Just had it pointed out to me that Wade Majors has stopped working on the BeZilla project, saying:

Some may not like to hear this, but I will no longer be working on Mozilla/BeOS. I will be happy to donate and transfer the mozillaforbeos.org domain to any user or group who wishes to do something with it. My reasons do have something to do with Be and the future of BeOS, and I am not going to try and justify those reasons here. You’ve all heard the stuff before. I wish Ham, Matt and the other moz devs still around luck.

He used to provide daily builds of BeZilla. I have also heard that Yannick Koehler has stopped working on BeZilla, though I don’t have confirmation on that. That still leaves several people on the BeZilla team, all of which are skilled and have been making progress… But they need more. BeZilla is a crucial app for BeOS, as it stops almost every complaint about a lack of browser support. Once it is up to speed with the other platforms, maintaining it won’t be as difficult. In fact, it should be relatively simple. But getting there will take a lot of help from lots of peeps. So if you can spare some time, and have “1337 skillz” involving BeOS coding, head over there and get involved.

This report on bebugs is set to version BeOS/Pro, but talks about R6. There is no reason to think this actually IS R6. First of all, the bug listed is very odd, in that it provides little to no detail, and is actually called “BeOS R6 beta bug
.” Secondly, it says “same happens on my friends computer” - which would imply either a strange beta group, or some serious NDA busting. Finally, there have been rumors circulating that the latest beta release of BONE, BeOS’s new networking stack, changes the version number of BeOS to read R6 in the about box. It could simply be confusion. With all that said, until Be comments on it within their bug system, there is no way to know for sure, so let the speculation begin. Odd’s are it’s a prank, but in either case, bet the headline made your day.

In related news, There has been much discussion about Be’s new OpenGL graphics layer, which is poised to be incredibly powerful, if it is ever released. NGE has been “sitting on a port of Unreal Tournament” until OpenGL is released, as stated in our forums, and the fact that Neverwinter Nights will require it. Follow that up with Soundplay 4.6 due for release with an OpenGL plugin, and one has to wonder if OpenGL is due soon. The developer of soundplay, Marco Nelissen, works for Be, Inc. and it’s hard to imagine he would prepare to release an application requiring OpenGL if OpenGL itself wasn’t due at any moment. What are your thoughts?

Update: This story is getting long, but Tim Koh of BeOutback pointed out something interesting:

1 Mozilla/6.0 (compatible; NetPositive 6.0; BeOS R6; BONE)

This line has been appearing in web logs around the net. (hint: search for netpositive in that page). Basically, a version of Net+ identifying itself as 6.0 on R6 logged onto that page on April 21st. Hmm.Update 2: Just to point out, the R6 bug has been labeled “Inappropriate” and the comment is “Funny” - So Be says its a prank.