[News] Petition: AmigaOS distribution policies and PPC hardware | ANN.lu |
Posted on 25-May-2002 20:50 GMT by Seehund | 187 comments View flat View list |
There's a petition aimed at Amiga Inc. set up at http://www.petitiononline.com/amigaos/ for all those who disagree with Amiga Inc's presented plans regarding compulsory OS/hardware bundling and licensing.
An excerpt from the petition:
On April 12th, 2002, you, Amiga Inc., published your plans regarding distribution policies for the forthcoming AmigaOS4 in an "Executive Update" on your web site.
In short, what you say and what we the undersigned object against is this:
* 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.
* Such hardware and its distributors must be approved and licensed by Amiga Inc. and the hardware distributors must also sell and support AmigaOS4.
* AmigaOS will only be available bundled with such hardware.
We think that the above will seriously hurt AmigaOS users, the POP/PPC hardware market and thus ultimately you, Amiga Inc., yourselves.
To read the entire petition and sign it, please click here.
Before those imagining sides, factions, camps and personal enemies everywhere start commenting, it must be emphasised that this poll is not intended to "promote" anything else than the success of AmigaOS, the POP/PPC hardware market, free choice and ethical business practices.
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Petition: AmigaOS distribution policies and PPC hardware : Comment 12 of 187 | ANN.lu |
Posted by Seehund on 25-May-2002 20:48 GMT | In reply to Comment 9 (Adam Kowalczyk): Adam Kowalczyk:
> It's pretty obvious to me that the people that are against Amiga's
> policies concerning licensing and the copy protection want to run OS 4.x
> on the Pegasos.
The Pegasos is just one example. It's a perfect illustration of what *compulsory* restrictions imposed by a software company on hardware distributors can lead to. I think it ought to be totally irrelevant if the sticker on my hardware says "Pegasos", "A1G3-SE" or "Oink".
BTW, you sound like it's a bad thing to want to run AmigaOS on a Pegasos or whatever hardware of your choice?
> The petition might be more productive if it was directed towards bPlan
> and their unwillingness to accept Amiga Inc.'s terms.
The point is that no hardware manufacturer/distributor should have to apply for a license and start selling someone else's software in the first place, not if the software company in question wishes that their OS should be at least moderately successful. Amiga Inc. are in no position to demand anything from hardware distributors. They don't have a market dominating OS (if they did I'm sure the US DOJ would have a thing or two to say about their policies) and they don't design, make or distribute any hardware of their own.
Even if a petition aimed at bplan to make them accept another company's licensing conditions would succeed, you'd still have to repeat that petition for any other current or future POP mobo distributor. The obstacle needs to be removed. Also, if the obstacle isn't removed the chances of seeing future POP designs and distributors to petition are reduced. There is a POP market already, albeit small. That could grow much faster if AmigaOS was allowed to share the exact same hardware as other PPC OSes and became an addition to that POP market.
Stop thinking "bplan... Eyetech... bplan... Eyetech...".
Think "AmigaOS... PPC hardware... AmigaOS... PPC hardware...".
Once again, this petition is NOT pro- or anti- to any of the current one or two mobos. The idea is to GET AWAY from thinking about specific distributors and labels. |
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