LeBuzz Tries to Wake Up A Giant.

My buddy Dane Scott has published a small article over at LeBuzz (which is the place for BeOS Audio news) about the Japanese BeOS community. I have said here myself, the Japanese community is very important for the BeOS future and can not be overlooked by any of the running projects. Here's the article in it's totality:

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, a famed Japanese naval commander is said to have related his fear that in launching the attack, they might have "awakened a sleeping giant." I'm hoping that by writing this article, I might have the same impact on the Japanese.

Don't worry, it's nothing politically incorrect...

The giant I refer to is the giant potential of Japanese BeOS programmers. I have heard freqently...frequently...that there are Japanese programmers who have done brilliant things with BeOS that the rest of the world has never seen. A variety of exciting things, including audio programming. It would not only be beneficial if more of these efforts were unversally available, but there would also be great benefit if their efforts could be better-coordinated with those of programmers elsewhere, to help create even more exciting stuff.

Be, Inc. recognized the value of the Japanese, and made efforts to assure BeOS was well-marketed to the people there. Wouldn't it be terrific if something might now also be done to tap into the resultant power of the community of Japanese BeOS programmers and enthusiasts?

I don't know the answers, but I am placing this before our listeners in the hopes some of you might have ideas on how to help overcome the language or cultural barriers that have, in large part, isolated many of these fine Japanese programmers and programming efforts from the rest of the BeOS world.

A very good read if i do say so myself and i hope it hits home and wakes up not just the japanese community, but everyone around the world who's been... hibernating. It's a good momentum, things are happening, YOU can make them happen.

Zeta at CeBIT: Official Announcement.

This has been reported by Technix, earlier today, but now yT announced it officially. They'll be attending this year's CeBIT and here's what they have planned:

Between the 12th and 19th of March, we will be showing off our newest and greatest operating system technologies at CeBIT, the world's largest computer exhibition.
Along with demonstrating our already known multimedia capabilities, we will be revealing some of our newest technologies for the first time to the world. From simple everyday applications to our Project Management solutions. The location at CeBIT is Hall 11 D05, Hannover, Germany. Come following the signs along the autobahn and enjoy exhbits from more than 500 Information Technology companies, including yellowTAB.

So, for those in Hannover, in Germany and near it, go pay them a visit and see Zeta, alive and kicking.

Milestone Reached In the Java Port: It Builds!

This comes to us from beunited.org. Their porting effort has reached a major milestone, Java and Javac now build on BeOS. Does that mean you can start playing Java games online? No, not yet. Read on...

The Java porting team at beunited.org reports that they have reached a significant milestone. The java and javac programs are now building. "We now have java and javac executables for Java 1.4 using the HotSpot(TM) VM under BeOS", said Simon Gauvin, leader of the Java team.

The team is in the process of completing the functionality of these applications. The next stage is to build the rest of the source tree which includes AWT and the Java Foundation Classes. Once this is complete OSBOS will have a fully functioning Java implementation.

Very good news!! Soon Java will be a reality in BeOS and the OSBOS members. One less reason for booting into Windows and who knows, it could bring some more coders to BeOS. Great work.

YellowTab To Attend CeBit (March 12-19, 2003).

I just happened to be looking at the CeBit page when a little birdie told me to search for the phrase "yellowtab".

So I did.

And I found these results. ;-)

I will be contacting YellowTab later today, and seeing if we can get an official statement from them regarding this. Whatever the outcome, this means greater exposure for BeOS in a more public light, once again. Quite exciting.

VST Updates.

Xentronix brings us another update regarding VST, with some very good news for the BeOS world/users. Steinberg is in the process of publicly releasing the source for VSTGUI 2.3 and Xentronix, is in talks with them to port it to our favorite OS. But better than myself, i'll let Xentronix do the explanation themselves:

After some intense correspondence with Steinberg, the company behind Cubase and the VST(i) plugin API, we have some real good news for the BeOS / Zeta community.

Steinberg will publicly release the sourcese for the VSTGUI 2.3 and higher versions later this month. We were already discussing possibilities with them to allow us to continue the BeOS portion of this library that makes it possible to have user interfaces that work on different platforms.

With this news we just received, we can officially support VST(i) plugins again on BeOS and Zeta, and we are going to maintain the library for BeOS and Zeta.

Xentronix will open a VST portal for BeOS later this month on this website to maintain a list of all available plugins for this platform and to make the VST and VSTGUI 2.3 libraries available to other developers.

We are also looking into the possibility to create a media wrapper to have VSTi instruments running as media addons, so they will work with any common BeOS MIDI application.

That's definitely good news folks. VST usage (and future availability/expansion) in BeOS could get a very nice boost from now on. Don't forget Xentronix's VST Pool.

App_Server Update.

