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[Rant] Hostage NegotiationANN.lu
Posted on 27-Jan-2004 02:07 GMT by Greg Ford260 comments
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There are a group of people, at Amiga Inc, who have decided that their personal reasons are more important than the interests of the company, employees, investors, the customers, and even potential customers, and have ceased any and all effort to involve themselves in anything at all that doesn't directly relate to these personal reasons, even if it means earning an income against it's current mountain of debts. Amiga is being held hostage, and someone's looking to do something about it. The only people that were in any position to remedy this situation were a group of investors who had already lost fortunes in Amiga Inc, and were asked for more money. They were concerned over the money already invested, but told that unless they invested more, they'd never see any returns on these investments ever. The investors didn't like this at all, they felt, exactly like I said, that the small group of people at Amiga Inc, were literally holding Amiga hostage for more money. They did the only thing they could do, they hired Garry Hare to try to restart the company and salvage something for the investors who had already invested large amounts of capital into the failed company.

The problem was, those few at Amiga quickly realised that this was an attempt to get around Amiga Inc's demands for more investment capital, and completely refused to cooporate with Garry Hare, and even going so far as to publicly obfuscate to it's customers Garry's position in the failing company. Garry was instrumental in generating dozens of potentially profitable leads in his three month project that he spent representimg Amiga Inc at tradeshows and technology conferences. Many business contacts and developers became interested and attempted to follow up on these leads, only to be shunned by Amiga Inc who was making it very clear to the investors that they will not be subverted in this way. Either they would invest more capital like Amiga Inc demanded, or Amiga Inc would literally sit on their hands at Amiga Inc and do absolutely nothing, ensuring that the investors money would not produce any potential profits at all, and keeping Amiga Inc in a nonproductive stasis untill such a time when the investors will finally cave in to their demands and give them the investment capital.

To this day Amiga Inc. and the investors are still locked in a standoff, and it appears that neither will give in to the other. The investors are still looking for a way to controll the damage, to get at least a little back from their investment or even wrestle controll as to lead Amiga into promoting it's current technology, while Amiga Inc refuse to both (1) go bankrupt, instead hoping the investors will cave in to Amiga Inc's demands, or (2) try to generate an income, they will not do this as this would be giving in to the investors, who they want more money from.

There is no right or wrong being implied here, but the fact remains nothing will change untill someone gives in. It's quite apparent Amiga Inc believes that it will be the investors who will give in, as they speak quite publically about expecting the next round of funding to be recieved any day now. However I don't know if Amiga Inc realise that, as we speak, the leads that have been generated in spite of Amiga Inc's steadfast resolve to hold out against the investors are being contacted for information about the way in which Amiga Inc has shunned them when they tried to follow up on these leads. I myself have been contacted although I couldn't offer them anything other than telling them Amiga Inc simply refused to follow up on inqueries I've sent them.

All I could gather from these people is that they are determined to do something about the situation. Unfortunately I couldn't offer them much. It would be in my own interests as well for this to be resolved one way or the other as my own plans are in stasis untill something happens as well. Someone has to give. Seeing as how I can't help them much in any way, I'd like to hear from others who might have information that might help the investors in making their case that Amiga Inc is intentionally keeping the company in stasis. I'm not sure if they are preparing legal action or whatever, but to be on the safe side, if you could refrain from posting the details, and instead contact me and I'll give you instructions on contacting the interested parties.

You can contact me at GregFordEmbedded@hotmail.com, and we can start from there. Thank you for your time.

Hostage Negotiation : Comment 201 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Fabio Alemagna on 29-Jan-2004 20:22 GMT
In reply to Comment 198 (Lennart Fridén):
> Plato would tend to call your real world for nothing but a shadow of the true
> real world. Then again, I'm a philosopher but I never said I agreed with Plato.
> :-)

And Plato would be right, and modern science doesn't contraddict Plato in any way, rather _confirms_ it: we can only *tend* to the perfection (perfect knowledge), but we'll never reach it.

It's worth noting that we only sense the world trough the tools that mother nature has provided us with, but in no way those tools can be considered appropriate to know everything that there'd be to know, it's high likely that we're missing a lot of things that we'll never get to know about - and can't even imagine, for that matter - simply because we have no means to know them, or even _imagine_ them.

All that matters to us anyway, is the world we can grasp, the one we can, in a way or another, sense, the rest is purely metaphysics, religion.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 202 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 29-Jan-2004 22:48 GMT
In reply to Comment 200 (Fabio Alemagna):
I'm sorry, if you don't even know the concepts of the world of ideas vs the external (material) world, there's really not much I can do for you. You see, this is what I tried to explain in post #175, how you define relativity depends on if you're looking at it from a physical point of view or from a philosophical point of view. Neither way is right or wrong, though I personally prefer looking at it from a physical point of view since I'm not much of a philosopher.

