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[News] Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer ConferenceANN.lu
Posted on 10-Jul-2003 04:06 GMT by Christophe Decanini (Edited on 2003-07-10 06:19:54 GMT by Christophe Decanini)48 comments
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There will be a Pegasos at the Linuxtag in Karlsruhe this weekend. Linuxtag is Europe's largest GNU/Linux exhibition. The Linuxtag is at the Karlsruhe Convention Center from 10-13 July.

Genesi will be represented by Nicholas Blachford, whose "Analysis: x86 Vs PPC" was featured yesterday on OSNews and on Slashdot.

Nicolas will be joined by Genesi's newest team member Sven Luther. Sven is a developer known to both the MorphOS and Linux development communities. Sven Luther's LinuxPPC kernel was recently announced on MorphOS-News.

At Linuxtag, the Genesi Team and the Pegasos will be found in the Debian Booth.

The following weekend (18-20 July 2003) Sven will also be attending the Debian Developers Conference, Oslo, Norway with the Pegasos. Details about that conference can be found here.

Sven has joined Genesi to manage the LinuxPPC development effort for the Pegasos. Sven is a PhD candidate at the University of Strausbourg and an Associate Professor in the Computer Sciences Department. The University of Strasburg was founded in 1621, with a long tradition of academic excellence. Louis Pasteur, John Calvin, Marc Bloch and four Nobel Prize winners have studied or taught there. We can now add Sven to the list...;-)

Welcome Sven!

Of course, Nicholas and Sven will be able to demo MorphOS too!

Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 1 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by bbrv on 10-Jul-2003 02:20 GMT
We are proud to be working with people like Nicholas and Sven. Best wishes for a safe trip...;-)

Do your best!

:-D

R&B
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 2 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 10-Jul-2003 10:01 GMT
If this is relevant to Amiga users, why didn't you mention that they will have x86 based motherboards at the show too?

"If Amiga users find it interesting, then it IS relevant to Amiga users."

I find the Playstation2 console to be interesting and I'm an Amigan, should I be posting news about the latest Playstation2 game on ANN.lu then? Well, I don't have a problem with going to Playstation specific sites for Playstation related news, why should the Pegasos be any different?

"But the Pegasos is relevant to Amiga users!"

Why?

"Because it has been designed by former Amigans runs MorphOS which has been programmed by former Amigans"

Do you know the meaning of "former"? Wake up, there are atleast a million "former" Amigans out there. I even dare saying that there are more former Amigans working for Microsoft than there are working for Genesi.

"Stop trolling, Spamface! The Pegasos is relevant to Amiga users wether you like it or not."

No, it's creator wants it to be which doesn't neccessarily make it so. I'm sorry but it's managers are working in direct opposition to the one and only REAL Amiga (that is a fact, not an opinion), we as Amiga users have more reasons to boycott these guys rather than supporting them.

"Competition is good, Spamface."

On any ordinary market, I would agree to that. However, we're talking about a market which has been dead for many years. Let's take an example from our history; the H&P vs Phase5 war. Companies, developers and users, they were all divided up into two "camps" (notice how this resembles our current situation) and did everything in their might to oppose the other cause. The end result is that I as a user, still as of today, has to reboot the very same hardware AND OS in order to run different Amiga PPC applications. There were no benefits for us as users what so ever from this dispute, period. The situation that we have today resembles the old H&P vs Phase5 war but is ten times worse; now we're talking about both different hardware and OS rather than just different PPC kernels. Tomorrow, I will need to own two computers and two operating systems in order to run all Amiga PPC applications. How sane is that?

"That is so obvious flamebait, go away troll!"

I'd say this marketing of the Pegasos and MorphOS on Amiga related sites is obvious flamebait. How about putting up a WindowsXP ad on MacMinute.com, for example? I'd say that would stir up a few threads in their forums...
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 3 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by hooligan/dcs on 10-Jul-2003 10:14 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (samface):
So, to sum it all up, you say Pegasos/MOS has nothing to do with Amiga or Amiga-feeling ?

Missed a pill or a doctors appointment, did we?
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 4 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by itix on 10-Jul-2003 10:16 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (samface):
???
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 5 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Wayne Hunt on 10-Jul-2003 10:20 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (samface):
Samface,

What have you been smoking? I can't speak for the masses, though I feel that I know most of them very well. The silent majority of this community doesn't care whether or not something bears "the name". They don't care about "Amiga Inc" any more than they care about "Genesi". They just want a viable PPC path from their Classic Amiga. Whether or not you CHOOSE to believe it, as an Amiga user myself, I can guarantee you that MorphOS and the Pegasos fit that description. I wish I could compare OS4 to MorphOS, but that's simply not possible at this time.

Stop trying to tell people what they do and do not believe. You do not speak for this community at large, any more than I do.... Let people make up their own minds based on the equipment at hand. That is, unless you're afraid to let people judge MorphOS versus Linux.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 6 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Christian Kemp on 10-Jul-2003 10:20 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (samface):
ANN caters to any and all sucessors and alternatives that are "in the spirit of" the Amiga of the Eighties and Nineties. This includes the Pegasos and MorphOS.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 7 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Christophe Decanini on 10-Jul-2003 10:30 GMT
You missed something Samface.

Every time MorphOS get a new user it is more chances for developers in the Amiga community to sell their products, more chances for the users to have products developed.
As for my personal example:
Being fed up with Amiga Inc policies , the 100$ they owe me there were some big chances that this year I would have gone the Apple route.
Instead of that I got a Pegasos and bought some applications.
I'm still here moderating the site etc.

Instead of fighting within the community and taking part into destroying it more you should better spend your time convincing friends, ex Amigan users, Linux users etc make a switch to either OS4 or MorphOS.
We would then all benefit from it.

It is sad to see that a lot of people here waste their energy in self destruction mode while they could help building a bigger, greater community.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 8 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Wayne Hunt on 10-Jul-2003 11:23 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Christophe Decanini):
Hey, great post, and right to the point. Thank you.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 9 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Sigbjørn Skjæret on 10-Jul-2003 11:28 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (samface):
Who says we are "former" Amigans? ..or did you just make that up?

We still own and use Amigas, and will infact release MorphOS for it too, that is, unless you think in your warped little mind that Amigas no longer are Amigas when they run another OS...


- CISC
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 10 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Gunne Steen on 10-Jul-2003 17:01 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (samface):
Hi

In which way are you supporting the Pegasos-guys ?
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 11 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by brotheris on 10-Jul-2003 18:17 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (samface):
Better write something aboug linuxOne with debian. Yes, I am trolling.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 12 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by smithy on 11-Jul-2003 04:44 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (samface):
>If this is relevant to Amiga users

It's a lot more irrelevant than all the AmigaDE stuff that used to clog up ANN, which you never complained about. I bet you wouldn't have been so tolerant if AmigaDE was called MorphDE and made by another company.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 13 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Alkis Tsapanidis on 11-Jul-2003 05:22 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Sigbjørn Skjæret):
He does... He stated that quite some time ago... He also thinks that software
that totally take over the system bypassing the OS cannot exist "as they would
need drivers (!? on Amiga HW?), memory management (that is static on most games)
etc. etc. etc."..
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 14 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 11-Jul-2003 09:26 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Christophe Decanini):
>Every time MorphOS get a new user it is more chances for developers in the
>Amiga community to sell their products, more chances for the users to have
>products developed.

Every time Windows get a new user it is more chances for developers in the Amiga community to sell their products, more chances for the users to have products developed.

Starting to see my point yet?
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 15 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 11-Jul-2003 09:32 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (Christian Kemp):
So, what makes MorphOS in "the spirit"? That it is a rip off rather than an original? That it is a reversed engineered OS which they are trying to market as a real successor? I don't know about you, but "the spirit"(TM) is very much about originality to me.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 16 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 11-Jul-2003 09:53 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (Wayne Hunt):
Who said that this has ANYTHING to do with the name? Besides, the fact that they don't bear the name doesn't work as an argument for why it would be something good for the community.

They have nothing to offer the Amiga community besides backwards compatibility through emulation and reverse engineered AmigaOS API's on PPC hardware. MorphOS looks like AmigaOS, runs Amiga applications through emulation, but does that make it an Amiga OS? You know, you keep talking about a path, but where is that path? A Pegasos with MorphOS gives me pretty much the same functionality as Amithlon, kind of like a really fast classic Amiga but nothing more. What I keep wondering is, where is the *path*? Where will it take us?

Amiga Inc., Eyetech, and Hyperion will be offering us a *future* path. They have the name, the rights, the sources, the patents, everything. With this they can give us a real successor rather than a clone. If this didn't matter to the Amiga users, why didn't they by a PC several years ago? I mean, Microsoft can offer you everything you ever wanted for a desktop computer, and for backwards compatibility you have WinUAE. A PC is much cheaper, performs much better, runs every major OS out there (except MacOS), why the hell would anyone want an Amiga if it wasn't about the IP currently owned by Amiga Inc.?
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 17 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 11-Jul-2003 09:56 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (hooligan/dcs):
Yes.

No, having another opinion than you does NOT make me sick in any way. Please drop such fascist tendencies.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 18 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Gunne Steen on 11-Jul-2003 10:18 GMT
In reply to Comment 14 (samface):
Well, that seems very good, working on all fronts all the time... :-)

No, as you say, the best people can do is to be *against*

My guess is that the best would be if we close down ann.lu and all the rest as well, close down all companies as well.

