Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 07:04 UTC
BeOS & Derivatives Yesterday we reported on GoBE Productive Software (I knew that) returning to the market with a new version, backed by an Indian firm. In addition, the source article claimed GoBE Software was closing a deal on buying the BeOS operating system from what can only be Access. During the night (as in, CET) Bruce Hammond, CEO of GoBE Software, sent me an email with a few clarifications, and I have the permission to reprint that email below. Read more for the email.
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So, it's "None of the above"
by JonathanBThompson (3.96) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 07:21 UTC
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Or all of the above... it seems there's still more of the story to unfold from all the rumors: will the other company actually manage (or at least are trying to) purchase BeOS from Access, and what, exactly, is their aim?

It seems it's all fork()ed up, and GoBe Productive is going away from BeOS/Haiku, and BeOS is... likely going away from Haiku, if it is going anywhere at all.

Even if they buy out the rights and code to BeOS from Access, I can't help but think that Haiku will end up being the long-term winner of the contest for mindshare, at least in the rest of the world: it seems they (the other company) are looking perhaps to sell to the Indian market, and perhaps that'll work well, given a pre-defined set of known-working hardware for a cheap system base. But, time will tell...

Thanks
by rhyder (3.36) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 07:22 UTC
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Thanks for posting this, Thom.

KDE = Mac
by JCooper (3.36) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 09:15 UTC
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This is the first evidence of ISV recognition of KDE4. The work the KDE guys have put into the "pillars" of their new version mean companies like Gobe (plc/inc/corp/productive/etc) can target KDE as a base, and pretty much automatically get a Mac product also.

Great news Gobe is back, though I reserve any enthusiasm until I can see and test a killer product ;)

RE: KDE = Mac
by kragil (3.56) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 10:26 UTC in reply to "KDE = Mac"
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2006-01-04
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Are all "pillars" non-GPL ??

RE[2]: KDE = Mac
by aseigo (6.24) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 17:11 UTC in reply to "RE: KDE = Mac"
aseigo Member since:
2005-07-06
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they are all LGPL. you can read the KDE licensing policy that covers these things here: http://techbase.kde.org/Policies/Licensing_Policy

as usual, it's on techbase and nicely filed in the Policies area. =)

RE[2]: KDE = Mac
by mabhatter (2.56) on Sun 27th Jan 2008 20:45 UTC in reply to "RE: KDE = Mac"
mabhatter Member since:
2005-07-17
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the problem with KDE is that QT the underlying components are Pay-for or GPL... only... they want the devloper license money so there is no LGPL. That's the main difference with Gnome being LGPL that allows developers to use the structure for free in pay-for products.

Distros like RedHat and Ubuntu feel that choosing GPL-only as a desktop will cut off ISV developer support and that Gnome with LGPL makes more sense. Considering there's the danger of the MS-Novell agreement "poisioning the [IP] water hole" so to speak TrollTech could do better if they worked the PR spin better for QT.

RE: KDE = Mac
by fyysik (1.32) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 10:54 UTC in reply to "KDE = Mac"
fyysik Member since:
2006-02-19
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I think he rather tried to point at Qt than whole KDE.

RE[2]: KDE = Mac
by kragil (3.56) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 11:19 UTC in reply to "RE: KDE = Mac"
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Well, i googled and the old KDE libs seem to be LGPL, MIT or BSD .. so by licensing QT it seems to possible to build commercial cross platform appz using KDE ( prolly in Trolltechs interest tbh ).

RE[3]: KDE = Mac
by Flatland_Spider (2.96) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 14:45 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: KDE = Mac"
Flatland_Spider Member since:
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There are two license models for the Qt toolkit. There is a proprietary license for proprietary software with a dollar amount attached to it. Then there is the GPLv2 licensed toolkit for open source software which is free as long as the code is open. Both licenses are cross platform.

Two links to the license matrix and overview.
http://trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/licensing/matrix
http://trolltech.com/products/qt/licenses/licensing/licensingovervi...

I'm reading this as he meant GoBe Productive would get ported to Linux, and maybe other Unices? ;) , with Qt as the widget toolkit. That would in turn allow them to port Productive to OS X without having to change widget sets. I don't think he meant that Productive was going to be tied to KDE specifically.

RE[4]: KDE = Mac
by boudewijn (4.28) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 15:25 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: KDE = Mac"
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If he writes "KDE", I would guess he means "KDE"... And that makes a lot of sense. I _know_ how much KDE delivers to the office suite builder on top of Qt.

Their current Linux port, the one they couldn't get stable is based on GTK1.

Just for the record, Qt is now also licensed under GPLv3 and comes with a host of licensing exceptions.

RE[4]: KDE = Mac
by aseigo (6.24) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 17:15 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: KDE = Mac"
aseigo Member since:
2005-07-06
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I don't think he meant that Productive was going to be tied to KDE specifically.


