have nicer icons, but the WPS is undoubtable the more powerful and more flexible UI. You can always change OS/2's icons to be more BeOS-like, and I think the BeOS UI is otherwise rather dull.
But I can't blame you for moving away from OS/2 because of IBM.
BTW, I have BeOS installed on two machines, but I don't use it. I had to spend $200 on additional hardware just to get it to install.
--
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
Re:Give Be a chance (Score:1)
Ok.. Guilty as charged. My point was not about the typecasting though. I think typecasting is necessary to a degree. Different OSes serve different needs. To use the car analogy everybody else is using, if you want to drive REALLY fast you get a Viper or Porsche or something in that range. If you want something to tow a boat you get a truck. There is nothing wrong with using an item for what it does best. To tell me that linux runs equal to Windows/Mac/Be for easy of use as a desktop application is like saying I'll get the same performance towing the boat by putting a trailer hitch on my Porche.
but do I have to remind you about System 7?
*shudder* ok, you win on that one (I don't know how I forgot, I was a mac user as well as a PC user for most of my life)
Are you saying you have no time to learn?
Yes, this is exactly what I am saying. I have enough to do in a given day without having to take a good amount of time to learn how to do everything i need to do to run my OS. For me, my computer is a tool. Use should be transparent. I am not saying that Linux doesn't make a good desktop for those who know how to use it, but for the average person (or more to the point "adult") uses the computer as a tool. You should feel familiar in a new desktop OS, and you shouldn't have to re-learn the way to do everything.
but please, for the love of all that's holy, ixnay on the "it works right out of the box" thing
I have to agree/disagree with you on this point. On the one hand you are right. There is a bit more to it than just installing it. You must check and see if you hardware is supported. If it isn't well, then its a bit more complicated. But.... If you are running supported hardware then it's ease of use and installation is amazing. Windows tries to say it can do this, but for all their talk windows is clunky and burdensome. Be installs in less than half the time it takes Windows, and asks you far fewer questions. It truly auto detects most of your hardware (aside from networking mostly) and sets fairly good defaults. Yes, you do have to go in and change control panal settings for optimization, but it doesn't take the hour to two hours that windows/mac setups can take.
TC
Re:How can BeOS go open-source? (Score:1)
A lot of hippes got pissed off at the Grateful Dead because they chose to support themselves with their music rather than give it all away for free.
Do they expect all non-school (read "those not living off the fat of others") to have to keep day jobs just so software can be free?
There is an old Libertarian axiom: "There aint no such thing as a free lunch". Everything gets paid for. Free Software is paid for by the developer (or the institutuin that feeds him/her). Commercial Software is paid for by the people who use it.
Student price: $85, even cheaper on eBay (Score:1)
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Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
No sh!t (Score:1)
The mindless FUD I see here from the rabidly faithful makes all those Amiga-holes and GUS-maniacs look like enlightened free thinkers.
Practice what you preach (Score:2)
He criticizes Neal Stephenson for portraying Linux and Be as a tank and a Batmobile, respectively, claiming that Be isn't a Batmobile because you can drive it to the store every day, but, oddly, has no objection to that characterization of Linux.
Well, guess what. I drive my tank to the store every day. I use Linux for all of my ordinary tasks, on both server and workstation. I stopped multi-booting ages ago, because Linux is just a flat-out better desktop OS than Windows.
Is it better than Be? I dunno. I looked into getting a Batmobile, because they do look very cool, but I didn't in the end. I checked the HCL on the Be website and discovered that in order to run Be on any of my machines, I would have had to replace, at the very least, motherboard, CPU, video card, sound card, and mouse.
So 99% (to use the number he apparently pulled out of his butt) of Linux users don't use the source. Well, that means the other 1% do. 1% of a few million is a fscking lot. And, thanks to free source, all those people can (and do) write drivers. That's why Be has (woefully short) lists of the hardware it works with, and Linux has (amazingly short) lists of the hardware it *doesn't* work with...