I wont discuss this further with you, why dont you start a new site by your own, you can call it... againstmorphos.com ?
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 19 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Janne Sirén on 11-Jul-2003 11:55 GMT
In reply to Comment 15 (samface):
>So, what makes MorphOS in "the spirit"?

Simple, really (not in order of significance):

a) Made to look and feel like a next generation AmigaOS, Amiga as role-model

b) Source and binary compatible with AmigaOS 3.1 API (much like Linux to UNIX)

c) Source and binary compatible with later Amiga advancements e.g. WarpUp

d) Has a version that runs on Amigas (added relevance to Amiga community)

e) Made by Amiga enthusiasts to be a (not the) successor to Amiga because at the time no-one else was moving forwards

It is one of the paths. Feel free to follow your own, but this ones relevance to the Amiga community can't really be denied any more than the relevance of Linux to the *nix community. MorphOS isn't AmigaOS any more than Linux is UNIX in technical and accurate terms, but just a like a duck... if it looks like one, sounds like one...

Linux sure is UNIX to a lot of common folk.

And just like Linux efforts are advancing application availability across the *nix spectrum, MorphOS is advancing all current "Amiga" operating systems. Not much PowerPC application development for Amiga-like operating systems would have been on-going during the past months without MorphOS. It has brought some help to dealers and other organizations as well. Just like was pointed out above, MorphOS benefits the entire community in many ways.

You choose to see only to back-side of the coin. I can assure you. There is the other side too.

What about the future? Who knows. Efforts like POSIX have kept the *nix operating systems quite compatible. We can, after decades, still use the generic term *nix meaning a dozen or so different operating systems. Perhaps we can still call Amiga-like the current three (AmigaOS, AROS and MorphOS) in twenty years, perhaps we can't. I don't know. I'm sure none of us does. It all depends how independent directions will they take. But for the moment, MorphOS is very relevant to the Amiga community in my opinion.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 20 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by hooligan/dcs on 11-Jul-2003 14:11 GMT
In reply to Comment 15 (samface):
>So, what makes MorphOS in "the spirit"? That it is a rip off rather than an original? That it is a reversed engineered OS which they are trying to market as a real successor? I don't know about you, but "the spirit"(TM) is very much about originality to me.

First of all, in daily use, I don't see much difference in Pegasos/MOS compared to my Amiga with PicassoIV and soundcard, except now I am doing things faster, I don't need to reboot so often and the working environment is snappier and prettier.

Secondly, I still use most of the same software I used on my Amiga. CygnusEditor, Magellan, ImageFX and a few others. And all of them faster than on real Amiga btw, and thats without JIT.

On the downside, not ALL the software that I used works. namely OctaMED 4, SoundStudio, HippoPlayer, DeliTracker .. all due to missing Paula in Pegasos or missing AHI support in software.

So it feels VERY much like I am using Amiga. It is not the same thing, it definetely IS NOT an Amiga.
And Pegasos can never replace or lower my respect for my old Amigas. They served me well and they served me a very long time.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 21 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 11-Jul-2003 16:16 GMT
In reply to Comment 20 (hooligan/dcs):
Exactly my point. What you got is basicly Amithlon, but for PPC. Now, tell me how this would make some kind of a future for the Amiga.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 22 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 11-Jul-2003 16:48 GMT
In reply to Comment 19 (Janne Sirén):
>a) Made to look and feel like a next generation AmigaOS, Amiga as role-model

Well, a PC with WinUAE, AmigaOS3.9 and Visualprefs will do that even better since Ambient is still far from a complete workbench replacement.

>b) Source and binary compatible with AmigaOS 3.1 API (much like Linux to UNIX)

Backwards compatibility through reverse engineering and emulation... Again, a PC with WinUAE does this even better and cheaper.

>c) Source and binary compatible with later Amiga advancements e.g. WarpUp

Through emulation, yes.

>d) Has a version that runs on Amigas (added relevance to Amiga community)

A very early alpha/beta that requires the real AmigaOS in order to run, yes. I don't even know if it replaces anything of the original AmigaOS since it seems to be just emulating the 68k and then running AmigaOS ontop of that emulation.

>e) Made by Amiga enthusiasts to be a (not the) successor to Amiga because at
>the time no-one else was moving forwards

Made by the same people that promised us the infamous A/Box as well as those G3/G4 upgrade boards for the classic Amiga which they failed to deliever, and even failed to repay the prepayments for. I'm sorry to bring this into the discussion but you refered to them as mere "enthusiasts" which I simply have to object to. There are no angels on earth, I know. All I'm saying is that there are reasons to *question* these guys motives.

Anyway, what has UNIX and Linux got to do with anything? We're talking about commercial operating systems here, the difference is of outmost imortance.

Now, exactly what has MorphOS offered developers which noone else has? Considering the points I've made; nothing. Furthermore, why do you keep ignoring the effects of having different developer environments and operating systems on the same desktop market? Think about the H&P vs Phase5 war, exactly how did we benefit from that? Sure, I could access both systems with a reboot and sometimes with emulation. However, how are we going to do that when we won't even be running the same hardware nor OS? How will I be able to access AmigaOS4 applications in MorphOS on a Pegasos? How will I be able to access MorphOS applications on an AmigaOne with AmigaOS4? No, all developers will NOT release duplicate versions of their software, either because they are lazy or because they have a certain reason for not doing so. We know this from our history; the incompatibility problems between WarpUP and PowerUP applications remains still as of today, no point in denying it.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 23 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Janne Sirén on 11-Jul-2003 17:48 GMT
In reply to Comment 22 (samface):
There is a difference in our perspectives. You keep discussing the past in much of your post, I would like to concentrate on the present and the future in this thread (we can discuss history elsewhere if you'd like). I don't think you bringing up old issues really has anything to do with the point, my only major point "MorphOS is relevant to the Amiga community". Whether or not one believes it will succeed is another matter. Time will tell.

I'm also quite willing to concede that there are no angels. But I won't bring up the other camp up, because again, I don't think that is relevant. So I'll just concede this: I think it is a shame DCE have handled their PowerUp repairs apparently quite poorly, but DCE aren't Genesi. I think it is a shame that Phase 5 folded in less than nice circumstances. I'm sorry for the people who lost money. But at least there was a bankrupcy and legal proceedings. I could go on about Amiga Inc. too, or H&P the other side of the PowerPC kernel wars, but I won't. I don't think those are relevant to the question at hand. Even though many of the same people are involved, there are important differences too - e.g. Phase 5's CEO, the man responsible, isn't a part of Genesi.

There are no angels and we all have our opinions of who are the less tainted ones. That discussion is wholly irrelevant to the question at hand. The question at hand, in my post, was, is MorphOS relevant to the Amiga community. I argue that it is and will answer your remarks from that perspective.

>>a) Made to look and feel like a next generation AmigaOS, Amiga as role-model
>Well, a PC with WinUAE, AmigaOS3.9 and Visualprefs will do that even better >since Ambient is still far from a complete workbench replacement.

But none of them have been made to be the next generation AmigaOS. This is something that can be only said of AmigaOS 4.0, MorphOS and AROS. They are all operating systems written with the premise, even if in different ways. This has nothing to do with WinUAE, Amithlon etc. that are all just emulation layers that run one of the above-mentioned operating systems. MorphOS is independent, so is AROS, so is AmigaOS 4.0. And they all aim for the future in their way.

>>b) Source and binary compatible with AmigaOS 3.1 API (much like Linux to UNIX)
>Backwards compatibility through reverse engineering and emulation... Again, a
>PC with WinUAE does this even better and cheaper.

I see, you use the word emulation quite liberally. Again, WinUAE has nothing to do with this. It emulates the machine (Amiga) and runs actual AmigaOS on top. Same goes for Amithlon. AROS, MorphOS and AmigaOS 4.0 are different beasts. They actually all include the same (3.1) API. MorphOS doesn't emulate AmigaOS API. It HAS the same API. Its designers emulated AmigaOS designers when they made their OS, so to speak. Again, MorphOS and AROS are independent of AmigaOS, and run AmigaOS source-code natively without any emulation - something that WinUAE and Amithlon do not do. And when you are natively compatible, you don't need emulation. MorphOS doesn't emulate anymore than AmigaOS 4.0 will.

>>c) Source and binary compatible with later Amiga advancements e.g. WarpUp
>Through emulation, yes.

No, again through API compatibility. There is no emulation involved when running applications (except obviously for 68k emulation that AmigaOS 4.0 will have to do as well). It is the native API (even if via wrappers). Only "emulating" was done when designing and implementing the API, but I'd hardly call this emulating, more like imitating, duplicating API functionality. Fully legal for interoperability, too.

>>d) Has a version that runs on Amigas (added relevance to Amiga community)
>A very early alpha/beta that requires the real AmigaOS in order to run, yes.
>I don't even know if it replaces anything of the original AmigaOS since it
>seems to be just emulating the 68k and then running AmigaOS ontop of that
>emulation.

This indeed was more of an emulation, MorphOS 0.4. But I'm not talking about that. MorphOS today is a different beast and there is a version for Amiga, up to date too. I personally know people who run it, even though it is not yet openly available.

>>e) Made by Amiga enthusiasts to be a (not the) successor to Amiga because at
>>the time no-one else was moving forwards
>Made by the same people that promised us the infamous A/Box as well as those
>G3/G4 upgrade boards for the classic Amiga which they failed to deliever, and

Want to discuss the past? Okay, I'll bite.

