feature complete would be beta. this os is still in alpha state. work is still in progress and it’s also being carried out largely by volunteers – not the company that sold all rights to palm for $11 million or that got a $23+ settlement out of microsoft, but individuals working in their spare time with zero startup funding (note: it took three years of fulltime work before beos reached its first release, and another eight before danos was ever a thing – that’s eleven years with fulltime staff). not to mention this is software being released completely free of charge and which supports a huge variety of hardware. you’re completely free to help in any way you like, regardless of skill, so if there’s anything you want that is missing, put in some work, put up cash on a bounty or wait. there is nothing even remotely okay with treating a group of volunteers this way (some of whom, it’s worth noting, happen to have written those apps you enjoyed so much in beos in the first place).
"…there is nothing even remotely okay with treating a group of volunteers this way "
Treating them how? Since when is asking questions about something considered “bad treatment”?
Nobody is making demands of anybody here.
i.e. Now, some 13 years later shouldn’t Haiku developers consider rethinking their objectives?
What is Haiku offering the computer user that the others don’t?
3dEyes, aren’t you the one you did NaviTracker back in the day?
How close are we to realizing a “feature-for-feature” clone of BeOS?
When can we expect to see these features implemented in Haiku?
When will we see an official feature complete x86_64 build of Haiku? Alpha 5?
Isn’t the purpose of a forum to ask questions, exchange ideas, or offer opinions without getting terse answers in reply?
r1beta, by definition
here’s the roadmap. if there’s anything you feel is missing, you can create a ticket for it.
“…so if there’s anything you want that is missing, put in some work, put up cash on a bounty or wait.”
In other words, “…put up, pay up, or shut up”
“here’s the roadmap. if there’s anything you feel is missing, you can create a ticket for it.”
It seems to me that the forum is only to be used for lurking, rather than discussion, debate or opinion. "Read the roadmap and file a ticket if you find something you don’t like, but under no circumstance shall you publicly offer an opinion, or suggestion on the forum that in any way deviates from the roadmap."
Thanks for the clarification.
i was just answering your question of when r1 will be feature complete and pointing out that if there’s anything you feel is absolutely necessary for a feature-complete release, you can write a ticket and someone will take care of it. or, you may find that certain functionality you want either already exists and has yet to merge into the main branch or work is already in progress addressing it. it’s a pretty cool setup.
OK, no problem. I don’t want to make something out of nothing. We’re all here to contribute to this project in one way or another. Not all of us can contibute in the same way. In my case, I have 12 years worth of “BeBox” hardware sitting in my basement from all the different hardware configuarations I’ve tried with BeOS and now Haiku. Unfortunately, I know nothing about programming.
nor do i; i’m still pretty new and learning. i’ve built systems before, but that’s a more a matter of putting existing things together. there’s room for everyone to contribute, and i don’t just mean monetarily – submitting bug reports and pointing out hardware that could use some support really does go a long way: whatever problems any of us encounter individually, someone else is bout to encounter along the way. you’ve been testing video formats – that’s definitely something, and your reporting on them is pretty clear. you could definitely submit your findings as tickets without much more effort than you’ve put into starting threads here, and it’d definitely be a help.
because of the nature of open source, in contrast to the controlled hardware environment of the early bebox, there are a lot more pitfalls toward building robust and stable software that will work for everyone – hell, after twenty years, linux is finally cleaning up its graphics stack in spite of having powered some of hollywood’s leading vfx studios.
sorry to have gotten off on the wrong foot.
[quote=PulkoMandy]Simplicity is good, but I think the most important thing is it’s fun!
I like Haiku because of the app-icons, for example, it make the OS look a bit less serious and more friendly or something. This is what really defines the style of a system and make it not just another OS, but something special.[/quote]
Simplicity is good, but I think it should not be a restriction of functionality and free customization and others. Functionality and free customization are of great importance.
BTW, I like Haiku’s windows stack and glue feature, but it is boring to do this each time after close and reopen these windows. I think it is better to save the stack and glue scheme to related windows or applications. When the main window or application opened, all the other stacked and/or glued windows opened simultaneously.
[quote=DioGen]Port Qt5 and apps based on this framework. All of the ported apps are better than old time ones made for BeOS 10 to 15 years ago.
[/quote]
I don’t get it. It’s one thing if you’re already a Haiku enthusiast and you desperately want to DO something with your computer. Sure, use QT, since there’s nothing else.
But let’s say you are trying to sell Haiku to someone who has never heard of it. Are you going to say, “install Haiku and you will be able to run a handful of the same apps that will run on your Windows, OSX or Linux box already”?