Furthermore, it is still irrelevant if the theory that everything would be relative is your own subjective point of view or not, it's still a contradiction since your subjective point of view would have to be relative as well, as in you are denying your own subjective point of view if everything is relative is your subjective point of view. You with me yet? :-P

Also, how could you miss the point that I actually agree with Einstein rather than Plato? Again, I'm not a philosopher and agree with Einsteins theory about space and time as relative quantities. The reasoning above is more of a philosopher's standpoint, not mine. I was merely pointing out the the differences in these different standpoints for the sake of objectivity and also to point out the importance of working out a common definition of the terms beeing used. There are a million and one ways of defining relativity which means that we will not be able to settle the issue of whether "everything is relative" is true or not until we have agreed on a common definition of the word relative.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 203 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 29-Jan-2004 23:23 GMT
In reply to Comment 201 (Fabio Alemagna):
>And Plato would be right, and modern science doesn't contraddict Plato in any
>way, rather _confirms_ it: we can only *tend* to the perfection (perfect
>knowledge), but we'll never reach it.

No, they don't contradict each other, they are just talking about things from entirely different standpoints. Einstein define things out of a physical standpoint, based on what we know about the external (material) world, while Plato is basicly dismissing everything we know about the external (material) world as just shadows of the "real" world. Again, not a contradiction, but different standpoints in the sense that one theory is a philosophy while the other is a scientific theory about space and time.

I'm starting to think that you are more of a philosopher than you know, Fabio. :-P
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 204 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 30-Jan-2004 01:16 GMT
In reply to Comment 194 (samface):
> I think I'm finally able to pin-point the problem here; we don't seem to have share the same meaning of "objective reasoning".

This is correct, as I have no notion of objective reasoning. Reasoning is relative by its very definition. I can agree on objectivity as logic deduction from the absence of potentially misguiding, filtered, biased, neurological input. As a rhetoric means, I can agree on objectivity as the least common denominator, the things we silently agree on. But the latter is highly subjective, and it can take a long time before people are "objective" to each other. :)

> You see, just because someone makes use of objective facts to support their reasoning, that doesn't neccessarily mean that their reasoning is objective.

What are objective facts?

> You see, everything that goes beyond the extent of what we know as objective facts, like your own reasoning based on those facts, is actually NOT objective reasoning.

Again, what are objective facts? Those collected by someone's senses, and filtered through a neurological apparatus, and put together in the least painful way for the already present construction?
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 205 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by -D- on 30-Jan-2004 07:23 GMT
In reply to Comment 182 (samface):
Wow! A lot of wonderful reading here! :)


@Samface

>There are many sides of this coin and we could make this a 10,000+ posts
>thread if you want. However, I think I've made my point regarding that
>discussion about subjectivity vs objectivity; please reconsider your
>claim that there would be no difference between subjectivity and
>objectivity, because just like with the concepts of the world of
>ideas and the external (material) world, we need these concepts in
>order to maintain a constructive debate.

Hmmm, I am not saying that, I said:

-Or, you could also say that within the confines of human
-perception, all things are relative, since human
-perception and communication does not have the capacity
-to "reference" one thing completely independant of
-anything else (hence the term) <snip>

Or maybe you are referring to my statement here,

-There is also the philisophical standpoint which basically
-states that "objective" discussion of forms/ideals/absolutes
-is entirely meaningless, since <blah blah snip>

I'm essentially saying that you can't gain "real" knowledge of
a form or an "absolute" through objective reasoning, although
we may determine certain characteristics...in a similar manner,
you can describe and examine with your senses an apple, but what
is it really, outside of that?

So it's not that there wouldn't be any difference between
objectivity and subjectivity, but rather (as Lennart phrased much
clearer) "das ding an sich" and "das ding fuer mich". I agree with you,
reference points and "terminology" are indeed necessary for productive
human interaction.

>The claim "everything is relative" must be an absolute truth in order to
>be true, otherwise *everything* is not relative. Simple logic, Fabio.

Well, that depends entirely upon how we define something which
is "absolute". However...I'm just going to leave that one alone now, for
obvious reasons...:P

:)
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 206 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Ketzer on 30-Jan-2004 12:43 GMT
In reply to Comment 200 (Fabio Alemagna):
> In no way "everything is relative" is an absolute stament: that statement, in fact, is relative to the point of view of whoever made it.

