Through my teaching part-time in the evenings career, I was given a copy of Vista to work on for use in the classroom environment. Luckily, I had purchased a Vaio laptop not too long ago, which is Vista and Aero ready… So I loaded it up to give it a run through. What do I think? Well for the short summary version… There is a unique opportunity here for another OS to come along in the next year or so that could take a sizable chunk out of MS’s marketshare. For the slightly longer version, read on…

With the start of WalterCon 2004 comes the new name for OBOS, Haiku. Too late for complaining, the t-shirts have been made. A URL to the images will be posted in the comments shortly.

Sometimes I think this community just demands too much, expects too much, but contributes so little other than flack. Lately, the community has been fragmenting and infighting way too much to be in a healthy state. Disbelief. Disent among the ranks. The loss of values we once held dear. The ship has sunk. Get over it.

Sometimes I just get in the mood to rant a little bit, and I haven’t ranted in quite a while. Now would be one of those times. Take it at face value and with a grain of salt.
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Seems like OpenBeOS is coming further out of it’s shell, and people are taking notice. Slashdot paid attention to their recent community Q&A. OpenBeOS seemed surprised that they werent slashdotted. Thats the benefit of being on sourceforge folks.. it would essentially be like /. /.ing themselves. Aggregated resources via mergers, and other corporate speak. News at 11.

Anyway, as a followup to that, CNet got in touch with them. Not the News.com CNet, but the CNet Radio brand of CNet. Apparently they interview on short notice, as befits an internet news site with a bit more punctuality than us, and the interviewed Michael Phipps live yesterday at this location. This happened at 10:40AM (PDT), yesterday. If you didn’t know yesterday, you missed it. If I find an archived version, I will let you know.

Anyway, it seems OBOS is putting the smack down on the PR front. I find several things about this strange.

1) They are going to change their name. Shouldnt they do this BEFORE creating major recognition? ;P

2) They are going to change their site. Shouldnt they do this BEFORE creating major recognition? ;P

3) Their license is wrong. I mean, if you are gonna be free, BE free. Don’t use a license with even less protection of freedom than one approved by corporate dicks (that link felt good.) I mean, make it free, and keep it free. Otherwise you lose before you begin. (/me starts licensing flamewar with glee, and plans to watch the aftermath with amusement)

Anyway, Thats my OpenBeOS update/rant/whatever for now. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.. which is really sorta what this is. Hmm.

That most interesting of interesting os projects, Cosmoe (hmm, sound familiar?) has released a new tarball today. It apparently makes builds much easier. Cosmoe is a sort of dark horse in the race to replace beos, as it could do it, but that isnt it’s goal. It’s goal is to support tons of API’s on a modern good looking gui system. Or something. In any case, its interesting. It could be great, it could vanish. But its definately quirky.

Just had someone point out a link on the Debian page to a Debian for BeOS Refugees guide. The goal of the document is to help people move to debian now that it seems BeOS has “been abandoned”.

Now, I like Debian GNU/Linux. It is by far the best GNU/Linux I have tried. But it doesn’t even hold a candle to BeOS. And just so you all know, BeOS is “not quite dead yet.” Admittedly, it’s status is in limbo. But there is a group of us making a very serious effort to save it (much more than just petitions) - so sit tight. But if you want to play for a while, go right ahead and try debian. In fact, I reccommend it. It will be enlightening. Just don’t do it because you think BeOS is no longer an option.

A reader pointed out this project over at Sourceforge. It is a project to modify the AtheOS code to support BeOS applications, drivers, etc… in other words, OpenSource BeOS. Its an interesting project, but I am not sure it could replace the real thing. What do you think?