The software-only company Amiga Inc. has published a marketing document outlining how it will sell AmigaOS4, which will run on third party POP-based (PowerPC Open Platform) hardware. Now, however, the open hardware seems to become artificially closed.In order to be allowed to run AmigaOS4, any hardware must be licensed by Amiga, its vendor must equip it with means of license verification like “OS4-specific extensions” in firmware, the vendor must also sell AmigaOS bundled with his hardware and get a license for himself as well.
AmigaOS will not be available for sale separately! The transparent excuses for this insanity is “anti-piracy measures” and “a total quality experience”.
More information is available at this web site. AmigaOS fans upset by being deprived of hardware and vendor options for no technical reason together with other users and developers angered by seeing an artificial split of the POP-based hardware market into “POP” and “POP, but for AmigaOS” are invited to sign an ongoing petition to help Amiga Inc. see the light again and leave hardware alone.
While that “executive update” is amusing in an The Onion-like way, I’d rather see AmigaOS get even the chance to survive, but if the suits and VCs necessarily have to kill it off, can’t they find a way to do that without f*cking up a hardware market in the process?
My sig is on the petition.
Oh great, this viral discussion has spread out of the amiga news sites. I’ve enjoyed the amiga experience in the past and look forward to the further development of the Amiga DE environment. If they can make a smooth transition from the old 68k hardware bound OS to a virtual machine dominant OS by way of a new custom PPC OS then that would be cool. Unfortunately their biggest threat is their own potential customers.
rob
i’m getting pretty sick and tired of this.. if i had a nickle for every time there was supposed to be a new Amiga out.. well.. i’d be able to get a coke.. maybe even one of those energy drinks..
Even if there was an AmigaOS that ran on my iBook – what would it offer me? The Amiga died for me the very same moment I saw BeOS. Face it, even though there has not been a new BeOS release now in years, it is still far ahead of the unreleased AmigaOS 4 – and it runs on more and cheaper hardware.
It was the Amiga Chipset that made the Amiga great not the OS.. Ok the OS helped since it was optimized for the computer, but what benift do you have by porting the OS to PC like hardware? None
The Amiga made me sad, you had a great computer and a userbase that had few really high end computer graphics/Video users and a lot of kids with USR modems downloading tons of games.
I wished the Amiga 500/1200 never came out.
We have come so far since the old Amiga days, unless the “New Amigas” can give us something revolutionary like the old ones did then I say, let the Amiga die a respectable death.
This is going way too far. This is a very small company and not many people know about them. If anything is going to kill them, its post like this. People are constantly tarnishing the Amiga name. Wost of all, they dont realise their doing it.
Just let Amiga Inc get on with what there doing, and let them give us/you what we’ve/you’ve been wanting for 10 years or more. I tell ya what, some people are just never satisfied, they want more, more and more!
For christs sake oliver, give it up!
Rodney? Are you drunk, insane or an Amiga executive?
Bad things don’t disappear because you close your eyes. “Posts like this” don’t kill anything, fscking outrageous business decisions kill products and companies.
“Give us what we’ve been wanting for 10 years?” How about getting the fsck out of the hardware business and seliing us their own product, AmigaOS? Proprietary hardware has held AmigaOS back for a damn decade by now, you utter imbecile.
…but the OS lives on, Alvin. There aren’t any new Amigas coming. Yet Amiga Inc is trying to proprietize part of an open hardware market. Two exact same pieces of hardware won’t be allowed to run the same OS:s. That’s the whole point.
Back when you used Amiga Workbench 1.2 or whatever and hardly ever booted into it with your floppy games, the OS might not have mattered much for the end user, but it had a sound basic design. It still has with today’s 3.9.
Look at the screenshots. Compare it with Windows, KDE, GNOME, Mac OS – ugly. Once upon a time Amiga OS was the most beautiful OS out there. What happen? Downsized their artist?
This is really a tempest in a teapot until Amiga can demonstrate an operating system that’s interesting to more people than just the platform’s hardcore fans.
Maybe it is a kind of breakthrough that Amiga (more accurately, Eyetech, the hardware partner) is bringing to market a PowerPC motherboard for desktop computing. This is something a number of companies have tried to do and failed. (I’m assuming the MBs will in fact be available for sale sometime soon.) But beyond that, what we’re looking at is basically a retro-computing shouting match. Will some future version of Amiga OS expand the computing envelope? No evidense of that so far.
As for the “proprietary hardware” issue, the guy from Hyperion, Amiga’s software partner doing the PPC port, claims that any manufacturer can be certified to run and sell AmigaOS after signing the licensing agreement. The copy protection scheme used would be whatever is appropriate for the hardware. (Certain existing PPC upgrade cards for 68xxx Amigas will also be able to run the PPC port, with an appropriate copy protection mechanism.)
Since at present there is only one other company offering a motherboard that could potentially run AmigaOS4 — bPlan — (at least until somebody gets Amiga PPC to boot on a Mac), it looks like this company is the prime reason for Amiga’s ROM-based copy protection. There’s no other reason to pirate AmigaOS. bPlan has balked at Amiga’s licensing requirements (that the hardware producer must offer support for AmigaOS, etc.) because bPlan has its own OS on offer, MorphOS, which seems to be a direct competitor to AmigaOS. But the bPlan board looks like more interesting hardware than Eyetech’s AmigaOne, and a lot of potential users would probably like to try running AmigaOS on it as well as MorphOS. Thus the Amiga ROM dongle.
A typical Amiga computing soap opera.
— gary_c
gary_c:
> This is really a tempest in a teapot until Amiga can
> demonstrate an operating system that’s interesting to more
> people than just the platform’s hardcore fans.
Yeah, but not selling AmigaOS separately and unnecessarily tying it to licensed hardvare and hardware vendors ensures that they’ll never even get a chance to demonstrate that.
> […] any manufacturer can be certified to run and sell
> AmigaOS after signing the licensing agreement. The copy
> protection scheme used would be whatever is appropriate
> for the hardware.
So what?
http://amigapop.8bit.co.uk/faq.html#6
http://amigapop.8bit.co.uk/faq.html#12
AmigaOS could of course “potentially” be made to run on almost any current PPC hardware if it weren’t for the compulsory licensing lunacy (and with new chipsets for PPC the POP development seems to be taking off). But as you say, it seems like Amiga Inc. has thrown out the baby with the bathwater due to some childish antipathies (and/or fear?) for MorphOS (for the uninitiated: http://www.morphos.de – a “competing” OS which also runs AmigaOS 3.x apps, it’s delivered with the “un-licensed” Pegasos” POP-based board).
Not again…. Not here….
AmigaOS is a commercial OS. This OS policy can’t be compared to the way free OSes like Linux, FreeBSD or AROS etc are handled. Since there are developers working full-time on this project, somewhere down the line money needs to be generated.
Apple makes its money on a hardware/software combinations, bPlan hopes to make money on their PEGASOS hardware and Microsoft sells software lincenses to PC clone manufacturers for millions of PCs annually.