Made by the same people that brought us the only working Amiga PowerPC solution that was used to implement AmigaOS 4.0. Without it, there probably wouldn't be anything to develop AmigaOS on. For the sake of completeness, where is your appreciation for that?

>All I'm saying is that there are reasons to *question* these guys motives.

And what might those be? To make a business? I'm sure that is a motive of theirs. I know mine is - to make a business out of something I really like. Most of us would love to have a job that is also their great passion in life.

>Anyway, what has UNIX and Linux got to do with anything? We're talking about
>commercial operating systems here, the difference is of outmost imortance.

UNIX and Linux have everything to do with this. UNIX is commercial if you want to make that distinction. Linux is not, so in that regard, well, lets compare it to AROS then. But there are other commercial UNIX-like operating systems.

The point I'm making there is that there are like dozen or more operating systems that people generally call "UNIX" or *nix. Only some of them really are based on the UNIX source. Others, like the BSD family or GNU/Linux, are completely separate creations. Just like AmigaOS and MorphOS, they too are majorly API compatible (no emulation there either, just built in API compabitility), run most of the same software but they are different operating systems...

But since they run the same software and are API compatible and much alike in many of their technological aspects, they can, will and are grouped into a family of operating systems often called unixes, or *nix. They look, feel and mostly are the same, even if much is different when looking closely - such as different code bases, different pricing, different makers, different names...

UNIX has a history spanning several decades. They had to deal with the same situation we are dealing now, only they did it much earlier. I believe there is a lot of wisdom to be gathered from there.

Let all roses grow. We might end up with a garden.

>Now, exactly what has MorphOS offered developers which noone else has?
>Considering the points I've made; nothing.

First off, that wasn't my point. My point was relevance. MorphOS is far more than emulation (and even emulation would be relevant to the community, Amithlon and UAE certainly are - I know I love my Amiga Forever!).

Secondly, I do think MorphOS has offered developers and distributors and other types a lot - and indirectly also helped (even if offered competition to) the AmigaOS 4.0 effort. Because AmigaOS 4.0 isn't here yet but MorphOS is, there is a next generation system for Amiga enthusiasts to play with. This buys time. PowerPC games are emerging that are very likely to be quickly ported to AmigaOS 4.0 when that arrives, because the API is so similar. People are still hanging around at Amiga community hangouts because there is more stuff happening. There is AROS, MorphOS... and then the official solution.

I believe in diversity. I thought Amiga users used to do that...

>Furthermore, why do you keep ignoring the effects of having different
>developer environments and operating systems on the same desktop market?

I'm not ignoring them. I just didn't think that had anything to do with the issue of relevance of MorphOS to the Amiga community. I assert again that MorphOS is relevant. I have made my case above. Whether or not MorphOS is GOOD for the Amiga community, only time will tell. For the moment, I think it is looking pretty promising. It sure has made a very positive impact in many people, they can get into coding and doing stuff in a Amiga-like native PowerPC environment instead of just waiting and reading about Amiga Inc.'s financial woes.

I absolutely concede that there are negative possibilities and effects as well, but then there always is. Looking at UNIX though, I still think the diversity may at the end of the day benefit us all.

>Think about the H&P vs Phase5 war, exactly how did we benefit from that?

We didn't. Inherent risks of competition. But don't dismiss the potential rewards either!

>However, how are we going to do that when we won't even be running the same
>hardware nor OS?

There are already efforts like OpenAmiga going on to see how to best implement cross-platform compatibility. I'm not saying this is an ideal situation, of course it would have been great to see Commodore continue with the AmigaOS back when, but that is history and now is now. We don't have such a strong contender anymore like we did with AmigaOS 3.1 and Commodore. AmigaOS 4.0 isn't even here yet. MorphOS is too much of a player to be dismissed now. What we have are three different paths forward. Those will exist regarless of which one we feel is best. I believe UNIX gives us an example of how that can also benefit us.

Another possibility of course is that these paths take us to totally different places and the community splits into pieces and gathers new strenghts from different places. Perhaps one day we can't say MorphOS is relevant to Amiga, perhaps it is only relevant to MorphOS then and has its own community. Same with AROS, or this might happen because AmigaOS itself goes some place else - like morphes into AmigaDE and abandons its technological roots. Who knows. But instead of speculating on that, we should see how we can best benefit from what we have now and cherish the options and possibilities there.

>No, all developers will NOT release duplicate versions of their software,
>either because they are lazy or because they have a certain reason for not

Actually the changes may be so trivial, like on UNIX, that many developers indeed might opt to release several versions of their applications. This can be seen already on mobile phone Java apps too - because the devices are so alike in their Java implementation, but a little different in specs, same software is available in different releases. This is also what happens when you compile software for *nix systems. There too is conditional code for different OSes.

>We know this from our history; the incompatibility problems between WarpUP and
>PowerUP applications remains still as of today, no point in denying it.

And I'm not trying too. I openly concede that this situation is not ideal or without risk from a certain focused point of view. But from another, it offers compelling possibilities. We are no longer tied to one path forwards, we have several new ways to contribute, more security in a sense (not such a big deal if some company folds), and new exiting possibilities to advance a legacy we all share and appreciate, and do new fun things with technology.

You see us divided and by doing so contribute to making sure that we are. I choose to see us as one, and embrace the possibilities it brings.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 24 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Alkis Tsapanidis on 11-Jul-2003 20:13 GMT
In reply to Comment 21 (samface):
Since when is Amithlon an AmigaOS replacement? Last time I checked it was a
68k emulator + more on which AmigaOS 3.9 run.
MorphOS's A/Box is a PPC native AmigaOS compatible Operating System that
replicates the AmigaOS 3.1 API (+ AmigaOS extensions, like WarpOS) and adds
many extra stuff to bring it up to date from the user and (MAINLY) developer
point of view. You cannot deny that there are *MANY* extensions in the API,
even if you jump up and down for a year, which is what you're doing since your
debute on ANN Luxemburg.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 25 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Alkis Tsapanidis on 11-Jul-2003 20:14 GMT
In reply to Comment 22 (samface):
A very early alpha/beta that requires the real AmigaOS in order to run, yes. I don't even know if it replaces anything of the original AmigaOS since it seems to be just emulating the 68k and then running AmigaOS ontop of that emulation.
--

Sorry... I have a *MUCH* more recent version than that. Go back home.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 26 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by hooligan/dcs on 11-Jul-2003 21:20 GMT
In reply to Comment 21 (samface):
>tell me how this would make some kind of a future for the Amiga.

Sorry, I thought we were discussing about Pegasos, not Amiga here ????
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 27 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 14-Jul-2003 09:56 GMT
In reply to Comment 23 (Janne Sirén):
How it achieves the same functionality as a PC with WinUAE is completely and utterly irrelevant to the user. My point remains; MorphOS does NOT offer anything wich a PC with WinUAE and/or Amithlon can't. AmigaOS4, on the other hand, offers *future* compatibility rather than just backwards compatibility.

BTW, I must correct you on the WarpUP compatibility issue; MorphOS does NOT run WarpUP applications natively, though it has the ability to emulate WarpUP through a fake powerpc.library. Atleast it did the last time I checked.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 28 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 14-Jul-2003 10:08 GMT
In reply to Comment 26 (hooligan/dcs):
Aaaaah... Finally some insight here. Exactly my point, it's not Amiga. :-P
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 29 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 14-Jul-2003 10:20 GMT
In reply to Comment 25 (Alkis Tsapanidis):
These lame "AmigaOS4 doesn't exist" and "MorphOS has come so much further in this not yet released beta that I have" arguments are starting to annoy me. Either we talk about what is released and is available to the public or we don't, please don't mix things up.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 30 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 14-Jul-2003 10:24 GMT
In reply to Comment 24 (Alkis Tsapanidis):
So, why should I choose MorphOS rather than a PC with WinUAE then? Answer that question, everything else is completly and utterly irrelevant. *Everything* is about what the product can do for the user, not about how it does it.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 31 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 14-Jul-2003 10:26 GMT
In reply to Comment 27 (samface):
Sorry that I couldn't reply to all of what you wrote, all I can do for now is that, as a summary.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 32 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Janne Sirén on 14-Jul-2003 13:47 GMT
In reply to Comment 27 (samface):
>How it achieves the same functionality as a PC with WinUAE is completely and
>utterly irrelevant to the user.

Yet it has everything to do with the way a solution can offer the future you feel so strongly of. Your sentence above could apply to AmigaOS 4.0 as well once released, yet it doesn't make it truly accurate.

WinUAE and Amithlon are both just emulators emulating to a various degree a machine, call it a virtual Amiga if you will, that then runs the real 68k AmigaOS on top. We all know that emulators are good for backwards compatibility, but hardly ever offer any chance at a future - simply because they are slower than native implementations.

Both MorphOS and AROS are fully native API compatible re-implementations of AmigaOS 3.1 with extras on top. They offer future paths of their own, because they are not emulators - they are "as far as the user is concerned", the real thing. Sure, they might miss a feature or two, and offer a feature or two not yet in AmigaOS 4.0 (yet to be released anyway), but the basic premise stands - if it looks like a duck, feels like a duck... it is one.