Be has my vote for becoming the OS/2 of the next decade. Technically elegant, theoretically excellent, and practically doomed by a lack of third-party support.
Linux advocacy (Score:2)
No Linux advocate that I have dealt with (me included) want Linux to be the only OS. What many of us want is for Linux to be able to do everything. There is a big difference, but because this would put it in competition with every OS, some people think we want them all to go away.
Um, take a look at some of the other posts in this thread. And in the threads attached to the MacOS X post. Many of the posters here, who would certainly call themselves Linux advocates (whether or not they fit the definition that you use), have a strong knee-jerk reaction that says that any non-Open operating system is intrinsically evil and should be abolished. They then proceed to loudly make this opinion known.
They also generally don't mention *BSD. When it comes up, the reaction is along the lines of "Huh? Oh, well, since it's Open, it's ok.". And then they go back to bashing non-Open OSs.
This seems to indicate that many of these "advocates" _do_ want to actively destroy non-Open OSs regardless of whatever merits they may have. And for many of them, Linux == Open == Linux.
I'm not saying that _all_ Linux advocates are like this by any means - but a substantial and very vocal minority are.
Thank God for those 1% (Score:1)
But another deep-pocketed buyer can come by at any time and buy up the company and possibly ruin BeOS. At least with Open Source, likeminded individuals would be able to continue the development.
Give Be a chance (Score:3)
I think, though, that a lot of linux users are missing the point. Linux is a GREAT server OS. If I ever had to run a high traffic server I would run linux. But Linux is NOT a GREAT desktop OS. It can be a good one, but can anyone really say its great? (I shall define great as being able to be used by most users immediately after install). I have tried linux. I don't have the time to invest into setting it up or tweaking it so that it works. I have also tried Be. I was able to use it, go online, and start d/l software immediately without the help of a friend directing me. (btw I consider myself pretty technically literate, I am an MIS major with a CS minor). Be doesn't as yet have many apps for the general user, but that's because it is set up for being a Audio/Visual niche operating system. (Be is being smart. Remember they are a company that has to make money to put out a good product. Going head to head with the Redmond giant is suicide. Linux could do it because they don't need to come in on budget or have to make money) Look at linux 1-2 years ago. Where was StarOffice then?
A lot of people have stated that Be has no apps or they can't use the apps they have on linux. Just because Be is closed-source doesn't mean that you can't create apps for it or port apps to it. Be comes with a fully integrated BASH command line interface. It comes with a variety of GNU tools, most notably gcc. If you do some research you may notice that it is nearly fully POSIX compliant (they are not fully POSIX yet because they want to put their time into getting more hardware supported).
Have any of you checked out the specs on Be? Be uses a 64-bit Journaling File System. It has pervasive multi-threading, pre-emptive multi-tasking, and excellent use of SMP. It already has a security/multi-user architecture set-up waiting for a time when it will be usefull.
Many have said that they could not use X. Well if you go to the BeWine page you will see that they have ported X-Windows over and are working on a port of Wine as well.
I will finish with this last thought. Please remember that the OSS dev model transends all OS's. Just because an OS isn't open source does not mean you can't design a good app for it. The only reason there aren't a lot of OS apps on Be is because THEY HAVEN'T BEEN WRITTEN YET (and/or ported). Before you start thinking of how to flame me, remember that linux too was once really young with no apps, and that it took time before mainstream users started to notice it.
Let the moderation begin.
TC
Re:BeOS R5 will probably be more of threat (Score:2)
Sigh. Why can't we all just get along and be open minded?
caring about source code (Score:1)
well, if you were to do a survey of 1000 random computer users, I am pretty sure that you would find one person who knows how to programm (maybe none -- Remember, the *vast* majority of computer users just run internet, word and excel, and that's it about it.) Of any decent programmers, I would say maybe somewhere around 20% are advanced enough to be able to actually *use* the source code of a commercial application.
