The Story of Being: BeOS
Way back in 1991 a small company created a new Operating System called BeOS. The timeline is similar to Linux and almost as interesting, but it's a story wrought of high hopes and failure. (Ok, not ultimate failure as it has been newly resurrected as Haiku). The point is a lot can be gleaned from looking backward on a project that technically did everything right, but ultimately failed.
Fast forward a bit from 1991 to 1995. Microsoft releases Windows 95 and the Linux wave is becoming a tidal wave at the university level. Apple is smashing against the proverbial business shoreline and in dire need of a new Operating System. There is mad speculation BeOS could become the next Apple Operating System and a Unix-like OS will become mainstream. Apple decides to purchase Job's NextStep and the rest quickly becomes history.
BeOS survived until 2001 when funding ran out and they were eventually purchased by Palm.
Why BeOS was very cool:
- BeOS was a full pre-emptive multi-tasking OS
- It was multi-processor capable when MacOS, Linux, and Windows/DOS were not
- It was written in C++ from the ground up and its APIs were Object Oriented
- It had a journaled file system
- Performance was heralded as amazing
At this point I was going to walk through why I think they failed. There is no sense in beating a dead horse.
I think what I'm most interested in is if Haiku going Open Source can really bring it back?
Or in other words, is simply going Open Source enough mojo to bring back a great Operating System?