If "everything is relative" is true then there are *no* absolute statements.
(And philospically speaking there arent. Mathematically speaking thats nonsense however.)
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 207 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Fabio Alemagna on 30-Jan-2004 13:15 GMT
In reply to Comment 206 (Ketzer):
> if "everything is relative" is true then there are *no* absolute statements.

And isn't that what I just said? Sammy is however saying that that's a contraddiction in terms, because if we are to say that there are no abolute statements, then "everything is relative" has no meaing, it being an absolute statement. But Sammy's error is _precisely_ that: that statement is NOT absolute, is _relative_ to a precise point of view, namely the one of the person who made that statement.


> > (And philospically speaking there arent. Mathematically speaking thats
> nonsense however.)

Why? Math should rather teach you that there's nothing absolute... take algebra/geometry, for instance: vectors are defined to be relative to reference system, and this reference system is in turn relative to another reference system, and so on... Ultimately, all that matters to us is the reference system we are in, and thus, for simplicity, we assume it to be "absolute", but by the previous reasoning "absolute" just means "relative to (0,0,...,0)", where (0,0,...,0) is assumed to be the origin of our reference system.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 208 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 31-Jan-2004 06:59 GMT
In reply to Comment 207 (Fabio Alemagna):
No, there is nothing in "everything is relative" that supports your theory that it would be just a subjective point of view. I mean, your theory would only be true if we would be talking about wether everything *seems* relative or not, which takes us right back to the issue about different terminology. To me, especially in a context such as this, "is" is a form of beeing rather than just an individual's own perception. Would you agree to this, Fabio?
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 209 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 31-Jan-2004 07:06 GMT
In reply to Comment 208 (samface):
This is something I was recommended to read the other day, I think you should read it too:

http://www.generalsemantics.org/Articles/E-Prime_intro.htm
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 210 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 31-Jan-2004 07:17 GMT
In reply to Comment 209 (samface):
No, I'm not saying that we should all start speaking in E-Prime now, just try not to use so much "is" when you are actually just stating what something may seem. Quote from http://www.generalsemantics.org/Articles/SPEAK_E.HTM:

"Without going deeply into the advantages of E-Prime at this point, its use automatically eliminates the false to facts "is of identity" (i.e. John is a man) and the "is of predication" (i.e. The leaf is green), two main stumbling blocks to non-aristotelian thinking."
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 211 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 31-Jan-2004 07:21 GMT
In reply to Comment 207 (Fabio Alemagna):
BTW, would you say that the value '0' is absolute or relative?
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 212 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 31-Jan-2004 07:39 GMT
In reply to Comment 205 (-D-):
>>please reconsider your
>>claim that there would be no difference between subjectivity and
>>objectivity, because just like with the concepts of the world of
>>ideas and the external (material) world, we need these concepts in
>>order to maintain a constructive debate.
>
>Hmmm, I am not saying that,

No you didn't, that was supposed to be aimed at Oppressor. Sorry. :-P
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 213 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 31-Jan-2004 13:33 GMT
In reply to Comment 212 (samface):
> please reconsider your claim that there would be no difference between subjectivity and objectivity, because just like with the concepts of the world of ideas and the external (material) world, we need these concepts in order to maintain a constructive debate.

We have painfully elaborated that, haven't we? YES, I'm constantly reconsidering this claim. The debate is the matrix in which we have to play fair and render ourselves compatible to each other.

Don't deny your discussion partner's world view. For example: I told you that Amiga Inc. fooled me, and (in my notion) withhold further development on all fronts. I'm not declaring these "objective facts", but you were trying to put unpleasant world views aside by teaching us lessons in objectivity, and a few posts later you suddenly claim Amiga Inc. would be "trying", which is as subjective as one possibly can get.

This is a slap in the face of your conversation partner, and deconstructive methodology to put it gently. You could as well have said: "Your opinion is irrelevant, mine is better, because I can deduct my ignorance from dictionary entries, while you can't apply this logic to your subjective claims."

I may be unobjective, but you were avoiding the problem. Let's continue like we were working on a common problem. That's all I can offer and plea for at the moment.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 214 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 31-Jan-2004 14:31 GMT
In reply to Comment 213 (Oppressor):
>For example: I told you that Amiga Inc. fooled me, and (in my notion)
>withhold further development on all fronts. I'm not declaring these "objective
>facts", but you were trying to put unpleasant world views aside by teaching us
>lessons in objectivity, and a few posts later you suddenly claim Amiga Inc.
>would be "trying", which is as subjective as one possibly can get.

