Haiku OS Is Stepping Closer To Its Beta

[ElectricPrism]

History isn't always repeating itself, windows of opportunity eventually close and never reopen again.

That niche has already been taken by Linux, unless Linux dies in a massive flaming and smoking trainwreck there is no more space for another "hobby OS" to become what is Linux now.

Shhhh, dont let RSM hear that. I hurd he might be upset.

[89c51]

i'd love to see a modern looking UI for haiku at some point. :/

[Niarbeht]

Shhhh, dont let RSM hear that. I hurd he might be upset.

Stallman Stallman Stallman.

He is coming.

[Luke_Wolf]

History isn't always repeating itself, windows of opportunity eventually close and never reopen again.

Indeed, the view of history as cyclical is more an expression of ignorance and naivete than anything. There are conditions and opportunities that arise and are taken advantage of... or not. Linux won not because it was a hobby OS but because it was in the right place at the right time. Just a little later and something else would have taken it's place.

That niche has already been taken by Linux, unless Linux dies in a massive flaming and smoking trainwreck there is no more space for another "hobby OS" to become what is Linux now.

This on the other hand I don't quite agree with. It's far far more likely a serious OS such as FreeBSD would overtake Linux than any "hobby OS", however I could very easily see Redox OS or something in a similar vein gaining traction in the long run because it is written in Rust and thus has certain advantages in security, correctness, and ease of development over any C based OS. Ultimately however anything that wants to take Linux down needs to have no big ticket deficiencies vs Linux and provide advantages that can be marketed, and have heavy marketing done on it's behalf to really push it into the market.

[mulenmar]

Meanwhile, AROS (the FOSS reimplementation of AmigaOS 3.x) is working on adding multi-core support...which, once it has, will be more practical for actual use than the commercial, still-developed-and-for-sale AmigaOS 4.1. :P

Gotta love these projects.

[jollyd]

The moment IBM poured 1 billion $ in Linux around 2000 to kill the UNIX competition on the low-margin market, "Linux" was not a "hobby OS" anymore: the double quotes are indeed very "à propos".
Even nowadays, some people insist on calling "Linux" a "hobby OS", -- "developed by volunteers in their spare time for the sake of freedom" --, while it is funded by major IT companies (nowadays 95 % of the kernel work by Intel, AMD, Oracle, Red Hat, Samsung, IBM, etc.. + all the userland work by Red Hat etc..), and was also built on academic work in the past 20+ years.

"Linux" is the dominant system with a vibrant ecosystem and a very efficient business model: fair enough, but anyone is entitled to use another system and contribute to its development.

I can only be happy for the Haiku community if their project moves forward.
Even if Haiku is a "hobby OS", it does not diminish the community's efforts and achievements.

Some people here seem to enjoy bashing other systems systematically, I do not get the point ...
It is really funny to see people claiming to support "Linux" and open source, both about "freedom of choice", and being so intolerant otherwise on these forums (not in this particular thread).

Thank you Michael for shedding a light now and then on alternative/hobby systems.

(I use Debian GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, and illumos, recognize their respective qualities and do not feel like bashing anybody based on their uname)

[starshipeleven]

This on the other hand I don't quite agree with. It's far far more likely a serious OS such as FreeBSD would overtake Linux than any "hobby OS"

That's what I said too, I mentioned only the bigger competitor maybe, but I was talking only of current "hobby OSes" and FreeBSD stopped being a "hobby OS" a long time ago.

[starshipeleven]

Even nowadays, some people insist on calling "Linux" a "hobby OS", -- "developed by volunteers in their spare time for the sake of freedom" --, while it is funded by major IT companies (nowadays 95 % of the kernel work by Intel, AMD, Oracle, Red Hat, Samsung, IBM, etc.. + all the userland work by Red Hat etc..), and was also built on academic work in the past 20+ years.

And some specific companies whose name begins with C and ends with anonical aren't exactly helping fighting this wrong notion with their propaganda.

[jollyd]

And some specific companies whose name begins with C and ends with anonical aren't exactly helping fighting this wrong notion with their propaganda.

Well we can agree that "Join the Ubuntu community for the sake of humanity" sounds better than "Come and do some beta testing for our next LTS" :P

[Beherit]

I'm a bit curious, what software is it that's still in use that's BeOS only and hence the reason to maintain binary compatibility?