| [Forum] "party on:-)" (R.S.) | ANN.lu |
| Posted on 02-Oct-2001 19:56 GMT by Martin Heine | 233 comments
View flat
View list |
(Before someone again complains that I'm sharing my opinion "everywhere": I just decided to paste here what I wrote in comp.sys.amiga.misc because of Christian's call for articles.)
The article contains quick and dirty translations of comments made yesterday and today by Mr. Haage and Ralph Schmidt at amiga-news.de, since I thought non-german-speakers might be interested in this, too.
Newsgroup-article #1:
To try to compensate at least a little bit the advantages of those
Amigans who speak German (and therefore often get easier to rumours,
facts, etc., because of the importance of german companies and
individuals for the Amiga-market), I thought it might be useful to
translate a few statements made at amiga-news.de today.
While Eyetech and H&P accuse each other for the A1/AOS4-delays (one
says the hardware is missing, one says the OS4 is missing), Mr. Haage made (among others) the following comments (no warranty for the translation!):
[Mr. Haage (H) comments some rumours (R)]
H: "The interest in OS4.0 we have NEVER lost. But we've never been and are not convinced of the profitability of the project if the concepts won't be changed."
R: "They (H&P) are just the executing organ, all decisions are made by Amiga Inc."
H: "Correct. [...]"
R: "Amiga Inc. displays regarding Communication with their partners
"certain" deficits."
H: "Deficits is nicely said. But it's correct!"
R: "Failing to come / insufficient payments from Amiga Inc."
H: "Before payments could be made, contracts have to be made. That
far, however, we aren't yet. Regarding which I clearly want to
emphasize that WE do not delay."
[...]
H: "To be able to be partners to an agreement, one needs contracts -
and that is not Amiga Inc.'s strong point."
[Another comment from Mr. Haage]
R: "Is the date told by Alan Redhouse [Eyetech] for the completion of OS4.0 ("november, but probably not the 1st") possible in your
opinion?"
H: "Only if it would be right now possible to work towards that date. But the conditions for this don't exist. Maybe a wonder happens, but I don't expect it."
No wonder that those like me, who've been suspicious regarding AI in
favour of MorphOS/Pegasos for some time already, unfortunately feel
confirmed more and more. Also no wonder that Ralph Schmidt is enjoying this soap opera from AI, H&P and Eyetech, his first comment has been the one quoted as the subject: "party on:-)".
So, after translating Mr. Haage's point of view, I'll also think I
should quote from one of Ralph's comments, too. He (RS) answers to a
comment by Mr. Haage (JH):
JH: "In an exclusive x86 AmigaOS version we aren't interested."
RS: "No? :-) Do you think we don't get what you proposed internally
already in August? :-)"
[...]
RS: "As you've been also told already by a person from Amiga Inc. some monthes ago... you have no future as Amiga OS vendor."
My personal guess is that the main problem seems to be Amiga Inc.,
i.e. especially their lack of money. So after them already given up on their plans regarding DE being their future OS many monthes ago, it seems their plan to survive as a content vendor for PDAs seems to be not that successful, too (Alan Redhouse, too, does confirm in his statement that AI still has the already known financial problems). If companies like H&P do speak that way about AI already in the public as Mr. Haage did today at amiga-news.de (I just translated a little bit of it), I exprect the worst regarding AI's future.
Therefore it really seems the Amiga-market's future might be just
those two ones Ralph outlined: an emulation-based x86 one by H&P and
the PPC one covered by MorphOS.
-----8<--------
Newsgroup-article #2:
Some "second helping" - the "party" goes on:
(Again no warranty for the 'quick and dirty' translation.)
Michael Garlich (Titan Computer) in reply to Mr. Haage:
"You should restrain yourself on your statements against Mr. Schmidt!
Only you are to blame for the current situation - if you had actually shown your much propagated readiness for cooperation last year in september, it would not have been come that far. Despite all adverse things Mr. Schmidt contrary to you had been willing to cooperate under leadership of Amiga Inc. !!!"