Mass piracy at this stage would kill AmigaOS4.x and all future development. The ROM extensions used by Eyetech’s AmigaOne motherboard are only meant to keep the amount of piracy down to a minimum. Why do so few understand this?
Just something to think about: Hyperion has repeatably stated that Amiga software releases outsell their Linux software counterpart releases, this despite there being so many Linux “fans”. The widely adopted software mentality of: “All software should be available for free” is killing commercial software success for the Linux operating system. Look at the Linux software companies which bankrupted, do we want to follow this with AmigaOS aswell? Man people pay thousands of dollars on hardware and all of the sudden they become cheap when it comes to paying for the OS which should get the best performance out of the hardware… A good OS is just as important as good hardware.
From the petition:
> Any hardware capable of running AmigaOS must first be
> modified with “AmigaOS specific extensions” to its “boot
> ROM” in order to be allowed to run AmigaOS.
This has been clarified before. Any good anti-piracy measurement will do for Hyperion/Amiga Inc. The boot ROM extension option was chosen for Eyetech’s AmigaOne motherboards.
> Such hardware and its distributors must be approved and
> licensed by Amiga Inc. and the hardware distributors
> must also sell and support AmigaOS4.
This is fundamental to be able to offer proper product support. In the past there were fake abusive companies which screwed of Amiga users. Of course such companies should not be allowed to call themselves an AmigaOne dealer. This is just meant for quality assurance.
> AmigaOS will only be available bundled with such hardware.
Expect for Cyberstorm/Blizzard powered Amigas (which will be available seperately) this makes sense:
Why would you want to sell Amiga branded hardware without AmigaOS? If you don’t want AmigaOS, then alternatives will become available depending upon consumer demand, but such hardware will not be branded Amiga. If you want to run AmigaOS at a later date, this will probably cost more, since you need to pay for both a replacement ROM and the full prize of AmigaOS4.
> From the petition:
The petition upon which all the fuss is based can be found at http://www.petitiononline.com/amigaos/
Just to clarify any other misconceptions people may have. The anti-piracy extensions found in the Openfirmware ROM of Amiga branded machines do NOT prevent you to run any other operating system.
> Who cares about the OS. It was the chipset
Maybe for you. For me it was also its multimedia OS. Do I still consider my Amiga to be an Amiga when I upgraded it with a graphics card (based on mainstream chips) and with new soundcard supporting retargetable sound. I DO!
At release the Amiga computer had both the most impressive hardware chips, aswell as having the most powerful multimedia operating system. Nowadays there are several high quality graphic chipset manufacturers, all investing millions on chipset development. Why should we produce something exclusive, only for use with Amigas? Nowadays consoles use graphic chips also found in desktops, it is an open hardware market, just like most Amigans want it to be. At least I do!
> AmigaOS is a commercial OS. This OS policy can’t be compared
> to the way free OSes like Linux, FreeBSD or AROS etc are
> handled.
Where do you see anyone comparing it with open source software? Since you don’t see that anywhere, why do you bring that up? What you write is totally non sequitur. Commercial OSs are both sold separately and bundled with hardware. You might have heard of one OS family with “Windows” in its name, for example.
> Mass piracy at this stage would kill AmigaOS4.x and all
> future development. The ROM extensions used by Eyetech’s
> AmigaOne motherboard are only meant to keep the amount of
> piracy down to a minimum. Why do so few understand this?
So few “understand” this because anti-piracy measures are not more effective just because the responsibility to provide them are shifted to hardware vendors. It does not stop piracy. What you’re stating is a carbon copy of what we all can read in black and white on Amiga Inc.’s site. Don’t believe every word and excuse you read in marketing, and its futile to parrot the same marketing as an argument against people who see through that marketing. The rest of the IT world understands this already.
> This has been clarified before. Any good anti-piracy
> measurement will do for Hyperion/Amiga Inc. The boot ROM
> extension option was chosen for Eyetech’s AmigaOne
> motherboards.
*Sigh*
http://amigapop.8bit.co.uk/faq.html#6
Copy protection should be up to the software developer/vendor to implement and supply. Nobody else.
>> Such hardware and its distributors must be approved and
>> licensed by Amiga Inc. and the hardware distributors
>> must also sell and support AmigaOS4.
> This is fundamental to be able to offer proper product
> support. In the past there were fake abusive companies
> which screwed of Amiga users. Of course such companies
> should not be allowed to call themselves an AmigaOne
> dealer. This is just meant for quality assurance.
But it shouldn’t be compulsory! AmigaOS users should just like other users be allowed to buy whatever hardware they like from whomever they like. Hardware vendors should be allowed to sell their hardware to anyone regardless of what OS their customers use, or if the customers plan to nail the hardware to the wall as a piece of modern art! AmigaOS users aren’t the same as your typical Joe Windows/AOL User. We are not more stupid than others, and if we feel that we don’t need the “protection” of a software company against alleged shady hardware vendors, then we should have the *option* to buy our hardware just the way everybody else can buy it, i.e. not tied to or bundled with any OS, sold by whomever we choose to buy it from.
Nobody is arguing against voluntary OEM licensing, if a hardware vendor actually would like to sell AmigaOS with his hardware and use any Amiga-related trademark.
> Why would you want to sell Amiga branded hardware without
> AmigaOS?
NO DAMNIT! No! Read the petition, the http://amigapop.8bit.co.uk site and read the bloody “executive update”! We’re NOT arguing against the need to get a license for a vendor who wants to sell his hardware bundled with AmigaOS, using Amiga trademarks.
We ARE arguing against not being able to buy hardware REGARDLESS OF LABELS AND VENDOR to use with separately sold copies of AmigaOS (with accompanying hardware dongles if necessary).
What you’re saying has nothing to do with this article or the petition.
Sheeeeeeesh!
> Look at the screenshots. Compare it with Windows, KDE,
> GNOME, Mac OS – ugly. Once upon a time Amiga OS was the
> most beautiful OS out there. What happen? Downsized
> their artist?
Classic AmigaOS can be made to look like whatever you want though 3rd party software enhancements. AmigaOS GUI customization has had an enormous influence on later OSes like OS/2 and Linux (and therefor indirectly on WindowsXP as well). Such functionality is now being implemented into AmigaOS standardly. You haven’t seen the standard AmigaOS4 GUI yet, only some GUI functionality options were shown publicly.
> Where do you see anyone comparing it with open source
> software? Since you don’t see that anywhere, why do you
> bring that up?
I was making a point. As a commercial OS company they need to make money. Apart from Apple and Microsoft who makes money while selling desktop operating systems? Nobody! So I was pointing out how they cover their development costs.
BTW IMO while making a point I’m entitled to use any example I please. (At least if it obviously doesn’t offend anyone)
> and its futile to parrot the same marketing as an
> argument against people who see through that marketing.
The decision was made, based on feedback with involved developers to counter piracy. Illegal Windows copies are running on millions of computers, this doesn’t hurt Microsoft that much though, because of their software monopoly. For AmigaOS this would be entirely different.
> Hardware vendors should be allowed to sell their
> hardware to anyone regardless of what OS their customers
> use
Agreed and this is the case!
