Disappointed with Bernd

Although I consider Bernd Korz a friend since I have met him personally at Cebit a few years ago and I liked him, I am disappointed by his actions. Without offering any apology or explanation for the legal status of Zeta he closed his blog and he is not to be seen in the Zeta/BeOS (now only BeOS) community. He should at least do that.

Don't get me wrong, this is not about the legal case, for which if ACCESS didn't care why should I, but it is about consistency. I have made some mistakes too, but I like to admit them so I can move on, or if I am misunderstood I like to give explanations.

Well, Bernd, if you are reading this, we are waiting. Please respond either way.

Haiku Distroes

I put a piece of news yesterday on BeOSMax.org, that work on WalterOS, a haiku distro is starting. This seems to have caused some debate on OSNews and on the OpenBeOS mailing list.

So to explain:

I personally believe that there should be rules when making a distro outside the rules of MIT, GPL and usage of brand names like the Haiku name. Those rules should be set by the team that controls the main system repository, and this is Haiku. All others should follow those rules.

I have no intention what so ever to cause any trouble for Haiku or to make an obscure claim to fame. Haiku has already said that they wouldn't want a distro before R1 is out and I agree with them completely. Also I don't have to be the one leading the distro that comes out if it is one, or even one of the distroes that come out. I just want to be a part of it. This is not about leaders it is about working to create.

Back in the early days of BeUnited, in September 2002, I had an offer to work with Simon Gauvin on a distro of Haiku for BeUnited and I accepted it. BeUnited however dissolved so I guess we can't do that. But I can surely work with others.

I can even say I had 2 offers of people wanting to work with me (in just under 24 hours!!). One of them was planning his own distro but thought it would be better if more people united.

So, this stage is just planning. It is not implementing anything, and all plans will be discussed with the community.

The only thing I hold for my self is the joy of participating in the effort to bring down Microsoft...

If you have any questions feel free to ask them. I will try to answer them all.

going on....

For those who haven't followed what has been happening the last few days you can read this: Zeta Officially a Dead Fish

and this: ACCESS Confirms Zeta BeOS Version Infringing

I have talked with David Schlesinger, the Director of Open Source Technologies at ACCESS on the matter of BeOS Max, and he told me that he sees no reason to interfere with the project. This is not official support, but it is the best we can do for now.

A change is comming...

You can actually feel it in the wind. A sudden change in the Force as a Star Wars fun might say, or the wake of a time-space distortion if you prefer Star Trek.

The demise of Zeta is a sad day for the community. I personally wish it was able to find new funding, but it seems 3 in a row is too much. So what change am I talking about?

Well, I think Haiku will and should try to get the rights to the code written for Zeta, specifically drivers. Imagine R1 getting out with SATA support. Perhaps it is too early yet, but I think an exploratory contact should be made with Bernd.

Yabbing on...

I have worked a bit with Yab, and I found it extremely easy to program with and quite powerful. Now, of course you won't create a Diablo killer with it, or an office suite, but certain software and utilities can easily be created with yab.

A few features that should be added for a version 2 would be SQL support (SQLite and Postgres for starters), attribute and query support (after all we are talking about BeOS) and perhaps basic network support. What do you think?

stop the presses

I here by stop every activity related to BeOS. My reasons are explained here. Thank you.