Russian release-maker known as kim1963 has prepared a nice Haiku version that contains a lot stuff including several non-standard media-servers, latest Qt software, six web browsers and a lot of software including ftp, xmpp, torrent and other clients. All software is free and said to be tested. Torrent release is based upon Haiku 41539 build and presented in USB 4G image.
Have fun.
Just a note: this use of Haiku’s name and logo is in violation of Haiku, Inc’s trademark guidelines…
As has been discussed many times in the past, any non-official version of Haiku that has been modified from the official configuration and packaging of applications must have the logo and name changed in accordance with our guidelines:
http://haiku-inc.org/trademarks.html
and
http://haiku-os.org/about/trademark_policy
http://www.haiku-os.org/community/guidelines_creating_haiku_distribution
It seems we will need to contact the author of this distribution ASAP and request that they cease usage of Haiku, Inc’s registered trademarks.
Instead of creating new “distributions” of Haiku, perhaps that energy and effort should be channeled into the Haiku project. Many people believe that Haiku is lacking some features and applications. Very well and good, lets work on improving the base system and enticing developers to write lots of Haiku native apps and drivers! Most of us know about Linux and its hundreds of distributions. Linux’s greatest asset is also its greatest liability!
Having choices is good, Haiku is a good choice, but Linux has too much complexity and differences in distributions. Each distro having a different version of the same libs and programs and some lacking some libs and apps that most have! All those differences amongst distros leads to inconsistencies! Haiku needs to remain one project, one OS, one set of API’s and one set of documentation!
If haiku fractures, it will lose the one precious asset it possess, uniqueness. How many Linuxes are there? Are there dozens, hundreds, thousands? Nobody knows for sure. Enough of Linux!
My point is if there are multiple distributions of Haiku, it will cease being unique and different. That I believe was one of the original goals of Be OS, to be unique and different. We the lovers and users of Haiku need to let everyone know that Haiku deserves to remain one! If Haiku remains single and unified, it will grow and prosper because there will not be dozens of Haikus with different configurations and lib versions. All of the future developers will be programming on ONE platform, not many!
That is my 2 cents worth, spend it wisely!
Well, given that unlike Linux (which is a kernel), Haiku is a full desktop system, the difference between Haiku-based distributions will pretty much be in what programs/libraries it ships with out of the box.
As such it’s not really comparable with Linux distributions where they, as you also stated, can differ greatly in areas such as gui look, desktop environment, sound system, file system, etc.
Nonetheless, even though I see nothing wrong in steering efforts in other directions, it’s obvious that if/when Haiku reaches a wider audience there will be distributions, perhaps even closed source ones (although let’s hope not) which comes configured according to specific needs.
Even Windows has communities focused on creating their own tailored Window system disks with pre-loaded programs and whatnot. So I’ve pretty much accepted that it’s inevitable, and also I’m not so sure it’s a bad thing as it raises awareness regarding Haiku, at the very least each person bothering to create a distribution is obviously very interested in Haiku.
There are plenty of strong trademarks amongst the Linux ecosystem as well…
Go ahead and try to distribute a modified Ubuntu or Fedora for example without changing the name and logo, or otherwise indicating that you are distributing an unofficial version based on the core product…
Hint:
http://www.ubuntu.com/aboutus/trademarkpolicy
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Trademark_guidelines
Note: many of these projects provide a “secondary mark” for “remix” usage - which is something that has been discussed for Haiku as well (at least, I have discussed it with a couple people). A secondary mark could be a very powerful addition to our trademark policy, and encourage 3rd party use of Haiku without outright renaming the entire OS, but instead just changing the logo and name slightly to indicate that it’s derived from Haiku, or “powered by Haiku”.
If anyone wishes to put together a secondary mark and trademark policy for it - I think several of us would be interested in reviewing and potentially adopting it - but that will probably require some public discussion (on the mailing lists).
As for Windows - any redistribution of Windows would immediately be copyright and license infringement, so I’m certain nobody is doing that legally… trademark issues would likely be secondary at that point.
