Feature:Should Be Open Up?

Usman Latif has written a feature for us on Be, and why he believes that it makes sense for them to take their OS and release it as open source.

The following article was written by Slashdot Reader Usman Latif

Why Be should make BeOS GPL

With Apple's refusal to embrace alternate OS vendors, and announcements like the availability of Solaris free of charge for personal use, things have turned

from sour to bitter for Be. There is no question that Be has great technology on its hands but can it really make people switch to that technology?

BeOS's audience was supposed to be Mac users but with Jobs at the helm at Apple this is one thing that is not going to be. Be can kiss the Power PC version of its OS goodbye. On Intel Be does have a fairer playground in terms of hardware but will it be able to sell its OS? The primary audience of BeOS in the eyes of Be management is the multimedia user and the graphic designer. However, it is unclear whether such an audience is enterprising and hacking savvy enough to switch to a completely new OS with hardly any useful applications.

It is plainly obvious that BeOS will be vying for the Linux and BSD user base. Unfortunately by being closed source it immediately turns away loads of Linux and BSD users. BeOS needs four things to survive, users, free applications, hardware drivers, and attention of the media. Going GPL solves all these problems very neatly.

Linux and BSD users are extremely adventurous and will be willing to make space for BeOS on their hard disks. To achieve that Be needs to lower the price barrier to a minimum. Be can do that by imitating the Redhat model. Give away a totally free distribution that contains no commercial software and make money by selling a more complete distribution that contains documentation, support, and some commercial goodies. By going open source Be will also open itself to competition. This is insurance against failure. How? Very simple, if Be management is not able to make a smooth transition to the Redhat model it is still probable that some new startup will have more luck, and then Be can go ahead and either copy the ideas from the new company or simply buy the company outright.

Free applications are extremely important for the success of any OS. Linux is successful not because Oracle and other commercial vendors are supporting it but because it has a huge variety of high quality free software. All Linux distributions come with several thousand dollars worth of free software (equivalent to commercial alternatives.) The Gnome and KDE projects will at the least double this figure in the next two years. To be competitive BeOS needs to have the same amount of high quality free software that Linux has. BeOS needs category killers like GIMP. By going open source Be can aggressively recruit KDE and Gnome developers by offering them a better platform to develop on and for. Without those developers BeOS will be left in the dust.

BeOS desperately needs hardware support and the Bazaar model can remedy that. I am not going to count the other advantages of the Bazaar model here as they have been pretty well documented else where. It suffices to say that the Bazaar model will work very much in favor of BeOS.

BeOS also needs the attention of the media. Lately the media has become very friendly towards Linux. By going open source BeOS can share some of that limelight. Wherever Linux gets mentioned BeOS will also get mentioned. If Linus appears on the cover of some magazine, BeOS will have a section devoted to it in that magazine.

There is one more advantage to going opensource. Demand for the sub $1,000 category of computers has been building up. I have even heard of computers that sell for $ 399. All these machines come with Windows and Windows costs money. At the price point these machines sell, Windows becomes a very large percentage of the cost price. Using Linux instead of Windows is the differnce between making no money and making a lot of money. Sooner or later hardware vendors are going to see that and they will think of clever ways to market Linux on these low priced machines. Currenly open source BeOS stands a better chance at appealing to the hardware vendors. This ofcourse is not going to last very long.

Users not revenues are important in the short run for an OS company. Be needs to get all the users it can get. Inadvertantly or advertantly Be is aiming for the Linux user base. It should be clear to Be that the niche it is trying to occupy is already occupied by a very strong competitor. Be does not stand a chance if it continues with its current strategy. If Be wants to survive it will have to imitate the model of its competitor and if it can't do that then sadly Be will become the first victim of Linux.