It's The End Of The Be As We Know It

JRAC writes "Be Inc. has replaced their web site's entire contents with information on the sale of Be to Palm. Stock holders can find all relevant info on the Stock Information page. BeOS 5 Personal Edition is no longer available from the site. Looks like it's time to hit the mirrors. Try ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/beos for files. " The official sale was approved just over a month ago.

Re:This is exactly why we need Free software.

[Shade, The]

Neanderthal - very apt, considering the most likely reason for their extinction was their lack of ability to adapt.

Three Letters: R O I

[Ars-Fartsica]

Its just a numbers game. You don't port code for which it is unlikely that the costs of making the port will not be recovered through sales. Given the number of desktop BeOS users, you would have been insane to port software to that platform.

Now you can turn that argument around on me and say that a platform isn't worth porting to until there is a set of ported apps existing that make it worthwhile, so someone has to take the risk at some point, with the possible benefits of being first-mover.

That may be true if it weren't for nearly total sautration in the desktop OS market. Everyone in the US who wants a desktop PC already has one (or two). There is very little grwoth in this market, in fact it is arguably flat. Couple this with the fact that 95% of desktop users use Windows, and that is why you will never get ROI on an alternative desktop system at this point.

Re:The whole Amiga mentality

[BrookHarty]

I always found it frightening to talk to an Amiga user.

That is a rather troll statement. Since I was an old Amiga user and most of my friends where amiga users too. About 50% of them migrated to BSD, 25% migrated to MAC, and the other 25% (and myself) migrated to Linux. We all have windows boxes for games, but all the development and server applications run on a non-windows os.

Most of us had Amiga 1200's or 4000's with more expensive hardware than PC's cost, even today! You could start out with an afordable Amiga 500 for a few hundred bux that could do everything you want, then upgrade to a 4000 and a Toaster and do real production quality work. The toaster is out for PC now and people have migrated along with it.

Honestly, the shareware I bought for my amiga was better than most commerical software. MagicWB, and other workbench add'ons, and Internet apps where where better quality programs than anything out.

The only thing I hated about the Amiga, was some cool games where out for dos/windows that I couldnt play. If Linux could run all my software, I would switch to linux as my desktop. But until then, I have 2 computers on my desk. Windows for desktop and games, linux has file/print server, nat gateway and shell box.

In fact, AMI-TCP for the amiga is what got me addicted to linux, I learned about interfaces(ppp0), tcp, services, ports and the basic unix layout. After setting up AMI-TCP I was able to setup a linux box for dialup rather quickly, and then migrated over to applications. I then got a job for Amiga support at our local ISP, and became a full time sys-admin.

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#Amiga - Spumoni | i've seen poag sightings as far back as '92, but my friend
bob says I'm seeing things. I tell you, they're real! I
even have a damn picture...out of focus but you can see the
bastard running through the forest

Another advanced OS slain

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it funny. If all the resources of one community sacrificed for the other we'd have one superior OS to stand up to the monopoly.

It looks like everything will stay splintered. One OS down, another to go, says Redmond.

OS X is trying to do it but too many people won't support it for that "extra" couple hundred bucks of premium and superior hardware.