(a good percentage of programmers are casual dabblers, students, etc)
Basically, what I am trying to say that the people who can't *use* the source won't care about open source simply because it is open source. (I'd like to see someone sell software by saying "well, if you (the user) think it sucks, you can hope that maybe someone else will improve it".
Re:Am I the only one here who disagrees?? (Score:1)
But this is precisely what the author is talking about: FreeBSD has only the security that FreeBSD can provide, and Solaris is most definitely not the only OS that scales well (c.f. SGI's IRIX and UNICOS, Digital UNIX, &c.).
To 'typecast' is to limit your own horizons, and potentially lock yourself into a state of mind that might leave you in the lurge should a vendor never actually get around to implementing features its competitors have had for years (which is why IRIX surpassed Solaris as a 64-bit OS: SGI was one of the first on the block. I think only Digital had SGI beat).
That sort of narrow thinking could cost you.
Re:Am I the only one here who disagrees?? (Score:1)
I meant LURCH.
Oy.
(Although, from a pure coinage issue, I could make that out to mean the opposite of 'surge,' with intent to mean listless, loagy, or lethargic, thus conveying the exact opposite while making a parallel construction from the word.)
Back to coffee for me...
I think a lot of people dismiss OS/2 too easily. (Score:1)
I think it would open some eyes. KDE and GNOME are getting better and will be going places, but compared to the WPS they are still quite rough.
When people ask my why I don't use my Linux, BeOS, or NT setups fulltime on my desktop, I simply point to my OS/2 setup and smile...
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-Rich (OS/2, Linux, Mac, NT, Solaris, FreeBSD, BeOS, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
The same old story (Score:1)
Apart from that, I feel that the author has not understood the concept of open source software at all. I want my OS to be open source, not because I intend to hack at the kernel myself, but because I know that others (many thousands!) had a chance to do so and have in many cases done so! This is why open source software generally has better quality. Period.
Re:UNIX must evolve. (Score:1)
Its not a flame just a correctin
Why use VFAT when you have HPFS? :-) (Score:1)
I use the BeOS a little at home as well, BTW. If they ever add support for the Intel EEPro/100B, I think I could spend more time there, but so far my own experience is that OS/2's software and driver support vastly outstrips the BeOS. Hopefully that will change over the next couple of years...but it makes BeOS hard to use right now.
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-Rich (OS/2, Linux, Mac, NT, Solaris, FreeBSD, BeOS, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
Re:Java is _still_ being typecasted... (Score:1)
Sun themselves released Java when it was not much better than an applet writing language. The version 1.0.x of JDK was just a toy language! Look, most of the (stable) extensions to Java that allows it to do more than applets came out about a year ago. Some would say that it is not even ready for prime time yet (just look at JDBC), not even in the league of C/C++. "Write once run everywhere" stuff is just pure idealism. Solutions that have come up are not going to speed Java up much more. The solution put up by Sun is not much different from MS: wait for more, cheaper CPU cycles and RAM (ie upgrade your CPU and RAM).
How much different is that from Ms expecting users to upgrade their machine for each upgrade of their OS? A pox on both houses!
Typecasting is going to occur as much as people stereotype others, not much different at all.
The Fifty page writeup (Score:1)
But the Dead allowed their concerts to be taped... (Score:1)
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-Rich (OS/2, Linux, Mac, NT, Solaris, FreeBSD, BeOS, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
Re:He was talking about the average joe...... (Score:1)
Re:Typecasting where deserved. (Score:1)
Re:But the Dead allowed their concerts to be taped (Score:1)
But I'll sure bet at least some of the bootleggers paid to get into the concerts in the first place. And then here's where the analogy really falls apart: how good do you think a 3rd generation audio tape is going to be?
Am I the only one here who disagrees?? (Score:1)
Okay in my perfect world: I'd have OpenBSD on firewall and security sensitive duty, Solaris on the 64 CPU web-monster, whatever on the mainframes, FreeBSD (or maybe Linux) on remaining servers, BeOS for most users, Linux or FreeBSD on the desktops of us hacks and geeks. Java on koisks. Amiga for video editing, QNX for embedded..... Why? Well only one OS has the security of OpenBSD, only Solaris can scale on the big boxes. Most mainframes only have one OS. FreeBSD has the best stability and speed for x86 type serving. You get the idea.
