About the project
Our goals is to create an easy to use, fast (low latency) and exciting
to use desktop operating system based on the Linux
kernel and the GNU system.
This project provides also an object-oriented application framework and
a desktop environment, inspired by the original BeOS application programming
interface, created by Be, Inc.
License
Libraries are covered under the
GNU Lesser General Public License,
this means that you can link to these libraries in any program without affecting the
license of your code, although the improvements you have made must be freely available.
Executables are covered under the
GNU General Public License,
this means that the improvements you have made will be covered under the GNU GPL.
Overview
Applications
The BeFree applications are designed to work well together.
A standard installation will include many application for the
most important tasks.
User interface
The Neptune user interface makes
working and playing intuitive for new users.
The well known OpenTracker
will be used as shell and it will be modified to support SVG as well as
other formats.
Application framework
The BeFree application framework is based on the legacy of BeOS R5.
This means that one of our goals is to be source compatible with
the C++ framework developed by Be, Inc. in order to recompile the
existing applications such as BeShare and OpenTracker.
Graphics and media
The Cairo 2D graphics rendering
library is the imaging model for BeFree.
Similar to the Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.4 standard, Cairo displays and
prints high-quality, anti-aliased text and graphics and provides support for
TrueType fonts.
Networking
BeFree includes modern networking and support
for standard protocols.
This makes BeFree easy to integrate into any standards-based network.
Operating system foundation
Beneath the graphical user interface there's a
GNU/Linux
foundation built on technologies such as the Linux 2.6 kernel, Apache and GCC.
This foundation provides a full POSIX compliant environment, that BeOS never had.