Darkrym brings us another update to his ongoing quest to finish the OpenBeOS app_server. Good progress has been made this week, and i'm sure it'll continue this way. Here's the update, straight from the... Darkwyrm's keyboard:

The app_server has made large strides this week. Last week, it was possible to start the server using the always-reliable ViewDriver display driver. The app_server has reached the stage where it closely resembles prototype #3 in what you can do and see with it, even though it is much better designed and can do much more than the prototype ever could. Unlike last week, the server can now start up using the the direct-screen-access ScreenDriver, and it feels and looks *good* because I also retooled the code which emulates the input_server so that it is not necessary to use the keyboard to move the mouse. This kludge was originally implemented because of a bug in R5. When you run the server now, it pops up a new, more-or-less blank screen which feels like BeOS without the Deskbar and Tracker.

In other developments, we're about *this* close to being able to run a generic BApplication. Gabe Yoder, who has been working on the standalone driver (AccelerantDriver), has been making real progress in the last weeks. This is important because this is the driver used when the OpenBeOS app_server is running as *the* app_server and will feature all the hardware-accelerated goodness we have all become accustomed to. I have been working with Adi Oanca in working out the details of BWindow, so we should have a prototype #5 milestone sometime in the next few months.

Very nice indeed... very close to run a BApplication.. good progress. Keep it up guys, we'll be following it with great interest.

New VSTi Instrument For BeOS.

Xentronix brings to the BeOS world, another VSTi instrument, this time it's the ZR3 Synth, from Rumpelrausch. Better than myself, i'll let you read about it, through their own words:

We finaly did it ! After efforts of our new team member Jimmy Packes to get the source for the ZR3 Synth available, Xentronix managed to port it to BeOS.

The ZR3 is a three-channel drawbar instrument with the features of the vintage originals. It has a nice, rich and warm sound. The intrument is created by Rumpelrausch, and the manual can be read online at their site.

The BeOS version of the plugin is available at our download page. For support and questions or sugguestions, we refere you to our forums.

To help us get more of these plugins to BeOS, you can make a donation to our VST / VSTi Pool using our PayPal account either on the top of this page or on the frontpage.

Very nice indeed, Xentronix (with it's new member Jimmy) does it again. And if you want more, help them by donating.

OpenBeOS Newsletter.

It's that time (no, not of the month) again. OpenBeOS brings us a new issue, #36, of their newsletter.

In it they discuss (once more) Beatrice, MIDI as well and Michael Phipps talks to us about animals, and focus. As always, point your browsers here and enjoy.

beunited February Newsletter Sent.

beunited sent out last night their second newsletter, the February issue. In it they announce new Representatives for the Standards Commitee (welcome guys) and look for a Director of Marketing, among several others points of interest.

There were a few problems last month, with several people not receiving the newsletter (including myself, a problem Simon took care of right away, thanks), but this one seems to be going very smoothly. If you didn't get it, it's likely you didn't sign up at their site... what are you waiting for? Head over to their site and sign in, they're now close to 400 members and growing.

Steve Sakoman Leaves Palm.

Steve Sakoman, ex-Be, Inc CTO, has left Palmsource. No details nor reasons have been disclosed so far, but (and this is only a wild guess) the recent layoff of 20% of their staff (including ex-Be engineer(s)) may have had something to do with it.

As stated at The Register, Steve Sakoman is one of the best loved Silicon Valley engineers, and led the Be, Inc workforce into their new careers at Palm. More details can be found over at The Register. Best of luck to Mr. Sakoman, hoping he'll encounter a new challenge to tackle with.

Sequel Not A Member Of beunited.

The last few days of the BeOS scene have been dominated by Sequel, and it continues. beunited.org announced that Sequel, due to it's R5 incompatibility won't become a member of the OSBOS group. Here's the announcement:

Today beunited.org recieved word from Frans Van Nispen, project leader of the Sequel/X-OS project, that they will not creating an R5 compatible system.

"We support the principals behind the OSBOS initiative but are not going to be signing on. Sequel is in no way intended to be an R5 clone, replacement or source compatible OS. Therefore we can not support most of the standards."

Given this type of approach Sequel cannot be considered an OSBOS project as it will not be following OSBOS standards. This is exactly the type of fragmentation beunited.org is trying to prevent for its members. As a result, we must remove Sequel from OSBOS family of projects.

beunited.org wishes the Sequel team good fortune as they leave us on the creation of their separate operating system.

This was to be expected due to the path Sequel is taking. beunited still has aboard OpenBeOS and Blue Eyed OS, and their work is ongoing and valuable. So is Sequel's.

Update: Frans shot me an e-mail with a correction to the article. Sequel wasn't part of beunited.org to begin with, they were invited to join, but due to the above stated incompatibilities, couldn't be a part of the OSBOS. I'd like to thank Frans (and also Simon, concerning another aspect of the article) for the corrections.

Sequel Follow-Up: Why Closed Source.

There has been a lot of discussion on the particular item that Sequel's source is closed. Is it good, is it bad, why is it that way. Well, i've had a talk with one of the members and was allowed to post his (which reflects the group's) view on the subject. I have edited it, for easy viewing sake alone, the text is the same without any changes to content. He has reviewed and accepted the changes. So without further delays, please read on:

So we're seeing a few comments about the closed vs open source nature and we feel that some clarification is required.

