| [Rant] osopinion: Close That Open Hardware! | ANN.lu |
| Posted on 12-Jun-2002 00:21 GMT by sutro | 169 comments
View flat
View list | |
A rather unispired article at best. Read
here for more.
|
|
| List of all comments to this article |
| osopinion: Close That Open Hardware! : Comment 37 of 169 | ANN.lu |
| Posted by Janne Sirén on 12-Jun-2002 10:35 GMT | In reply to Comment 24 (Samface):
I believe one of Seehund's arguments is that, in his opinion, Amiga Inc. should be the one trying to assure as great a compatibility as possible, to apply for any possible developer programs and licenses necessary for making that happen, and to get all possible information to guarantee technical compatibility. Or at least, not build any obstacles against people like Hyperion to do so. This, in his opinion as I see it, would then enable the AmigaOS to run on maximum amount of hardware thus benefiting Amiga Inc. and the POP market as a whole while not requiring any hardware manufacturers being bothered with licenses.
The argument is, as far as I see, that Amiga Inc. as the small fish should be the one doing this because larger (or simply other) players necessarily would not be interested in going to ANY trouble in a getting a license for their hardware. Hey, even Thendic don't seem to be interested in getting Pegasos approved, they view the market as uninteresting and have other priorities. Bill Buck recently said, though, they are willing to help someone with it. Seehunds' is an opinion I can respect. Whether or not there are or will be any interesting players (apart from Pegasos) in the POP market is certainly another matter, but Amiga Inc. definitely are limiting the hardware AmigaOS will run on with this decision. Naturally there are good arguments for that as well.
But back to Seehund's petition. Say, someone builds a POP board for embedded medical applications. They might also sell their hardware product separately and it might seem like a nice piece of hardware for AmigaOS. Now, the maker of it really couldn't be bothered with anything called Amiga, too small a market and they have their focus (even if Amiga would seem like a good idea, many businesses like their focuses real tight) but the Amiga community might still view their product as a viable alternative and the maker might still sell it standalone. For this board to get AmigaOS 4.x there is now the added obstacle of requiring a license from the maker or a dealer. This adds to the requirement of Hyperion creating a compatibility layer.
I'm quite sure this is what Amiga Inc. and Hyperion's recent clarifications here do mean. They require someone to get a license for any hardware supported by AmigaOS 4.x (current PPC accelerators being the exception). While this has some benefits, it also adds to the already difficult task of getting the OS run on as many hardware platforms as possible. And, as I see it, this is what the petition is all about.
Let me have a detailed go at it one more time so that you can agree or disagree with my points:
1) Amiga Inc. requires all hardware capable of running AmigaOS 4.x to be licensed.
2) The licensing can be done by anyone willing to offer adequate support for end-users and providing the hardware for testing (i.e. the manufacturer or a dealer).
3) Amiga Inc. requires AmigaOS 4.x to be sold with all hardware that is capable of running it (i.e. all that are compatible and have the dongle).
4) Their executive update seems to suggest otherwise, but at this time it is unclear whether or not a separate AmigaOS 4.x and hardware dongle could be sold for a licensed piece of hardware. Doing so would certainly alleviate some concerns, not all. I believe 1-3 to be quite clear at this time though.
5) CyberstormPPC and BlizzardPPC are exceptions to 1) and 4).
Whether or not you agree is certainly your business, sign it or don't. Claiming the petition to be FUD is just misusing the term. Please counter 1-5 if you do not agree (I'm not saying you have to agree with the opinion opposing them, just if you agree with the argument that this is what Amiga are indeed saying). And if you do agree, please tell me where you think the petition differs and is mistaken (again, no need to agree with the rationale in the petition, just with the position of Amiga Inc.).
And if you do think above and the petition are correct in 1-5, the rest in the petition is opinion and something for the undersigned to consider. No right and wrong there, at least not something easily proven - but that's what petitions are all about, people expressing their opinion on a matter. All we should debate here is whether or not something in that petition is fundamentally flawed and I am yet to see those arguments from you.
I'm looking forward to your reply, thank you. |
|
| 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.
|