So, what AROS, MorphOS and AmigaOS 4.0 share (even if there are various differences in details, state of readiness etc.) is that they are AmigaOS 3.x compatible operating systems. This can not be said of any of the emulators.

So, we have three operating systems with a lot of common. Future may or may not be one of those things (as I openly conceded, yet you ignored much of my response in yours). But that is not to say they don't have a future. All of them might have a brilliant future for all I know. They may go their separate ways, or they may stay close to each other, much like the UNIX example I gave. The future is what we make of it.

The only true question at hand in my posts was relevance to the Amiga community. It is hardly irrelevant that we now have three AmigaOS compatible operating systems. They are not emulators. No, I don't know where their futures will lead, but none of us can see the future anyway. AmigaOS 4.0 might never appear, MorphOS might be cancelled tommorrow, AROS might dwindle into obscurity. Nobody knows.

The important thing: All of them have their strenghts and a chance to contribute to our community. AROS is open and free, parts of it are used in AmigaOS 3.9 and MorphOS. AmigaOS is the official path, name and all. MorphOS has the strenght of a dedicated hardware design house behind it. We are no longer tied to a future, we have several to choose from. All of the are relevant to the community today, since all share AmigaOS 3.x compatibility without using emulation (except for 68k) and a familiar development environment and community. It can be a benefit, even if there are certainly risks involved too.

You comparing MorphOS to WinUAE and Amithlon is simply factually incorrect. Please familiarize yourself with the concept of API compatibility and the history of *nix operating systems and their compatibility with eachother (you don't claim Linux to be an emulator!?!?) if you are really interested in seeing my point. If what you say would be true, then GNU/Linux would be an emulator too. It most definitely is not. As for the rest of the relevance to Amiga community, I think I made my case above.

As I'm not so familiar with the actual WarpOS compatibility implementation in MorphOS, I don't wish to dispute your response on that. The fact that a "fake" library is there could mean only a simple wrapper instead of an emulator, but I don't know. Perhaps you are correct. However, your use of the word emulation has been consistently far from the way I perceive it.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 33 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Janne Sirén on 14-Jul-2003 14:02 GMT
In reply to Comment 28 (samface):
>Aaaaah... Finally some insight here. Exactly my point, it's not Amiga. :-P

MorphOS? Pegasos? Obviously not. Nobody in this thread claimed them to be as far as I can tell.

But they do offer a compelling potential future path for the Amiga community for the reasons I outlined above. One of those paths. Much like Linux or BSD is offering to UNIX enthusiasts...

You choose to see us divided. I see no rational reason to feel the same. We don't know the future yet. What we do now is what counts. The more people feel like you do, the more divided we will be. The more we work together, the better. Just look at the UNIX communities - they have benefited tremendeously from cross-operating system projects. Much of the strength of *nix lies in the fact that it is so diverse. There are solutions for many a problem there...

MorphOS already has and will no doubt continue to draw new developer potential to it. It is interesting and it is here now. Why would you want to impose artificial barriers in making sure these people never come back to benefit AmigaOS? Why couldn't we all benefit, no matter what our number one choice is? We can already see how AROS has benefited MorphOS and AmigaOS (3.9) too a little. We can see how native MorphOS versions of AmigaOS 3.x games have appeared. When AmigaOS 4.0 comes, MorphOS games will surely be ported to it in return. It is easy and good business. And if we can continue with that productive circle of life, we will all benefit.

As I openly conceded above, we would all be very happy with a single AmigaOS 6.2 or something from Commodore today. I'm sure we would. But we no longer have such a strong contenter from which to build as in 1993. History has nurtured projects like AROS and MorphOS due to AmigaOS' neglect, and as far as I can tell, they are here to stay. I don't think we should fight it now, but instead see how we can benefit from it as a community. Lets leave the business competition to those who are in that position, as a community we should make the most of it. In my opinion.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 34 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 14-Jul-2003 14:23 GMT
In reply to Comment 23 (Janne Sirén):
Furthermore, why do you keep talking about clones as something that would be advancing the platform? Both MorphOS and AROS is about reinventing the wheel, and both has quite some work to do before it can offer the user the same functionality as AmigaOS3.x.

You know, there is a reason for why Thendic-France tried to make MorphOS the real official next generation AmigaOS; because cooperation in such a small market as the Amiga market is better. Imagine an AmigaOS made through cooperation between AROS, Genesi and Hyperion, as a unified effort. One single OS for all Amiga users and developers. It's an impossible dream, but also the only thing that would have been able to revive the Amiga again.

Instead of uniting and trying to compete on the big market out there, we divide and compete with each other for whatever is left of the former Amiga market. It's insane to believe that this kind of competition would somehow be stimulating the Amiga market. Look around you, watch Amigans who still had faith, loosing it and leaving this god forsaken community once and for all.

BTW, did you ever own a PPC card for your classic Amiga? It doesn't seem that way since you keep talking about the delusion of Amiga software developers making multiple compilations of their PPC software in order to suit all AmigaOS compatible operating systems and hardware. This is simply not true in the land of Amiga. Though there are a few developers that indeed has had this policy and surely has practised it. However, that is a minority rather than a majority. Not one single WarpUP compatible executable has been released from Vaporware, for example. That is (if not the biggest) one of the major internet connectivity software developers on the Amiga market. Then we have Hyperion, which has never released any PowerUP compatible executable, ever. Do you really think they would ever compile anything to run on MorphOS? I don't think I have to explain what the Pegasos users will be missing out on because of this. Furthermore, we have applications like CandyFactory2, WipeOut, all of Haage&Partner's software, IBrowse, etc. Do you expect any of those to ever run natively in MorphOS? Didn't think so. The same goes for many MorphOS oriented applications as well. It's a fact that there is a split on the Amiga software market and it is restricting the user's choice. There is nothing about any of this that would be "stimulating" the Amiga market, period. Wake up and smell the coffee.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 35 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 14-Jul-2003 14:52 GMT
In reply to Comment 33 (Janne Sirén):
>Lets leave the business competition to those who are in that position, as a
>community we should make the most of it.

That is *exactly* how Microsoft managed to build up their monopoly. I say it's time that we as consumer speak up. Multiple standards, fictional compatibility restrictions, be happy with what you get, etc. Is that really what you want? Well, I don't.

For example, the current standard 3D API for Amiga games and applications is Warp3D. Nearly every hardware accelerated 3D application or game out there requires it. Do you really think such applications are just another recompile away from running on MorphOS natively? That is just one example, then think about the rest of all the new API's in both AmigaOS4 and MorphOS. If your reasoning about multiple compilations of the same unmodified sources would be true, you would have to be restricting your software to using the old AmigaOS3.x API's only since it's the only compatibility AmigaOS4 and MorphOS shares.

AmigaOS4 won't even be using the same kind of memory managment as MorphOS, you know.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 36 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 14-Jul-2003 15:13 GMT
In reply to Comment 33 (Janne Sirén):
I think you are overestimating the AmigaOS3.x API compatibility by far. The only thing they are good for is actually just backwards compatibility. I mean, since these AmigaOS3.x API's is all AROS and MorphOS have in common with the real thing, how could you possibly consider any of them as a path forwards? If Windows would have AmigaOS3.x compatible API's, would consider it as a path forwards for Amiga users as well?

Again, in order to achieve your wet dream about a unified Amiga software market, you would have to restrict the software to using AmigaOS3.x compatible features only. As soon as you start walking that path forwards of whatever choice of platform you have chosen, you loose compatibility with the other platforms.

This is the reality, regardless of what you might think of it.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 37 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Janne Sirén on 14-Jul-2003 18:27 GMT
In reply to Comment 36 (samface):
>This is the reality, regardless of what you might think of it.

As far as individual points go, I gladly accept much of what you are saying - even if my original point was something completely else. I was pointing out to you the relevance of MorphOS to the Amiga community, something you didn't agree on. Now we are discussing far more complicated issues and I'm sure there is also much more that we agree upon here.

However, the reality is that there are three different paths forward, all with their individual strengths - and not a single one can be easily dismissed. AROS feels like the weakest of the bunch, but then its openness is hard to ignore. And even if we forget AROS, both OS4 and MorphOS are too far to be dropped now.

Or what would you suggest? Genesi drop the IP they wrote in favour of an OS not yet even released? Or Hyperion drop AmigaOS 4.0 in favour of MorphOS? Or both drop what they have and create something new together? These scenarios are very unlikely, so I'm just trying to look at ways to make the best of it. History is, well, history. It happened. Tough. We are here now and we need to move on.

>>Lets leave the business competition to those who are in that position, as a
>>community we should make the most of it.
>That is *exactly* how Microsoft managed to build up their monopoly.

I fail to see how supporting openness and three different solutions instead of just one results in a monopoly?

>Instead of uniting and trying to compete on the big market out there, we
>divide and compete with each other for whatever is left of the former Amiga
>market. It's insane to believe that this kind of competition would somehow be

AROS was started years before AmigaOS 4.0, so was MorphOS. What happened, happened. Like I said, it is unfortunate that things happened like they did - there would be a lot of benefits from a unified solution and co-operation back then, perhaps one that would be competing now with Windows XP and MacOS X if Commodore would have stayed around.

But the reality is, there is no such strong contender now - we can't really ask any of the players to leave the building now. The wheels got reinvented, now that is something we should make the best of. Reading back your posts, you seem to suggest that Genesi has no place being here. I don't share that view. Now that the "separation" has happened, we should try to make the most of it. Why not pitch in with efforts like OpenAmiga if you really think you have something to contribute in keeping us all together?

