I looked at Beos Zeta, from yellowtab.com . Beos was bought by palm, and then by someone else. Zeta is an "improved" edition of Beos. But the code is property of palm. So, is it legal? Will there be future license problems? I dont know about the price tag either. $40.00 is alot for home edition. Especially since Be was a free OS in the first place. Be was a dream, headed by one of the old founders of apple. He felt that it should be free, and it should stay that way. If the creator felt that way, thats te way it should be. Since he and his team spent so much time putting it togather. Be was great, I personally thought it was the best contender to windows, since it was easy to install, and use. Things that linux and unix lack. It was a shame to see it go. How do you feel?

Very few people actually have seen the documents. I am not a lawyer. If anyone believes that they own some of the code then they should contact yellowtab. The rumor is that yellowtab had a contract with Be Inc PRIOR to the sale to Palm. Usually contracts must be honored. Yellowtab had access to source code and other works. I am sure that Palm would have stopped this long ago if they didn't feel yellowtab had some real legal reason to continue. Contact Palm if you feel they are the legal owners of the code.

To correct you. BeOS was a commercial product. One could test it on their personal computer. Read the EULA. Commercial applications required a purchased copy. I don't think people who invest in companies like yellowtab should give away products. Dunno. Do you work for free? How do people that don't get paid feel? If you don't have the $40 then don't buy it, you would be better off. Sure, it doesn't take a big man to steal anything. A lot of crooks out in the planet. I prefer to live in a fair and honest country. Hey, we all see the burned copies on Ebay. Why don't you ask them to stop. They really are breaking the law.

Ok, I will lighted up.

Its not the point of the money. Its the spirit of the design and creation process of the product that made it so great. I would willingly pay $40 for the software, i I knew that it was better than the original. I am just worried about return on investment issues. What hardware is supported, any major apps released for the product yet, so on and so forth. I don't think that palm would have a problem with zeta, since palm bought the os for imbedded platforms and internet appliances. I just dont want to see big law suits if zeta does take off, because support would dwindle, hardware and software support would evaporate, and the end user would stuck in the cold.

BeOS was never a free operating system. I don't know where you get the info that the original company ever thought that it should be either. I'd love to see a link...

Be Inc. only gave away the PE version that was intended to be installed as a demo within Windows. And they only did this toward the end when they likely realized that BeOS had no commercial potential.

As far as getting value for your $40, the final product is not set yet. The complete lists for hardware compatibility and included software have not been released. They are supposed to be made public by the time the product is actually ready to ship.

They are still working on hardware drivers for one thing. And negotiations for distributing 3rd-party software are possibly still ongoing.

You can find out a lot more by reading the support forums over at YellowTab.

Best Wishes,
Bob

If $40 is killing you, then don't buy it. You'll just be missing out on the best OS ever, with some additional drivers, fixes, patches, and software. This release of Zeta will only populate bebits.com with more drivers, patches, applications, etc.

The release of Zeta will add momentum to the BeOS community no matter how it is released and no matter what hardware it supports upon release.

Finally, think about the cost of any M$ OS's, and the number of applications they come with, and tell me that $40 isn't a beautiful price.

Sorry, no software is a good way to spend money. I have yet to make a dime off anything I have ever bought. I fear that even as some of it is 25 years old I will never be able to sell it. Maybe on PBS in the year 2128 someone will take it to antiques road show. (it won't be me)

I apologize if I misunderstood you, but software is never a good way to spend money?

I guess you're right, if you plan on making some of your money back when you resell it.

My point was simply that Zeta will be alot more for your money than most of the M$ software packages will ever be. I have enjoyed BeOS as a hobby and as a tool for productivity. That is where I see the return on $ spent on software : )

Zeta looks pretty nice. There website FAQs state that there is no illegal code in Zeta.

Too bad that my printers are not supported.

"Too bad that my printers are not supported"

The final hardware compatibility list has not been released yet.

Are your printers listed at Frizbe.net? - that's the hardware list for BeOS 5. Most everything already supported by BeOS will also be supported by Zeta.

If not listed at Yellowtab or Frizbe, there's still hope; development of hardware drivers for Zeta is apparantly still ongoing.

Best Wishes,
Bob

Man, I was just posing a question, you people dont need to jump down my throat. And I dont care how good Zeta is, probally will not touch windows. I know some of you peace loving, anti-war protesting, open source warshiping fanatics dont want to hear that, but it is true. The world is a MS world now, unix and linux are for the back office, not the desk top. Dont get me wrong, if zeta is a big hit, and it is everything that windows is, or more, then I will welcome it with open arms. But anyway, sorry about the tone, im just a little mad about some of the responce's. I mean, really, did I ask that bad of a question.

Jim

The legality of Zeta isn't a bad question; it's actually been brought up on may OS forums besides this one.

The rest of your questions were reasonable too, and I tried to address each of them. I just found the "BeOS should be free" rant misplaced...

"And I dont care how good Zeta is, probally will not touch windows. I know some of you..."

Here you go again. Zeta is certainly not meant to compete with Windows or even Linux; it's an ~alternative~ operating system. And insulting war-loving, xenaphobic, manly-men like myself isn't going to get you any place.

Best Wishes, really
-Bob

Ask IBM or Apple how hard it is to compete with MS. Sure, a lot of dumb people use windows everyday. (including me) I would prefer to have a smart OS. BeOS is really worlds ahead of MS or Linux still. From the file system to the multithreaded nature. Just now win/lin is finding that a simple SMP driver is holding back the "newest" SMP type of processors(hyperthreading).

Hey, I love peace! I don't like war but I ain't skerd neither!!

Don't blame me, my father was a grouch also. His father was before him.

Hey, wait a minute. The guy who's complaining about spending 40 bucks for an entire operating system is calling ~us~ open source fanatics? I pay for lots of software!