Byte.com: He Who Controls the Bootloader

Aug 27, 2001, 21:01 (50 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Scott Hacker)

[ Thanks to Doug Bostrom for this link. ]

"...Some in the community met the news with relief. Others simply seem exhausted by the endless process of battling ridiculous odds, and are ready to move on to something else. But many still believe deeply in what Be is and what they've created. Believe that there is a way to best Microsoft at its own game (without having to tread the open-source quagmire). Believe that there is no better desktop user experience, period.

But the reality is that Be's failure has made a point to the world, to whit: "Don't bother trying to create a better commercial desktop OS - it doesn't matter how hard you try, how many engineers you throw at the problem, how much money you spend, or how many years you put into it. Microsoft owns that space and, worse, the public is totally complicit with that fact. People will not stop using Windows. It is a losing battle."

It is unlikely now that anyone will ever again attempt what Be, Amiga, and IBM attempted. And that's the saddest thing of all - the insidious ways in which the monopoly has wormed itself into the fabric of our economy and culture. The message that "resistance is futile" has been hammered home. The only OS projects that stand a chance are open source, because they don't play by the rules of the economy. But open-source projects seem either unable or unwilling to create a system that approaches the elegance, speed, and ease-of-use of BeOS. If you want an x86 system with a future, you're now bound either to the mess of GNU/Linux or to the Windows donkey cart, with all of the political and technological baggage that entails."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• The Register: Be getting ready to open source BeOS? (Mar 30, 2001)
• osOpinion: QNX on the Desktop: Should We Even Bother With It?(Oct 02, 2000)
• PSCU.com: Winners and losers - The chief inspector pontificates on the preponderance of platforms(Jul 02, 2000)
• PC World: Be Says Its OS Is Booming(May 10, 2000)
• ZDNet: BeOS 5.0 is maturing nicely(May 03, 2000)
• Byte.com: The Case For BeOS On Internet Appliances(May 02, 2000)
• WebReference.com: BeOS 5 Bounds onto the Scene(Apr 24, 2000)
• Upside: Be Inc. stumbles with open-source crowd [over GPL violation](Apr 23, 2000)
• Technocrat.net: BeOS Boo-Boo: GPL violated, They'll Fix It.(Apr 19, 2000)
• Byte.com: Open The Floodgates -- BeOS 5 Is Here(Apr 04, 2000)
• Be.com: Be Opens Source Code to Desktop Interface of BeOS 5(Mar 29, 2000)
• osOpinion: The OS Wars are Over and Everybody Won(Mar 03, 2000)
• ZDNET UK: BeOS to take the Linux road?(Jan 20, 2000)
• Forbes: Or not to Be(Jan 19, 2000)
• InfoWorld: In strategic shift, BeOS to be free(Jan 19, 2000)
• PC Week: Be to offer free version of its OS(Jan 19, 2000)