14. Can you tell us something about the progress of OpenBeOS? Is
there
anything already working well?
In my opinion we're making good progress. In fact all areas already
have something to show, even if it's just our unit tests. But our
implementation is proving more correct and stable than the
original. Even parts as complex as the Media Kit or BFS are ready for
trying out, at your own risk. Marcus only recently released the Media
Kits at Alpha 1 status, but the progress he has made since then speaks
volumes.
15. You are working on a PowerPC kernel. Will each platform need its
own executables, or will OpenBeOS software run on both?
Software has to be compiled separately for each platform, but there are
no further requirements. In fact, the same compiler will be used, which
makes this process much easier than it was in the old BeOS. The PowerPC
kernel is a port of our kernel to the Pegasos, a new and
state-of-the-art PPC system developed by Genesi. This could well be the
first machine that will boot directly from the hard disk, depending on
how buggy the version of
Open Firmware on my machine
is.
16. Will your PowerPC port support the latest CPUs? With the
original
BeOS, you were stuck at the 604.
It's worse than that. My port will at first only support the latest
CPUs. Older models will possibly be added later, but I can only work on
OpenBeOS versions for computers that I own.
17. How happy are you with the support you're getting from the
community? Are you getting feedback? How regularly is the work on
OpenBeOS being carried out?
That's 2 different questions, isn't it? Of course work on OpenBeOS is
being done regularly. Our developers are spread all over the world, so
we can say without exaggeration it is being worked on right round the
clock. I am very happy be a part of the (Open)BeOS community.
18. Do you think that BeUnited will manage to keep all the flavours
of
BeOS together?
We'll have to see whether it's needed. Even so I hope that's how it all
turns out.
19. Quick question: Do you work on OpenBeOS full time or in your
free
time?
Ha ha! If only someone were to pay me, I would gladly work on it full
time. But I am still studying, and I only devote part of my limited
spare time to the project.
20. What are you hoping for from BeOS? Will it make a comeback?
I just hope that it can become a credible alternative to what's out
there now. I don't personally care about the numbers of people who
notice it. Small market share has its benefits. But what matters is
that it achieve enough presence in the market to allow companies
committed to developing BeOS software to be viable. That's not what
determines my personal commitment to the OS, but I would be very
pleased to see that happen, since I would be able to earn a living from
BeOS. Besides, I have a lot of other ideas that I would like to develop.
21. Thank you for the interview.
Don't mention it.
1. Axel explains:Basically, in BeOS the kernel is located from 0 to hex 7f ff ff ff and the application is located (and can access) hex 80 00 00 00 to ff ff ff ff. But since this is inverted to most other systems (there, the kernel space starts at 80 00 00 00), and for example the Windows binary format can use a constant address for libraries, you needed to have some heuristics in order to translate those addresses (by scanning the whole program for calls to fixed addresses and changing them to the dynamic address). This will now no longer be necessary. It's possible to do that, because BeOS does not have any constant addresses. [return]