>stimulating the Amiga market. Look around you, watch Amigans who still had
>faith, loosing it and leaving this god forsaken community once and for all.

There are many reasons for that, but I hardly see MorphOS in the present situation being a reason for leaving - quite the contrary. We are still waiting for AmigaOS 4.0, but MorphOS is already exciting a lot of people and bringing back some of the fun to hundreds of community members. For instance here in our Finnish Amiga user group, there is a lot of excitement over MorphOS. Without it, the last year or so would have only been full of disappointment. No wonder Genesi sold double digits here, the official path has only kept us waiting.

>BTW, did you ever own a PPC card for your classic Amiga?

No, I did not. However, I did not dispute the disaster that the kernel wars were. But what if that would have been solved with more co-operation back then instead of bickering within the community? What if things like kernel emulation would have been first priorities instead of debating which solution is best?

>If your reasoning about multiple compilations of the same unmodified sources
>would be true, you would have to be restricting your software to using the old
>AmigaOS3.x API's only since it's the only compatibility AmigaOS4 and MorphOS
>shares.

That is certainly a worthwhile concern, something that efforts like OpenAmiga try to address. It would be great if the future would bring co-operation like POSIX, X etc. on UNIX and others. We already have the three paths. If you want to demand something of the vendors I think this would be something to demand, co-operation on future APIs. Your suggestion on co-operation in itself is great, I have no problems with that - I haven't seen it in your posts before. If you are sincere on this one, why not push it forwards - just try to be balanced instead of preferring some party over another?

I never said it would be easy or without risk. All I'm saying is that this is the place we are today. We have three solutions that all have strengths of their own. We can either accept and embrace the diversity in our community, or we can fight it and repeat the mistakes of the past.

Think again of the WarpUp vs. PowerUp situation. A lot of effort back then went into ddebating which is better, who is more right, etc. THAT was destructive. Not only the existence of the duplicate technologies. The technologies are here. That is one thing we have little control over. Our attitude and future action, well, that we have control over. Choosing sides won't really help.

That is not to say you can't have a system of preference. Of course one can, and I hope people will. But if you really believe in the co-operation you preach, now is a good time to start.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 38 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 14-Jul-2003 22:19 GMT
In reply to Comment 37 (Janne Sirén):
Genesi has a product that claims to be THE successor to Amiga Inc.'s $5 million IP (even refered to as AmigaOS on PPC, see http://www.amigau.com/aig/morphos_overview.txt), they publicly slander and insult Amiga Inc. and their executives both on the professional level and on the personal level (remember the Bill McEwan ads by bPlan on Google?), has filed a pointless and resource wasting prosecution against Amiga Inc. for not porting the AmigaDE to their Pegasos (like they even cared in the first place), and so the list goes on... Genesi has burned every bridge, there won't be any cooperation between them and Amiga Inc. even if hell freezes over.

Without cooperation, we're ALL doomed, regardless of preferred choice of OS. Think about it, would Genesi really have 600 Pegasos users today if it wasn't for the AmigaOS recognition factor in MorphOS? Not a chance. They are an Amiga clone which means that they are just as dependant of Amiga Inc.'s IP as Amiga Inc. themselves. If noone knew what an Amiga was, even less would know what a Pegasos or MorphOS was. That is a fact that is rather hard to dispute. This means we absolutely need the IP in order to survive as a commercial platform at all, period.

Sure, AROS doesn't share this need since it's not commercial to begin with. However, while Linux has had quite strong support from developers all over the world, I simply don't see the same thing ever happening to AROS.

My conclusion to the above reasoning is simply this: we must set sail to the official path first, the alternatives will progress with it. A strong official and commercial AmigaOS would increase the interest for both a free open source version and a further progressed clone. It was the brand recognition and high price of UNIX that made Linux prosper, just like it was the brand recognition and API compatibility to Windows that made OS/2 such a strong contender.

This attempt by Genesi of succeeding the original with their clone when the original is still in progress is nothing but opposing their own cause at the expense of us users. I admire the efforts of AROS, which indeed show that they are very much willing to cooperate by sharing source code with both AmigaOS and MorphOS, for example. Genesi, on the other hand, is not just opposing every effort of cooperation, but they are doing it on a commercial level.

No, I don't expect Genesi to throw away anything simply for the sake of respecting Amiga Inc.'s IP. I'm not naive. What I am saying is that the day the real official Amiga branded products become worthless is the day that their products become even more worthless. Basicly, they have three options: cooperate, get the hell out of our way, or see you all in computer hell. The first option is what I prefer, the second options isn't very plausible, and the third option is most likely what will happen.

This post probably pinpoints the most crucial issue in the Amiga community today and I hope there still are reasonable people left to read it. Far too many dismisses these issues with the capitalistic mantra "competition is good". What we need is a debate that would enlighten people and put more pressure on the companies involved to start cooperating.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 39 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 14-Jul-2003 22:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 37 (Janne Sirén):
BTW, I've emphasized nothing but cooperation from the very beginning. However, when it became clear that this simply wasn't going to happen, I embraced the "...or get the f... out of our way" philosophy instead.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 40 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Janne Sirén on 15-Jul-2003 07:39 GMT
In reply to Comment 38 (samface):
Thank you for the interesting discussion!

>Genesi has burned every bridge, there won't be any cooperation between them
>and Amiga Inc. even if hell freezes over.

There are two sides to every story and as you said, there are no angels. Remember Amiga Inc. and its partners questioning the legality of MorphOS in public? One man's justice is another's FUD. It would have been nice to see this one settled in court - now it lingers. If you truly want to encourage co-operation and co-existence, your one-sided point of view should subside.

>Think about it, would Genesi really have 600 Pegasos users today if it wasn't
>for the AmigaOS recognition factor in MorphOS? Not a chance.

Well, I don't know about 600, but given larger numbers I'm sure you are correct. The AmigaOS compatibility and the Amiga community has been an important stepping-stone for the product. Just as Microsoft Office compatibility is crucial to any office suite these days.

>A strong official and commercial AmigaOS would increase the interest for both
>a free open source version and a further progressed clone.

That is an interesting opinion, and perhaps not without merit either. But I don't share the opinion that it would be the only viable way forwards.

>This attempt by Genesi of succeeding the original with their clone when the
>original is still in progress is nothing but opposing their own cause at the
>expense of us users.

First of all, you have to remember that MorphOS was started when AmigaOS seemed to be a dead duck. It is not like they started making it when AmigaOS 4.0 was just around the corner. There was the attempted co-operation later, but the sides couldn't find enough common ground - that happens. Now Genesi, just like Amiga and their partners, are trying to do with their own IP what they deem best.

The Pegasos platform has every chance of finding interesting niches for it and MorphOS too. It is too early to judge the business plan of Genesi - time will tell if their current embracing of multiple operating systems and offering their hardware expertise works or not. I'd love to see AmigaOS included there as well, but if they can't agree on the terms on that, well, then they can't.

>Genesi, on the other hand, is not just opposing every effort of cooperation,
>but they are doing it on a commercial level.

But then, you could say the same of Amiga Inc. and their partners. Genesi has their proposal on the table. Amiga Inc. & co. have theirs. Nobody is more right here, they just don't agree on the terms and that is that. If either party deems it is in their interests to change their mind, I hope they will. Until then, the fingers point to two directions. Not just one.

You seem to place huge value on the "$5 milloin IP" of Amiga's. I place value on any IP and Genesi has plenty of their own for which they have worked hard for YEARS (as far as AmigaOS is concerned, Amiga just bought theirs with VC money). History being the judge, they did start their venture when nobody else was really moving forwards with the AmigaOS. I don't find anything sinister about their motives. No legal wrongdoing has been proved. Even reverse engineering for interoperability is legal in EU, but given how well AmigaOS has been documented in public, that may or may not have been necessary.

They probably started out advertising with the word Amiga too much, but even then I do think they have become too careful since. I think it would be quite okay to mention AmigaOS compatibility, just like Microsoft Office compatibility is often mentioned in office suite specifications. But I can understand them being careful about legalities. Apple is currently AFAIK in court over their use on the term UNIX without license. Apple AFAIK claims it is standard industry practice to name compatibility this way. We'll see how that turns out.

>Linux has had quite strong support from developers all over the world, I
>simply don't see the same thing ever happening to AROS.

I don't either. But AROS may have some part in our future and I wish them well. They seem pretty realistic about it too - calling it mainly a research OS for developers to play around with, but who knows, it might do more later as well.

>What we need is a debate that would enlighten people and put more pressure on
>the companies involved to start cooperating.

Now, there's a good idea. But you really don't start it by blasting Genesi and how they are the one's who burned all the bridges. All it does is get someone else bringing up the questionable acts of Amiga Inc. (and there are enough of those) and the debate goes astray from the beginning. If are truly to build a common future, we must learn to forgive (or at least forget in the scope of said debate) first.

You really don't encourage "co-operation" by preaching "get the hell out of our way".
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 41 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 15-Jul-2003 09:38 GMT
In reply to Comment 40 (Janne Sirén):
>First of all, you have to remember that MorphOS was started when AmigaOS
>seemed to be a dead duck. It is not like they started making it when AmigaOS
>4.0 was just around the corner.

Well, poor Ralph Schmidt. Anyway, why would this justify anything? This is just an explanation rather than a justification.