But why not Linux on all desktops/workstaions? I haven't (personally) developed on BeOS. But from what I hear that it has a single, wonderfully designed API and most developers love it. This is great for most apps. But *nix, on the other hand, has dozens of mix-matched APIs, from POSIX to SVGAlib to GGL to xlib to Qt and GTK to OpenGL to whatever. It has wonderful flexibility and openness that is unattractive and unnecessary for many developers, yet perfectly suitable to those who _want_ to know what is going on *under the hood.* I've seen recent discussions on slashdot about what API to use for Linux game programming, and don't get started on GTK vs Qt. This is great for us hacks who love pointless flamew^H^H^H^H^H^H debates. One of the themes of Unix is the perfect tool(s) for the job. In a larger sense, this may mean that there are cases where Unix _isn't_ the perfect tool, so just use the proper one.
I sincerely hope that Be succeeds in replacing MS. If I had to choose, I'd pick a company that knows it's place and does well with interoperability with other OSes, and also has a fast, clean, well designed API (unlike some other monopoly OS out there). Furthermore, in order to maintain a single, coherent API you _need_ the single driving source. I'm not saying that open source _can't_, but remember that one of the ideals of OSS (remember the Cathederal...) is if something doesn't fit you, design your own. Companies are just more adapt to a single strategy (but that doesn't mean that they always stick to it).
Furthermore, from what I hear BeOS has done a decent job of interoperability, TCP/IP facilities etc. With a good secure distributed file system combining all these many OSes, it would make life _much_ easier on us sysadmins: centeralized data and app servers, stable, easy to use OSes, etc. Do I think that everyone will be using Linux or BeOS or whatever in 100 years?? of course not. Technology will change. But for now, w/ today's tech and climate this is what I'd like to see in the next few years.
Re:BeOS does come with GCC (Score:1)
Yes Scot is right and wrong at the same time (Score:1)
I disagree with his thinking.
First if it was a case of simplicity then we would talking about the evil Mac empire and not Microsoft.
Open source does matter. It reflects a new way of doing software. It may not change the entire world. But it will be a way of developing software. And eventually there will be a viable business model.
And the other aspect that one cannot ignore is what MS knows very well. End users do not sell computers. End users want to do a job. Developers sell computer systems. Developers want to have fun developing the systems. Developers create the applications that people want. And the more developers that you have the more attractive your platform becomes.
Linux is building a core developer following just like the "user friendly" DOS and Windows. And in the end this will make the difference.
you missed my point (Score:1)
The power of Linux... (Score:2)
I have no particular interest in kernel hacking. Ordinarily, I "couldn't care less" about digging in the source. However, when I found myself needing a tiny tweak to my server OS, I was *SO* glad I could just go in and change a single line of code and solve my problem.
Re:Those Who Do Not Understand Unix (Score:1)
500 different things poorly (think IDEs or
> mail readers that know about SMTP and POP) you're using programs which are not UNIXey.
hmm. emacs does way more than 500 things. i would say that it's UNIXey...
Free Beer is also good (Score:2)
Re:UNIX must evolve. (Score:1)
You must've been using X10 (X Version 10, not the X10 home-appliance control system), rather than X11, then; X11 has almost always had window managers and GUI toolkits.
Are you saying that there's too much code there, or that it's too layered, or that there's too much code because it's too layered?
"Registering" in what sense?
Putting them into your desktop environment's menus? If so, that seems to me to argue more for a better way of standardizing root/panel menus (the only reason there's a standardized way of doing that in "Windows 4.0" systems - W95, W98, NT 4.0 and later - is that they came with a single standard desktop environment).
