===========================
The RhapsodyOS Report
Issue #11 / 12 April 1998
===========================
The RhapsodyOS Report is a free weekly summary of Apple Computer's Rhapsody
Operating System news, software releases, rumors, Internet resources and
related topics compiled by Raven Zachary <raven@rinzai.com>.
HELP WANTED. The RhapsodyOS Report is looking to expand its editorial
board. We are searching for 2-4 people with writing and editorial
experience who are willing to dedicate two to three hours per week to help
compile and continually improve The RhapsodyOS Report, in addition to
setting an overall direction for the publication. If you have the
experience, the time, and the passion for Rhapsody, please email us at
<raven@rinzai.com>.
THIS WEEK'S NEWS
----------------
APPLE ANNOUNCES NEW DEVELOPER PROGRAM. Apple has announced its revamped
developer program this week <http://developer.apple.com/programs/>. The
Apple Developer Connection provides three levels of service: the Online
(free), Select ($500/year), and Premier ($3,500/year) programs. Rhapsody
developers interested in receiving pre-release versions of the operating
system must join the Select or Premier programs. According to sources at
Apple, specifics on academic developer programs are forthcoming.
APPLE OPENS NEW RHAPSODY DEVELOPER WEB SITE. Apple's new Rhapsody Developer
Site located at <http://developer.apple.com/rhapsody/index.html> is a great
improvement over the previous version, with quality design work and
efficient organization. Additions, updates and modifications to the
material are easily tracked from the site.
YELLOW BOX FOR WINDOWS PLAN, 'STILL FREE'. According to Jordan Dea-Mattson,
Senior Partnership & Technology Solutions Manager of Apple Developer
Relations, Apple continues to plan on allowing developers to distribute
Yellow Box for Windows along with their software without charging a runtime
fee. Apple first made these assertions during the 1997 WWDC. More detail is
expected at this year's WWDC in mid-May.
GNUSTEP TO BRING FREE OPENSTEP ENVIRONMENT TO THE WORLD. GNUstep
<http://www.gnustep.org> is an attempt to bring a free OpenStep-compatible
"operating system" (runtime and additions) to UNIX systems. The project is
based on the OpenStep specification published by NeXT & Sun in 1994.
Version 0.5, the first public release, is currently available for download
for UNIX-based X Windows systems such as Linux, SGI's IRIX and Sun's
Solaris operating systems. They are looking for volunteer developers to be
involved in the project.
USENET II GROUP FOR RHAPSODY. USENET II, the alternative system for news
groups on the Internet, has created a group specifically for Rhapsody users
and developers entitled net.computers.os.unix.rhapsody. For more
information on how to access USENET II, please visit
<http://www.usenet2.org/>.
RHAPSODY WEB SITE LOOKING FOR CONTRIBUTIONS. Rhapsody.it, an Italian
Rhapsody news site, is looking for Rhapsody development tips and demo
versions of Rhapsody software for their archive. More information, please
visit their web site at <http://www.rhapsody-it.com/collabora.html>.
MOZILLA FOR RHAPSODY PROJECT UPDATE. The developers now are experimenting
with the source code release, and we hope to have more information soon on
any progress that has been made.
RHAPSODY ARTICLES
------------------
Apple To Announce Software Strategy at Worldwide Developer Conference
Apple Computer Press Release
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/1998/apr/9wwdc.html>
Apple to Show OS Hand at WWDC
MacWeek
<http://www.zdnet.com/macweek/mw_1214/nw_awdc.html>
Jobs Plans To Reveal Apple's Operating System Strategy
Gregory Quick / Computer Retail Week
<http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/apple/TWB19980410S0005>
New Developer Programs -- Good for Apple
Wil Shipley / Stepwise
<http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/Editorial/wjs_developer_changes.html>
RhapNet Reader Views: Rhapsody for Free?
Marcus Mackey / RhapNet
<http://www.macnn.com/rhapnet/readerviews/980407.shtml>
Rhapsody in the Blues
David Firth / The Australian
<http://www.theaustralian.com.au/techno/columns/dave.htm>
Rhapsody: Love & War
Andrew Stone / RhapsodyOS.com
<http://www.rhapsodyos.com/editorial/stone/ST00005.html>
Should Rhapsody be Consumed?
