Answers to R. Christiansen's enquete

Japanese translation

This is my answers to the enquete that R. Christiansen sent to BeOS developers in July 2001 (just before Palm bought BeOS). Read as my farewell speech to Be, Inc.

1. When did you begin developing for the BeOS?

Since R4.

2. Why did you begin developing for the BeOS?

To make unsupported devices work under BeOS; above all, to make my notebook work.

3. Are you satisfied with your experiences developing for the BeOS?

Relatively satisfied with BeOS itself but not at all with Be,Inc.

4. Do you plan to continue to develop for the BeOS? Can you share your plans?

I am inclined to cease developping for BeOS.

5. If you do not plan to continue to develop for the BeOS, please explain why not.

Because Be,Inc.'s attitude to users seems to be getting more and more exclusive, arrogant and unfriendly since R4.5.

• They have stopped to show any roadmap and their beta testing is very closed. Most people cannot know any details of the new release, if any, until it is out. This is a serious obstacle to development.
• They do not disclose enough information to develop drivers for PCMCIA, joysticks, serial ports, IDE controllers, USB controllers, IEEE 1394, etc. I am confident that BeOS has lost many potential driver developers due to this closed, discouraging policy.
• They do not disclose most of driver source codes, which makes it difficult for us to fix or enhance the drivers to improve device support. (How many times I had to disassemble the drivers and make dirty binary patches.)

I cannot help regarding that such an unfriendly attitude comes from their conceited idea that they can do everything by themselves and do not have to rely on external developers. This is of course wrong, particularly about device support. They should have made best use of developers.

Now I have clearly realized that BeOS is no longer a consumer OS but an "industrial OS" (i.e. BeIA) for OEM manufacturers and corporate customers since the "focus shift". An industrial OS does not have to support consumer users' demands. It has little to do with consumer users like me.