So I every now and then I get reminded by Haiku, check out the web page and think "This looks like a pretty nice project". Ever since the demise of Amiga some 10 years ago I've been searching for the holy grail of OS:es. Well this time there was even a downloadable Alpha R1 (congrats on that, btw!) so I gave it a try in VirtualBox. And though it did look nice in several ways, I couldn't help feeling more nostalgic than hopeful for the future.
Now don't get me wrong here, I'd really want a project like Haiku to succeed so I'm just sharing my opinion :)
Obviously Haiku is in alpha stage, but it got me thinking about what you're aiming for. BeOS was probably great 10 years ago (never tried it because, well I had an Amiga :)) when it was competing against Windows 98, MacOS 9 and AmigaOS 3.5. Let's say you work hard and manage to release alpha 2 and then the finished R1 late 2010. It will have been a very impressive feat, but the end result is - if I'm not mistaken - a clone of a 15 years old OS.
In the meantime there's been quite a bit progress in the OS field and hardware has become 10-fold more powerful. I think OSX is a good example of how designers strived to reinvent the way you work with a computer, instead of just polishing and reskinning previous versions. But even Microsoft has begun working harder and their Windows has sucked less with (almost) every release. From what I hear Win7 almost doesn't suck at all :)
So my point is that I think you should set your aim in the future. Try to imagine what BeOS would've been in 2012, if it had continued to evolve, instead of what it was in 2002!
Once again, don't get me wrong, I think it's awesome that Haiku is efficient and can run on 15-year-old hardware, but for me to use an OS that looks 10 years old it will have to compensate a lot by being really great in all other areas. If your intended target group is anything else than only "people who are willing to write their own OS" I think you need to plan for more advanced visual styles and effects. Not entirely replacing the current looks, but make sure Haiku could "easily" be extended to utilize modern hardware.
But I'm not talking about just visual appearance and effects, how people work with computers have evolved too. I'm going to write another post, that nobody will probably every read, with some suggestions regarding this. I suggest everybody who hasn't done so already takes a look at the Firefox plugin Ubiquity and use it for a few days. Linux users could also get Gnome-Do for similar functionality on an OS level. Neither of these are perfect or complete, but they give a hint of what powers could be at your fingertips.
