Haiku (operating system)
Target
The aim of the project is initially completely recreate the final published version of BeOS, and then to gradually improve. It thus both old BeOS programs will pay particular attention to binary and source compatibility with BeOS, run unmodified as well as new programs can be created in the same manner as under BeOS.
Despite the reference to BeOS Haiku is not based on its source code. The kernel is based on the NewOS of, a redevelopment of a former BeOS kernel developer.
The developers do not specify a date for a possible release of the first version. Test versions of the operating system are available that are capable of running copied to a partition or with emulators or virtualization solutions such as QEMU or VMware in the form of unofficial disk images. Meanwhile, four official alpha versions have appeared. Large parts of BeOS are already implemented and running.
Revision history
Haiku is currently in the alpha phase.
History of the name
Immediately after the announcement of the purchase of Be by Palm on 18 August 2001, the OpenBeOS Project was founded by a mailing list has been set up with this name. This was initially the name when the project took concrete progress, although the use of the registered trademark " BeOS " provided as part of the project name for legal uncertainty.
On 6 May 2002, a naming process was initiated, was asked in the order entries for name suggestions. On 25 October 2002 then ran in the voting process to the new name.
On 5 November 2002 staged Bruno G. Albuquerque, one of the then head of OpenBeOS project, as a joke of the name change. The new name should therefore read " Walter". The name was derived from a scene with Garfield and became over time a certain popularity within the OpenBeOS community, which meant that Walter was the code name for the line of development towards Haiku 1.0. WalterCon became the name for the American Haiku developer conference ( analogous to the " BeGeistert " meeting in Dusseldorf, Germany ).
On 19 June 2004, the new independent name haiku was introduced on the first WalterCon, not least (formerly PalmSource ) to go to any legal disputes with now heading BeOS rights holders Access out of the way. The name goes back to the error messages of the BeOS own browser NetPositive, represents the error when retrieving Web pages in the form of haiku, an ancient Japanese verse form.
Sister projects
With the demise of Be Incorporated several projects were developed independently with the goal to recreate BeOS in open source form. Besides haiku these included BlueEyedOS and Cosmoe. As a collective term of these projects, the term Open Standards BeOS -compatible Operating Systems ( OSBOS ) has been introduced. The different development teams joined in the organization beunited.org together and agreed to work together. However Haiku was most recently the only remaining active project this group. beunited.org announced its dissolution on January 4, 2007. The Haiku project itself, however, is not affected.