BeOSNews.com » Bernd quits, Zeta is gone

You will probably already have heard of the following by now, but here we go. A little over a week ago the news got out that the the Zeta team and their distributor and main funder Magnussoft were parting ways, but today it seems that the recent difficulties have brought Zeta to a hold. The main developer and force behind Zeta, Bernd Thorsten Korz announced on his blog that for him the Zeta adventure is over and he quits developing Zeta. Basically this means that as of today Zeta is no longer in development and the only commercial attempt to revive BeOS is over.

In the post on his blog Bernd states that at this point he cannot go into much of the details, it is uncertain if the planned update for Zeta 1.5 will ever go public. Bernd also writes that he is talking to his legal adviser to see how much, if any, of the code produced by the Zeta team he will be able to donate to the community. Finally he says that none of this code can be accessed either by Magnussoft or yellowTab, and he intends to keep it that way and won’t give it away without the approval of the other developers.

Truly a sad day in the history of BeOS, I cannot emphasize enough on how important it is to have at least some sort of commercial motor behind this system. With Zeta gone Haiku is the last actively developed version of BeOS, and when the first version comes out it will be at the level of BeOS R5, released over seven(!) years ago. Let’s not draw conclusions to quickly but the downfall of Zeta will decrease the even to small BeOS community and the system is no longer a (possible) alternative for day to day use, at least not until Haiku R2.

Although the Zeta team has always been a little bit troublesome with their pr and they never really manged to resolve the discussions around their access to sources Zeta also did a lot of good work. They made it possible to run Zeta on lot’s of modern hardware, and a couple of really nice applications were created. Besides that they promised the continuation of the platform. Let’s hope that all of the work done on Zeta in the last years will not be lost at once, and sources will stay in the community.

From here I would like to take the liberty to thank Bernd and his team for all the hard work and good care over the years. I did a very rough translation of Bernds post, click below to read it.

A rough translation of Bernd’s post:
In the last seven years I have been busy to make Zeta into what it is now. In this period there were highs and lows and unfortunately I was held responsible personally for most of them. The recent events forced me into a defensive role.

I thought about quitting the development of Zeta when yellowTab dissolved but there were simply to many request from users. In the last eleven months a lot has happened and Zeta saw a lot of progress but the last four weeks were again a big fight. Although I am a fighter there come a day where you go to bed and forgot how and if the world turns. The recent events with Magnussoft have opened my eyes in many aspects.

I will officially stop the development of Zeta. At this point I cannot say if I will be able to open-source the work or make it accessible for Haiku. I have asked my attorney to support me with this matter. I have also spoken to some of the former yellowTab developers who have agreed to open-source some of the code, but I cannot say more until all the legal questions have been answered.

As far as the service update goes that again I cannot say at this point whether it will be published, but it would be bad I is will not be published because a lot of work is already done and it solves lot’s of small issues. Right now I am still negotiating with the distributor, I can’t tell if this will have a positive outcome.

Right now neither Magnussoft nor yellowTab has access to the source-code which will stay this way. Might anything change in this then the respected party will certainly be able to communicated this their self. As for as I’m concerned this will not change in the near future. Neither me not the individual developers have different wishes considering this. With Zeta be a community project nothing will change in this without the approval of the other developers.

For some I will help the loyal users of Zeta through IRC where I can, but I can’t say for how long. Right now I am looking for a new challenge to devote my time to, when I found one I will not have the time to support users through IRC.

Considering zeta-games.com, we have build up a really nice team and I will continue to contribute to my own stuff. With everything that I have ported and that found new use I will withdraw myself.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank some people:

(Not translated:)
Ithamar und Alan, vielen Dank fÃ¼r diese tollte Zeit die wir hatten, Ihr seit zwei der genialsten Entwickler die ich kennenlernen durfte.
Michael und Karsten, ich habe unheimlich gerne mit Euch beiden gearbeitet.
Gerhard, danke, dass Du mir solange ein Freund warst
Maurice, Du warst etwas ganz besonderes fÃ¼r yellowTAB und ZETA
Lisa, es war eine sehr schÃ¶ne Zeit mit Dir zu arbeiten
Luc (begasus), danke das Du ein echter Freund warst und bist. Du hast mir immer geholfen
FrankPS, ich bin stolz, dass wir beiden soviele faire Diskussionen hatte und ich sagen kann, dass ich Dich kennenlernen durfte.
GÃ¼rsel, Reini, Sascha. Es war eine GEILE Zeit im Vertrieb mit Euch!
Charlie, Dir gilt ein ganz besonderer Dank. Du bist ein ganz besonderer Mensch.Du warst von Anfang an an meiner Seite und warst immer unglaublich sachlich.
Rene (DeadYak), Du bist einfach unglaublich und wirst immer jemand ganz besonderes sein.
Bruno (bga), einfach cool :)
Ramshankar und Catalin, danke fÃ¼r die vielen tollen Programme die Ihr fÃ¼r ZETA realisiert habt.
Dr. Propfe. Sie sind ein wirklich ganz besonderer Mensch, dem ich ebenso wie die Mitarbeiter der yT sehr vieles zu verdanken haben, wenn ich kÃ¶nnte, wÃ¼rde ich Ihnen dies 3x zurÃ¼ckgeben. Sie sind ein Mentor fÃ¼r mich.

Dane Scott, Du bist ein unheimlich fairer und loyaler Mensch

Rafael, danke fÃ¼r all die Stunden die wir gemeinsam an ZETA Software gearbeitet haben.

Of course many thanks goes to all people who have supported my time at Zeta in a positive way. Foremost all those who were actively involved in the progress of Zeta.

Bernd-Thorsten Korz

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