>There was the attempted co-operation later,
>but the sides couldn't find enough common ground - that happens.

Both sides claims to have the users interests as their highest priority. Somone is obviously not telling us the whole truth. Sure, it could be both. But then, the public appearances by Genesi has made rather lasting impressions, you know. The public accusations by Amiga Inc. about MorphOS beeing based on AmigaOS source code doesn't even come close.

BTW, I believe Ben Hermans will be filing a case against Thendic-France this September. Hopefully alot of these issues can finally be settled soon.

> Now Genesi,
>just like Amiga and their partners, are trying to do with their own IP what
>they deem best.

Well, a serious and successful business manages to create a symbios between the company and it's consumers rather than simply doing what the company deem is best for them. I think Genesi has lost their perspective on the Amiga market as a whole and consider themselves as the only way forwards. They see all other players as obsticles rather than resources.

Amiga Inc., on the other hand, has been trying to get as many partners aboard as possible. Preferably they want to put every Amiga developer at what they know best; Martin Blom for the new sound API, Hyperion on the new 3D API, the Picasso96 Team on the new 2D API, etc. They are so eager to get this done properly by the right people that they are willing to sacrifice their IP in case of insolvency.

Why the former Thendic-France and bPlan had such problems with cooperating with them really beats me, all I can say is that it's obviously not for the sake of the Amiga community. I mean, they offered the same terms as they have offered all the other partners. If they would have accepted the same deal as Hyperion and if Amiga Inc. would really be at the edge of insolvency as they claim, wouldn't that make them the new owners of the IP? Well, either they didn't want the IP (yeah, right...) or Genesi themselves has reasons to believe that Amiga Inc. won't become insolvent for quite some time to come.

I would emphasize cooperation more if I thought there was a possibility, but I don't. You are of course welcome to prove me wrong.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 42 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Janne Sirén on 15-Jul-2003 11:13 GMT
In reply to Comment 41 (samface):
>>First of all, you have to remember that MorphOS was started when AmigaOS
>>seemed to be a dead duck. It is not like they started making it when AmigaOS
>>4.0 was just around the corner.
>Well, poor Ralph Schmidt. Anyway, why would this justify anything? This is
>just an explanation rather than a justification.

Explanation, justification, let the world be the judge. But history is what it is. MorphOS was started, not as a competitor to AmigaOS, but as an unofficial successor to it because the official ownership had all but abandoned the product. (Gateway first, then current Amiga Inc. telling us AmigaDE is the way forward.) The fact that the owners much later changed their minds does in no way change or negate this. Then it was already too late to dismiss MorphOS.

"Well, poor Ralph Schmidt." Come on!

>Both sides claims to have the users interests as their highest priority.

Both sides have their marketing, sure. Amiga Inc. has "loaned" a lot of money under suspicious circumstances from the very same users. We could go on throwing mud as much as we want to. I would like to separate that from the issue of relevance and future paths for AmigaOS and its likes. I'm not saying it is irrelevant, I'm just suggesting the possibility that maybe you are letting your personal preference in the way of your objectivity. And maybe it would help in this matter if you tried to steer clear of that. I would like to discuss more what we can do, than what these companies have done!

But to be balanced, I'll bite once more. Genesi OTOH has offered good deals to users, many free updates, free T-shirts, posters, the super bundle is coming, they are active in many user hangouts... They give out free machines, substantial discounts, good updgrade deals are coming etc. They have supported our own user group far more than Amiga Inc. ever did. I have no problem believing that they aim to please their customers.

Both sides also have business goals. It would be naive to think otherwise.

>BTW, I believe Ben Hermans will be filing a case against Thendic-France this
>September. Hopefully alot of these issues can finally be settled soon.

I'm sure we'll all be looking with interest how that one plays out. I doubt it settles these issues, but then, it might.

>I think Genesi has lost their perspective on the Amiga market as a whole and
>consider themselves as the only way forwards.

And Amiga Inc. doesn't? Remember Bill McEwen and Fleecy telling us how we have to all move forwards under the official flag? That they need to have control?

>Amiga Inc., on the other hand, has been trying to get as many partners aboard
>as possible.

It could be argued that they have done much of this due to lack of financial and other resources. It could also be argued that their record in co-operation is not so great when it comes to the community. Genesi for instance has nurtured a really productive community relationship with the Phoenix people, something that Amiga Inc. failed to do. Genesi has been very supportive of user groups and bought along many people from the community to advance MorphOS. MorphOS too is a huge group effort and Genesi has partnered with many other people to bring several operating systems to the Pegasos. How is this not co-operation?

>They are so eager to get this done properly by the right people that they are
>willing to sacrifice their IP in case of insolvency.

That is one way to put it. The other opinion is that they had no other choice. They obviously have very little money. We don't know all of it, but painting such a rosy picture of Amiga Inc. as you do and putting down Genesi doesn't in any way advance the goal of co-operation within the market.

>If they would have accepted the same deal as Hyperion

Do you know for certain they were offered the same deal? I don't. And even if they were, Hyperion and Genesi are completely different companies - the latter does hardware as one of its major strengths. They have different business plans, different needs, different goals. But making them out to be the bad guy just because they didn't accept Amiga Inc.'s deal is silly and one-sided. That makes it look like Amiga Inc. is some authority over the community. It is not.

A deal is a two-way street. It is unfortunate it didn't happen, but it is still a two-way street.

>I would emphasize cooperation more if I thought there was a possibility, but I
>don't. You are of course welcome to prove me wrong.

I have no ability to do so. Only time will tell us. What I'd like to emphasize, though, is that I feel the need for co-operation both at a community and a company level. Even if the latter is impossible, the former doesn't have to be. We could all benefit from it, but obviously you have made your stance clear - you don't want co-operation at the community level if that doesn't happen on the company level first?

I do. Because I don't think the community should be a place for company politics, but for like-minded hobbyists and professionals instead. We could be one, at least to some extent, even if we follow different paths. We could try to make the most of it instead of fighting each-other.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 43 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 15-Jul-2003 11:26 GMT
In reply to Comment 42 (Janne Sirén):
I'll reply later tonight. =)
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 44 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 15-Jul-2003 23:43 GMT
In reply to Comment 42 (Janne Sirén):
>>>First of all, you have to remember that MorphOS was started when AmigaOS
>>>seemed to be a dead duck. It is not like they started making it when AmigaOS
>>>4.0 was just around the corner.
>>Well, poor Ralph Schmidt. Anyway, why would this justify anything? This is
>>just an explanation rather than a justification.
>
>Explanation, justification, let the world be the judge.

But you said that I had to remember this very important cirumstance like it would somehow have any effect on the issue at hand. I never said that MorphOS was made simply for the sake of opposing Amiga Inc.

You know, you make it sound like bPlan had no other intentions ever besides "saving" the Amiga when noone else did. But you see, if this would be true, why would they be anything but happy when they finally start doing something? I mean, they are obviously not content with the Amiga finally making progress. On the contrary, they even do everything they can to bring them down. The idea to make a next generation AmigaOS has turned into a war against those actually doing it. Ironic, isn't it?

>But history is what it is. MorphOS was started, not as a competitor to
>AmigaOS, but as an unofficial successor to it because the official ownership
>had all but abandoned the product. (Gateway first, then current Amiga Inc.
>telling us AmigaDE is the way forward.) The fact that the owners much later
>changed their minds does in no way change or negate this. Then it was already
>too late to dismiss MorphOS.

Now that was a very simplified version of the story. First of all, bPlan was the first to abandon AmigaOS, everyone else just bumped the version number a bit or didn't do anything at all. However, rather than starting completely from scratch on their new OS, they got the idea of running the classic AmigaOS on top of their new kernel through emulation and then gradually replace it, piece by piece.

Amiga Inc. too realized that the classic AmigaOS simply wasn't suitable as a foundation for new modern OS functionality, but at first they didn't realize the benefits of gradually replacing it rather than starting completely from scratch and therefore did only what they thought they had to; discontinue the development of the classic AmigaOS. However, through a simple demonstration of MorphOS, Amiga Inc. quickly realized the flaw in their strategy and announced the continuation of the classic AmigaOS despite having said the exact opposite earlier. Negotiations between Amiga Inc., bPlan, Thendic-France, and Haage&Partner was initiated, but this is where everything started to go wrong, very wrong.

For some reason that I really don't know, strong emotions and agression aroused. It even got to the point where they slandered each other in public (and are still doing so as of today). This was a major setback for Amiga Inc. and put them back to square one. It wasn't an easy situation since they had expected MorphOS to be released as the official AmigaOS4 and based the publicly published timeframes for AmigaOS4 on this. Every attempt of getting bPlan or Thendic-France back to the bargaining table was for naught and things looked quite bad for a while.

That's when Hyperion stepped in and said; "Ok, we'll do it".

>"Well, poor Ralph Schmidt." Come on!

Hey, it seemed like you were looking for empathy for MorphOS from me, just making it clear that it would be the wrong place to look. :-P

>>Both sides claims to have the users interests as their highest priority.
>
>Both sides have their marketing, sure. Amiga Inc. has "loaned" a lot of money
>under suspicious circumstances from the very same users.

Nope. Wrong. Incorrect. Thank you for playing.