> We ARE arguing against not being able to buy hardware
> REGARDLESS OF LABELS AND VENDOR to use with separately
> sold copies of AmigaOS (with accompanying hardware
> dongles if necessary).
How many times do I have to repeat myself? Non Amiga branded options will become available depending upon consumer demand!!! Just be glad for AmigaOS4 development, as it has assured that the alternative open PPC platfrom finally moves forward, this after years of non-progess.
Classic AmigaOS can be made to look like whatever you want though 3rd party software enhancements. AmigaOS GUI customization has had an enormous influence on later OSes like OS/2 and Linux (and therefor indirectly on WindowsXP as well). Such functionality is now being implemented into AmigaOS standardly. You haven’t seen the standard AmigaOS4 GUI yet, only some GUI functionality options were shown publicly.
No, from what I have seen, the icons is not to par with what is see in GNOME, XP and OS X (sorry, KDE, but your’s is ugly too). The shadow from the menus is solid (i.e. not blured), which looks ugly to me. The UI haven’t changed from OS 3.9 to OS 4..
Besides, as for third party add-ons, we still wouldn’t know when they would come out. After all, OS 4 is a new OS.
“The Amiga made me sad, you had a great computer and a userbase that had few really high end computer graphics/Video
users and a lot of kids with USR modems downloading tons of games. ”
Actually they swapped floppy disks at school. Nobody had modems when
the Amiga was popular.
Yeah…I’ve seen pretty much the same hype several times before. I can buy a Coke, but I still can’t buy anything like a new Amiga. At this point I have to conclude that the “Amiga business” must be a Pavlovian joke.
Another thing that I noticed is the ROM requirement that I was flamed mightily about in another thread. That day I was a heretic to suggest that they were needed. Today I’m a pirate if I don’t own one! It’s all part of an ever-changing rite that makes the Masons look tame.
Next month there will be yet another breathless announcement, and still more inscrutable doubletalk. Do I care? …..
> No, from what I have seen, the icons is not to par with
> what is see in GNOME, XP and OS X
LOL!? You talk about Icons? Icons within AmigaOS can easily be replaced and can be of almost any size you like. Especially Matt Chaput is developing the more artistic stuff for AmigaOS4. The new system graphics developed by Matt haven’t been made public yet.
And if you don’t like the icons I’m sure alot of alternative icon sets will become available from Amiga fans, just like for classic AmigaOS. Probably you will see some WindowsXP/MacOS X rip-offs to please people like you as well (just like they are poping up for linux nowadays).
> The UI haven’t changed from OS 3.9 to OS 4..
How would you know? You haven’t seen the AmigaOS4 GUI yet…
> The shadow from the menus is solid (i.e. not blured),
> which looks ugly to me.
The transparent shadows shown in the screenshots don’t look bad to me. But one big benefit is that AmigaOS has a very good modular design, missing (desirable?) features can be added relatively easily afterwards. AmigaOS4 surely will not be the end all OS! It will not be perfect, just like any other OS available on the market today.
> but I still can’t buy anything like a new Amiga
So? You don’t know all the stuff Amiga developers had to go through. For example Gateway, a multi-billion dollar company itself, bowed for the might of Microsoft not to sell/develop rival platforms. You underestimate the power of Microsoft’s monopoly, on the commercial computing market of today.
Things do not happen without reason.
Look, voice your opinions, i wont stop you, but dont resort to name calling like most.
My views are quite clear on this. I dont need you changing them, and i dont need you telling me what to think.
The thing that annoys me the most about this is that, you people have not put months of research into this, you dont know the market as well as Amiga Inc (sure you may have been here the longest but my bet is they’ve put more resources into and dug deeper then you ever have) and your just thinking about what you want. Its much bigger then that.
If you read the start of that article, there is a reason for this move. Maybe you skipped over 2-3 paragraphs. Dont get me wrong, i wouldnt care if the licence was here or not. Infact, i would like a wider range of hardware, but im going to wait and see (short term) how this effects the community, and if it seems its not having its desired effect, ill speak up, IF Amiga Inc havnt already done something about it. Which, in that case, they will have!
Amiga seems to be digging it’s own grave. Tell me who would buy a completely new system just to run Amiga’s “revolutionary” OS? A very small market indeed. If they instead throw PPC out of the window, go for x86, and sell it to retail, there would be a bigger market. Even more so if it make deals with ISVs to port apps. But the very least is allow OS 4 to run on any PPC platform by having retail packs with that anti-piracy ROM. But something tells me that this ROM isn’t there for anti-piracy, it is just a free gift, and something they tell their customers. It means they would have direct control on their hardware makers. Well, that’s my opinion.
“A very small market indeed. If they instead throw PPC out of the window, go for x86, and sell it to retail, there would be
a bigger market. Even more so if it make deals with ISVs to port apps. But the very least is allow OS 4 to run on any PPC
platform by having retail packs with that anti-piracy ROM.”
The current AmigaOS 4 project is an alliance between Hyperion, a
software company, and Eyetech, an Amiga hardware dealer and developer.
Hyperion’s argument for PPC is that if AmigaOS is ported to x86, users
will simply run Windows on the hardware and never buy any Amiga
software. IMO that is a mistake, but that’s what they think.
Eyetech have invested considerable time and money to organise a
motherboard for this machine. It is in the interest of both companies
to sell Eyetech’s hardware and Hyperion’s OS as a locked together
bundle.
In the short term, this means that AmigaOS will sell only to Amiga
fanatics, probably a few thousand. Perhaps later on some other
software company will make a version for x86, which would have a much
wider appeal.
Realistically, the well-known weaknesses of the OS (no Java, no good
web browser) need to be addressed before the OS is offered to the mass
market. It has many great features, but it does need updating, which
Hyperion are now organising.
> Amiga seems to be digging it’s own grave. Tell me who
> would buy a completely new system just to run
> Amiga’s “revolutionary” OS?
Note that alternative operating systems should become available for PPC powered Amiga computers as well. Of course Amiga branded hardware will come bundled with AmigaOS.
> A very small market indeed.
Nobody ever implied differently. They are going for a niche market initially, appealing mostly to AmigaOS fans. Which is most likely to be little larger than there was a BeBox market, at least initially. It is the first major step to revive AmigaOS in over a decade. Many more steps are intended to follow, do people want to be involved at this stage of development? You can only answer that question on an individual basis.
> But the very least is allow OS 4 to run on any PPC
> platform by having retail packs with that anti-piracy
> ROM.
Eventually any suitable hardware is likely to get supported, (including bPlan’s PEGASOS and excluding Apple hardware due to lack of support). The AmigaOne doesn’t use a special anti-piracy ROM though. It is just an extension to the OpenFirmware ROM already there. Probably the most cost effective anti-piracy solution Eyetech could come up with.
> If they instead throw PPC out of the window, go for x86,
> and sell it to retail, there would be a bigger market.
Just tell that to Be Inc. Although hardware independency is key in Amiga Inc’s future view though. According to their moto, consumers should not have to worry about what operating systems or hardware they are running their software on. (Amiga Digital Environment)
> It means they would have direct control on their
> hardware makers. Well, that’s my opinion.