[quote=Michel]
But let’s say you are trying to sell Haiku to someone who has never heard of it. Are you going to say, “install Haiku and you will be able to run a handful of the same apps that will run on your Windows, OSX or Linux box already”?[/quote]
From the point of view of an average user, multi platform apps are ok. And we have to be honest about that: average users expect the same software everywhere. But what to do, if there is lack of modern native apps? Most of them (native apps) come from BeOS. Qt framework brings freshness by this point of view. Eg: look to Scribus: is multiplatform and works very well. When/if we’ll have an office suite, the best way to do - at least for first time - is go with a ported app, due to the lack of developers to write native applications from scratch. I use Haiku because i have Qt apps which are functional and moderns. But i also appreciate some old apps from BeOS days (eg NetPenguin, a graphical FTP client: is very essential for me). But i cannot be “productive” only with old apps. About that, i am really happy for the contract of Pulkomandy, which is working on WebPositive and WebKit!
I forget to say: when I try to sell Haiku to someone who has never heard of it, i say: "install Haiku and you will be able to run native and Qt apps, with the difference that your experience will be different from Windows and Linux, because Haiku is faster, expecially compared to Windows 
"
There is nothing wrong with ported apps, but they should not be included in the Haiku release. If somebody wants to install Firefox or whatever onto their system, that’s their business. However, all the apps included in the Haiku release should be native. I really like the fact that somebody is developing a native web browser (Webpositive) for Haiku, rather than using one from another platform. Same for the Haiku Media player. I would hope that eventually it will be as capable as VLC.
I really like the fact that somebody is developing a native web browser (Webpositive) for Haiku, rather than using one from another platform.
let me laugh, and put the question:
how many would not kill to have full chrome browser (with hangouts, extensions,etc) running on haiku ?
about native/not-native i can say… the more apps, the better, everyone uses, what works best. That’s why it should be made easy to install qt, and the qt-apps, that means, they should appear in the haiku-depot.
[quote=cipri]
how many would not kill to have full chrome browser (with hangouts, extensions,etc) running on haiku ?
about native/not-native i can say… the more apps, the better, everyone uses, what works best. That’s why it should be made easy to install qt, and the qt-apps, that means, they should appear in the haiku-depot.[/quote]
If we had a full chrome/html 5 compliant browser on Haiku, consequently, we could also have a lot of more users than now. I know a lot of people (also in the real life) which, when i show Haiku, they say “wow! Haiku seems very fast and impressive, but what about something like chrome/Firefox/Office suite?” Haiku aims to be a Desktop OS, and a Desktop os is oriented to average users, in fact And again, an average user wishes - at least base software like a browser and an office suite - available by default.
Instead, if an average user will try out Haiku without to see his favourite software available by default, will say “Haiku has a lack of software” i read and i hear this assumption a lot of times. I don’t say “fill Haiku with a tons of crap/useless apps” but just include that which can give benefits to users
Cipri asked, “let me laugh, and put the question:
how many would not kill to have full chrome browser (with hangouts, extensions,etc) running on haiku ?”
I think what Michel said earlier is valid: Are you going to say, “install Haiku and you will be able to run a handful of the same apps that will run on your Windows, OSX or Linux box already?”
I am not against ports of apps from other systems. I just don’t think they should be included as part of the Haiku package. The features found in Chrome will eventually become a part of the native Webpositive browser. Eventually, the native Haiku Media Player will be as feature complete as VideoLAN. When R1 is released, there will hopefully be a complete set of native apps which are as good as any to be found on the other platforms.
As to answering your question: I would kill to have a native Haiku browser (with hangouts, extensions,etc), but I am willing to wait for it to be developed. In the meantime, I’ll use it as is, and file bug reports. After all, they’re building a new OS,and it is only alpha.
I agree with what PulkoMandy said earlier: Haiku has a goal which is to replace BeOS on desktop computers, and make new things in the way BeOS could have done them."
[quote=vidrep]
I am not against ports of apps from other systems. I just don’t think they should be included as part of the Haiku OS package. The features found in Chrome will eventually become a part of the native Webpositive browser. Eventually, the native Haiku Media Player will be as feature complete as VideoLAN. When R1 is released, there will hopefully be a complete set of native apps which are as good as any to be found on the other platforms.
As to answering your question: I would kill to have a native Haiku browser (with hangouts, extensions,etc), but I am willing to wait for it to be developed. In the meantime, I’ll use it as is, and file bug reports. After all, they’re building a new OS,and it is only alpha.[/quote]
Yeah, Haiku is still in alpha stage, but personally, at home i have three computers. On the main PC, Haiku is the only OS.
This for some reasons:
The first, obviously, because i love Haiku and his performances. The second reason, since on that computer, Haiku is the only OS, obviously i want to do the same things as the other computers/OS: download files via Qbittorrent, streaming videos using SMPlayer+Mplayer (MediaPlayer atm is not able to stream audio and videos), i am productive using Scribus (i can also import SVG and export PDF), i can connect to various IM services using Vacuum. Thanks to these Qt applications, i am able to use Haiku as every day OS. Thanks to these optional Qt apps, some friends of mine, now, wish to install Haiku on their computer
But i’m not saying: go only with Qt and leave/reject native apps. At the moment, with native apps. we are not able to do the same things (or not on the same way: i speak about “completeness”). When we’ll have more/stable/complete native apps, be sure that I’ll totally switch to native apps, since on my main computer, Haiku is the only OS. As you said, i hope that when R1 will be released, there will hopefully be a complete set of native apps which are as good as any to be found on the other platforms. But in the meantime, i am glad to use multiplatform apps, so i can use Haiku every day
In the meantime, since on my main PC, Haiku is my only OS, i am also glad to do bug hunting and propose enhancements. But without apps i can’t use an operating system
I am not against ports of apps from other systems. I just don’t think they should be included as part of the Haiku package.
let me call this… waste of time
This is like you would now start thinking about the problem: if you win at lotto millions , is it then better to spend it with mastercard or visa?
including or not including qt apps in haiku by default, is a work of a few seconds. So why break your head about this minor question?
