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There was so much I wanted to say in this review, and at times I found it quite difficult to just comment on one particular aspect without flying off on a tangent about it when looking solely at ZETA the system, or the components that comprise it. I feel that there has been too much emphasis on packaging extra elements with ZETA 1.0 in order to fluff it up, which quite intentionally distracts from the many shortcomings still inherent of the whole. It is my opinion that ZETA 1.0 is simply BeOS "DANO", with a little work to USB, a port of CUPS, some fancy decors, and a boatload of applications.
The fact that so many applications come standard with ZETA gives me much concern. Third party applications are written by entities other than the operating system manufacturer. Third party applications are those that I find and choose to install at a later time, if and when I decide to. There should be a healthy market for third party applications, allowing the competitive room for vendors to offer their products without having to compete against products favoured by the operating system. Have we learned nothing from the Microsoft fiasco years earlier regarding this very subject?
The issues surrounding ZETA and yellowTAB are not purely technical ones such as whether ZETA can run on a P4 or AMD cpu, or the size of reported memory. The real issue that has never been addressed by yellowTAB is whether they have both the legal right and technical access to the source code upon which ZETA is based. This key question has never been resolved adequately for myself personally, let alone anyone else. I suspect the reason for the added bloat is to offset the inability to modify and enhance the core of ZETA, which is far more important in my opinion.
The only core improvements in ZETA 1.0 are to the Networking, Printing, and USB areas, all of which are outside the OS proper. ZETA makes me love BeOS more and more each time I review, and it inspires me to see Haiku do well. Until yellowTAB can focus on the core of the operating system, I'll remain convinced ZETA will have no future.
I emailed yellowTAB twice regarding this review. Once last week on July 20th to Alan Westbrook, and again to both Bernd Korz and Alan Westbrook on July 26th. In both cases I indicated my deadline and outlined the issues I found with ZETA 1.0, and allowed them enough time to send me a response that might have convinced me to edit my review. Sadly neither one managed to get back to me in time and thus this review has gone up with full knowledge that it basically slams ZETA and yellowTAB's work on it.
This review is purely my opinion and as such any flammatory reactions are welcomed via email. I would also welcome talking with yellowTAB over the many decisions that went into making ZETA 1.0 what it is today, where it is headed, and if I can possibly aid development by offering my critical eye. I may be a hard-ass but I mean well by it. I truly want to see yellowTAB succeed because it means competition to the evil empire.
Thanks.
-Chris Simmons,
Haiku News
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