Oh no! Don't even go there. *I* didn't claim that they were trying, you did. These were your words:

"The only problem is that these idiots didn't give in. They are still around. That's what makes me angry. If they'd silently accepted their demise after all their failures, everything would be okay."

Then I merely asked why you didn't like that they are still trying, which is far from a claim that they are trying. You made the claim, not me.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 215 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Lennart Fridén on 31-Jan-2004 15:21 GMT
In reply to Comment 199 (samface):
What's the point? They're both dead. :-)
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 216 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Lennart Fridén on 31-Jan-2004 15:26 GMT
In reply to Comment 201 (Fabio Alemagna):
"It's worth noting that we only sense the world trough the tools that mother nature has provided us with, but in no way those tools can be considered appropriate to know everything that there'd be to know, it's high likely that we're missing a lot of things that we'll never get to know about - and can't even imagine, for that matter - simply because we have no means to know them, or even _imagine_ them."

Agreed. Recommended reading would be the excellent essay "What's it like to be a bat?" by Thomas Nagel.

"All that matters to us anyway, is the world we can grasp, the one we can, in a way or another, sense, the rest is purely metaphysics, religion."

Agreed, if you include the use of e.g. microscopes to see molecules and so forth. 'Detect' might be a better word than 'sense', but I see your point.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 217 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Lennart Fridén on 31-Jan-2004 15:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 203 (samface):
"Again, not a contradiction, but different standpoints in the sense that one theory is a philosophy while the other is a scientific theory about space and time."

Science is very much philosophy. Furthermore, philosophy used to be the only form of science.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 218 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 31-Jan-2004 15:31 GMT
In reply to Comment 214 (samface):
Oh no! Could you only once try to not distract yourself and others?

Here are your words:

"Huh? You don't like that they are still trying?"

To which I replied:

"I see no indications for trying".

You are confused. You are running away!
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 219 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 31-Jan-2004 16:17 GMT
In reply to Comment 214 (samface):
While I'm waiting for an answer, I'm citing myself to hint again towards a possible exit from this misery, which you have ignored in favour of going nuts over the "A"-Word:

"I may be unobjective, but you were avoiding the problem. Let's continue like we were working on a common problem. That's all I can offer and plea for at the moment."

I don't want to destroy this discussion, but me must make some progress someday. Before we find a way out, I must continue to watch your words carefully. You can't bend rhetoric beyond recognition, that renders objectivity blunt and useless.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 220 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 01-Feb-2004 14:05 GMT
In reply to Comment 218 (Oppressor):
I'm not confused at all. The sentence "You don't like that they are still trying?" is not a claim, it's a question. I stated it as a follow up to your post where these were your words:

"The only problem is that these idiots didn't give in. They are still around. That's what makes me angry. If they'd silently accepted their demise after all their failures, everything would be okay."

Now you claim that I would be "bending" rhetoric beyond recognition, that renders objectivity blunt and useless? I'm sorry but in this specific case, YOU are the one "bending" rhetoric, not me.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 221 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 01-Feb-2004 14:31 GMT
In reply to Comment 219 (Oppressor):
>Let's continue like we were working on a common problem. That's all I can
>offer and plea for at the moment.

Sure. If you didn't mean that they are still trying by the sentence "The only problem is that these idiots didn't give in.", then what did you mean by it? I mean, I do believe that I made it clear that this was how I interpreted your words and if that is wrong, why didn't you simply clarify yourself rather than contradicting yourself (or my interpretation of your words, if you like) by saying that "I see no indications for trying"?
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 222 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 01-Feb-2004 14:47 GMT
In reply to Comment 217 (Lennart Fridén):
>Science is very much philosophy. Furthermore, philosophy used to be the only
>form of science.

The words of a true philosopher.

Hey, I'm not arguing against you, but merely pointing out that this is one way of looking at it... :-P
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 223 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 01-Feb-2004 14:52 GMT
In reply to Comment 220 (samface):
"Trying" was your interpretation alone. If you were reading my posts,
you could've noticed that it is not even possible to have that meant between
the lines, i.e. to the highest degree of subjectivity. "Being around" is
as far away from "trying" is it can possibly get. You claimed they were
trying, and in the confusion of your defense, you were trying to put your
nonsense into my mouth. Btw, that was not the first thread in which you
were claiming they were "trying"... in absence of logic, of course.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 224 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 01-Feb-2004 16:25 GMT
In reply to Comment 221 (samface):
Here's a bit playing with sets, while we're waiting for the next flamefest. We insert the meanings "to not give in" into A, "to be around" into B, and "to try" into C. If we can agree on both "to try" as well as "to not give in" to depend on "to be around", and "to try" to depend on "to not give in", we can construct these sets:

- P is comprised of elements {A, B}
- Q is comprised of elements {A, B, C}

No contradiction so far. P is the set of ingredients in my post, and Q is the set of ingredients you were pretending in my post. You got that wrong, which was no problem, and I corrected you with removal of element C in my reply. If your notion of the English language differed from mine, which would've been no problem either, the point of contradiction was HERE.

