[openbeos] Re: Why I am against distributions

Survival of the fittest.is a useful concept in science, business and
technology. However with an emerging species differences can be devestating. 
 
There is already several BeOS clones: OpenBeOS, BlueEyedOS, Cosmoe, Leonardo,
Yellow Tab. This will cause problems as we progress. Imagine the difficulty for
all when Glass Elevator starts making an impact. At least all the clones have
decided to move on from BeOS version 5.0 so there is a common API. This is the
problem that Unix suffered.

A BeOS API running atop Linux means developers for BeOS have an additional
market immediately available. What is more the addition of BFS to Linux would
mean there would be no storage issues in working with other systems. It would
also allow developers to work on Unix if they used tools like ClearCase and
develop for BeOS.

These are just some of the reasons to help or at least not hinder their
prograss.

GNU created the little tools before the OS was anywhere near considered. 
 
I suggest the spawning of the "Open Applications for BeOS (Clones)" project, or
at least a team. All the applets and applications that are not system specific
would become the work and responsibility of this team. The basic text and image
editors, the development kit, HTTP and FTP servers etc would all be developed
for this project with the aim of being platform independant. 
 
The project would declared the minimal tool chain and libraries requireed e.g.
GCC, Jam. The OSes would then provide these requirements. At the same time the
application team would ensure the minimal tool set for each OS is available.

For Example: So if anyone wishes to use open-beos, they get GCC and Jam for say
cosmoe. They start te build jam gets takes the code for boot system (os) and
build it. Jam then builds the disk formatter (app) and formats the BFS
partition, and creates the boot system, and essential tools. The user reboots,
the boot system's boot process tells Jam to begin compiling system applets like
cat (app) and cp (app). The it gets and builds the installer (app) which down
loads the rest of the system.
 
We do need an application team anyway, there is a team for every part of the OS
except the tools to use it.

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