"Join our club for $50 and get a rebate of the same amount on our products once they are available" is not a "loan" and neither is there anything dubious about it. You purchase the membership and get the rebate for free. It was a time limited offer and noone was forced to accept it. Do you ever read the advertising pamphlets that is in your mailbox nearly every day? I've seen much more dubious offers than this.

I even like the idea of beeing a part of their club, recieve monthly insider information on the progress of AmigaOS4, read interviews with respectable community members, and then get all the money I payed for it back when I purchase an AmigaOne with AmigaOS4. =)

But then, that's me. If you are not prepared to pay that $50, then don't. It's as simple as that, really.

>We could go on throwing mud as much as we want to.

If you don't want to throw MUD, then don't.

>I would like to separate that from the issue of relevance and future paths for
>AmigaOS and its likes. I'm not saying it is irrelevant, I'm just suggesting
>the possibility that maybe you are letting your personal preference in the way
>of your objectivity. And maybe it would help in this matter if you tried to >steer clear of that.

I have my reasons for my rather subjective point of view, but I also happen to believe that it is the subjective point of view that makes the discussion. Objectivity is for sorting out facts and exchanging information, our different subjective point of views is for raising debates.

>I would like to discuss more what we can do, than what these companies have
>done!

But what exactly is it that you are suggesting that we as users should do? I mean, the companies is what brings us products, how could we as users possibly affect the functionality of these products if not through the companies making them? No, I don't want to hack and patch things like we did with the old AmigaOS3.1. What I want is user as well as developer friendly industry standards, a unified and growing market for the entire platform, and a promising future business strategy. When it comes to those kind of issues, everything depend on the companies rather than the users. We as users can't do anything besides doing the best of the situation once the products are released and delivered.

>But to be balanced, I'll bite once more. Genesi OTOH has offered good deals to
>users, many free updates, free T-shirts, posters, the super bundle is coming,
>they are active in many user hangouts... They give out free machines,
>substantial discounts, good updgrade deals are coming etc. They have supported
>our own user group far more than Amiga Inc. ever did. I have no problem
>believing that they aim to please their customers.

Yes, their customers. Can we get back to talking about the Amiga community again?

>Both sides also have business goals. It would be naive to think otherwise.

Just like Microsoft has business goals, only somewhat different to what we as Amiga users wants. I simply don't see how Genesi's busness goals would be relevant to me as an Amiga user. You have to consider these things since deciding on new hardware and OS is a long term investment.

>>I think Genesi has lost their perspective on the Amiga market as a whole and
>>consider themselves as the only way forwards.
>
>And Amiga Inc. doesn't? Remember Bill McEwen and Fleecy telling us how we have
>to all move forwards under the official flag? That they need to have control?

But you see, you are entitled to doing so when you own the IP. Of course they want control over everything that goes under their brand. Genesi, on the other hand, is not in the position of beeing able to take control of anything Amiga related. You see, that is the biggest disadvantage with beeing a clone, you depend on the IP while you have no way of controlling it.

>>Amiga Inc., on the other hand, has been trying to get as many partners aboard
>>as possible.
>
>It could be argued that they have done much of this due to lack of financial
>and other resources. It could also be argued that their record in co-operation
>is not so great when it comes to the community. Genesi for instance has
>nurtured a really productive community relationship with the Phoenix people,
>something that Amiga Inc. failed to do. Genesi has been very supportive of
>user groups and bought along many people from the community to advance
>MorphOS. MorphOS too is a huge group effort and Genesi has partnered with many
>other people to bring several operating systems to the Pegasos. How is this
>not co-operation?

It's marketing, Janne. They have the money and they have a product the want to market. It's as simple as that. Now, if that is what I was looking for, I would have gone Windows a long time ago. I remember Microsoft representatives literally throwing out copies of Windows95 to a screaming audience in "Globen", the great indoor stadium in Stockholm at the official Swedish Windows95 release. I also remember Microsoft sponsoring The Party in Aaars, Denmark, which used to be the biggest demo party in the world. Shall I go on?

I've never considered such activities as something that would somehow make the product any better. What I want is coorporate support between the companies that brings me my favorite products (not just talking about OS and hardware now) rather than just one company supporting me. One company can never satisfy all of my needs.

>>They are so eager to get this done properly by the right people that they are
>>willing to sacrifice their IP in case of insolvency.
>
>That is one way to put it. The other opinion is that they had no other choice.
>They obviously have very little money. We don't know all of it, but painting
>such a rosy picture of Amiga Inc. as you do and putting down Genesi doesn't in
>any way advance the goal of co-operation within the market.

Not even if I licked Bill Bucks behind would Genesi cooperate. Either cooperate or stay out of our way, remember? Well, since they are not going to cooperate, I do anything I can to oppose their cause, just like they do everything to oppose Amiga Inc.'s cause.

>>If they would have accepted the same deal as Hyperion
>
>Do you know for certain they were offered the same deal? I don't.

Well, Bill never gave me a straight answer to that question but I assure you that he never denied it. I'm also quite sure Bill would otherwise be passing around a scan of the offer from Amiga Inc. just to show how they was treated differently.

> And even if
>they were, Hyperion and Genesi are completely different companies - the latter
>does hardware as one of its major strengths. They have different business
>plans, different needs, different goals. But making them out to be the bad guy
>just because they didn't accept Amiga Inc.'s deal is silly and one-sided. That
>makes it look like Amiga Inc. is some authority over the community. It is not.

Huh? What has the community got to do with the negotiations between Amiga Inc. and bPlan? When it comes to the Amiga *market*, Amiga Inc. surely is an authority since they are the owners of the IP. This is just the same as with Apple and Microsoft, which are the ultimate authority in their markets respectively. If you want your product to be an officially Amiga certified product, Amiga Inc. dictate whatever terms they want. bPlan did not accept Amiga Inc.'s terms and therefore choose to not have their product officially labeled as an Amiga product. Yet they do everything they can to live off the brand recognition of Amiga, like some kind of brand name parasite.

You see, the official excuse from bPlan was that they don't need the Amiga brand, yet their actions speaks an entirely different language. Is it really that hard to tell who isn't cooperating?

>A deal is a two-way street. It is unfortunate it didn't happen, but it is
>still a two-way street.

But it only takes one to break a deal, you know.

>>I would emphasize cooperation more if I thought there was a possibility, but
>>I don't. You are of course welcome to prove me wrong.
>
>I have no ability to do so. Only time will tell us. What I'd like to
>emphasize, though, is that I feel the need for co-operation both at a
>community and a company level. Even if the latter is impossible, the former
>doesn't have to be. We could all benefit from it, but obviously you have made
>your stance clear - you don't want co-operation at the community level if that
>doesn't happen on the company level first?

Here's a revolutionary thought for you; I don't give a flying rats ass about the community. I have no friends left in the community and the feel of Amiga bonding simply isn't there anymore. I just want to be a consumer of Amiga products, not a member of the community. You see, there is no Windows community, which makes me wonder if the Amiga community actually matters to the companies or the product at all.

Besides, I do believe you build up a community around a product rather than the contrary. It's not like Jay Miner discovered an Amiga community and decided to make a computer for it, you know.

>I do. Because I don't think the community should be a place for company
>politics, but for like-minded hobbyists and professionals instead. We could be
>one, at least to some extent, even if we follow different paths. We could try
>to make the most of it instead of fighting each-other.

But can't you see the effects of having different alternatives headed in different directions on the same market? You see, in order for us to get along and remain as a group of like-minded hobbyists, we would have to be like-minded. Since we have different opinions for our future path and obviously has different ideas of what a computer is about, we are not like-minded. We do NOT share the same interest anymore, the only thing we share is our past (along with 1 million other former Amiga users). Reality can be rather harsh sometimes.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 45 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Janne Sirén on 17-Jul-2003 11:35 GMT
In reply to Comment 44 (samface):
>You know, you make it sound like bPlan had no other intentions ever
>besides "saving" the Amiga when noone else did.

bPlan had a business plan. I'm sure that is what Pegasos and MorphOS were to them. But they were also people that had been involved in the Amiga scene for a long, long time. Much longer than Bill McEwen for instance. They liked Amiga. I have no problem believing that it was also a passion to them, but we are both speculating since I doubt either one of us knows them that intimately.

>But you see, if this would be true, why would they be anything but happy when
>they finally start doing something?

I am just speculating, but I can draw some reference from my own personal experiences and basic human traits. Let us speculate. You start with your love for the Amiga and your disgust at nobody making progress. You start to make something of your own based on that premise and you also see a business opportunity in the making. You spend years working on it, and you making good progress. Nobody else is really moving forwards. But then they see your work and decide to move again. You try to cut a deal, but it fails. You still have your original love for Amiga, but you also love your own product - more. And you have no guarantee the other party can accomplish anything.

Do you ditch your years of hard work? Of course not. History being what it is, business competition within our market now exists. In my opinion it is understandable and there are, in this regard, no party with less right to play. We can use history to understand why we came here and to look deeper into any motives there may be. The various Amiga technology owners wasted a lot of time with their lack of understanding and created the opportunity for things like MorphOS and AROS to surface. It is too late to cry about it now. The mistakes were done years ago. The fact that the existence of MorphOS (like you admit), probably changed Amiga Inc.'s mind about AmigaOS doesn't negate this.

In fact, if what you say is correct, without MorphOS there wouldn't be OS4?

>On the contrary, they even do everything they can to bring them down.

For the companies, it is business. For the community, doesn't have to be.

