Haiku are on crisis

I agree with The123king. the closest thing to a crisis with haiku as far as I am concerned is that old binary packages cannot be installed on Package Management builds. If the devs can work out a solution where a old BeOS package file can just be dropped onto the PM window and PM sorts it all out then, problem solved. I don't really understand how PM works but, I know a lot of thought went into it so I trust that those involved have a solution for maintaining backwards compatibility with BeOS apps in mind.

Otherwise I think it is making decent progress with very important work being done on Web+ and webkit. There really is little point in trying to support multimedia in the browser when basic page rendering isn't close to perfect. When that time comes, it would be really nice if the project is able to stick to BeOS ideals and use the media kit to handle multimedia in the browser, rather than use a multitude of plugins.

I agree with everyone above. The one thing I never, ever want to see again is a lot of hype, even if the OS is great. The best kept secrets take time to mature. If people are interested in porting old BeOS apps, let them do it on their own. As much I like to reminisce, push comes to shove, I choose an OS that works, then I can add the eye candy.

I'm walking away from Apple for the same reasons mentioned above - too expensive, and a will to not honor faulty manufacturing. I won't spend any time looking at Windows 8. I'm running a Unbuntu Studio box that suits my limited needs at this moment, after testing it for months. I'm testing Haiku in the same manner on VirtualBox.

I was a BeOS user. I don't mind waiting for good things. If I had disposable money, I would pour into the project. But slow roasts make the best stews.

For years BeOS (and Haiku as it's successor) struggled with limited hardware support and modern applications. As it is now, though, once WebPositive's html5 / javascript implementation matures enough, it will run html5 apps. Other than that, you would use Qt and Java apps if the ports won't end up abandoned. Severe lack of skilled developers, especially 3rd-party developers is one of the most obvious problems of Haiku and it's community.

Even to maintain Firefox or Chromium ports and keep them up to date, like in the good ole days of BeZilla, you need at least few active devs forming dedicated team. Right now, there is not enough capable people to build a bunch of stable and useful Qt applications and update them on regular basis, let alone develop native ones from scratch!

The problem right now is that there isn't any good reason for a new user to switch to Haiku from whatever OS they are currently using. The only reason I'm using Haiku is because of my experiece years ago with BeOS. I actually did use BeOS as my every day operating system for about three years. After Be went under, I experimented using a variety of hacks such as Phos and later Zeta.
What Haiku needs now, is a stable distribution with a good assortment of fully functional applications. Some of the apps like TV, which are currently bundled with Haiku should be removed, until such time as they are ready. I don't see the point of including an application that is non-functional. Instead, why not include an app like ArtPaint, that people can use now?

Just poping to put my 2 cents worth in. I am an old BeOS user that has been watching the devlopment of Haiku for a very long time now. As of the last Alpha release Haiku almost met my basic needs on my laptop for daily use. Mainly I need better web support, Web+ and WebKit. That was the main reason why I did not leave Haiku on the laptop. I could get all the things I needed, but web surfing was painful. There has been, and contiunes to be, a lot of work on Web+ and WebKit recently. My hope is that it will soon be able to support websites like Youtube and others that would just not work before. Then maybe I can become an actual user of this OS.

David

I wouldn't mind testing out the TV app, if I could find compatable hardware. The Haikuware hardware database only shows a single compatable card. Another app that appears not to work so well is "codycam". I have tried it with a couple of older Creative and Logitech webcams, but neither works. I am assuming the UVD driver isn't ready. Again, this is the situation I was referring to - including apps in the distribution that are not ready, even for testing. It leaves a bad impression on new users when they try out Haiku, only to find that some of the apps are not functional. If they worked, and crashed, at least we could create tickets for them.

That Haiku could use more developers is a given.

That it needs to hype itself to the masses. I have to disagree with.

Too many people are happy with their Windows systems and see no need to change.

Win8 is not Microsoft's death rattle either. Win8 makes it harder to do the advance stuff, but it also makes it harder to do the dangerous stuff too. Meanwhile, the vast majority of computer users out there only do the easy stuff. And for people who are just learning Win8 they find it as easy as Win7 to learn when starting from scratch.

The general public could benefit from Haiku if we had the software, but even if we had the software they are far more likely to want to learn a WinX system.

Push to get more developers if possible, but pushing for more general users will not help at present. Maybe after R1 but probably only after R2.

And that will take a while.

I don't see a crisis but we need to push the Haiku idea.

My plan is this: once beta comes out, everyone should try to put up Haiku flyers all over computer science departments of every university they can find. University is the one time when so many people are together so if you reach them there, you'll get more developers and it may be popular with other people on campus as well.

Make Haiku the 'academic' OS; we are already going for that reputation with the Code-in and gsoc.