Oliver Dueck / RhapNet
<http://www.macnn.com/rhapnet/editorials/oliverdueck/980407.shtml>
SOFTWARE RELEASES
------------------
Joy v1.09
Application development tools
AAA+ Software <info@aaa-plus.com>
<http://www.aaa-plus.com/joy/download.html>
PowerPC, Intel, and Yellow Box for NT/95
Joy Services v1.0
Joy scripting services
AAA+ Software <info@aaa-plus.com>
<http://www.aaa-plus.com/free-sw/download.html>
PowerPC, Intel, and Yellow Box for NT/95
UPlipo v0.6beta
Remove unwanted binary data from fat apps (front end for lipo)
Philippe C.D. Robert <philippe.robert@nice.ch>
<http://nice.ethz.ch/~phip/softcorner.html>
PowerPC and Intel
UPspeed v0.1beta
CPU/memory/disk performance measurement tool
Philippe C.D. Robert <philippe.robert@nice.ch>
<http://nice.ethz.ch/~phip/softcorner.html>
PowerPC and Intel
THE RUMOR CRITIC
----------------
YELLOW BOX FOR MACOS - WHEN? According to a MacNN Reality Report, the
Yellow Box for MacOS isn't due until the Sonata (9.0) release of MacOS due
in early 1999. Previous reports were suggesting that the Yellow Box would
make its way into the Allegro (8.2) release of MacOS this Summer. If we are
to believe the current rumors that Sonata will be "Rhapsody Lite" - a
version of Rhapsody stripped down to run the MacOS environment on a Mach
kernel - then this makes perfect sense. Why would Apple waste its time and
resources to port the Yellow Box into the MacOS itself when it could use
the existing Rhapsody code and incorporate it into a standalone Blue Box OS?
ON A RELATED NOTE...THE SIAM/CYAN PROJECT. MacOS Rumors has posted several
items this week concerning Apple's "Siam" or "Cyan" project. The project
would aim to unify the code base for all Apple operating systems within two
years, including Rhapsody, MacOS and the anticipated MacOS Lite for
portables and NCs (see below). I give both assumed project names because
there seems to be some confusion as to its true internal project name. Siam
would refer to Siamese Twins, a good analogy for the project, while Cyan is
a shade of blue -- another useful analogy. The project focused on merging
the MacOS and Rhapsody operating systems into a single code base may be a
more gradual one than we hope. Either way, it is commonly agreed that
Sonata will be the first release of what we can call "MacOS" which will
contain some amount of merged operating system code. Keep an open mind for
another month. WWDC is almost here!
BLUE BOX THE KEY TO MAC NETWORK COMPUTERS? MacOS Rumors, in a report on the
above Siam/Cyan project claims that Rhapsody will host Mac NCs via a
multi-user Blue Box server system. This would leave the NCs themselves to
process a small fraction of the workload associated with an operating
system, allowing for rather inexpensive NC hardware. Whether this
information is true or not, it makes sense and I can only hope that Apple
has the vision to bring something like this to the market. It may be what
saves Apple's marketshare in the educational market, and could help to
capture much needed marketshare in other areas.
OMNIWEB 3 TO BE BUNDLED WITH RHAPSODY? In post to the OmniWeb Discussion
List, William Shipley, President of OmniGroup discussed new features of 3.0
Beta 6 due out soon. The list is quite impressive, including one note that
page layout time has been decreased from 14.5 to 3.3 seconds on a specific
test web page. Most interesting is a comment that Wil makes at the end of
his message, announcing that the sixth beta release cycle of OmniWeb 3 will
last about a week, at which time a deadline will be reached and development
will have to be "frozen". Future betas will be released a few months later.
What does this mean? We can assume that 3.0 beta 6 will be bundled with DR2
for a WWDC release. Is this the deadline he spoke of or is it in internal
development deadline? An anonymous source at Apple has informed us that
OmniWeb is intended to be bundled with Rhapsody as the default browser and
that Apple has been working closely with OmniGroup on the development
process. If this is true, this is a smart move for Apple. Rhapsody needs to
come with a web browser -- and OmniWeb 3 is an excellent one, even if it is
the only one currently available for Rhapsody. Apple's other two operating
systems, NewtonOS (now defunct) and MacOS have both come with bundled
browsers. This strategy is nothing new for Apple.
APPLE DEVELOPING A CLEAN VERSION OF DISPLAY POSTSCRIPT? According to MacOS
Rumors, Apple is currently working on a new version of Display Postscript
which will be free of all Adobe code. This will release Apple of any
existing licensing fees for each copy of Rhapsody that is sold. While the
licensing fee may be small, this new version should keep Apple from having
to worry about outside licensing concerns for its new operating system.
"OPEN RED BOX" FOR RHAPSODY? An opportunity exists for the Rhapsody
developer community to bring a low-cost, open "Red Box" to Rhapsody Intel
and even Rhapsody PPC systems. Bochs Software Company
<http://std.world.com/~bochs> has developed an x86 PC emulator in X-Windows
for Sparc (Solaris), PPC (BeOS), and Intel (Linux, FreeBSD, etc.) machines
allowing users to run x86 operating systems on their workstations. This
includes operating systems such as Windows 95 and Linux [NOTE: NT is on the
drawing board at this time.]. A port of Bochs has also been made by a
third-party for Win32 <http://www.v.nu/core/Bochs/> allowing Windows 95 and
NT users to run x86 operating systems inside of their existing systems.
