I have noticed that since the release of Haiku R1 Alpha 3, there has been little or no noticeable change in the number of closed and active tickets! With all the change that has gone on in the last seven months, I assumed the number of active tickets would have diminished. As of the date of this posting, there are 14 closed, 42 active, and 56 total tickets.
Unless I am mistaken, all active tickets must be closed before the Beta milestone can be reached. If there has been relatively no noticeable change in the number of active tickets in seven months, how long will it reasonably take to reach that milestone? The time between Alpha one to Alpha two was eight months. From Alpha two to Alpha three took thirteen months. If the current pattern holds, we will not see a beta until December 2012!
If I am mistaken or confused then please let me know. The longer it takes for R1 to arrive, the less relevant it becomes! Haiku R1 is to become source and binary compatible with BeOS R5. This means that by the time Haiku R1 ships It will be 10-15 years behind the times. That is not to say that BeOS was not ahead of it's time back in the day, it was. My argument is the longer it takes to release Haiku R1, the less "ahead of it's time" it will be!
Operating systems are created in a burst of creativity and potential! In the beginning it is revolutionary not evolutionary! Systems evolve and adapt to new environments it finds itself in. Haiku is still reinventing the wheel so to speak, and has not evolved in significant way. It has been more than ten years since the Haiku project sought to revive BeOS! It is still not finished and I have to ask myself one simple question. When Haiku R1 is released, will it be so far behind that it is no longer relevant? Will it be so far behind the times that it would be another 10 years to get R2 up to today's standards?
I love Haiku and I think she is a superb OS! The problem is time. A handful of volunteer programmers and one or two paid programmers isn't enough to keep Haiku in the same evolutionary time frame as the rest. Especially since Haiku is based on 90's OS designs and technology.
I know I am going to get much negative responses. I look forward to be proven wrong!
