Because hardly anyone is actually using it for it's (or Be's) stated purpose? Because it has a fraction of the users Be did (by percentage)? Hell, HN is pretty up on tech stuff and yet whenever an article about Haiku is posted there's still a lot of people who have no idea what it is. And it has been in active development for over a decade.
If that isn't "Near Death", then what is?
Dead means no development is being done on it, so it cannot possibly work on modern computers. The original Be presumably hasn't seen any development for decades, but Haiku is actively developed and so very much alive. It means it works on current PCs, and has the potential to become more widely used in future (which Be does not).
"Nearly Dead" != "Dead". It is possible Haiku could start gaining ground and become something widely used in the future, however it is more likely that the project languishes is relative obscurity before eventually being abandoned.
> hardly anyone is actually using it
Source?
Kinda hard to prove a negative.
I've been following Haiku for a bit, it looks like development is pretty active.