Disregarding logic plus the following correction, you were referring to set Q again ("it was your claim, not mine!"), which is now, after the correction, twisted, evil innuendo. Ironically that was when I was just telling you that this kind of assumptive reasoning makes people angry.

Thanks for using the self-constructed trap again. You couldn't resist to prove me right, could you? "Don't even go there", yeah. It works!
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 225 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 01-Feb-2004 16:46 GMT
In reply to Comment 223 (Oppressor):
If they were not trying, how could they possibly "not give in" and make "all their failures"? I mean, if they are not giving in despite failing, I interpret that as that they are "trying" rather than just "beeing around". Correct me if you still don't think my reasoning makes sense.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 226 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 01-Feb-2004 16:55 GMT
In reply to Comment 224 (Oppressor):
And where would you put the element "after all their failures"?
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 227 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 01-Feb-2004 17:23 GMT
In reply to Comment 226 (samface):
To "to not give in" (i.e. bankruptcy, or to just that, failure). There is no trying, you simply got that wrong once, and intentionally wrong the second time. Use your dictionaries!
You subordinate to intensified observation with pushing so hard on objectivity. Debating with you is difficult and corrosive, and not very funny. Strange, as we met and had a lengthy RL discussion in Fallingbostel btw., which I remember was highly constructive. It must be something with A-Word, the internet, or both. :)
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 228 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 01-Feb-2004 17:48 GMT
In reply to Comment 227 (Oppressor):
>Use your dictionaries!

Ok. Would you not agree to that a failure, despite not achieving the desired end or ends as www.dictionary.com defines "failure", is atleast an effort/attempt to do or accomplish something, as www.dictionary.com defines the word "try"? If so, would you also not agree to that "not giving in despite all their failures" means to cease opposition or yield, as www.dictionary.com defines "give in", to "not achieving the desired end or ends"?

Simply put; they couldn't have failed if they didn't try. You said that they didn't give in despite all their failures and now you say that it was irrational of me to interpret that as they were trying. I'm sorry but you're not making sense no matter how much I try to look at the definitions of the words that you used.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 229 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 01-Feb-2004 17:49 GMT
In reply to Comment 227 (Oppressor):
>Strange, as we met and had a lengthy RL discussion in Fallingbostel btw.,
>which I remember was highly constructive.

BTW, I talked with quite a few people at Fallingbostel, care to introduce yourself or tell me something that might help me remember you? =)
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 230 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 01-Feb-2004 18:25 GMT
In reply to Comment 228 (samface):
> Ok. Would you not agree to that a failure, despite not achieving the desired end or ends as www.dictionary.com defines "failure", is atleast an effort/attempt to do or accomplish something, as www.dictionary.com defines the word "try"? If so, would you also not agree to that "not giving in despite all their failures" means to cease opposition or yield, as www.dictionary.com defines "give in", to "not achieving the desired end or ends"?

No. Previous failures and not giving in to failure and bankruptcy do not qualify the continued presence an attempt to achieve something. These are my two cents. You applied implicit reasoning, which is quickly on thin ice. Before that I told you that I feel betrayed by the A-Company and that I believe that they withhold development, so don't be suprised if I'm turning the weird assumption I could've meant differently (i.e. in favour of the A-Company) against you. But now we're fighting windmills in effortless attempts, as I corrected your initial notion early enough.

I signed up to your website with this email address and name. Together with Lennart we went outside into the sun with some coke and coffee, and discussed operating system design. Here is my address again. :)
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 231 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 01-Feb-2004 18:50 GMT
In reply to Comment 230 (Oppressor):
Let's make progress then.

/me creases and then gracefully tosses all counter-arguments into the small trashcan in the corner of the room, bullseye! :-P

Now, how about a rephrase of my initial question:

Why does it bother you that they are still around? Why would it be an improvement if they ceased to exist?
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 232 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 01-Feb-2004 18:57 GMT
In reply to Comment 230 (Oppressor):
BTW, how is your project going? I remember that you talked something about making your own virtual processor or something similar, right?
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 233 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 01-Feb-2004 20:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 231 (samface):
> Why does it bother you that they are still around? Why would it be an improvement if they ceased to exist?