And another reply by Ralph to Mr. Haage:
"[...] You operate on other levels which the normal user doesn't
notice. (dealers, influence on Amiga Inc., threats with licences,
internal mailing lists, influence on a certain person and a certain
company)"
-----8<--------
Newsgroup-article #3:
I think balance requires me to continue the translation at least one
more time, i.e. especially regarding the repeated offer below by Mr.
Haage to try to come to a cooperation. Of course everyone draws his
own conclusions, H&P-fans may say "didn't I tell you, just Ralph is
the bad guy" (although there's on the other hand the, today repeated, version by for example Mr. Garlich who said that Mr. Haage would have prevented exactly this last year), while the other side may say he's just lying or trying another trick. My personal conclusion is that Mr. Haage may just get cold feet because of the apparently very bad financial situation at AI and its consequences for another Amiga-PPC-future besides MorphOS.
Well, here again some quick and dirty translations from the very same thread of comments at amiga-news.de as before; again, no warranty.
1. Mr. Haage:
He suggests to accept an invitation made partly humorously by
amiga-news.de's Petra Struck to Mr. Haage and Ralph to meet at her
home for a dinner and try to come to an agreement.
(But Ralph did already say in a comment before he'd never again
cooperate with Mr. Haage, because of the well-known history and because H&P would just have nothing to offer that would be of interest for the bplan/Morphos-crew. (Although I think Ralph underestimates the value of "the name", but on the other hand I don't know how much, if any, influence H&P has regarding this.))
2. Ralph:
(It has been said before that by saying H&P (and Hyperion) would have nothing to offer the MorphOS-team could be interested in, they would cut out "StormC4, Arteffect, Genesis, Olsen's TCP/IP Stack, OS 3.9 licences" and Hyperion's products.)
" 1) We have with the PPC-MorphOS-GCC our own development system,
[...].
2) I wouldn't know what's that unique with ArtEffect. [...]
3) Genesis is a GUI surface and the TCP/IP stack belongs to Tomi
Ollila, which we do also have as a PPC version.
4) Olsen's TCP/IP stack is controlled by Olsen and nobody else.
And we do have a *very* good relationship with Olaf.
5) Amiga users do already own 3.1, 3.5 or 3.9 and it's left up to
them of they continue to use it until a completely new WB
exists.
6) MorphOS as AmigaOS 4.x was massively opposed by Hyperion since
november 2000 and in summer it was said that they'd never would
be porting Warp3d to MorphOS, when Amiga Inc. suggested them
this. This decision is left up to them for what they want to
develop something... The consequence is just that they don't
play any role in our plans. Therefore we plan an own 3D
solution. Warp3d is only that long important as new games
support it.
[...]
9) As I said already... H&P are free to offer their applications
for MorphOS also. *We* won't hinder anyone from developing
applications for MorphOS. SDKs from us always will be free.
10) With Papyrus we'll have a real office-package with
word-processor."
3. Mr. Haage:
Replying to the comment by Mr. Garlich (see earlier in this thread),
Mr. Haage says he wouldn't know about what Mr. Garlich would be
speaking.
4. Ralph:
(He was asked if Nova Design or Paul Nolan would have announced
support for MorphOS already.)
"We have also spoken with Kermit Woodal several times. Since he's also closely related with Merlancia, there are certainly possibilities. :-)
Paul Nolan does have a key and a development system since last year... [...]"
|
|
| List of all comments to this article |
| "party on:-)" (R.S.) : Comment 137 of 233 | ANN.lu |
| Posted by John Atkins on 05-Oct-2001 20:49 GMT | In reply to Comment 129 (Ralph Schmidt):
>@john
>
>True..also a small team can reach a lot if they are all
>motivated, skilled and have the *right* plan...
I agree Ralph.