First of all one has to make the packages available. After this is done, one can think about including or not including qt by default. And this question is also not very important if you will be anyway able to install qt with a few clicks using haiku-depot. So it’s really a waste of time to spend thinking about this questions.
What is of greater interest… is the question about the state of qt.
I guess everyone admits, that qt has reached a very popular state, and that we can benefit from it. The problem is, it seems the haiku-devs/officials didn’t give attention to it.
So much money was spend an all kind of projects, but non on QT!
The ones who initially ported QT didn’t get anything from haiku, nor did haiku try to motivate them to complete the port, or to update it.
As others have said, Qt is not part of the long-term vision of how the OS should look like. That doesn’t mean it isn’t good to have, and of course it’s nice to use Qt apps as a fallback when nothing native can fill the gap. But with the limited resources Haiku has (both in term of money and manpower) spending these on Qt would not get R1 any further. So the money was spent on other things to improve the OS itself. Note that this also helps Qt indirectly: the upgrade of HaikuPorter and the package system make it more easy to install Qt apps in Haiku. We have a recipe working for Qt, by the time R1 is released we should have a package and a good set of Qt apps available in the repos - but probably not installed as part of the default system.
We are also doing a lot of filtering of applications that get in the repos. Previously, the best place for getting Haiku software was Haikuware, but this included many outdated applications, built for BeOS or older versions of Haiku. The repo system will allow to remove these from the distributed packages, and anything you can find in the repo for your version, will work with your Haiku install. I hope this will help everyone better see the state of our software offer, which is not as small as you’d think for such an OS.
Also, remember we can attract some users from AmigaOS 4/MorphOS community. They are worried about the increasing difficulty to find PowerPC hardware, and Haiku may make x86 computers finally look good enough for them. They are used to somewhat limited software offer, and share some ideas with us on how a computer should work. With an initial user base made of BeOS nostalgics, Amiga/MorphOS veterans, and people that gave up on Mac OS X/Ubuntu, we should be able to reach critical mass and start the more users > more devs > more apps > more users cycle.
I concur with vidrep.
The core Haiku release should be nimble and include preferably only native applications. Ported applications should be limited to those for which no corresponding native applications exist at the time of the release.
Haiku, being faithful to the legacy of BeOS, presents a freshness in terms of its API and underlying concepts. Its full power can only be expressed to the user through native applications designed from first principles using these API and concepts.
To a newbie, this is how Haiku can best differenciate it-self from one of the zillion existing Linux distributions, eCS, OS X, and Windows.
The development of WebPositive is something I’m following quite closely. Once completed, this should allow the use of those on-line office applications like OfficeJS, Thinkfree Cloud Office, and Zoho (to name a few). This would however only be a stop-gap until a truely native office suite becomes available.
In terms of office suite, Gobe Productive was originally a native BeOS application and designed from strach rather than re-hashing older code. I gather that the current owner of the Gobe Productive code does not seem interested in the two possible options - bringing the Windows based 3.x release to HaikuOs or opening the source code of the BeOS based 2.x release.
Could a fundraising campaign be initiated with the goal of “buying” the Productive BeOS source code? This would also provide a future with re-compilation possible for ARM, X64, or any architecture supported by Haiku in the future.
I have no interest in a Microsoft Office clone…as I’m forced to use MS-Office in my day job and I have been developing a stronger hate of it with each iterations.
One downside - it is doubful that Apple will ever port iTune to Haiku… However, the lack of a port of iTune to Linux does not appear to have been a negative for any Linux distributions. Is this a sign of hope?
Personally, I am not against Haiku having the development tools available for Qt or Yab. Having these tools available would attract more application programmers to the platform who might not otherwise take an interest in Haiku.
The pitfall of including ported apps from other platforms in the Haiku distribution, is that the people developing the native apps (like Webpositive) wouldn’t receive the user feedback like bug reporting etc that are needed to further development. “Why should I use this crashy Webpositive browser, when I can have a working port of Chrome or Firefox now?”
We can not protect deer by hunting all wolves. Let users to chose which software they want to use.
I think, cross-platform software could attract more people move to Haiku if they found Haiku is good and there are some familiar softwares they usually used. So people have a more plain learning carve toward Haiku which is importance to a non-mainstream OS.