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Jean-Louis Gassée, a co-founder of Be Inc. is IMHO a fantastic writer and just released his memoir „Grateful Geek“.

Personally, I love to think back to the times where OS releases were a huge deal for the tech world – that was exciting

Forgotten? Really?
I think it’s fair to call it forgotten. Unless you were into the alternative OS scene back in the 90s you are unlikely to have ever heard of or encountered it in the 90s. There were a few brief mentions of it in the computer magazines of the time, but as far as I’m aware not many mentions of it from more mainstream publications.
I am biased, but here is why -- here is my review of BeOS v5, from 23 years ago.

https://archive.org/details/PersonalComputerWorldMagazine/PC...

Haiku is also, I'd argue, the highest-profile FOSS OS that isn't some form of xNix. (Waddlesplash will wade in and start arguing now, but that's OK, you can ignore that.)

Haiku is a modern FOSS recreation of BeOS that can run BeOS binaries natively, and uses the same desktop because Be made Tracker open source before it imploded.

So, still alive in a form, famous and celebrated and covered in the mainstream media at the time.

Also:

* The subject of a high-profile lawsuit between Microsoft and Hitachi.

* The subject of an Apple acquisition struggle with NeXT over who would be the new MacOS.

* Indirectly the basis of the final version of PalmOS, the #1 handheld OS of the 1990s.

* Also the basis of YellowTab/Magnussoft Zeta.

* And of numerous remixes such as BeOS Max.

Only "forgotten" if you weren't paying attention.