This is only my second post to any Amiga message board . The last time I posted a public Amiga message was on a BBS I have read many different things written over several months, and this current message thread. I was a very huge fan of the Amiga computer and still consider it the only computer I really enjoyed using. Today I use Windows 2000 and Linux at home, and Solaris in a very large Enterprise environment. I still have my Amiga’s around but never turn them on, or use the copy of UAE I have on my Windows 2000 machine. Here is my take on everything being talked about currently:
Emulators: I see these as a solution to keep Amiga users around. They allow you to run the old Amiga OS on top of another layer (the layer being a cut down Linux/X86 setup, or QNX). This is DEFNITY not a step forward, but keeps you from stepping back. If people decide to develop NEW programs in this environment, it will be utilized in an UPDATED OS environment that allows 68k emulation (which is what those emulators are emulating).
Amiga OS for PPC or x86: I think a PPC solution is better. I think if you pick either platform, you are starting from nothing. What is important is the application support. New applications would have to be written or ported to either an Amiga x86 or PPC OS. Now lets see what already exists on these platforms.
If you target x86 you are competing with Microsoft Windows and all the applications written for that OS. Most likely users with Amiga OS will dual boot with another OS (most likely Windows). I tend to think that Windows will find its place on any x86 machine out there currently. This scenario can be seen by looking at BeOS or QNX. They are GREAT OS’s, but most people will not run them on their x86 machine over Windows. The only exception to a successful x86 OS has been Linux, and that is covering the server end, and not the desktop end. The Enterprise server market has always been dominated by Unix variants, and Linux has just taken a stab at Microsoft in the mid-range server market.
If you target PPC you are competing with Apple. This company is the only leader in PPC, and a lot smaller when compared to Microsoft Windows. I think the market for PPC computers is still small, and much easier to get into (almost can be considered a new market). I think you have a much better chance convincing a PPC user to use Amiga OS, then a x86 user using Amiga OS. If you take a look at the current leader, Apple, you see that users that like and want to use their OS are willing to pay double for the hardware. I think Amiga PPC hardware could be really successful if it was cheaper then Apple’s hardware, and was able to run the MAC OS. This would allow them to not just target one OS, and allow a greater margin for hardware sales to people other then Amiga users. Most Amiga users would of course run Amiga OS on the hardware.
In either of the above cases, most Amiga users will most likely be past Amiga users. I think like MAC users, they are willing to buy the new PPC hardware if affordable. A good way to compare the price would be against current Apple hardware. If the hardware is much cheaper, then you should feel like your getting a deal. You can not compare prices for x86 hardware to PPC hardware. It is like comparing Apple’s and Orange’s. I do not think ANY small Amiga hardware company can compete on the manufacturing level for many of the large x86 motherboard designers. I think from a Amiga hardware developer view, the PPC is a better choice. From the AmigaOS PPC side, I think this takes away you going against Microsoft, and targets Apple. In this case, I would suggest the new AmigaOS would have a nice MAC emulator (make port one of the good old 68k ones around), and also allow the new PPC AmigaOS to be able to run on the current MAC hardware. This would increase AmigaOS software sales by pulling in MAC users. From the above you can see ways to improve both hardware and software sales by pulling in new PPC users, and targeting existing ones. Do you dive into a pool with PPC, or the ocean with x86. I think I would dive into the pool, and as we find our way around, make the pool bigger until it gets to the size of the ocean.
Why is the Amiga different from any other OS trying to make it: The two words to answer this is PAST and NAME. When the new Amiga OS is created, it must be able to execute to the highest %, old Amiga software. This is the biggest thing Amiga has over any other startup OS that tried to make it (BeOS, QNX, etc). Amiga has a WEALTH of old software (Aminet) that is available already. If the new OS is able to run the old software efficiently, this is an initial reason to buy into Amiga. BeOS or QNX do not have the desktop software to fall back on. QNX tried to offer POSIX compatibility to tap into Unix applications, but as stated above this is a SERVER role and not a desktop role. So QNX has not effectively increased their desktop application base. I think this is why the AmigaXL was created, to allow QNX to take advantage of this desktop software base. The problem is that it is x86 and it still has the problem I mentioned above about the x86 competition. A thing that would be interesting would be QNX PPC, with AmigaXL. That would be in direct competition with AmigaOS PPC and would be the direction I talk about. I think any state of the art OS running on PPC, and able to take advantage of an installed user base is a wise choice. The thing I mention above is in comparison to what Apple is doing with OS X. I think the way they are emulating the old MAC OS is bad, and think the Amiga programmers could make a new Amiga OS run old software a lot faster then Apple is (take a look at the benchmarks from AmigaXL and Amithon. Sorry if I made spelling errors with either of those names).