How? Hardware manufacturers are allowed to ship their hardware without AmigaOS but then (understandably) aren’t allowed to call it an AmigaOne. Or they can sell an AmigaOne and ship it with AmigaOS (and anti-piracy measurement) and bundle any other OS they like. What part don’t you understand? This is all about the Amiga brand. Does it make sense to promote your hardware as an Apple clone while you aren’t able to use MacOS?
>Actually they swapped floppy disks at school. Nobody had >modems when the Amiga was popular.
Yes they did.. US robotics courior HSTs.. Remember them that was the modem of choice. Ah the day..
We use to joke that the standard Amiga user had
Amiga 500, external floppy, HST modem and 1000 blank disks
Does anyone remember operation Sundevil? Secret services starts busting down on hackers swapping credit card numbers.. Well they also took down a major pirate BBS as well. I remember reading that in the papers
Man this is so old school.
> The current AmigaOS 4 project is an alliance between
> Hyperion, a software company, and Eyetech, an Amiga
> hardware dealer and developer. Hyperion’s argument for
> PPC is that if AmigaOS is ported to x86, users will
> simply run Windows on the hardware and never buy any
> Amiga software. IMO that is a mistake, but that’s what
> they think.
I agree, it’s a BIG mistake.
If AmigaOS were ported to x86 hardware, and people would
just run Windows instead, why would these same people be
willing to buy relatively expensive PowerPC hardware just
to run AmigaOS? Forgive me, but I just don’t understand
that. The marketing “geniuses” at Hyperion need their
heads examined (IMHO).
I’d rather run AmigaOS on hardware I already have. Which
also happens to be inexpensive and practically grows on
trees. What will a bare Amiga ATX PPC motherboard cost?
$300.00? What will I get for that? A surface mounted 600MHz
G3? I don’t think so. These guys are about to be taken to
the marketing woodshead to get the crap beaten out of
them.
Who cares?
Come on… If Amiga can’t see the light at this point, then it deserves to die.
They’ve already tied it to an arguably dying platform (PPC), they’ve quoted outrageous prices on their “dedicated” hardware, which only a die-hard Amiga fan would consider purchasing, and now they’re narrowing that scope down even more by saying “It has to be Amiga-centric and we won’t sell the OS to anyone but the handful of company’s who’re willing to lose money by producing said hardware.” (paraphrasing obviously)
Let it die already!! I was an original Amiga owner, and I too moured the loss of a great OS, but there’s other better, and more user-friendly alternatives now. Hell.. You can run an Amiga emulator on a 1Ghz+ machine and get not only the fastest Amiga you (n)ever saw, but also a very fast OS on top of that (be it Linux, XP or whatever platform you’re running the emulator under).
You can argue about the XP’s and -nix’s of the world all you want, but with processor speeds, hardware prices, and product saturation what they are today, to do what Amiga is currently doing is the equivelant of corporate suicide.
If that’s how they treat their users, who have stuck with them for many, many years with little to no support, than they deserve to fail with this latest venture.
To those who want to argue custom chipsets and blitter rates as the reason for this outrage, please do so elsewhere… These are old arguements, and really don’t pertain to the issue at hand.
Unless Amiga is going to again begin producing hardware (they aren’t!), then they shouldn’t be putting such limitations on the few hardware manufacturers who decide to support their endeavors. It’s only going to make these vendors decide to support more profitable ventures, which since Amiga won’t sell the OS to end users now, means far fewer potential buyers.
Will this dedicated hardware be any good? I don’t know, but I’ll let you know in about 2 years when I can pick it up for about $100-$200 for the entire system on ebay (which seems to be the going rate for underdeveloped, obselete systems these days). For now, I’m going to kick back and laugh at Amigas current workplace practices.
While in the long run this’ll mean cheap hardware after it’s failure, in the short term it’ll be nice to watch how the Amiga die-hards rant and rave about this latest atrocity (all the while probably talking about how “next time”, in latest incarnation, the Amiga will finally REALLY take off).
It is really sad to see so many negative comments on OSNews regarding Amiga projects. It feels a little like a Deja Vu, it’s like reading comments made in reply to BeOS stories over at Slashdot when Be Inc still was alive. It does make me a little sad as Amiga Inc, Hyperion, Eyetech and all those other small Amiga companies only try to make a living for themselves.
For instance Hyperion lost alot of time and money while developing software for Linux. They simply need some kind of protection from software piracy, as believe me their software may NOT have SOLD in large numbers, their software is being USED in large numbers regardless!
The developers involved in AmigaOS4 for PPC are all long time Amiga fans, just like me. Many of these people have worked on Amiga software for free for many years only to keep their favorite platform alive.
Sad to see this happen. I had some big plans to preview/review and create demonstration videos of AmigaOS here on OSNews. This is really demotivating, its time for me to take a step back and wait to see if OSNews stays this negative towards the ordinary commercial alternative OS developers without 40 billion dollars available on hand. ;(
It is really sad to see so many negative comments on OSNews regarding Amiga projects. It feels a little like a Deja Vu, it’s like reading comments made in reply to BeOS stories over at Slashdot when Be Inc still was alive. It does make me a little sad as Amiga Inc, Hyperion, Eyetech and all those other small Amiga companies only try to make a living for themselves.
I don’t think anyone’s arguing that they shouldn’t be trying to make a living… Perhaps the better point would be “Why tie their means of living to an outdated OS that’s ran by management who are obviously out of touch with their customer base?”
I mean… If I tied my new product to OS2, should I really expect people to jump on my bandwagon when IBM’s not even pushing it any longer? Similarly, when people asked allowed “Why build around OS2? It’s a dead OS”, should I expect that the “So I can earn a living” arguement is going to change anyones opinion?
I have sympathy for those who miss the Amiga. It was nice (and yes, we did keep the floppy industry in business back then!)
I envy those who can afford to spend oodles of money on new unproven technology like Amiga V4.
But I have no sympathy for those who can’t logically explain a business decision such as the one being argued here. Much less do I feel sorry for those who tie their bandwagons to these bad decisions.
To misquote a popular phrase: If you build it, don’t neccesarily think that I’m going to come. Much less that I’m going to plunk my hard earned cash down for it, or that I wouldn’t question why it was built in the 1st place!
The developers involved in AmigaOS4 for PPC are all long time Amiga fans, just like me. Many of these people have worked on Amiga software for free for many years only to keep their favorite platform alive.
And more power to you! I’ve contemplated adding a cheap A4000 to my growing collection of PC’s just so I could relive some of the Amiga glory days. People like you keeping it alive are part of this draw.
But that’ doesn’t justify this move by Amiga to keep those of us who want to “play” from doing so without expending a large amount of cash. And Amiga can’t honestly think they’re going to get any corporate purchasers this early in the ball game… The only hope is that the PC hobbyist will pick this up and slowly work it back into the mainstream. This move is obviosly not aimed at helping these people out.
I just built a very nice entertainment PC which in a nutshell is a TIVO, a CD Recorder/Player, a VCR, a surround sound system, AND on top of that runs thousands of proven games via emulators, in addition to native PC games & software.