Or registering them as installed applications? If so, that's more a "UNIX diversity" issue - not every commercial UNIX system was SVR4-based, so not all of them had the SVR4 package system, and the free UNIXes ended up rolling their own (multiple ones, in the case of Linux distributions).
...which seems to me to argue more that either
Good question. I'm not sure I think anybody knows the answer yet; I suspect you won't find out until it does snap.
I think they're a way of the future; I often find GUI-based packet capture and analysis program more convenient than text-based ones like "snoop", for example.
I don't think the elimination of CLIs is necessary, however.
Quick, to the Adam Westmobile (Score:2)
I'd like to see Adam West in some other stuff.
Re:Why Open Source is crucial (Score:1)
Oh, in theory I could delve into the OS sources and submit my patches and ideas (and I admire people who do), but in practice (1) that would take precious time I'd rather spend on my on programming, and (2) there is no guarantee that my patches and ideas would be accepted.
Your mileage will surely vary, but please explain to me again why it is important for me to use an open-source OS.
Re:BeOS users have much more power than you think (Score:1)
Re:Why Open Source is crucial (Score:1)
Whether or not you decide to hack the kernel, Open Source allows distribution of control of the OS, so that no one organization or group has absolute veto power.
I used to use OS/2. IBM decided that the sort of users that were actually using OS/2 were unimportant, and focused on other areas. As users of a proprietary, closed-source operating system, there was nothing anyone outside of IBM could do.
That cannot happen with an Open Source OS. I use Open Source software almost exclusively, having learned my lesson with the OS/2 debacle.
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Get your fresh, hot kernels right here [kernel.org]!
Re:Practice what you preach (Score:1)
I did not criticize Neil Stephenson -- I said there was a danger lurking in the fact that journalists don't tend to push BeOS as a general-purpose operating system, and that they should be.
The lack of drivers on BeOS in comparison to Linux has a lot more to do with time (BeOS for x86 has only been available for 18 months, for godsake!) than it does with anyting related to open source.
Re:UNIX must evolve. (Score:1)
I think they're a way of the future; I often find GUI-based packet capture and analysis program more convenient than text-based ones like "snoop", for example.
I don't think the elimination of CLIs is necessary, however.
No, absolutly not. An xterm provides everything the console does and more. And I don't think a GUI necessitates a WIMP interface (Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pointers). In fact, I'd rather the keyboard be the major input device of a GUI. But this is all forward thinking thought. I would really like to see Unix evolve into a GUI world.
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Typecasting where deserved. (Score:1)
Joshua Pearson
Yeah, but... (Score:2)
Just putting a bit of the blame at the feet of those who deserve it...
Re:Batmobiles (Score:1)
I liked the bit about how both Stallman and Gates created the conditions necessary for Linux's success. Very insightful.
I also liked the big about the problem with a user making a menu selection on a Mac hanging the network, because I remember running into that exact problem myself once many years ago. Ahhh, memory.
I disagree that the Mac wasn't very hackable. Hardware-wise, perhaps, but the software had everything in resources from a very early stage and browsing with ResEdit was a popular hobby for Mac hackers. There were WDEFs and MDEFs and CDEFs so you could make everything look/behave differently. Overall, as hackable as anything else, just in different ways.
NS is dead wrong about how a sufficiently motivated programmer could write everything to the bare metal and doesn't really need an OS. That assumes that the only purpose of an OS is to provide layers of abstraction, whereas in a real OS it has other purposes such as protecting processes and users from one another. It's ironic that he'd make this error, because he talks about UNIX to open one's eyes regarding Mac/Windows, but then he falls prey to seeing the world through desktop-OS eyes.
His comparison of UNIX to the Hole Hawg strikes me as a little inapt. If Windows is the wimpy "power drill" for the home handyman and UNIX is the Hole Hawg for the professional building contractor, he has obviously overlooked even older hoarier OSes (VMS and MTS are two I've used) that are the equivalent of earthmovers and piledrivers.