This is exactly what we need for Rhapsody. While a port to Rhapsody for
Intel systems seems like less work, Bochs already runs on PPC systems with
BeOS and it can't be too difficult to use this as a basis for a Rhapsody
for PPC port. Interested developers should contact Bochs Software Company.
Bochs has not stated any interest in porting their program to Rhapsody, but
we believe it's a great opportunity.
THE STUFFIT DEBATE. The OmniGroup Rhapsody Discussion List has been heavily
involved in a debate relating to Aladdin's StuffIt, the de-facto
compression format on the MacOS. The StuffIt format, past version 1.5 (we
are now up to 4.x) is not freely available to developers and therefore
cannot be accessed. Scott Anguish, developer of the excellent Rhapsody
utility OpenUp, is unable to get Aladdin's support in adding the most
recent .sit format to his application. As Apple users, we've grown
accustomed to the Stuffit format. However, Rhapsody already offers .tar and
.gz, and with the use of OpenUp the functionality is very similar in terms
of the ease in decompression. On a related note, OmniGroup was working with
Aladdin last year on a possible Rhapsody port of StuffIt. The person in
charge of this at Aladdin left the company and the project didn't go
anywhere after that. Andrew Abernathy of OmniGroup, the person working on
this port, did speak with an Aladdin engineer at MacWorld last January and
got the impression that Aladdin was planning on support for Rhapsody.
Either way, there are plenty of options for compression and decompression
on Rhapsody already.
INTERNET RESOURCES
-------------------
WWW:
The RhapsodyOS Report
<http://www.rhapsodyos.com/report/>
Stepwise
<http://www.stepwise.com>
RhapNet
<http://www.macnn.com/rhapnet/>
RhapsodyOS.com
<http://www.rhapsodyos.com>
Rhapsodic!
<http://www.mediabox.net/rhapsodic/>
MacCentral: Rhapsody Roundup
<http://www.maccentral.com/features/rhapsody_roundup.shtml>
The Rhapsody User
<http://www.kagi.com/inai/rhap/>
MacOS Rumors
<http://www.macosrumors.com>
MacWeek
<http://www.macweek.com>
thessaSOURCE
<http://www.thessasource.com/>
The Macintosh News Network
<http://www.macnn.com>
MacInTouch
<http://www.macintouch.com>
Apple's Rhapsody Developer Site
<http://developer.apple.com/rhapsody/index.html>
FTP:
PEAK
<ftp://next-ftp.peak.org/pub/rhapsody/>
<http://www.peak.org/openstep/rhapsody/>
Peanuts
<ftp://ftp.peanuts.org/peanuts/>
Apple's Rhapsody FTP Developer Site
<ftp://dev.apple.com/devworld/Rhapsody/>
Mailing Lists:
The RhapsodyOS Report
<rhapsodyos-report-request@thenerve.com>
(subject or body) subscribe
Rhapsody Discussion
<join-rhapsody@clio.lyris.net>
Rhapsody-Talk
<listproc@omnigroup.com>
(body) subscribe rhapsody-talk firstname lastname
OpenStep/WebObjects Newsletter [NOTE: covers Rhapsody, as well]
<newsletter-request@lists.best.com>
(body) subsingle
Rhapsody Developers
<listproc@omnigroup.com>
subscribe rhapsody-dev firstname lastname
Rhapsody User Interface Discussion
<rhapsody-ui@lightbulb.com>
(subject) subscribe
Rhapsody Database Discussion
<rhapsody-db@lightbulb.com>
(subject) subscribe
WebObjects Discussion
<listproc@omnigroup.com>
(body) subscribe webobjects firstname lastname
Rhapsody Jobs Mailing List
<majordomo@ensuing.com>
(body) subscribe rhapjobs
Newsgroups:
USENET
[Note: There are several NeXT newsgroups but only the three below are
getting Rhapsody traffic. Until Apple releases a product name for their new
operating system and new newsgroups are created, the NeXT groups will be
the best source for information.]
comp.sys.next.advocacy
comp.sys.next.announce
comp.sys.next.misc
comp.sys.mac.advocacy
USENET II
net.computers.os.unix.rhapsody
IRC:
#RhapsodyOS
on any EFNet IRC Server
ABOUT THE RHAPSODY REPORT
--------------------------
The RhapsodyOS Report is a free weekly summary of Apple Computer's Rhapsody
Operating System news, software releases, rumors, internet resources and
related topics compiled by Raven Zachary <raven@rinzai.com>.
The RhapsodyOS Report. Copyright 1998, Raven Zachary. All rights reserved.
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CREDITS: Mara Collins for editing services. The Nerve Internet Service for
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NEXT ISSUE: Issue #12 of The RhapsodyOS Report will be published on Sunday,
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