And this was all done for less than I would pay for a new Amiga system (with admittedly little modern software available for it).
It’s a no brainer… Amiga just shot itself in the foot with this move.
Sad to see this happen. I had some big plans to preview/review and create demonstration videos of AmigaOS here on OSNews. This is really demotivating, its time for me to take a step back and wait to see if OSNews stays this negative towards the ordinary commercial alternative OS developers without 40 billion dollars available on hand. ;(
I’d watch such a video myself, but would it make me rethink my opinions on Amiga’s latest efforts to recreate itself? No…
If you’re going simply for public opinions with your efforts, I’d say you’re tied to the wrong OS. For those of us who’ve been in the scene for awhile, the old arguements from the Amiga die-hards still ring fresh. Amiga had an uphill battle before this… Now they’ve almost got an impossible battle to try and win.
If your concern is pleasing the masses though, why not focus efforts on one of the BeOS “forks”, or perhaps even MorphOS or Atheos?
Or build a nice OSX clone for a Linux front-end.
There’s lots of ways to help out the readers of OSN.
But don’t complain when loyal OSN readers point out the obvious flaws in Amigas marketing plans. I think the general consensus here is that Amiga has once again screwed it’s dwindling, but still loyal masses.
Apart from the progress that OpenBeOS is making, the AmigaOne scene is the one I’m looking at in the short term.
Ah, to be able to run a NEW Amiga computer… fast and modern. Running a PowerPC-native AmigaOS4, tied specifically to the computer I’m running.
Hey, maybe the Amiga scene will heat up again and we’ll see some of those old skool demos and some blazin’ cool games again! Maybe even commercial apps on store shelves!
Hey, anything is better than being tied “ball-and-chain” to Microsoft Windows of any kind…
If they want to do the “anti-piracy” thing, what they *NEED* to do is serial-match the OS and the BIOS. The BIOS serial number matches the serial numbver of the copy of AmigaOS you’re installing. When you install AmigaOS4 (on CD, of course), it looks to see if it’s serial number matches the one in the BIOS. If it doesn’t, it aborts the install. Ta-dah! There’s no way you can pirate it that way!
Of course, the BIOS serial number is completely invisible to the end-user/casual hacker (and encoded), so even if you look at where the number is, you won’t be able to tell *what* the number is. Embedded code in the AmigaOS 4 installer accesses the serial number portion of the BIOS, decrypts it, and does quick comparison.
Neat, I think…
Jared
I watched Commodore-Amiga go down with superior hardware, and Be go down with superior software. People have tried a lot of vectors into the personal computing market, and most have failed IMO due to Microsoft’s deserved or undeserved monopoly.
I’m willing to wait and see what Amiga[2] comes up with. While evaluating their efforts I’m going to keep in mind that they’re working with only a handful of dedicated people (probably less than Be at it’s high point). Given their resources, they’re probably NOT going to be able to come up with stuff that’s “better” than GNOME, etc. That doesn’t mean they should roll over and die. The briliance of the original Amiga, both HW and SW, was that it was a great foundation, leading to such diverse and pivotal products as the Video Toaster (which I’m sure RJM and crew couldn’t have predicted). If Amiga[2] can do close to the same thing, no matter how they get there, I’ll be pleased.
Some things are worth trying even though the odds are against them. Hell, when Amiga was for sale for $11M, I seriously thought about trying to get a business proposal together myself, because keeping the idea of Amiga alive is worth it. I don’t want a future where Microsoft is my sole source of “innovation”.
Mike Bouma: keep posting Amiga news, and thanks
.
I get it now, the Amiga crowd gets their kicks by nailing themselves on their own crosses. Wheeeee! The last thing these guys want is an actual product to ship, because then they would have to compete, and they’d be no different than any other business. But these guys aren’t about to trade their hair shirts for business suits! They’re completely comfortable in their current position, shaking their fists at successful players and muttering “poor me, pity me…”
When children pout, the good parent lets the child pout all alone. Before long the child realizes the folly of manipulation. These aggressive pouters who seek out public fora to use to stamp their feet and threaten to hold their breath in need similar treatment. “What, no product again? Back to your room!”
“Yeah, but not selling AmigaOS separately and unnecessarily tying it to licensed hardvare and hardware vendors ensures that they’ll never even get a chance to demonstrate that.”
Not really; it’ll get its chance. What AmigaOS can do, its features, and so on are a separate issue from the licensing, as you know. So IMHO, the OS itself has to be shown to have some appeal. Personally I don’t see this happening, based on the company’s wandering attention and minimal funds. Maybe they could totally surprise us (they ought to be in “nothing to lose” mode since a conservative OS effort would go exactly nowhere), and come out with something as radical now as the orginal was in its day. If that happens, due to some miracle, then the limited hardware base would be the showcase and they could build from there. After all, Be started with a proprietary box, too. They could expand, even porting to x86 or whatever. One thing you’ve got to give the Amiga management, they’re “flexible” (read: “tend to wander all over the map”).
At times I thought the copy protection thing was a big deal, too, but I realized there’s no point in getting worked up over it. There aren’t any other customers who could run a shrinkwrapped AmigaOS anyway other than people waiting for the bPlan motherboard and, skilled enthusiasts that they are, I doubt if it’ll be long before we see AmigaOS on that hardware one way or another. As other people have commented, Amiga’s overall challenge is so huge that this particular issue pales in comparison.
— gary_c
“”The Amiga made me sad, you had a great computer and a userbase that had few really high end computer graphics/Video
users and a lot of kids with USR modems downloading tons of games. “”
“Actually they swapped floppy disks at school. Nobody had modems when
the Amiga was popular. ”
ehm.??? the amiga warez bbs scene was quite huge…
modems been around for like 30 years or something…
sure there was disc swapping too but there was an modem scene aswell… amiga ruled the home marked long before pc’s…
I really hope Amiga Inc will be able to get out an impressive product. AmigaOS still is a great OS and from what I have read could be pretty good still. I don’t see this anti-piracy measurement as much of a problem. I think people are pulling this way out of perspective. They don’t seem to understand that Microsoft is financially over 1000 times bigger than Amiga Inc. Every copy sold matters to Amiga Inc! Regardless there are many good people involved in making AmigaOS4 a reality.
1. Amiga Inc. owns the AmigaOS and the Amiga trademark, they can write up any kind of license restrictions they like. They don’t need permission from anyone, not from us or any hardware manufacturer.
2. AmigaOS has been a ROM based OS requiring an appropriate ROM/Kickstart in order to run since 1985 which means that this isn’t exactly news. It’s been like this for atleast 17yrs now and it doesn’t make sense to get upset about it now. Furthermore, if this was such an evil thing, how come Amiga became succesful in the first place and how come Apple that is even more restricted for hardware competition is still successful as a business today?
3. Ben Hermans (head of Hyperion and the AmigaOS4 development team) explained several times that they are open for licensing any hardware capable of running AmigaOS4 and no redesign of the hardware will ever be required. Individual solutions can be made for those motherboards not having FlashROM capabilities onboard, such as a USB dongle, for example. The *only* obsticle for getting AmigaOS4 to run on alternative hardware is the application for the license itself. The hardware manufacturer must want to have AmigaOS4 support and that’s not a decision for Amiga Inc. or their partners to make.