It'd be interesting to see how the LISP/Scheme culture (of which RMS was of course a part, interestingly in this context) fits into his metaphors.
Emacs for serious word processing? Gack! Yes, a lot of what's in MS Turd is feature bloat, but for really long documents some features (styles, automatic cross-references and tables of contents etc.) are truly useful. Fixing up all those references to Section X by hand when you insert a new section in between is like trying to do OOP with case statements instead of dispatch tables.
Re:BeOS users have much more power than you think (Score:1)
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Re:Missing the point (Score:1)
1. It gave a set standard of it's API for hardware and software developers to use. While it's not open it's a more focused model than linux has been in the past (notice I said past, the libraries have become alot more standardized and developing for linux has become much easier) 2. They grabbed up a huge market share, so hardware vendors decided they would go with the short term winner in the desktop OS race. Theres lots of hardware that will never work with windows because it's designed for SPARC or MIPS computers or some other processor/chipset/OS. Windows has the desktop market for now so thats why hardware developers wrote drivers for it.
Re:A Powerful Meme (Score:2)
I don't think M$ has gone after BeOS yet because they dont see them as much of a threat as they see linux as, no one really pays any attention to Be in the news, but they are all in a tissy about linux (to all you media people, Red Hat is NOT the only linux distro and in NOT linux).
As for BSD being the most ported OS in the cosmo, yes it is. NetBSD, yeah it will run on that.
BeOS has a chance... (Score:2)
The reason I bring up OS/2 is because I think BeOS has a chance of avoiding what brought down OS/2. Granted, some of what brought OS/2 down is that IBM did a sloppy job of marketing it (or so I've heard). But another problem was that Microsoft successfully altered people's perceptions to see Windows as a "standard" part of their PC, and OS/2 a useful "extra", or an "alternative" OS. These days, Linux (with the help of Linux users and advocates) has been altering people's perceptions and they are realizing that Windows doesn't necessarily have to be their OS by default. It's my hope that the success of Linux will be the wedge to drive open the OS market, making products like BeOS available for those who just want their computer to work and don't want to spend fifteen hours poking around inside the nuts and bolts.
What I'd like to see is for Linux to bring about a new OS market in which competition can flourish. Of course, what I'd really like to see is for an open-source "category killer" to arise in the OS arena (similar to sendmail, for example) but that doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon. In the meantime, I hope BeOS succeeds.
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Typecasting of OSes? Try User Typecasting... (Score:5)
How many Linux users take advantage of access to source code?
The OS source is like a "home defense" handgun--not essential but Really Nice To Have in certain situations. I find that having gcc around is the best thing about Linux. How many other OSes have free compilers practically built in?
BeOS, on the other hand, is immediately satisfying.
Immediate gratification may be the American Way, but generally, the more powerful things are, the longer they take to learn. Tricycles are easy to ride; bicycles are not. Guess which goes faster. Everyone here knows where Linux stands in this setting...
Valid Points (Score:3)
We all hear things like "My pet rat who doesn't know the first thing about computers hates Windoze but loves the linux installation I gave it", but realistically, we're nowhere near the ease of use and fun for the average user provided by Be, or (gasp!) Windows.
Gnome is cool, KDE is nice, but maybe pushing linux into that space is the wrong way to go. Linux is wonderfully configurable, but it's still a unix at heart, and unix has way too much baggage for the novice to slog through.
There's a lot of baggage on the developer who wants to develop cool apps for the linux desktop, too. Even with GTK or QT, you're still writing to a wrapper to a library to a library to a driver, just to get a reasonably usable API. The sound system(s) are OK, but they certainly could be better. Contrast this with programming for BE, and it becomes pretty obvious that we don't hold up well.
What we in the open source community need is really a fresh start on the desktop. Linux is evolving wonderfully as a server and workstation OS for the power user, but if open source is going to win the average user, I really do believe we're going to need something very different from UNIX.
For now, though, I'm sticking with Linux since, though I think BE is a cool company, corporate control of an OS has repeatedly proved disastrous in terms of benefits for the end user.
