I agree, but I have to say that the situation isn’t quite so bad, because you’re running ported apps on a system where you don’t have 4 choices of audio backend, 2 different gui backends, 4 compositors, 20+ gui frontends, any number of different ways of storing configs/performing configuration, different utilities for configuring e.g. network interfaces, different package managers, different startup daemons, different input systems, different ways of mounting external discs… The list goes on and on and on.
Haiku is altogether a much nicer place to be running the big name open source applications than any other OS out there, even though ideally we would all be running native applications. And who knows, when those application developers start taking haiku seriously and see what a nice place it is to run their applications, maybe some will start thinking about creating native versions of their software…
A phlog program and some specialization would attract even more users.
I would personally give the system a beta tester for free, while the filnalny program itself would call for a special low price for the entire DVD, e.g. with wallpapers (49 euros?).
First of all, if you are a programmer that intends to make a native app, you need first to know your target and its need. How many active users are using haiku? How many a week, a month, etc… How many are right-now connected to the internet? I think haiku should have some kind of statistics app preinstalled where people can opt-out if needed. Collecting basic user data. This app/service would also be used for every user to see what data was collected from him, and to access himself the whole statistical evaluation of the project.
This app could maybe even have some kind of voting system, where developers can submit polls.
Developing a good application takes a lot of time and commitment, and up-to-date (and real-time) statistical information (and a proper user feedback system between app-developer and users) would encourage developers to start coding.
Being blindfolded it is very hard to motivate yourself.
No, you aren´t. But maybe many of the people that understand the importance of the consistent API & interface are not as vocal as those that see Haiku as just another linux distro.
The Wine knife cuts both ways : at the same time it allowed people to run many normal apps in linux, it also prevented many other apps of being developed natively for linux, because why ? If something similar already exists in Windows, people will just use that.
The nice thing in Haiku is its different paradigms, and the way its own apps use them.
And also, it is nice that people can develop support for their preferred Windows apps if so inclined
One middleground that I think @pulkomandy suggested some time ago, of having “foreign” apps work but still be treated as some kind of second class citizens, seems a good compromise : they will work for those that need/want them, but if people want to have them use some very nice feature of Haiku, then they need to dust of their keyboards and start porting/developing those apps to Haiku.
As other have said, you definitely are not alone, and I count myself like this too. There is a reason I’ve stuck around Haiku for almost 20 years, even when my time to work on it has dwindled to almost nothing.
For better or worse the computing world really hasn’t improved that much since Haiku has existed, and in fact, things are getting worse out there in a way which should help Haiku. Windows is getting worse and worse and more intrusive: two different control panels, 5 ways to make apps, and you now pay for an OS which spies on you. ChromeOS is the same story with the spying, except Google, plus you really can’t get anything done because, sorry Google, not everything can or should be done in a web browser. Mac machines are still kind of overpriced, and now they are going their own way with hardware and macOS just gets more like iOS in each iteration. Linux, well, what a mess, we know that.
So despite how slow Haiku moves, and despite the various issues we have had over time, and despite that projects like Serenity can come along and suck all the oxygen out of the room due to a better hype machine…despite all that, I think Haiku still has a great future. I dream of the day it can be my main OS, and that day is getting closer. And so I need to put my money where my mouth is, starting seriously using it again, and start making some apps, and that is the plan for 2022.
And the next point I can remove from my own To Do list,thanks
Yes,we really absolutely need a native word processor,and it shouldn’t be as bloated as LibreOffice because 90% of it’s features are never used by the average user and make things too complicated.
Having the features from MS Wordpad or Abiword would be sufficient.
For collaborative editing,I recommend to have a look at AbiWord.
You can login with your XMPP account there,so it doesn’t rely on a single provider and it’s an open standard.
I never tried the collaborative features,so I can’t say how good it works,but if it’s good,maybe you could make your app compatible,so that Haiku Word users can work together with Abiword users on other platforms.
Sorry but this is really a bad idea and doesn’t serve the project in any way (at least the way I see it). There is enough data gathering, statistics, and evaluation in the corporate world that everyone has to deal with in one way or another. Why would you want that in an open source project that you contribute to for fun?
One thing about “porting” … you need libraries, not all are supplied by Haiku, so we need to include them in haikuports, having those around ment opportunities to other sources (python, Qt, …) and being able to use them to port(build) existing software over to Haiku.
Writing native apps from scratch involves a lot more work (and indeed would be preferred) but it’s the way it is atm, if for instance libSDL wasn’t ported over to BeOS back then (and later on the work on it that got upstreamed for Haiku) a lot of things never would have been around (for years) … (just my 2 cents)
Except when developers are also users, they know what their needs are and they can talk directly to other users. People can develop software that they’d want to use.