4. The ROM code does NOT affect the use of other operating systems and the license does NOT restrict the hardware for use with AmigaOS only.
Noone but those not wanting to cooperate has been excluded from running AmigaOS4 on their hardware (only the Pegasos atm) and expecting Amiga Inc. to support manufacturers not wanting to cooperate simply doesn’t make sense.
It’s *impossible* to make an OS based on POP hardware design and expect it to run on all POP motherboards, they will still need to make a specific HAL for each motherboard which cannot be made without cooperation from the hardware manufacturer itself. The license makes this part alot easier and it would probably be more difficult to implement support for alternative POP hardware without it. In other words; this petition is opposing it’s own purpose.
Furthermore, I don’t see any problem with the distribution policy either as neither Windows or MacOSX are distributed along with other operating systems and having the OS bundled with the hardware is a policy that Microsoft has shown is a very profitable way of doing it. We want AmigaOS4 to become profitable, right?
This whole petition thing against the license policy of Amiga Inc. is based on nothing but pure FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). If you wish well for the Amiga then stop this nonsense at once.
Why don’t they sell the AmigaOS software shrinkwrapped in a box with a usb dongle?
Amiga wins: they sell more off-the-shelf copies of software that can’t be pirated.
Eyetech wins: they sell an open hardware platform.
Other alternative OS users win: open hardware platform to port/run their chosen OS to/on — no strings attached.
Even the dongle company (that Amiga chooses wins). They get to sell a ton of usb dongles.
Well, the USB dongle was just an example, all kinds of individual soultions can be made in order to satisfy each hardware manufacturers needs.
But you’re right; it’s a win-win situation which these guys are opposing without realizing that it’s harming their own cause.
> 4. The ROM code does NOT affect the use of other
> operating systems and the license does NOT restrict
> the hardware for use with AmigaOS only.
Samface, I think this is the issue that worries people the most. I don’t pretend here to understand the business aspects.
Apple keeps their hardware shop closed because they sell more than hardware + software; they sell the “Macintosh experience”.
Suppose Amiga gets very popular and decides to take this route. Will they change the ROM (and/or licensing) in such a way as to break other Alt OS’s using “their” PPC hardware platform?
You’re missing the point…
1. Amiga Inc. owns the AmigaOS and the Amiga trademark, they can write up any kind of license restrictions they like. They don’t need permission from anyone, not from us or any hardware manufacturer.
Damn right they can. And if the restrict it to the point wherein no one wants to support it, that’s what’ll happen. I think that’s largely the arguement here… No one’s questioning whether or not they have the right to do this, but rather the sensibility of doing it.
2. AmigaOS has been a ROM based OS requiring an appropriate ROM/Kickstart in order to run since 1985 which means that this isn’t exactly news. It’s been like this for atleast 17yrs now and it doesn’t make sense to get upset about it now. Furthermore, if this was such an evil thing, how come Amiga became succesful in the first place and how come Apple that is even more restricted for hardware competition is still successful as a business today?
Yes, but ROM based OS’s are no longer the norm. As mentioned previously, it’s been proven that raw CPU horsepower is more than capable of handling what the original custom chips did.
Besides, arguing in favor of 17 year old technology is rather dumb. If it had been a winning concept, it’d still be commonplace, but even Amiga users had issues back in the heyday as they couldn’t easily upgrade without replacing hardware components.
In fact if the chipset’s the basis for your “This is justified” arguement, then I’d have to ask ‘Why not just release the custom hardware on a PCI card?’. This could be purchased and inserted as needed, in addition to providing more than enough bus speed to handle it, without requiring the user to invest in a very niche computer system with an equally questionable future. And for that matter, it’d make it a lot easier to make it cross platform compatible (PPC vs. x86).
But no… That’d mean a bigger userbase and a better chance of success. Something that Amiga has historically shunned.
Sorry… The chipset’s not the issue here either… You’re still missing the point.
3. Ben Hermans (head of Hyperion and the AmigaOS4 development team) explained several times that they are open for licensing any hardware capable of running AmigaOS4 and no redesign of the hardware will ever be required. Individual solutions can be made for those motherboards not having FlashROM capabilities onboard, such as a USB dongle, for example. The *only* obsticle for getting AmigaOS4 to run on alternative hardware is the application for the license itself. The hardware manufacturer must want to have AmigaOS4 support and that’s not a decision for Amiga Inc. or their partners to make.
This illustrates how ignorant Amiga’s current owners are about todays world of hardware.
Do you really think that the Abits, Tyans, MSI’s and other major motherboard manufacturers are going to jump on such a bandwagon? Likewise, does anyone entertain the hope that the few manufacturers who are willing to bet their future on the Amigas comeback will actually be here in a couple of years to provide bios updates (Whoops! There’s another hole in the process if your Amiga’s operation is tied to an outdated bios you can’t flash), much less hardware support for newer items & technologys?
If MSI wants to make an Athlon compatible motherboard, do you think they need MS’s blessing to do so? Do you think that someone creating a motherboard for a Pentium4 system checks with all of the major Linux vendors to make sure that their OS’s will run on it? Hell no!
The idea is to make hardware compatible with other hardware, and then leave it up to the OS developers to either support it or not.
Amiga’s doing it completely backwards with this move, and that will in the long run kill the venture (or force them to rethink this move).
I understand Amigas fear of piracy -Particularly after the original Amigas saga, but to ask hardware manufacturers (at least any with an established userbase who will likely still be around in 5 years)to completely rethink their manufacturing process’s for a proven loser of an OS is just stupid. Plain stupid!!
Let’s see where the adopters of this “new Amiga” are in 3-4 years when they’re trying to get their motherboards to support faster CPUs, and newer technologies.
4. The ROM code does NOT affect the use of other operating systems and the license does NOT restrict the hardware for use with AmigaOS only.
Again, not the point. The point is quite simply that when you’re on the lowest rung of the OS ladder, it’s much smarter to make your OS compatible with as much hardware as possible, and it’s very important that you create an atmosphere wherein people (developers, both hardware & software) want to work with you. To try and make an entire industry change their business practices is just stupid.
Not that Amiga is trying to get people to do this, but they’re expecting it to happen. Without this kind of commitment, the OS goes absolutely nowhere.
This whole “Get off their back adn let them do it” attitude is one which will leave Amiga out of touch with their userbase (Well.. potential userbase).
I’d rather point out the problems with their plans now while there’s still the potential to change them.
But whatever… Argue all you want; I’ll be buying your unsupported Amiga 4 system on ebay for about $200.00 in a few years with the attitude that Amiga and their supporters currently have. 8)=
> Suppose Amiga gets very popular and decides to take this
> route. Will they change the ROM (and/or licensing) in
> such a way as to break other Alt OS’s using “their” PPC
> hardware platform?