[quote=ddavid123]
That is one reason I like the GNU General Public License. Distributing a program or suite of programs non-free (closed source) is not allowed![/quote]
Well, afaik the original choice of MIT-licence for Haiku (or OpenBeos as it were) was practical rather than ideological (they were hoping that a company would pick it up and wanted to allow development to continue in a closed source commercial capacity should the company want that). Nowadays those goals have most likely changed, but I don’t see a point in second-guessing the developers choice in licence, they themselves know the advantages/disadvantages of their chosen licence and given that they’ve stuck with it, they are obviously comfortable with it.
[quote=ddavid123]
The MIT license being compatible with the GNU GPL, is there a way to relicense Haiku under the GPL if non-free builds of Haiku becomes a problem?[/quote]
Well, in order to re-licence the entire project you would need permission from all individual developers. However, in practice, should the Haiku devs want to switch to GPL they could simply start licencing new code they write under GPL, this would not affect the older code but it would effectively force anyone wanting to do a non-GPL version into forking the project and rewriting any new GPL-licenced code which would be difficult/hard work.
That said, the only ‘problematic’ scenario I can see would be if a company in ‘Zeta/Bernd Korz-style’ would repackage/enhance Haiku and sell it in a closed source commercial fashion and not release enhancements back to Haiku itself (which would be entirely legal, unlike the debacle with Zeta OS). Still, I don’t see any reason to think that will happen, there’s no money to be made in the hobby/alternate desktop os sector these days in my opinion.
[quote=umccullough]
Most likely, a closed-source version of Haiku would only make sense in an embedded environment - at which point, I’m not sure it matters so much.[/quote]
I doubt Haiku will ever be attractive for the embedded market, Linux pretty much reigns supreme there. However, I do think Haiku could make a good base OS for a tablet. Hopefully if some company would pick Haiku for such a project, they would atleast release core changes back to the original project, even if nothing in the licence compels them to do so.
It looks like this kim1963 ported and compiled a number of applications to run under Haiku and is sharing the results.
Hopefully, the source code for these ports is included in the USB image. Otherwise, this may be of little benefit to the Haiku project as a whole. One problem I can also foresee is if one developer publishes an application relying on some libraries from these ports, then it would be usable only on this release.
“it’s obvious that if/when Haiku reaches a wider audience there will be distributions, perhaps even closed source ones (although let’s hope not)”
That is one reason I like the GNU General Public License. Distributing a program or suite of programs non-free (closed source) is not allowed! Software that is Free as in Freedom should remain free and every person using Free Software needs the source code available. If not, Free Software ceases being free
If Haiku ever gets distributed non-free, there will be less people aware of Haiku because the distributors will change the logos and name. Many people will be running Haiku in ignorance. If you want more public awareness for Haiku, it needs to remain Free I know many people think the GPL is too restrictive in its distribution terms, but I believe they are necessary to keep people Free. The MIT license being compatible with the GNU GPL, is there a way to relicense Haiku under the GPL if non-free builds of Haiku becomes a problem?
I can’t give you more two cents, you have already spent it all
You’re assuming anyone would even use a non-free/commercial version of Haiku…
Most likely, a closed-source version of Haiku would only make sense in an embedded environment - at which point, I’m not sure it matters so much.
Rox’s quote
"Still, I don’t see any reason to think that will happen, there’s no money to be made in the hobby/alternate desktop os sector these days in my opinion".
Yea, that is what people said about GNU/Linux in it’s early days! You never can tell, Haiku just may become greater than GNU/Linux. There is nothing technically preventing this scenerio from playing out, except for the lack of good apps and device drivers.
You have to register just to get the .torrent. No, thank you. I am so sick of every website wanting you to create an account to anything. So, many damn userID/Passwords to keep track of. I would love to try this out. But, I am not signing up for an other website just to get a .torrent to a free OS.
Torrent download – LINK REMOVED –
Admin note: This distribution does not abide by the distribution guidelines and infringes upon Haiku’s trademarks.
