PowerTeam
Open Letter To Be

1 - Introduction

We, as members of the PowerTeam, want to let you know our ideas and feelings about BeOs and a bunch of other related issues.

The PowerTeam is composed by well known BeOS European Developers, all authors of awarded BeOS Software (Kftp, Felix, PowerPulsar, Mail-It, BIC, TManager, Raytime, etc....) We have been BeOS developers and users since the very (VERY !) beginning, and thus we have several considerations about BeOS we have been thinking of for a very long time.

All the remarks that we are writing to all of you are applicable to BeOS DR9 PR as well as PR2. But many of these issues were present in the BeOS from the beginning and were never corrected, so these are not just 'first contact' remarks.

We know what you are thinking about this text right now. Without reading it any further, you will consider it as yet another boring mail from upset developers. Be sure this is not the case. We like the BeOS and we have always tried to make our best to help Be as well as BeEurope. We use to come to European shows to bring an extended help and every time we do spent our free time or our vacations to do so -- we wouldn't do it if we didn't believed in BeOS. But we don't have a blind faith in BeOS. We want it to be successful, we want you to be successful, and the only way for this to happen is to keep up the good work, accept the positive criticism when things that are cool can suddently turn in to even cooler things.

We spent a lot of time to write this down, organize it and make it clear. Please carefully read it all and then re-read it again and again. Don't try to argue on every item, don't try to convince you or us or anybody else that this is wrong or that is good -- this is not a religious war. Just keep up the good work : you are very smart guys (you already proved it to us) so we believe you are clever enough to find out what features are obviously useful and prioritize by yourselves.

A last word : this mail was started some weeks ago. It is the result of our independant meetings and debates about what is good and what should be better and it took a serious amount of time to build it up. Nobody from Be nor BeEurope was involved in the making of this mail : it's all build up from our independant views to help you make a successful OS.

May the force Be with you ;-)

2 - Content Table

  1. Introduction
  2. Content Table
  3. Look and feel of BeOS
    1. Appearance & Global User Interface
    2. System-wide services
    3. Tracker Improvements
  4. Media Kit
  5. Kernel
  6. Net Server
  7. App Server & Interface Kit
  8. Hardware support
  9. Storage Kit
  10. Evangelism

For an HTML, more easily readable, of this mail, go to http://www.guerilla.com/powerteam/powertexte.html
For an ASCII version of this mail, go to http://www.guerilla.com/powerteam/powertexte.txt

 

3 - Look and feel of BeOS

3.1 - Appearance & Global User Interface

There are two kinds of users for an OS : end-users and developers. Sometimes people just fit in the two categories at the same time, because one can humbly develop on an OS only if he really uses it and knows it very well.

These two kinds of users don't see the OS in the same way. An end-user just want to make real things, like playing with some amazing stuff or using boring spreadsheets. The end-user sees "chrome" in the user interface as a must, he wants sounds and a nice effects everywhere. A developer wants to have a nice and efficient API to play with. Intermeditate, novice developers want to have a simply way to develop clever applications and just ignore chrome in the interface because they can only see chrome in the API... This is silly, you cannot just make the best GUI of the world and the Universe, nor you can make things that are right to everybody at the same time. This means that the first characteristic of a GUI is that it must be customizable. But not too much or not too easily, else you're going to loose novice people with lots of messy options. And you must not forget that the most obviously unimportant features are the ones that do get people attention. The idiomatic expression "chrome" refers precisely to these features that don't make thing more efficient, just more attractive -- and the more attractive one computer is, the more productive people are. Preferences are the Good Thing [tm]. Themes are set of preset preferences that will bring people from a flashy and noisy world to the simplicity of silence -- just in a mouse click.

We know this is already on your wish list. All we want is to make sure it gets a higher priority. Below is our wish list on this topic.

Important Features

Useful Features

Optional Features

3.2 - System-wide services

Important Features

Useful Features

Optional Features

3.3 - Tracker Improvements

Important Features

Useful Features

Optional Features

A note about animated icons ; this isn't really silly :

4 - Media Kit

There should have been a full appendix below on the audio layer of the Media Kit below. But good things are happening, PR2 headers show up some new classes. So this is no longer the right place for a detailed criticism. Private mails are better for that. Here is a bunch of more generic feature requests :

Important Features

Useful Features

Optional Features

5 - Kernel

Important Features

6 - Net Server

Important Features

Useful Features

Optional Features

7 - App Server & Interface Kit

App server issues and Interface kit issues are mixed here. This shouldn't be the case but actually represents the current state of the corresponding APIs.

Important Features

Useful Features

Optional Features

8 - Hardware support

We know you can't produce drivers for every card in the world, because this takes time and you don't have all the needed information. Nethertheless...

Important Features

Useful Features

Optional Features

9 - Storage Kit

Important Features

Useful Features

Optional Features

10 - Evangelism

Lack of Evangelism
Lack of Evangelism

Developer Program

Communication Lacks

There are a couple of points that need to be clarified :

Why Hiring ?

Be wants to innovate by promoting Internet-based software distribution.
Why not trying to promote also Web-based remote work ?

You want to hire that and that skill for your internal use. You already have this skill available somewhere around the planet. Look at BeDevTalk, there are quite interesting guys there and there ! Why not asking the available people -- people that have some time to spend to work for you but not at full time or that cannot move to Menlo -- why not giving them the opportunity to work for you, just by asking them to handle a little part of the OS ? You just need to make a deal with these people, sign a bunch of NDA's, they work for you on their spare time in respect of some commonly predefined schedule and they give you back sources that you integrate after checking them.

That's mainly how Linux was build. The commercial point in less.


This text was written on a BeBox using BeIDE as HTML editor and NetPositive as a viewer.
People who are badly implicated in this silly project :


Raphael Mollraphael.moll@inforoute.cgs.fr
Jean-Marc Ouvrejm@guerilla.com
Benoit Triquetbtriquet@club-internet.fr
Laurent Pontierpontier@mail.club-internet.fr
Xavier Ducrohetducrohet@club-internet.fr
Sebastien Bouchexbouchex@iname.com
Marc Abramsonredrakam@planete.net
Hubert Figuierehubert.figuiere@teaser.fr

 

People who were enthusiast enough to submit interesting ideas :
Thijs Stalenhoef Yann Kieffer
Mathias Agopian
Pascal Lauly
Sander Stoks
Trey Boudreau


List of recipients in Europe :


jcalmon@be.com
droulers@be.com


List of recipients in US :


jlg@be.com
heidi@be.com
valerie@be.com
erich@be.com
pierre@be.com
benoit@be.com
wadams@be.com
steve@be.com
marc@be.com
dug@be.com
dbg@be.com
geb@be.com


First version by JMO, RM, BT, LP, XD.
Revision 0.7 by RM, Paris, 16 November 1997.