Haiku is a free and open-source operating system compatible with BeOS. It began development in 2001 as the OpenBeOS project after Be Inc. discontinued BeOS development. The first alpha version was released in 2009. Haiku aims to provide compatibility with BeOS at the source code and binary level to allow existing BeOS software to run on Haiku without modification. Development involves recreating BeOS components like the kernel, file system, and GUI toolkit. While some components are complete, others remain in development stages.