[openbeos] Re: News, Views and Overdues

"Erik Jakowatz" <erik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>>I have a question to all members on the list - should we be striving 
>for
>>binary compatibility (1) or for source compatibility (2). Since a 
>rewrite
>>also means improving (or in the worst case cripling) the servers we
>We must accomplish both.  I'm probably starting to sound like a broken 
>record to some folks (eh, Marcus? ;), but if we sacrifice either at this 
>point, we run the very real risk of losing our userbase -- which would

I wanted to listen only on this list, but this repeated argument
forces me to say some clear words.

Rewriting the OS will take a LONG time. If you're doing it in 2
years, it was FAST. And then you're just up to par. Whereas
"par" is already 3 years late. That's what BeOS currently is:
3 years behing schedule. So beeing 5 years behind schedule
and waiting 2 years for that will loose you userbase. A userbase
that is already beyond recognition. Also, all those applications
that benefit from binary compatibility will be 2 more years old -
or they are still maintained and can therefor be easily recompiled.

And don't forget that BeOS _always_ broke compatibility until
R4. Dont' forget that the fragile base class problem will always
be a time bomb for binary compatibility anyways. First thing
when you're up to par will be a new networking, a new Media
Kit. Which will break compatibility anyways. Also missing is a
state of the art Interface Kit. Etc, pp.

60 people on this list, 12 who are interested enough to make
public what they could to. This makes maybe 6 who stay
active. That's just enough to debug and improve Tracker and
Deskbar. Where have all the developers been all these years
who should rewrite BeOS now?

AtheOS is 5 years old. BeOS is 10 years old. Think about it.

P.S: I would vote for improving on the R5 base, putting rewriting
of old modules on second priority. This will give you binary
compatibility for a long time and improvements which are
needed to keep and increase the userbase.

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