Well, many people are feeling bitter. Here is how I see it: The OS4 project is under an unfortunate star with a nameholder being disrespected by so many people, who would otherwise be beneficial and loyal towards the Amiga heritage as a whole (not necessarily to brands and labels). Count me into this camp.

I'm personally not tempted to buy an AmigaOne anymore, as long as this issue is unresolved. One might claim that I was successfully "bribed" by Genesi already, because I got a free Pegasos. However I got it for some libraries I volountarily contributed to MorphOS. Why the Dell not? They asked, and I was in the process of open-sourcing my work anyway. The same would've worked if somebody else had asked. And while I'm not owner of an AmigaOne myself, I would nevertheless like to support it. Unfortunately, the prerelease SDK is only for AmigaOne owners, according to an announcement at amigaworld.net.

There is no easy way out, but I know for sure that sitting on the name alone doesn't help. Sitting on the name only protects the painfully slow development at Hyperion. 90% of the work is done in 10% of the time, and the remaining 10% of the work consume 90% of the time and resources available. The slowness at Hyperion causes enormous damage to the "Amiga thing" as a whole, and by that I mean people who have bought AmigaOnes, Pegasoses, who are using their old Amigas or different operating systems (like myself), and who are just waiting. If we're losing only one of the "beneficial" people per week and one "beneficial" developer per month to outside platforms, then we're running out of resources shortly.

The problem with the Hyperion development is that it is (to industrial standards) organized unprofessionally - not only that the release dates were haphazard, leave alone that they now refuse to give release dates at all. There are also haphazard decisions in what will be included to 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 5.0. And during all the time OS4 is in the Vapour Awards. Thanks to Amiga Inc., who obviously failed to organize and support this work professionally. Hyperion, on the other hand, are not to be criticized. They need only a few hundered OS4 units to provide them with almost guaranteed sales program of game ports in the next years.

At the same time, vast amounts of proven competence in "Amiga-like" development is sunk in MorphOS and Genesi. Hey, they did no less than to prove that they can develop an Amiga-lookalike OS - with the help of AROS people though, where another large amount of energy is being spent.

My proposal for solution would be as follows:

- The name and assets are transferred to a community holding with strictly non-commercial statutes
- Amiga Inc. can close its doors, the individuals can live on peacefully without ongoing persecution by mad stalkers
- Hyperion is now free to sell their work to Genesi, or to continue development in accordance to "core API" styleguides that need to be set up and protected by the holding
- Both Genesi and Hyperion or neither call their product Amiga, or the same would be allowed to other companies and groups. The community holding could allow the AROS group to call their work "Amiga" even without paying fees, because it's of a non-profit nature.

"Dream on", sure. A development like this is not as bizarre and improbable as it might sound. Amiga Inc., Hyperion and Genesi are all on extremely thin ice, and only a bit of change can catalyze larger changes. The community, for a start, could boycott Genesi and Hyperion and give them even worse press and public pressure until some kind of progress starts to settle.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 234 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 01-Feb-2004 20:11 GMT
In reply to Comment 232 (samface):
Yes, this is correct. Real processors are for sissies, now that JIT solutions yield half of native performance, and the CPU is waiting for the memory bus most of the time. :) We're making some progress there. For the time being, we're focusing on rewriting the AmigaOS as a collection of middleware services. See http://teklib.neoscientists.org for details.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 235 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 02-Feb-2004 09:37 GMT
In reply to Comment 233 (Oppressor):
>Sitting on the name only protects the painfully slow development at Hyperion.
>90% of the work is done in 10% of the time, and the remaining 10% of the work
>consume 90% of the time and resources available. The slowness at Hyperion
>causes enormous damage to the "Amiga thing" as a whole, and by that I mean
>people who have bought AmigaOnes, Pegasoses, who are using their old Amigas or
>different operating systems (like myself), and who are just waiting. If we're
>losing only one of the "beneficial" people per week and one "beneficial"
>developer per month to outside platforms, then we're running out of resources
>shortly.

I'm sorry but I disagree that Hyperion would be making slow progress. How long did it take for bPlan to accomplish MorphOS v1.0? The MorphOS project was started in 1997, 5 years later MorphOS v1.0 was released. Then let's compare with another AmigaOS clone project; AROS. Do I need to say more?

Seriously, is two or three years in development really that much for an OS project? I don't think so.

>The problem with the Hyperion development is that it is (to industrial
>standards) organized unprofessionally - not only that the release dates were
>haphazard, leave alone that they now refuse to give release dates at all.