[quote=ddavid123]
Yea, that is what people said about GNU/Linux in it’s early days! You never can tell, Haiku just may become greater than GNU/Linux. There is nothing technically preventing this scenerio from playing out, except for the lack of good apps and device drivers.[/quote]
True, but I just find it unlikely. Even though Haiku’s design (directly aimed at the desktop) in theory atleast gives it a better chance than Linux in that area, I think Windows market dominance is simply unshakeable and thus leaves very little chances of growth for alternate desktop OS’es. Even Apple, which managed to gobble up some chunks of Microsofts market share with OSX seems to be putting their efforts elsewehere nowadays.
Basically the pc desktop is an extremely hard market to penetrate and while I’m certain Haiku could eventually beat Linux for the open source desktop crown, I doubt it will ever be an interesting venture for commercial companies.
Making money from the desktop with a free open source OS pretty much leaves two options:
Try to sell specialized support, which when it comes to a desktop OS is likely very limited, unless you could somehow tap into the enterprise desktop market and be able to tailor Haiku desktop systems to their needs.
Create a closed source fork of Haiku which you enhance and charge money for. I doubt there’s enough market out there for a commercial haiku clone, and I certainly wouldn’t be interested in one.
Of course there’s always the chance that a guy like Shuttleworth comes along and wants to make a Hubuntu 
In my mind, there is a difference between “commercial” and “closed source”. I have no problem with a company making money selling Haiku boxes or even Haiku itself. My problem is when they take an open source project, make a few modifications and repackage it as closed source!
Yes, my position of the GPL and Free Software is an idealogical one, but it is also a practical one for those who value freedom. When people cherish security and safety more than Freedom and Liberty, they live by the dictate of the state! When peope cherish performance and functionality in software more than Freedom and Liberty, they compute by the dictate of the developer!
I know my beliefs are not popular, that is why the term “Open Source” was coined to shift the attention away from Software Freedom, and towards how the program can be made better with the source code being “open”. When you talk to a person in the “open source” camp and ask them what open source is, they will talk about the practicality of Open Source!
A few posts ago, I eluded to a scenerio of what would happen if a developer or a company repackaged Haiku as closed-source. If the closed source version becomes popular and gains more users than Haiku, then at some point the users of the closed source version will never have heard of Haiku! This means they will probably never have access to the source code and access to the source code is important not only to the Free Software camp, but to the Open Source camp as well.
So, to conclude, Commercial software is not the same as closed source software. There are many closed source programs that are free to download and use, flash player is amongst the most common. There are also several Free Software programs that are available at no cost, and commercially. Redhat, Novel, sell commercial version of GNU/Linux, but the source is still available.
That is my LAST two cents, spend it wisely!
[quote=ddavid123]
Yes, my position of the GPL and Free Software is an idealogical one, but it is also a practical one for those who value freedom.[/quote]
Well, for me personally it’s not so much about ideology, for instance I see nothing morally wrong with the concept of closed source software, although I often find the business side of closed source software to be little more than a ‘lock-in’ scheme.
I would guess that the reason GPL is by far the most popular open source licence has mainly to do with developers finding it practical rather than ideological due to it’s ‘tit for tat’ mechanism (that said, the concept of I give you something, you extend the same courtesy to others could certainly be considered ideological I suppose).
Yes, this is certainly the worst case scenario, however I don’t think that this will happen. I just can’t see a closed source alternate OS making any headway on the desktop in this day and age unless it was backed by something the size of Apple.
[quote=ddavid123]
Redhat, Novel, sell commercial version of GNU/Linux, but the source is still available.[/quote]
Well, in practice what they sell is support imo (although atleast in Red Hat’s case, coupled with a very deep technical capacity which means they can tailor Linux to perform at it’s best for whatever needs the customer has), with some middleware. But you are right that it shows a good example of open source and business working together.
[quote=ddavid123]
That is my LAST two cents, spend it wisely![/quote]
Been an interesting discussion, take care!