The second word I used was NAME. Yes the Amiga name is important. All you can do is hope that people that have rights to the Amiga name are the ones making the best decisions to Amiga’s future. I think if it is possible, try to make contributions to their cause, and not shoot down the work they are trying to do. You just hope the current owners of the Amiga name are willing to take in what the community has to offer, because that has always been the fluid for the Amiga machine, and that is the community. So all these Slashdot type comments are just making the Amiga community look bad.
One last thing to comment on is the Amiga DE. I think AmigaDE is another attempt to get into a new market, which is high level pda’s. The only person in this area is Microsoft with their PocketPC OS. To get into this market, Amiga teamed up with Tao , which has lead to the Tao and Sharp partnership. This will allow Amiga exposure on a large scale. You will see the AmigaDE name in the Sharp PDA’s and phones, and see applications that our written by Amiga developers. This environment will also allow the applications to run on multiple platforms for small applications. JAVA has proved this is a solution for small applications only and that large applications will need to be written specifically for that platform (large applications run too slow). The AmigaDE will allow Amiga developers to make applications that are available for a large user base. Amiga Inc has plans to make the Amiga OS the best OS to use as a development platform for the AmigaDE. Think of the idea of being able to run a program on your PDA, and input information, and then when you sync this information, it is SAVED into a directory structure of some sort (like by a application id). You are then able to run the AmigaDE player on your selected OS (being AmigaOS, Linux, or Windows) and run the same program on your PDA, and have access to the same data. Currently Palm developers make a Palm OS version that syncs with a Window’s based executable. I think the Amiga solution is much better. So I think the AmigaDE is another great addition to the Amiga lineup.
From my responses above you can see I agree with the choices Amiga Inc have made. I think they have made very wise and legitimate choices, and most Amiga users should be happy with them. The only problem we are having is bringing them into fruition. For this I think the community and the developers must get behind Amiga Inc, and help as much as possible. I also think Amiga Inc should be open and responsive to the community and the developers to the best their resources allow. These of course are my ideas on this topic and I am sure everyone will not agree. I just tried to make the most logical sense out of it all, and from how I look at it I applaud where Amiga Inc wants to take Amiga, and I just hope they have enough resources to make it. What will I do for a desktop machine if Amiga does not make it? I will most likely buy a MAC. Being an old Amiga user, I of course never really liked Mac OS because of it being inferior to the Amiga OS. I still think the MAC OS is inferior to the Amiga OS up until MAC OS X. I think MAC OS X changes the playing field big time. I think they are becoming more successful at a UNIX based desktop then Linux ever has. Many of the major players in Linux community have found a new home at Apple working on the Mac OS X. I think if Apple can be successful in the PPC market, then Amiga can do just as well.
Well sorry for this being so long, but I wanted to make the most detailed point available. I wish Amiga the best of luck, and hope I never have to buy that MAC : ) |
|
| List of all comments to this article (continued) |
|
- User Menu
-
- About ANN archives
- The ANN archives is powered by #AmigaZeux. It was updated daily (news last: 22-Oct-2004; comments last: 18-May-2005).
ANN.lu was created, previously owned and maintained by Christian Kemp, www.ckemp.com.
- Contribute
- Not possible at this time!
- Search ANN archives
- Advanced search
- Hosting
- ANN.lu was hosted by Dreamhost. Sign up through this link, mention "ckemp" as referrer and he will get a 10% commission on any account you purchase.
Please show your appreciation for any past, present and future work on ANN.lu by making a contribution via PayPal.
|