The release dates is a painful reminder of what should have happened if the Amiga market would have decided to cooperate instead of competing against each other. The expectations for these release dates where unjustly transferred to Hyperion, who basicly had to start over from scratch with nothing instead of what should have been already accomplished by then. Too sad that there are too many egoes in this business...

>There are also haphazard decisions in what will be included to 4.0, 4.1, 4.2,
>5.0.

???

>And during all the time OS4 is in the Vapour Awards.

Thanks for the publicity, Nate.

>Thanks to Amiga Inc., who obviously failed to organize and support this work
>professionally.

Well, I'd say it wouldn't be correct to put all the blame one just one of the involved parties in this mess.

>Hyperion, on the other hand, are not to be criticized. They need only a few
>hundered OS4 units to provide them with almost guaranteed sales program of
>game ports in the next years.

I wouldn't say just a few hundred, but of course Hyperion expect certain benefits from selling AmigaOS4, and they deserve it, IMO.

>At the same time, vast amounts of proven competence in "Amiga-like"
>development is sunk in MorphOS and Genesi. Hey, they did no less than to prove
>that they can develop an Amiga-lookalike OS - with the help of AROS people
>though, where another large amount of energy is being spent.

Yes, I agree. This energy would have been so much better spent on a unified effort.

>My proposal for solution would be as follows:

<snip>

I'm afraid that I once more don't agree. I don't believe in an open source AmigaOS nor the Amiga as open hardware standard, never did. The different branches taken by the former Amiga community is bad enough as it is, the only way for the Amiga to survive is through unity and as one defacto standard. As I see it, the beginning of our demise was the Haage&Partner vs Phase5 war. The split in the AmigaPPC market was devastating and basicly turned my PowerPC 603e accelerator into my worst waste of perfectly good money ever. I would have been much better off with a 68060, a mediator, and a VoodooIII graphics card.

So you see, the efforts by Phase5 and bPlan, which is basicly the same people, is worth exactly zero to me. On the contrary, I strongly believe we would have been better off without them.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 236 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 02-Feb-2004 09:57 GMT
In reply to Comment 234 (Oppressor):
Now THIS looks really interesting... How far has the exec development progressed? Will it be AmigaOS3.x API compatible?
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 237 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 02-Feb-2004 14:06 GMT
In reply to Comment 235 (samface):
> I'm sorry but I disagree that Hyperion would be making slow progress. How long did it take for bPlan to accomplish MorphOS v1.0? The MorphOS project was started in 1997, 5 years later MorphOS v1.0 was released. Then let's compare with another AmigaOS clone project; AROS. Do I need to say more? [...] Seriously, is two or three years in development really that much for an OS project? I don't think so.

I didn't want to imply that the MorphOS people gang was faster or smarter. I know how much time it takes to accomplish software development in large scales. Hyperion, as professionals, should've known about the 90:10 ratio as well. Either they were not as highly qualified for software development as they believed they were, or they may have been overly optimistic for other reasons. It's not the slowness in itself which I criticize, but the unprofessional approach. Read the comments at amigaworld.net to see how badly AmigaOne owners suffer from their waiting. And the wait isn't over yet.

It would've been better to not give release dates from the start. On the other hand, the OS4 crew has a lot of original sources at hand and doesn't need to rewrite everything from scratch. If you are now tempted to draw the Secret Master Weapon: The AmigaOS is an aesthetic, but very simple design. Many people could rewrite it from scratch nowadays, with just the knowledge of its API and inner working, which is very well accessible to every kind of inspection. I'm referring to the sheer amount of code that eats up the time.

Three years isn't much time for OS development. Three years late for a PPC port is devastating.

> The release dates is a painful reminder of what should have happened if the Amiga market would have decided to cooperate instead of competing against each other. [...] Too sad that there are too many egoes in this business...

Fully agreed.

> The expectations for these release dates where unjustly transferred to Hyperion, who basicly had to start over from scratch with nothing instead of what should have been already accomplished by then.

The sources laid 10 years in deep slumber, but they weren't gone. I really don't see it. Sure, hardware drivers, these are a lot of fun, which Hyperion should've known beforehand. I consider the rest of the OS (recompiling existing C and porting existing 68k code to C) a time-consuming, but straightforward and easy job. Olaf Barthel already did the Filesystem and contributed a TCP stack. The rest isn't exactly rocket science, with the sources at hand.

> There are also haphazard decisions in what will be included to 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, 5.0.

If I remember correctly, more and more features were taken from later 4.x releases into the initial release. My evil conspiracy theory is that this project entirely got out of control, and that they needed backup excuses.

