koki's blog

Haiku made its "big stage" debut at LinuxWorld for the first time this year. If you follow the feeds on our website, you have probably already read the nice reports that Urias posted on the website during and after the show (day 0, day 1, day 2 and day 3). I thought I would give me own personal recount of the event, in order to perhaps bring a little bit of a different perspective, and hopefully also complement what Urias has already written about the show.

I had never been to LinuxWorld before, but I knew from reading about the conference that it was bigger to other open sources conferences we have exhibited in the past. I also had an idea of the demographics of the event, as I had done a little bit of reasearch before proposing our attendance last year. Average attendance was said to be more than 10,000 people, and by the size of the exhibit floor at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco and the duration of the show (three full days), this seemed just about right; this was obviously a very compelling number from the point of view of getting exposure for Haiku.

It's been approximately 24 hours since we started the Haiku Code Drive 2008, so I thought I would give a quick update on where we stand right now, and also take the opportunity to share with you a few observations based on some of the feedback that we have received so far. I want to start by saying that the response so far from the community has been great. We are exploring somewhat unknown waters with the Haiku Code Drive, so there was a degree of uncertainty as to how the community would respond. This is why it is so rewarding to see the great outpour of generous donations that we have already received in just one day. Contributions are coming in from all over, including Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, the US and many other countries. We have started a list of donors in the donation page, so check it out (to be updated daily).

I am keeping an eye on the contributions, and as I write this I can see we are already at about half of what we need to sponsor one student; we are currently at approximately $1,300.00, but the total changes so fast, that it is hard to keep up! This is absolutely awesome, but it's only the beginning. Remember, this is your program: you fund it, you choose who to sponsor. If you have not yet made your pledge to the cause, please head over to the donation page and show us your love for Haiku. This is your opportunity to make a difference, so don't miss it! :)

Back in the 90s, BeOS had many very faithful followers in Japan, both end users and developers. You can still see on the web photos of how people lined up late at night to get their hands on BeOS 4.5J released by PlatHome, the BeOS distributor in Japan (more pics here). Japanese developers also contributed a good amount of software for BeOS back in those days, some of which has made it into the Haiku code base (ie., the Canna Japanese input method, the MuTerm terminal on which the Haiku terminal is based, etc.). The Konatsu font used in Haiku to display Japanese is also an original creation by Masuda Mitiya, originally designed specifically for BeOS. Sadly but understandably, not many of these former BeOS fans remain active today; in fact, only very very few.

I was one of the founding members of the Japan BeOS Network user group (JPBE.net) in Japan, which we created in 2003 mainly in response to the appearance of ZETA. Back in those days, when Haiku was still at a too early stage to have any appeal, ZETA gave the JPBE.net members hope that BeOS could survive and even evolve. As time went by, our hope gradually changed into to the realization that ZETA was not what we thought it would be, and that realization eventually changed into the final disapointment brought by the sad unraveling of ZETA and yellowTAB. The end was particularly nasty in Japan, where the ZETA distributor sold the shipped product but never had the decency to pay royalties to yellowTAB. Not that this was the direct and only cause of yellowTAB's demise, but in the eyes of Japanese users, this did add a large dose of extra drama to how ZETA went down in history, making the disapointment even greater. The "ok, I've had enough; I am moving on" feeling was quite prevalent.

I admit it: I have a weakness for website statistics. So late last year, I added Google Analytics (GA) to the Haiku website. GA gives you a wide array of information such as number of visits, page views, bounce rates, as well as geographic data and information related to the used operating systems. I wanted to get see this information myself, but I also wanted to share it with the community (don't worry, it's all anonymous data), so that everyone can get a peek at another and different metrics of how our project keeps growing over time. So here is a brief activity overview for the Haiku websites for the January thru March of 2008 period.