Re:Clueless journalists (Score:2)
BeOS does come with GCC (Score:2)
Yes, it does. I have a BeOS machine sitting next to me right now.
While the OS is closed, you still get all of the header files and semi-complete documentation (what isn't there is being written). Applications can be closed or open as the applications programmer wishes; AFAICT, Be doesn't care. More applications are good regardless of the license they're released under, and Be is too small to write applications itself. It loses nothing from open apps, and loses nothing from making the entry points to the OS visible.
not just OSes. Languages are prone to this too (Score:2)
hmm typecasting (Score:2)
int freemem = 1, *bill;
char *windows;
do {
windows = (char *)calloc( 1024, sizeof( char ) ) ;
if ( winmem == NULL ) {
freemem = 0;
} printf("haha %s", (char)bill);
}while (freemem == 1);
Re:Whine Whine (Score:2)
Um, no, by straight numbers most users seem to think that Windows is the best choice. You're trying to convince them that Linux is. He's trying to convince them that BeOS is.
How many computer users - out of the total number of computer users - even program? How many, given the opportunity and the tools, _would_ mess with the kernel? Very few.
Linux is nice. I just plain _like_ *nix variants. But the most that I've done under Linux is look in the
I've recompiled _applications_, but the kernel header files are all you need for that, and Be gives you those.
However, I'm getting sidetracked. While I enjoy Linux for programming, most users aren't programmers. In terms of installation and ease-of-use, IMO BeOS wins (though Linux is catching up).
Programmers would love Linux. Many of them already do. IMO, the users that *don't* program would love BeOS. They are who use most of the desktop machines.
Bear in mind that these are applications. (Score:2)
Bear in mind that these are applications. There's nothing to prevent apps under BeOS from being Open or Free. It is only the kernel that's closed. Now, you could make the same arguments about the kernel as you do applications, but in practice I see fewer kernel bugs that need fixing.
And if I want to tweak kernels, I can still use Linux. BeOS doesn't have to be the *only* OS; however, without meaning to offend, I think that many Linux advocates _do_ want Linux to be the only OS. This is a Bad Thing IMO.
Re. drivers, I'm happily doing driver development under BeOS with no more access to the kernel source than any other user. The headers are all that's needed.
Nothing precludes Open apps on BeOS. (Score:2)
The people to take that up with are the BeOS users, not Be itself. Be makes an active effort to publish all of its API and document as much of it as possible. If you want to release an open application under BeOS, there's nothing stopping you. Porting isn't that hard either, because the guts of BeOS are Unixoid.
Too bad for the BeBox owners (Score:2)
This points out a big problem with not having source code in terms of "typecasting users". If Be is the only company with the ability to improve BeOS itself, and since Be, as a small company, doesn't have the ability to improve it in every way, then they are forced to typecast their users into a few basic categories, simply to focus on what to improve next. These basic categories would hopefully encompass most BeOS users, but would certainly leave out large subcommunities.
Whereas if BeOS were open sourced, individual communities of users, no matter how far from the mainstream (such as the BeBox owners) would have the freedom to improve BeOS in ways that might only benefit them, and Be would never commit to doing themselves. You might even see other companies providing customized versions of BeOS, and a market of different BeOS flavors, like the different Linux distributions.
Rebuttal to standard /. posters attitudes (Score:2)
1) It has controlled and organised design and strategy - Something the open source model doesnt do well is promote _designing_ systems and maintaining them. Can you see an open source project creating a GUI + API like Be's from scratch in anywhere near the time? They group would argue via email forever about details and eventually abandon the project in favour of another X port (because its avaliable)
2) Because it is commercial it can be adopted more widely than 'unsupported' (in the legal sense) free software by companies.
3) Hardware companies are happier to supply proprietry specs for writing support for commercial systems rather than free ones.
People should stop bickering about the 'principle' of it being closed source and take it for what it is and look at both sides of the story subjectively.
Peace,
~Pev