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[Rant] Thoughts - Practicalities of AmigaDE / TaoANN.lu
Posted on 27-Jan-2001 20:27 GMT by Christian Kemp10 comments
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Colin Wilson writes: Something occurred to me - while I fully support the route Amiga Inc have taken with using Tao as the core OS, I am not sure how it`s use will translate to the real world. Since Tao is portable, and code written on one machine will work on another, how will the use of the AmigaDE develop if a machine was only designed to use Tao and not the Amiga add-ons, natively ?

Will the Amiga environment simply be classed as a toolkit that some software needs to run, and in which case, will it ever be included with commercial software (ie. games) rather like the way DirectX is distributed with PC software ?

If updates are made available over a period of time, will the updates / bugfixes be free, and how will they be made available for the wide range of platforms (ie. updates for mobile devices such as mobile phones) ?

Another concern is over the portable code. Will a software company be willing to release the source to it`s applications / games (because essentially, that`s what VP is) - bearing in mind the threat of software theft / illegal copying ?

I`m probably missing something here, but can anyone see any way around these potential problems ?

Is Amiga Inc destined to merge with Tao from a product viability point of view ?
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Comment 1Colin Wilson26-Jan-2001 23:00 GMT
Comment 2Hagge26-Jan-2001 23:00 GMT
Comment 3Colin Wilson26-Jan-2001 23:00 GMT
Comment 4Dave26-Jan-2001 23:00 GMT
Comment 5Anonymous26-Jan-2001 23:00 GMT
Thoughts - Practicalities of AmigaDE / Tao : Comment 6 of 10ANN.lu
Posted by Joe "Floid" Kanowitz on 26-Jan-2001 23:00 GMT
As I understand it, there's a disturbing array of packaging possibilities; meaning, if a company wants to develop with Amiga tools but ship seemingly normal "native" software, they may have the ability to "roll-in" the DE/VP components transparently. Not the best way to go about it from a DE-booster's perpective, obviously, but it sounds like the ability will exist for those who want to use it. The general concept is to package compiled VP bytecode, as stated, then ship it for all platforms, possibly with translators/DE configurations or whatnot... (I get the sense that Amiga has some preferences in this direction, but is keeping everything under wraps, as they like to...)
Regarding how the DE will be seen, I believe it's meant to be treated as a seperate OS/environment from straight Elate/Intent. It may be that the DE is more a "distro" of Tao's product than anything else, but since the burden of support falls on Amiga... anyone familiar with the Linux game knows how it plays.
I imagine simple (backend) code would be fully portable between Tao's product and Amiga's end-result, but when it comes to all the added features and the interface... it's a matter of degree, and I assume the "very close partnership" will lead to Tao pointing to Amiga when they encounter a customer who needs the full API/interface load. After all, isn't it easier on Tao when they can focus the majority of their energy on supporting one client, Amiga Inc.?
My guess would be that Mr. Charig's recent, uh, "seperatist," comments are based on Amiga's current status; Tao doesn't want to snub any of their other clients, right? ...and they probably _don't_ want to get stuck fighting to apply MP when their product is viable and selling without it :)
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List of all comments to this article (continued)
Comment 7Kjetil Hvalstrand28-Jan-2001 23:00 GMT
Comment 8Fabio Alemagna28-Jan-2001 23:00 GMT
Comment 9KSK28-Jan-2001 23:00 GMT
Comment 10Alex Klauke28-Jan-2001 23:00 GMT
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