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| Industry | Software development |
|---|---|
| Defunct | 2006 (2006) |
| Headquarters | , Germany |
| Website | yellowtab.com |
yellowTAB was a German software firm that produced anoperating system called "yellowTABZETA". While the operating system was based onBeOS 5.1.0, the company never publicly confirmed that it has the BeOS source code or what their licensing agreement with BeOS's ownersPalmSource was. The company went insolvent and ceased trading in 2006. Later, David Schlesinger, directory of Open Source technologies atACCESS, Inc., which had meanwhile become the owner of the BeOS source code, stated that there had never been a license agreement covering yellowTAB's use of the source code and that ZETA was therefore an infringed copy.[1]
The company's offices were inMannheim, and its corporate motto wasAssume The Power. Following their closure, the OS was taken over bymagnussoft, who started selling it as "magnussoft ZETA".
yellowTAB has come under some criticism from theBeOS userbase, who claim that the company did not give back what it took from theHaiku project and otheropen source BeOS projects. In many cases, open source programmers have recreated yellowTAB's extensions to BeOS, most notably theirSVG graphics extensions toOpenTracker. However, yellowTAB's actions to date have not violated theBSD/MIT licences under which most open source BeOS projects exist.
In March 2006, yellowTAB donated their "Intel Extreme" driver to one of theHaiku developers for integration into theHaiku source tree where further development was to take place. Both yellowTAB and Haiku developers were to collaborate on Intel Extreme Graphics driver development, but to date this code has not yet been committed to the repository.
In April 2006, insolvency protection proceedings were filed for the company, although employees denied that it was actually filed by the company, suggesting potential malicious intent.[2] However, the firm has transferred development and support of ZETA to a third-party,magnussoft.