If you don’t have proper information/feedback, how can you be motivated to continue?
Are the people still using my app (or are there already better alternatives)? Does it make sense to improve it, or should I work on something new? A proper statistics can help you to find your direction.
The more information you have, the more likely it is that you make better decisions.
Exactly this. It is the same reason why macOS is also an OS that doesn’t have tons of separate inconsistent subsystems for the GUI, Sound, Network, Input, clobbered inside to make a distro. Ported apps and wine apps also exist on MacOS and they are always third party.
I don’t see anything wrong with having both native apps and ported apps, just as long as the ported apps can fit in by using the Haiku icons just like the Qt apps and we don’t start bundling an actual xserver or wayland frontend just to run those apps.
I don’t understand what is so offensive about ports. If they’re useless to you, don’t use them. Personally, if a native application exists for what I want to do, I will jump at the opportunity to try it out. But if such an application doesn’t exist, then I will try a ported application instead. At the end of the day, my PC, its operating system and applications, are tools to get stuff done. Some tools are better than others, but having tools is better than not having them.
All of the applications that are included with Haiku are native. Also, because “native” actually exists as a concept on Haiku (unlike Linux where every toolkit and so on is equal), ported applications tend to be adjusted in various ways to fit the rest of the operating system. Qt applications on Haiku are a whole lot less jarring than they are in GNOME for example.
So to say ports make Haiku into a Linux clone doesn’t make sense to me at all. If you want to make Haiku less like Linux, there are other areas that could be worked on. For example:
Use file extensions for differentiating file types. File type detection is pretty wonky on Unix-likes
Implement case insensitivity
Make a “device manager”, so that devices can be disabled or have their drivers changed through a GUI
Allow more than one version of an application to be installed. A lot of people need this, either for reporting regressions, or for simply using a version that works better for them
Linux devs do have coding standards - for the kernel only. After that it’s open slather. But even distros can have their own coding standards. Also, some distros stick to the traditional purpose of linux: servers, hacking, pentesting, etc… So there’s no reason why Haiku couldn’t keep coding standards, keep a traditional version with native apps, but still allow freedom for others to do as they please (in forks for example).
There are many OS’s that have gone nowhere, because their outlook was too narrow, and they cultivated few users & conributors.
Look at Minix: a unix-like OS with few users and developers. Yet it is believed to be the most utilised OS in the world - because Intel uses it for free in its processors. If Minix had played its cards right, and charged a small licence fee for commercial use, it could be a wealthy entity by now. Instead, it missed an opportunity and is still a struggling OS.
The freedom of Linux & FOSS led to an ecosystem that has included hardware like laptops, SBCs, phones, etc.; Android OS that dominates the phone market; and Chrome OS that led to chromebooks (and soon to be released gaming Chromebooks).
So if Haiku supporters think “ecosystem” and not just “OS”, there is no reason why it couldn’t follow - and even surpass - Linux’s ecosystem, should it prove to be a better coded system. Wouldn’t you like to see Haikubooks, Haikutablets, SBCs, phones, etc? You’ve already got the T-shirts, so you’re kinda on the way there
Just my 2 cents on the whole ported vs. native discussion, for what it’s worth:
I don’t think ported applications are inherently bad for Haiku, and as @Begasus pointed out, ported libraries and programming languages (remember, also gcc is a port) are vital also for native application development.
The problem is not that we have too many people porting applications, but rather that we have too few writing or (contributing to) native apps. I propose a quite simple solution to this: Everybody that complains about too few native apps and hasn’t already written one, starts doing so . It doesn`t necessarily always have to be C++, there is also YAB (a BASIC dialect) which has bindings to the Haiku API and a small but quite active developer community. Too bad that the python bindings seem to be unmaintained and are not available as package. Would be great to see python as a top tier language for Haiku app development.
If you really wanted, you could implement statistics in your app (with the appropriate processes to let the user know that you’re doing this etc.), but I don’t think system-wide statistics is a good idea - it would be an unpopular idea.
Some other alternatives are just asking your users directly for feedback, either through here on the forums, in the Third-Party Development IRC channel, providing your contact details (a feedback form or email address in a “Feedback” section of your app), or prompting users to complete some sort of survey. That way you don’t just get quantitative data, but you also get some great suggestions from your users.
It would be better to start a own project instead of shouting, i want this and that. We have many languages available, some easy to learn too. Languages like yab, egsl, python…
My main motivation is my interest. Haiku is a “hobby OS” and in such cases, interest is the main driving force. I don’t need to research user needs and collect statistics because I’m not going to sell my product. I do everything solely for myself, and then (if it works, of course) give it back to everyone.
