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[Paul Galashin]

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Ex Be Inc. Employees Answer Your Questions
Sep 06, 2003 10:20 GMT, by Chris Simmons, Senior Journalist.
From the big-feet department...


Here are the long-awaited-for answers to the questions the community put forth in the forum back in August. Listed below are Dan Sandler, Baron Arnold, and Dave Brown's questions. An immense thankyou to Dan for contacting Baron and Dave on our behalf. Thanks man! ;)

Now, without further ado... to the bat-cave...
Dan Sandler

Here are my answers (I only answered questions where I thought I had something to say):

[Disclaimer: I worked at Be from 2000 until the end, and so I worked almost exclusively on BeIA.]

Q : Deej : Would you do it (work for another dot-com, OS startup) again?

A : Absolutely. I loved it. I mean, once things became dire for the company, things became far more stressful (see bonus question below) but I think it was a fantastic place, with an amazing atmosphere and great people. I think a young, ambitious, 50-150 person software company (full of clever folks with diverse engineering and other backgrounds) is just about ideal for the kind of work Be was doing (viz., trying to build something amazing and new, and use it to take over the world).

Related bonus question:

Q : AlienSoldier : Did anyone ever sleeped at Be inc to meet deadline?

A : Yes, absolutely, especially trying to ship the eVilla (Sony's ill-fated BeIA product). Well, actually, come to think of it, many of us didn't sleep very much at all. But we were at the office when we should have been sleeping, which is what I think you're getting at. :)

Q : AlienSoldier : Who was the weirdest lunatic geek weird twisted mind and dark mystic that ever worked at Be Inc?

A : I think the personality traits you describe were actually requirements for working in the engineering department. Seriously, the list is too long.

Q : Bvarner : Tell us your true feelings on Java.

A : I'm not exactly sure what you're asking here. Do I think Java will revolutionize the industry, save all our souls, end world hunger, and tell me what to wear on a Thursday morning? Doubtful.

But I very seriously think that Java's popularity as a serious development platform (a lucky development; it might never have been noticed were it not for the Web and HotJava) has done a lot to move us beyond the "glorified assembler" approach to constructing programs. Java helped bring a lot of concepts (run-anywhere, interpreted [or JIT-compiled!] bytecode, pan-platform UI, code-level security and access control, javadoc and the beginnings of real-world literate programming) out of the universities and research labs and into O'Reilly books.

Q : tb 100 : Do you think Microsoft's domination of the PC market will last forever? If not, do you think the OSBOS projects will have a major role to play?

A : Nothing lasts forever.

A : However, I feel that the ongoing community efforts inspired by Be's operating system will probably not single-handedly "bring down the beast" or anything like that. And I don't think that the Liberation Of The Masses is necessarily an important, or attainable, goal for carriers of the BeOS torch. (Despite what I said earlier about taking over the world.) Look how very successful a certain *other* operating system has become with its users, with just a few percent of the PC market. (I don't think they're going to disappear any time soon.) And that *other-other* family of operating systems, you know, named after the eponymous creator's kernel, well, it's taken that platform more than a decade to get to the point where it is today (and it's still got a long way to go) but I don't think we'd consider it a failure either.

Sure, these are apples-to-oranges comparisons in many ways (pun only slightly intended). My point is that you have to take a good look at what you consider success; there's nothing wrong with being a niche player -- an elegant specialty boutique in a Wal-Mart world.

Dan Sandler
http://dsandler.org/

Ex Be Inc. Employees Answer Your Questions
Sep 06, 2003 10:20 GMT, by Chris Simmons, Senior Journalist.
From the big-feet department...


Baron Arnold

Q : AlienSoldier asks: Did anyone ever sleeped at Be inc to meet deadline?

A : yes. quite a few times.

Q : Kancept: What do you think of yellowTab?

A : they were cute, and are still cute in a bEos kinda way.

Q : Anonymous : What plans did Be have to improve the media kit and smp?

A : zero. it was a bad idea from the begining and the time spent developing it helped sink the company.

smp was always moving forward into the future of good.

Q : Deej : Would you do it (work for another dot-com, OS startup) again?

A : I am right now.

Q : AlienSoldier : Who was the weirdest lunatic geek weird twisted mind and dark mystic that ever worked at Be Inc?

A : Pierre.

Q : Bvarner : Tell us your true feelings on Java.

A : its nice. that little coffe cup logo is cute.

Q : tb 100 : Do you think Microsoft's domination of the PC market will last forever?

A : forever is a fucking long time.

Q : If not, do you think the OSBOS projects will have a major role to play?

A : probably not while Microsoft is around.

honestly, I didn't know what OSBOS was so I googled and found this http://www.techspot.com/vb/showthread/t-2259.html

I then understood what YellowTab was (though still don't know what improvments they have made), and read the blah blah blah about the 'MediaOS' and its all lies lies lies. Certainly there are many great things about BeOS's magic show, but this greatness lies in the kernal, the file system and AppServers ability to draw to the screen so fast, NOT the MediaKit≥.

Hope this clears things up.

l/ba

Ex Be Inc. Employees Answer Your Questions
Sep 06, 2003 10:20 GMT, by Chris Simmons, Senior Journalist.
From the big-feet department...


Dave Brown

Q : AlienSoldier asks: Did anyone ever sleeped at Be inc to meet deadline?

A : I stayed the night building systems before one BeDC, and stayed many many nights doing tech support email all night. Those were long long nights.

Q : Kancept: What do you think of yellowTab?

A : I hope they have good lawyers.

Q : Anonymous : What plans did Be have to improve the media kit and smp?

A : Not really sure in respects to API plans. We had some cool concept devices that we all wanted to have in our homes. The home stereo thing was in high demand, even internally. There was a plan at one point to make a PC based Tivo-ish thing, but I never saw how that went. We wanted (socially, not officially) to get licences to more codecs and get the players we were helping Sony with to the desktop as well. The legalities would never have let it happen, but it didn't stop us wanting it.

A : Deej : Would you do it (work for another dot-com, OS startup) again?

A : Yes, but I'd get more cash and less stock.

Q : AlienSoldier : Who was the weirdest lunatic geek weird twisted mind and dark mystic that ever worked at Be Inc?

A : It's a tie. I'm not saying who, but it's a big, ugly tie.

Q : Bvarner : Tell us your true feelings on Java.

A : Poorly implemented, great idea. I honestly think what people are using Java for in UI is a mistake, and what they are using it for in web servers is a good idea. However, as it doesn't work as advertised, how different is it than using the faster, native API? Besides, honestly list the software you've purchased (yes, with money) that run on Java. That's what I thought.

Q : tb 100 : Do you think Microsoft's domination of the PC market will last
forever? If not, do you think the OSBOS projects will have a major role
to play?

A : Microsoft will expose an achilles heel eventually - it happened to GE and Ma Bell. I don't see it in 2 years timeframe though. As for the position of BeOS derivative systems in the fallout, I don't see 2 year's time as enough to get them into sufficient hardware support positions, or enough of a position to do much 'cleaning up'. This was one major hurdle for us, and we'll never get over it. Until the hardware companies want to do it themselves, it's a losing battle. But this isn't new news.

daveb

Thanks guys!

-- 
С уважением,
 Paul                          mailto:wblaze на yandex.ru