>The idea to make a next generation AmigaOS has turned into a war against those
>actually doing it. Ironic, isn't it?

Perhaps.

>This was a major setback for Amiga Inc. and put them back to square one.

That's what you get when you need others so bad for your success. :-) Perhaps they should have offered a better deal?

>>Both sides have their marketing, sure. Amiga Inc. has "loaned" a lot of money
>>under suspicious circumstances from the very same users.
>Nope. Wrong. Incorrect. Thank you for playing.

I have a diferent perception of the events, and I am not alone in that. But as far as this issue goes, the buck stops here. You asked me about throwing mud? I have no desire to do so. I was trying to give you an opportunity for two-sided commentary instead of concentrating on the flaws of Genesi solely.

Yes, indeed. Thanks for playing.

>But what exactly is it that you are suggesting that we as users should do?

We could start by accepting the diverisity amongst us. We could look into efforts that bind us together, instead of things that separate us. Be it at our user groups, software development, community projects, etc. See ANN for instance. Christian is doing a nice job making sure the extended Amiga community has a place to gather. Now, if only we could all improve the atmosphere in said community we all could start bearing more fruit too.

I'm not saying this is easy, or that it will succeed. But I have a long personal history of advocating it, and I am willing to give it a try. For instance, at our user group despite of personal preferences and even strong personal dislike of certain parties and actions of theirs, we see a nice melting-pot of the extended Amiga community. We are gathering around and promoting all sides of the hobby that can be loosely labeled "Amiga". It is working. We can already see shared benefits and we get a larger following. People going MorphOS aren't abandoning all things official Amiga, and people preferring the latter can also see what the alternatives are about.

And I'm not talking about a community of users. I'm talking about a community that is productive and creative, and that is clearly something the Amiga community has always been. So no, I don't think only "large" companies are in a position to deliver something of significance to the community. We can too.

>>our own user group far more than Amiga Inc. ever did. I have no problem
>>believing that they aim to please their customers.
>Yes, their customers. Can we get back to talking about the Amiga community
>again?

Well, our user group was never a customer of theirs. Only lately they have gotten any customers out of us. They have supported us a long time. Sure, it is marketing. But there is certain enthusiasm and relaxed way of going about it that is sorely missed since Petro. The current Amiga Inc. has in my opinion, and at least from my perspective, failed miserably in community support compared to Petro and Genesi. Think of Petro what you will, but he cared.

>I simply don't see how Genesi's busness goals would be relevant to me as an
>Amiga user.

Through the relevance of MorphOS to the Amiga community. For that, I made my case earlier. Agree or disagree, that is up to you. For me this is about nothing more, nothing less to begin with. As far as the future goes, interesting technology and community participation around that are another thing, but as I openly conceed, that may or may not have anything to do with the Amiga or Amiga community we used to know. Time will tell. But BSD and Linux are still pretty close to UNIX after all these years...

>But you see, you are entitled to doing so when you own the IP. Of course they
>want control over everything that goes under their brand.

But that's just it. Amiga Inc. owns their IP, not Genesi's IP. They may want to control stuff under their brand, but Genesi also wants to control their own IP. You only look at it from one perspective, the Amiga brand. Well, what about from the perspective of Genesi IP? If you really look at it objectively, you can see it is a two-way street.

How about: "Of course Genesi wants to control everything that uses their IP."

Suddenly Amiga Inc. having a right to control that sounds a lot less convincing in my opinion. Just like it would be silly to assume Genesi could in any way control Amiga's IP. Every deal goes both ways. It is a two-way street.

>You see, that is the biggest disadvantage with beeing a clone, you depend on
>the IP while you have no way of controlling it.

Really? You just said Amiga Inc. was dropped to square one when Genesi didn't do the deal. Who needs who more? How valuable really is the name without technology to back it up? Hyperion saw it in their interests to make a deal with Amiga and hopefully good for them. Amiga Inc. was trying to control stuff it had no right to control. They were trying to play too big and almost got burned big time. Hyperion saved them, at least for the moment.

>It's marketing, Janne. They have the money and they have a product the want to
>market. It's as simple as that.

As yes. When you have money, co-operation is nothing more than marketing. I can assure you, there are a lot of people working on things MorphOS/Pegasos who do not agree. Genesi have nurtured some really great co-operation and without much of the legal wranglings that apparently went with much of what Amiga Inc. wanted to do. Genesi seem much more flexible in the way they move about in the community. They may act a bit more "taw", but they get things done.

>I do anything I can to oppose their cause, just like they do everything to
>oppose Amiga Inc.'s cause.

How mature of you.

>I'm also quite sure Bill would otherwise be passing around a scan of the offer
>from Amiga Inc. just to show how they was treated differently.

I think it is public knowledge or at least assumption that Amiga Inc. wanted MorphOS to separate from bPlan, so that the OS and the hardware weren't under control of the same entity (more freedom for hardware competition). If this is true, this is certainly a major difference as Hyperion would have never had to make such a painful decision. They don't make hardware, but for bPlan that was and is probably one of their greatest strengths.

>When it comes to the Amiga *market*, Amiga Inc. surely is an authority since
>they are the owners of the IP.

Incorrect. Amiga Inc. are authority over their own IP, nothing more, nothing less. They might have some clout, certainly, due to said ownership, but the past few years have even diminished much of that in my eyes. They don't own the market, or the community. They only own their IP. Genesi has just as much right to compete in that market as anyone else.

>If you want your product to be an officially Amiga certified product, Amiga
>Inc. dictate whatever terms they want.

Sure, but the down-side is, that if Amiga Inc. dictate too much, they won't get those products under their brand and they loose out in that regard. It is a two-way street. And you telling us how "Amiga Inc. dictates" terms doesn't really go well with that "co-operation" part you so fondly discuss. It is always a two-way street. Co-operation. Deals. The works.

>Yet they do everything they can to live off the brand recognition of Amiga,
>like some kind of brand name parasite.

This is not about cloned Burberry bags, so lets not go down that road. Genesi used their Amiga roots, without any proven legal wrongdoing, to create a product for the market. They have worked very hard on it. That is capitalism, that is business. May the best product win, or preferably all of them.

>But it only takes one to break a deal, you know.

Sure. But it does take two to make a deal.

>Here's a revolutionary thought for you; I don't give a flying rats ass about
>the community. I have no friends left in the community and the feel of Amiga
>bonding simply isn't there anymore.

I'm sorry to hear that. I have plenty of wonderful friends within the community. Some of them use classic Amigas, some Pegasos, some just hang around. I make no distinctions based on their platform of preference.

>I just want to be a consumer of Amiga products, not a member of the community.

That is certainly a perogative of yours, and I have no problem with that.

>You see, there is no Windows community

Well, it all depends on how you look at it, but sure, mainstream rarely gathers such passionate following as niches do.

>It's not like Jay Miner discovered an Amiga community and decided to make a
>computer for it, you know.

I know. And your point is...?

>But can't you see the effects of having different alternatives headed in
>different directions on the same market?

See UNIX. Sure I can. I have conceded the risks ad infinitum here. I have discussed potential benefits, and readily admit some of them may be utopian. But one can dream the dream, right? But my point remains: This is where we are now. We are already divided as far as options go. But even if we walk different paths, perhaps those paths could cross from time to time, perhaps we could even join our paths one day in a big multi-lane highway. Hey, who knows about the future! Lots of interesting technology related to Amiga out there, why not us just have fun with it, with the people around it and leave the business to those who choose to participate in it.

>We do NOT share the same interest anymore, the only thing we share is our past
>(along with 1 million other former Amiga users).

I do not share that view, but respect your right for yours.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 46 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Janne Sirén on 17-Jul-2003 11:43 GMT
In reply to Comment 45 (Janne Sirén):
>As yes. When you have money...

"Ah yes", not "as".

>They may act a bit more "taw", but they get things done.

"raw", not "taw"

Sorry about those.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 47 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 19-Jul-2003 09:36 GMT
In reply to Comment 45 (Janne Sirén):
I will only address one issue since I believe the rest is more about something we should just agree to disagree about. The issue is about the IP. You talk about Genesi's IP as if Amiga Inc. would want to license it. Amiga Inc. doesn't care about Genesi's IP. It was Genesi that wanted a license to Amiga Inc.'s IP, not the other way around. If Genesi would be so keen on protecting their IP, why try to license someone else's IP to begin with?

However, Genesi did not want to comply to Amiga Inc.'s terms, they wanted to use it as their own without interference from Amiga Inc., which is probably why no agreement could be reached.
Pegasos at Linuxtag and Debian Developer Conference : Comment 48 of 48ANN.lu
Posted by Janne on 19-Jul-2003 12:28 GMT
In reply to Comment 47 (samface):
>You talk about Genesi's IP as if Amiga Inc. would want to license it. Amiga
>Inc. doesn't care about Genesi's IP.

No, you talked like Amiga Inc. would want to license it. You were the one who said it was a big disappointment for Amiga Inc. when MorphOS could not have been used as the basis for AmigaOS 4.0 - and how that put AMIGA INC. back in square one. If Amiga Inc. had no interest in that, how could it be such a disappointment for them?

Of course Amiga Inc. was interested in Genesi's IP just as they are now interested in Hyperion's newly-made IP concerning AmigaOS 4.0. I'm sure Amiga Inc. are no longer interested in Genesi's software IP, though. Not so sure about hardware, though.
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