Look if that was going to be the case in the future THEN it would be the right time to start a petition! I would be the first one in line to sign it and I would do everything in my power to make them realize that this is not in the interest of a competitive computing industry and consumers.
THIS is NOT the case! This policy will only really be an obstacle to AmigaOS pirates. The extended ROM option chosen for Eyetech’s AmigaOne is a far more cost effective solution than using an USB option. The extended BIOS ROM enables you to run AmigaOS, but does not inhibit alternative OS usage in ANY way!
And people still wonder why microsoft dominates !
This is pure insanity…
Despite their the vaunted amiga mindshare, I doubt they are as good as Beos; Who also had the insanity of trying to charge more for their X86 version and behaving as if they didn’t care much about this customers.
(I once contacting Be about bundling Beos as a dual boot option and they refuse to even work an arrangement whereby I could prelude a time limited version of their software as an additional boot option and then have my call in and order the key to unlock it from them if they liked it ! They wanted me to pay them over $50 per copy upfront in packs of 25? Since my customers were not clamouring for it, well, it was out of question )
Realy seriously, why would anyone want the amiga when Linux, Solaris, Beos and Windows can be had for either free in the case of the first three or for a reasonable amount with hardware in the case of windows ?
I think someone ought to teach these companies some marketing… They act like such greedy *astard, and yet still wonder why microsoft is trouncing them in the market. Good thing they have no chance, else they’ll turn out to be worse than MS.
Someone give Mr. Cancelled a cigar! Well said. But I fear that the Amiga point is that force-feeding their own pathetic egos are more important than facing the realities of their position in the OS food chain. I doubt that you’ll ever manage to impart them with common sense. So you might as well have a good laugh!
One noteworthy thing is that in Microsoft’s early days, Bill Gates was known to rail against piracy. But Gates limited his actions to just words. The Microsoft products that brought Microsoft to the place where it is now have no copy protection whatsoever. True, later versions have serial numbers, but those numbers can be copied as well. I suspect that if Gates had acted spitefully, that Microsoft would be a completely different company today.
> Bill Gates was known to rail against piracy. But Gates
> limited his actions to just words.
In 1976 he wrote in his “Open Letter to Hobbyists” about software piracy and how it keeps good software from being written for the hobby market:
Bill Gates: “Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?”
Back then there wasn’t really the piracy communities of today. Sadly he is right and for the same reason Amiga Inc needs to protect themselves. Mircosoft makes most if their profits by bundling their OS/Software with PC clones.
> The Microsoft products that brought Microsoft to the
> place where it is now have no copy protection whatsoever.
Mircosoft is where it is today mainly because of IBM. Had IBM used another OS then Microsoft would never have been in the position it is in today. (When you control the OS market, you can abuse your position to dominate the software market). Sadly IBM did not forsee that multimedia computing would ever become popular for home usage.
That’s why they picked MSDOS, one of the most limited operating systems in existance. Meanwhile Mircosoft made a good name for itself and built up a software library for MSDOS together with some MSDOS/IBM exclusively supporting software companies. They already made sales of over 100 million annually when the first Amiga was released in 1985.
The small Amiga team showed how amazingly non-innovating the computing industry was at the time (IMO regarding OSes it still is today), when they released their mutimedia computer. To put this into prespective Microsoft already had over one thousand employees. (And around 15,000 employees when Amiga owner Commodore went belly up, due to the lack of IBM clone sales at the time)
The Microsoft story is quite a success story but has just as much to do with luck and dubious business practices as it has to do with anything else.
Mircosoft made alot of money while numerous clone manufacturers did most of the marketing. Can this happen to Amiga Inc today as well? I believe not, I don’t see Gateway or Compay switching to AmigaOS anytime soon, especially considering the knife Microsoft hold under their throats for if they do. So in short, you cannot compare Microsoft’s position in any way to Amiga Inc’s position. If 90% of all Windows releases were pirate copies Microsoft would still be making a healthy profit today. Now imagine what would happen to Amiga/Hyperion/Eyetech/etc!?
Hrm…
No cooperation, no HAL, no alternative hardware support. In other words; they need cooperation with hardware manufacturers and the license makes this possible!
Some people seem to think POP equals standard BIOS and open firmware. Let me give you a hint; that’s simply not true. Amiga Inc. simply can NOT make an OS for POP and expect it to run on all POP based motherboards out there as they lack open firmware and BIOS standards. They need to make a specific HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) for each motherboard made and this is simply not possible without cooperation from the hardware manufacturer. The license makes this possible!
Get this into your head: POP is not the same thing as open firmware!!!
Tell me, how do you get AmigaOS to run on whatever POP motherboard without a specific HAL for it? How do you make a HAL without support from the hardware manufacturer? Please, tell me! I’m dying to know.
Amiga Inc needs to protect themselves.
While I don’t dispute that piracy is wrong, or that Amiga has every right to implement protectionist measures, I can’t ignore history. The simple fact is that protectionism backfires far more often than it succeeds. In contrast, using the old drug dealer’s tactic of giving it away at first, and then charging for it after people become hooked is the most effective marketing method in the computer industry. Even if Amiga Inc. is dead-set on protectionism, the consensus here is that there are better ways to go about it.
Mircosoft makes most if their profits by bundling their OS/Software with PC clones.
Microsoft also has a lot of value in its name, and has cultivated an enviable distribution channel, whether or not you agree with their tactics. The Amiga name means absolutely nothing to most people. To those who remember Amiga as a computer manufacturer, what they remember is that the company failed. Not a very good way to start! The bottom line is that if your business plan is to make big money leveraging Boardwalk and Park Place, you’d better have Boardwalk and Park Place to leverage!
Mircosoft is where it is today mainly because of IBM. Had IBM used another OS then Microsoft would never have been in the position it is in today.
When you climb a ladder, can you single out one step that was the primary one that got you to the top of that ladder? Of course not! In fact, every step is important.
So to say that Microsoft’s success was mainly because of IBM is to commit the fallacy of exclusion. The truth is that if Microsoft hadn’t been a major vendor of Apple 2 products, IBM wouldn’t likely have known about them. And if Microsoft hadn’t established itself with the first microcomputer BASIC, it wouldn’t have been likely to have had that chance. After the IBM deal, Microsoft did a lot of things that had nothing to do with IBM. All of these made up Microsoft’s success collectively.
Sadly IBM did not forsee that multimedia computing would ever become popular for home usage. That’s why they picked MSDOS, one of the most limited operating systems in existance.
While I agree with the effect part of your statement, I believe that the stated cause is absurd. Back then, MS/PC-DOS compared pretty well with its contemporary microcomputer operating systems. You seem to be forgetting that the hardware wasn’t able to handle multimedia either! It was hardly a lack of foresight — it was a lack of hardware at the right price.
The small Amiga team showed how amazingly non-innovating the computing industry was … Amiga owner Commodore went belly up
I think that your portrayal of what normal people would consider to be a positive event to be celebrated as a dark and spiteful event is telling. I also direct your attention to the fact that although one battle was won, the war was lost. I’ll also remind you that what happened so many years ago is history. In the fast-pace of the computer industry it’s ancient history.