Developing with KDE4 APIs does not equate to being tied to KDE specifically. Beyond being able to run KDE4 apps pretty well anywhere these days, many of the KDE4 frameworks have no interdependencies making selecting to use one or more of them fairly straightforward and without requiring commitment to the whole kit and kaboodle.

RE: KDE = Mac
by s_groening (2.48) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 11:44 UTC in reply to "KDE = Mac"
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2005-12-13
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KDE4 is not mentioned in the article, KDE in general is though.

Also it only suggests that QT might be the toolkit in use for the Mac version by pointing out that having a working Linux KDE port would bring them close to a Mac version as well - and quess this could be said for *BSD as well...

RE[2]: KDE = Mac
by kragil (3.56) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 12:10 UTC in reply to "RE: KDE = Mac"
kragil Member since:
2006-01-04
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You are right. KDE4 was not mentioned.

But wouldnt it be the rational decision to use the crossplattform KDE4 libs + qt. It would mean just one codebase for Linux,Mac and Win32 and it would be the most future proof decision.

Just my .02€ tho ..

RE[3]: KDE = Mac
by Wemgadge (2.04) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 16:37 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: KDE = Mac"
Wemgadge Member since:
2005-07-02
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KDE4 + QT = goodness. They would certainly be able to make a windows version in addition to Mac and Linux versions. The porting process has become relatively painless from what we've seen over at http://windows.kde.org

RE[2]: KDE = Mac
by aseigo (6.24) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 17:13 UTC in reply to "RE: KDE = Mac"
aseigo Member since:
2005-07-06
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KDE4 was not mentioned directly, no, but then we don't have a proper native port of KDE3. You can run KDE3 apps on MacOS, but it's really not a particularly valid Linux+Mac native development strategy .. unlike KDE4 which is.

Either way, it's a nice bit of news.

Comment by Fransexy
by Fransexy (2.48) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 09:48 UTC
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It was too good to be true ;)

Temporary shift
by dmrio (2.28) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 11:30 UTC
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Let's focus again on Haiku development, this story is over.

Personally
by kaiwai (2.72) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 14:34 UTC
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I think that they would be better off working with Haiku and selling a 'commercialised version' which bundles their office suite and support with it. BeOS is all very nice but it is very dated, will require major investment - it would probably better off working with a clean slate and modern approaches to design and implementation than trying to hack around decisions made 8 years ago.

RE: Personally
by Nutela (1.28) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 21:09 UTC in reply to "Personally"
Nutela Member since:
2006-02-09
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Of course Linux is soo modern... ;) do you know of any other OS which has more then a 100 users which is more modern than Linux, Windows or MacOS?

Sorry but I only know BeOS and please point us what is so old fashioned about it.

RE[2]: Personally
by smitty (3.4) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 22:23 UTC in reply to "RE: Personally"
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2005-10-13
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Ummm.... Are you being serious here?

RE[3]: Personally
by KLU9 (1.48) on Wed 23rd Jan 2008 23:56 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: Personally"
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2006-12-06
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why can't that be a serious comment?

BeOS was created as a totally new operating system in the 1990s; Linux is a remake of UNIX, created at the end of the 1960s. Why else did you think you have to trick Linux into thinking you're poking away on a teletype terminal to get anything done in it?

RE[4]: Personally
by Nutela (1.28) on Thu 24th Jan 2008 11:46 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: Personally"
Nutela Member since:
2006-02-09
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LOL :-)

No I've to applogise to Kaiwai, I did not read it entirely (my flame bait!) but I get sick and tired of everybody going "linux linux!" but when I use it myselfs it 5ucks big time.

GoBE Productive
by Clinton (2.76) on Thu 24th Jan 2008 05:14 UTC
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I used to use GoBE Productive all the time on BeOS. I even bought the Linux port to it, which sadly never shipped. I would like to see that piece of software revived.

I'm also glad to hear that it won't have any Java code in it to slow it down.

RE: GoBE Productive
by mabhatter (2.56) on Sun 27th Jan 2008 21:17 UTC in reply to "GoBE Productive"
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2005-07-17
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unless they do something unique, go online, go super-cross platform, something special, there's not much there. I loved the layout and function.. it performed well for being a small program. But it was neglected after BeOS... and again since the 3.0 release. Versions of documents are incompatible between releases and the last version available trashed even 3.0.3 - 3.0.4 docs, making recovery of documents a huge hassle. At this point, NeoOffice is my new favorite, a good port of OpenOffice.org. I'd like better Visio-like diagraming functions tied to data and programming, something Gobe Excelled at was quick diagrams and easy printing.

Unless they have something really good.. and ODF support, they're out of date now.