Well, through the persistance of the very fine BeOS Community, Dan Parks Sydow has been contacted, and even better, he has replied! Not only that, but he's more than happy to allow the book, "Programming The Be Operating System" to be open sourced, so long as O'Reilly is also willing to do so.

Here's a segment of our correspondance about this matter:

"> Would you be so kind as to let us know if you would like to let this
> title be opened up to the public? I know the book is highly valued by
> nearly all of the programmers in the BeOS Community, and I'm quite
> positive that it has been purchased already by numerous programmers,
> nevertheless it would be a real treat to see it more widely available.

This is fine with me, but ... I don't want my permission to be construed as the final word on this. I don't have my contract for the book by me at the moment. The rights to the book may very well have reverted from O'Reilly to me and, if they have, I'd be glad to see the book become open source - I have no plans for repurposing its content. However, the rights to the book may very well still lie with O'Reilly and, if so, I would have no say in this matter. I've cc'ed this to Tim so that maybe he, or someone else at O'Reilly, can weigh in on this matter. If it turns out I need to "sign off" on the rights to the book's contents, I'd be glad to do so."

At this point, it is up to O'Reilly to clear the book and actually open source it in the form of a download link. The entire list of books considered for this process is available online.

We will let everyone know more when we hear back from O'Reilly. Thanks again to all of you who did some legwork and researched in finding Dan. Good work!