The whole thing about us being closed source seems to have a few people concerned, not sure why as we're a long ways off any form of release, but i guess some explanation would be a good idea.

We decided that we'd get more done in a shorter time by having the source only available to the developers. This isn't meant as a strategy to keep things from people but rather to reduce the exposure hence reducing the amount of explanations that are needed. It also allows us to change directions and control our own destiny without having the problems that being in the spotlight causes. Many people think that the amount of publicity and comments that being totally open source has brought to openBeOS, has not led to as productive and helpful an environment as was originally hoped.

If the project goes nowehere then we have always said that we would open the source to let people do with it as they feel. The source isn't closed forever and there will not be any code in there that we wouldn't be able to release. Also, we will be honouring the various licences for software we use, so as we plan to use gcc 3.2 and probably also gmake we will have to supply the source for these, along with the binary stuff to abide by their licences.

We're not a proprietary operating system in the negative way that people tend to think, we are willing to work with people and if someone comes along who has a lot to offer, there is a good chance we will welcome them to our project. So, we will be expanding and working with people, only we won't be offering everyone access to our source.

There are several projects to look at for different ways of handlting this:

- OpenBeOS exposes everything and simply accepts that it will have a lot of flack

- NewOS exposes everything but limits very tightly who has commit priviledges

- Sequel exposes nothing!

The main reason for exposing source is to allow bugs to be seen and fixed by as large a group of people as possible. The peer review process tends to lead to better code and allows more bugs to be fixed before they become problems. For this to happen a large and attentive community is required. As the OpenBeOS experience has shown, such a community doesn't yet exist for BeOS related projects and the amount of bugs that are being discovered from code commits seems to be very small. NewOS has a similar problem but the committers on that project seem to review commits in more detail and bugs have been discovered from this process. Sequel decided that given these experiences having the source closed would not be denying ourselves the peer review process as the committers on the project do follow commits, in a similar manner to NewOS.

If/when the community gets to a point where we have a lot of qualified people willing to review every line of code we commit, then we may open it up, and i suspect that some of the userland apps may very well get opened up as we hope that other projects will find them good enough to want to port them :)

So there you have it. Explained by their own words. I hope this ends at least that part of the discussion. As we have more information and are allowed to disclose it, you'll know. In the meantime, if you want to discuss Sequel further, click right here and let your fingers do the talking.

Sequel Revealed.

After the news that came out a few days ago on (wrongly named) X-OS, a lot of stir has been brewing in the BeOS community. And is is to settle it and to inform the public, that Xentronix has just released a statement on (the now revealed) Sequel, their OS Project.

This project was started 4 months ago, by Xentronix, which brought together a small number of BeOS developers to work on Sequel. Their intention is not to recreate BeOS, but to use it's best features and try to improve it.

But better than reading about it here, is reading it straight from the source, so head over to Xentronix's site and read all about Sequel.

Xentronix Updates.

The Xentronix team has updated their site. They now have new forums and some more options in the user accounts. Also, they are organizing a VST/VSTi pool, through which you can donate money, helping them port new VST tools to BeOS. Here's the announcement:

To provide the BeOS / Zeta media platform with even more VST(i) plugins, Xentronix has set up a pool to develop and port low budget and free quality VST(i) plugins. We already ported serveral, which you can find on our download page.

The pool should privide us with the resources to port even more plugins and have them available for free to the community. All that find it important to have more and better VST(i) plugins available can make donations to this pool using our PayPal account by clicking on the PayPal banner on top of this page.

Well? What do you think? This comes in a good timing, following the VST/VSTi news piece we posted a couple of days ago. So if you're interested, head over to their site and donate.

Update: I was just informed by Frans that this development isn't a coincidence, regarding the LeBuzz news. Jimmy Packes has joined the Xentronix team.

Darkwyrm Commits Skeletons.

Darkwyrm brings us another update to his ongoing app_server work. This time he admits (without fear of the authorities) that he has commited a skeleton into the tree and _will_ flesh it out... Creepy. Here's the full monty:

Yup. Most of the files needed for the server have been checked in. Some are just stubs, but quite a few of them have something done in them. Translation? The code in the tree I checked in this week is largely a skeleton which needs to be fleshed out. It's possible to build the server, run it, and actually see something, but it isn't much for the moment - a blank virtual screen with a cursor. Some things I brought in are existing code which has been brought in virtually unchanged, such as the manager for BBitmaps. All in all, a good week. :)

Read it? He's admitting it... and still rejoices... Good work Darkwyrm, as always. Keep it up.

YellowTab Reveals New Website.

After a long time in preparation (which i was fortunate to take a peek at and for that i thank Bernd), YellowTab's new website has finally gone public. Along with the new (and improved) design, in it you can now find an online shop, where you can buy not only Zeta itself (when it becomes available) but also Zeta merchandise, with their mascot Spleeny. So what are you waiting for reading this? Head over to their site and check it out.