mendax.org

I thought BeOS suffered the death knell when Palm bought Be, Inc’s intellectual property, but then I came across a site which claims that BeOS still has a commercial future. I’m not sure how this can be, but if sources are to be believed, Yellow Tab had an agreement with Be, Inc before intellectual rights were sold to continue development BeOS, and that this agreement is still in effect today. What this means is that Yellow Tab plans on releasing a new BeOS version in the near future called Zeta, and that Zeta will be supported commercially, with a fair level of sponsorship. If this is true, and not just some vile trick, it could mean good things for the supposedly doomed operating system.

For now, I’m quite content with my new Apple tiBook, and happen to think OS X is the best thing since BeOS R5, but OS musings aside, I’m looking forward to what will become of Zeta and other BeOS projects. How a new, commercial distribution will affect open source Be projects, however, I don’t know, but hopefully it will aid in future development and distribution. The only thing I don’t particularly want to see out of the whole mess, though, is multiple distro packages ala Linux, which will only serve to scare more people off.

Nevertheless, here’s hoping BeOS returns in all its glory (doctors agree it rules). In the meantime, I’ll consider reformatting my server box and replacing my bloated copy of WinXP with BeOS R5 again. Maybe.

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