The Microsoft story is quite a success story but has just as much to do with luck and dubious business practices as it has to do with anything else.
Unless you plan in opening a winery, sour grapes will not make for business success.
So in short, you cannot compare Microsoft’s position in any way to Amiga Inc’s position.[i]
Of course we can compare! Microsoft is the lucrative success story, with a product line that nearly every computer owner wants to have. Amiga is the constant failure, whose only product for many years now has been self-pity. See, I did it!
[i]If 90% of all Windows releases were pirate copies Microsoft would still be making a healthy profit today. Now imagine what would happen to Amiga/Hyperion/Eyetech/etc!?
Well if you shipped 10 copies, and 9 of them were “pirated”, then you would have one legitimate sale. That would mean that you finally had a product! For the time being, I think that the adage about not counting your chickens before they’re hatched seems appropriate.
> The simple fact is that protectionism backfires far more
> often than it succeeds.
Look at Sony or Nintendo, they do a great job at protecting themselves (and their developers) although unlike with the Amiga community they are really big. You seem to ignore that Microsoft has an almost complete monopoly within the computing industry. And they are still allowed to abuse their position within this market today. You should not compare this new PPC based Amiga with a Windows PC, but rather with a BeBox, DraCo or classic Amiga instead.
> Even if Amiga Inc. is dead-set on protectionism, the
> consensus here is that there are better ways to go about
> it.
How? Please tell me. I believe other solutions will only result in other whiners.
> To those who remember Amiga as a computer manufacturer,
> what they remember is that the company failed.
When it comes to desktop operating systems everyone except Microsoft (and to much lesser extent Apple) eventually failed. Atari, Commodore, Be Inc, Acorn, Amstrad and even IBM. You name you`re favorite one. This does not necessarily mean that Microsoft (and Apple) will never eventually fail as well.
The downfall of the Amiga was very premature since they were selling like hot cakes in Europe, during the demise of Commodore. Almost everyone knows that the Amiga community is taking an enormous risk. Will they ever cover the development costs of AmigaOS4/PPC hardware? Nobody knows. The continued development of AmigaOS is only done because there are people who think that the fundamental technology still is too good to let it die. All these anti-Amiga comments here on OSNews most certainly don’t help anyone.
The petition will only do any good if the people who signed the petition would guarantee the developers to buy AmigaOS4 if the policy would change.
As for 600 times nothing is still nothing.
> When you climb a ladder, can you single out one step
> that was the primary one that got you to the top of that
> ladder? Of course not! In fact, every step is important.
I’m not saying that it wasn’t a smart move for Microsoft to buy DOS, I was saying IBM was stupid enough to choose Microsoft/DOS. IBM fully regrets that they are largely dependent on Microsoft today.
> Back then, MS/PC-DOS compared pretty well with its
> contemporary microcomputer operating systems.
MSDOS wasn’t much to write home about, that’s why Microsoft could’ve bought the OS that cheap. IBM only intended to sell machines to factories and such. At the time they never believed that IBM compatibles could be sold to ordinary consumers. Who would wants a simple text-only terminal? MSDOS sadly outlived its foreseen life expectance while becoming the (unbelievable low) standard of general computing.
> one battle was won, the war was lost.
The battle isn’t over yet. There are still a few resistance StarFighters left to battle the evil Empire.
> Unless you plan in opening a winery, sour grapes will
> not make for business success.
If you can get away with it, like Microsoft, it sometimes does. For example Coca-cola wouldn’t have been as big today if they hadn’t originally put cocaine in their softdrinks.
They helped destroying many healthy competitive companies due to their monopoly. In the end the consumer loses. It is like if one big supermarket chain does major discounting in certain areas where the smaller local supermarkets can’t compete (The big Supermarket chain can afford it since they make enough money in other areas.) When these smaller supermarkets are destroyed they extended their business into new areas. Yet again killing off the smaller local competitors and then build up a monopoly even further. In the end they have a total monopoly and all the sudden they don’t have discount anything at all. As there simply is no competition.
> Of course we can compare!
I was obviously was pointing out that things which work for Microsoft do not per se have to work for Amiga. There’s simply too much differance regarding their position within the computing industry. Yes Apples and Oranges can be compared also, but that was not the point I was trying to make.
While I don’t really buy the anti-piracy (all anti-piracy solutions are temporary deterrents), I don’t have any problem with the way Amiga Inc. are going about the licensing situation and I will be purchasing an AmigaOne with AmigaOS 4 when they both ship.
The “protection” mechanism can be in the ROM (as with Eyetech’s solution), as a USB dongle or any other way the licensee decides. Any such equipped system can still run any other OS that has been ported to the hardware i.e. LinuxPPC, NetBSD. No problem there either for AmigaOS users, other OS users or the retailers.
Okay “protected” systems have to ship with OS4, but if you’ve ordered a motherboard with the mechanism then I’d be very surprised if you didn’t want to run OS4 on it so there’s no problem there either.
Also motherboards can be shipped without OS4 and the mechanism to other customers – it seems Eyetech will ship vanilla boards with one or more flavours of Linux. In fact, the developer boards are currently shipped in this form. Again, no problems there.
Eyetech don’t have a monopoly as a result of the protection. Any PowerPC motherboard manufacturer can have their hardware licensed to use OS4, and any retailer can strike a dela to have any suitable off-the-shelf PowerPC board licensed and sold with OS4. Again, no issues there either – I’m not sure what the costs of licensing are, to be honest, but that’s for the individual retailer/developer to weigh up. Seeing as how any PowerPC motherboard would need some support work undertaken by Amiga (i.e. customisation of hardware abstraction layer) this would have to happen anyway.
Those claiming that the lack of protection would allow them to use various Mac systems or perhaps other PowerPC motherboards (of which the few available seem to be very expensive test boards) are going to find problems with OS4 support anyway. Apple are unlikely to yield valuable information, and I don’t think many people are going to want to run OS4 on expensive evaluation boards when they could buy cheaper AmigaOne boards with official OS support.
Just a few quick points which have probably been covered elsewhere anyway. I can vaguely understand where these guys are coming from, and they have a right to comment, but I feel they should be directing their aims towards lobbying other PowerPC motherboard developers (i.e. bplan) into providing OS4 support – either directly or through third party organisations.
Mike, I don’t know if you’re yanking my chain or if you’re not taking a crucial medication, but it looks to me like you’re getting farther and farther away from any kind of point. While it has been amusing to read your recitations of popular fallacies, I really can’t subscribe to your views, which come off as being (no offense) somewhat paranoid.
I simply don’t believe that the Amiga is God’s Perfect Gift to mankind. As much as I dislike Microsoft’s recent product strategy, I don’t believe that Microsoft, or Coca-Cola or the Trilateral Commission or the Illuminati are out to get the new Amiga company. I don’t believe that the only route to success is through crime. And I don’t believe that there’s anything to be gained by sitting on the pity pot.
If Amiga Inc. ever comes up with a viable product that’s not encumbered by draconian marketing, I might give one a try. But I don’t want to belong to the culture, which I can only describe as “wacko”. If the price of admission is having to argue with clouds, then count me out.