YellowTAB ZETA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| The desktop running on Zeta 1.0-RC2 | |
| Company/developer: | yellowTAB / magnussoft |
| OS family: | BeOS |
| Source model: | Closed source |
| Stable release: | 1.21 (September 25, 2006) [+/-] |
| Preview release: | n/a (?) [+/-] |
| Kernel type: | Modular Microkernel |
| License: | Proprietary |
| Working state: | Current |
| Website: | magnussoft ZETA |
- The correct title of this article is yellowTAB ZETA. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.
yellowTAB ZETA, now magnussoft ZETA, is an operating system formerly developed by yellowTAB of Germany based on the BeOS operating system developed by Be Incorporated; because of yellowTAB's insolvency, ZETA is now being developed by an independent team of which little is known, and distributed by magnussoft. As of September 25, 2006 the current version of ZETA is 1.21.
ZETA is an effort to bring BeOS up to date, adding support for newer hardware, and features that had been introduced in other operating systems in the years since Be Incorporated ceased development in 2001. Among the new features are USB 2.0 support, SATA support, samba support, a new media player, as well as enhanced localization of system components. Unlike Haiku and other open source efforts to recreate some or all of BeOS's functionality from scratch, ZETA is based on the actual BeOS code base, and it is closed source.
ZETA has contributed to an increase in activity in the BeOS commercial software market, with a number of new products for both ZETA and the earlier BeOS being released.
However, some critics point to a list of goals for the first release that do not appear to have been met (including Java 1.4.2 and ODBC support). Other reviewers point to bugs that still exist from BeOS, and question whether yellowTAB has the complete access to the source code they would need to make significant updates.
The system has also come under heavy criticism from BeOS developers for undocumented changes in the system messaging system. These changes can break compilation of code, and in some cases (most notably Mozilla), break the actual application if any code optimisations are applied, resulting in much slower builds [1].
Additional controversy has come from their bundling of Gobe Productive in a licensing deal which Gobe had disputed.
yellowTAB promoted ZETA mainly in the German market. where it used to be sold through infomercials and on RTL Shop, and in Japan. At present, magnussoft ZETA is mainly distributed by Magnussoft, and it is not clear what other resellers will carry the product in the future.
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[edit] Versions
[edit] Release Candidates RC1-RC4
The operating system ZETA was published before the appearance of the final version 1,0 as Release Candidates (RC). This began with RC1,the later RC2 showed clear development progress since BeOS R5. New hardware was supported among other things, USB devices were also supported. Starting from 9 June 2004 the third release Candidate of the system was available.
On 15 October 2004 fourth release appeared candidate under the name Neo. This brought among other things a better hardware support by more drivers and a new Media Player.
[edit] ZETA 1.0
ZETA 1.0 became the final version of the operating system and presented at CeBIT (10. - 16. March 2005 in Hanover). ZETA has, like Windows XP, for the first time a product activation. One gets a registration key by post office skillfully and must afterwards these and the CD serial number in a window under ZETA enter, so that one may use ZETA further.
Starting from 24 June ZETA 1,0 was in the distribution; on the company-owned Website the spreading of the version 1.0 was officially confirmed on 1 July 2005.
[edit] ZETA R1.1
On 17 October 2005 a large update was released, bumping the version number to 1.1. With this new version it is possible to boot ZETA from a USB drive as well as a normal hard drive install. This release of ZETA also supports dual core processors.
[edit] ZETA R1.2
Briefly after the publication of the insolvency request from April 2006, the manufacturer released version 1.2. On 22 April, the RTL Shop began, as a selling partner, the sales of this version that has some innovations it brings. For instance, full SATA support and a Yahoo! Messenger is available. Momentarily, ZETA 1.2 represented the most current and most stable ZETA version that was published.
[edit] ZETA R1.21
Based on the product information from magnussoft, ZETA 1.21 is believed to be a minor upgrade to ZETA 1.2. This is also the first version of the product to be labeled "magnussoft ZETA" and to be sold by magnussoft.
Since September 7, 2006, magnussoft is taking pre-orders of ZETA 1.21; on September 25, 2006 a downloadable Live CD of ZETA 1.21 was released. Existing ZETA users will be able to upgrade by ordering an upgrade CD at the cost of 10 Euros. It is not known whether magnussoft will provide updates to 1.21 via software download.
According to an interview with Rene Weinert of magnussoft, magnussoft owns only the rights to sell ZETA, and development is being done by an independent developing team which includes Mr. Bernd Korz (the former CEO of the now bankrupt yellowTAB). This confirms that, contrary to widespread belief prior to this interview, ZETA is not being developed by magnussoft, but by an independent development team, of which little is known to date.
[edit] ZETA R1.5
The next version of Magnussoft ZETA version 1.5 is planned, although the use of a numeric version designator is unconfirmed - Magnussoft may opt to the increasingly popular practice of naming releases (as Microsoft has been doing in its consumer OS line since Windows Millennium).
The new version will include some innovations bundled with itself, for instance the change from the provided Office package to Gobe Productive. Changes to the codebase have required a switch from gcc version 2.95 to version 4. Moreover, this version will possess multi-user support (whether in all versions or only an extended version is not yet finally confirmed). Support for Bluetooth and ACPI is likewise planned.
[edit] Criticism
ZETA and yellowTAB have been surrounded by controversy. Critics of yellowTAB questioned for a long time the legality of ZETA, and whether yellowTAB had legal access to the sources of BeOS; it is now known that yellowTAB could not have developed ZETA to the extent that they did without access to the source code, but doubts remain as to whether yellowTAB actually had legal access to the code.
Furthermore, critics did not see ZETA as real advancement of BeOS, but rather as an unfinished and buggy operating system loaded with third party applications that were either obsolete, unsupported, or non-functional. This was particularly true in the initial releases of ZETA, and it was in clear conflict with the attention to detail that BeOS used to stand for, disappointing the BeOS community who at one point had high expectations for ZETA. While yellowTAB did clean up the selection of bundled applications in following versions, ZETA remains somewhat unstable when compared to other modern desktop operating systems.
But perhaps the most criticized practice by yellowTAB was its tendency to make claims that turned out to be either half truths or vague enough that they could not be confirmed. Not only did yellowTAB announce certain developments that never materialized (such as Java, and ODBC among others), but it would also purport certain capabilities beyond what ZETA was actually capable of (ie., compatibility with MS Office). According to sources close to yellowTAB, this is believed to have lead to a high return rate from customers that bought ZETA from the German RTL TV shopping channel, and the reason for which RTL eventually stopped selling the product.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- magnussoft ZETA - official product website
- yellowTAB ZETA (obsolete)
- ZETA 1.0 Review - Reviewed by Jeremy Reimer for Ars Technica
- Screenshots of yellowTAB ZETA at OSDir.com
| BeOS (category) | |
|---|---|
| Companies: | Be Inc. | Gobe Software | yellowTAB | Magnussoft |
| Computers: | BeBox | Sony eVilla |
| Operating systems: | BeOS | BeIA | Dano | Haiku | magnussoft ZETA |