> Well, I'd say it wouldn't be correct to put all the blame one just one of the involved parties in this mess.

Fully agreed. We must only draw a line between blames for the sake of taking revenge and blames for the sake of making progress. I don't want to forget anything, but to come to simple calculations, like

Genesi vs. Amiga: -1 : -1

and then successively remove these arguments from being cooking up over and over again. :)

> I'm afraid that I once more don't agree. I don't believe in an open source AmigaOS nor the Amiga as open hardware standard, never did.

Oh well, it is STILL possible that AROS will be the only survivor in a couple of years. Neither would that appear to be the least probable nor the worst scenario to me.

> The different branches taken by the former Amiga community is bad enough as it is, the only way for the Amiga to survive is through unity and as one defacto standard.

Fully agreed. I only believe that all commercial entities sunk too deeply to handle that burden anymore. Without the name being the protective shield for Hyperion, OS4 development would be immediately crushed by reality. If Amiga Inc. would be the weakest member of the chain, what would happen without them, who's the owner of the name then? Is it free? Does it belong to Gateway? Can I attend an auction in the U.S. and buy it then?

> As I see it, the beginning of our demise was the Haage&Partner vs Phase5 war. The split in the AmigaPPC market was devastating and basicly turned my PowerPC 603e accelerator into my worst waste of perfectly good money ever. I would have been much better off with a 68060, a mediator, and a VoodooIII graphics card.

Fully agreed. The Phase5 PPC accelerators were utterly stupid, destructive nonsense. I'm glad I never got one. I got a 68060 board and a CyberVision64, which were fine products, but Phase5 were seemingly freaking out then. But I don't know the whole story, as H&P started to introduce another PPC solution, which seemed even more destructive and stupid to me.

> So you see, the efforts by Phase5 and bPlan, which is basicly the same people, is worth exactly zero to me. On the contrary, I strongly believe we would have been better off without them.

Yes, that's well possible. And nowadays we would be better off without Amiga Inc., which would result in the first -1 : -1 notch on my woodblock. :)
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 238 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 02-Feb-2004 14:09 GMT
In reply to Comment 236 (samface):
Well, three years are nothing in terms of development, but the Exec API and a few others are finished. We are intentionally not API-compatible with the AmigaOS, which was probably the best decision we made. Our design is better than the AmigaOS. :)
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 239 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 02-Feb-2004 18:12 GMT
In reply to Comment 237 (Oppressor):
>I didn't want to imply that the MorphOS people gang was faster or smarter. I
>know how much time it takes to accomplish software development in large
>scales. Hyperion, as professionals, should've known about the 90:10 ratio as
>well. Either they were not as highly qualified for software development as
>they believed they were, or they may have been overly optimistic for other
>reasons. It's not the slowness in itself which I criticize, but the
>unprofessional approach. Read the comments at amigaworld.net to see how badly
>AmigaOne owners suffer from their waiting. And the wait isn't over yet. It
>would've been better to not give release dates from the start.

Ok, here's the deal:

Amiga Inc. spent their first 9 months in office negotiating, the idea was to try uniting the Amiga community and make use of the many talents and resources as a unified effort to ressurect the more than 10 year old Amiga corpse. I suspect that the announcement that they would abandon the classic Amiga product line was more strategic than sincere, inspired by how Gateway got Haage&Partner and Phase5 to actually cooperate with each other for the sake of trying to save the Amiga PPC market.

Anyway, during those negotiations, the community kept pressuring Amiga Inc. to release information about their plans and release dates. At this time, Amiga Inc. may have been naive and thought that the negotiating partners dedication to the platform would be strong enough to make certain compromises. For this reason, they made announcements based on the assumption that the negotiations would be successful. They were wrong. The negotiations failed and the only cooperating partners that remained after this major setback was Eyetech and Hyperion.

Now, while it may have been better to be honest in our user point of view, it's not always that easy if you are dependant on investments like Amiga Inc. was, and still is.

>On the other hand, the OS4 crew has a lot of original sources at hand and
>doesn't need to rewrite everything from scratch. If you are now tempted to
>draw the Secret Master Weapon: The AmigaOS is an aesthetic, but very simple
>design. Many people could rewrite it from scratch nowadays, with just the
>knowledge of its API and inner working, which is very well accessible to
>every kind of inspection. I'm referring to the sheer amount of code that eats
>up the time.
>
>Three years isn't much time for OS development. Three years late for a PPC
>port is devastating.

It's far from just a port to PPC. Have you read the AmigaOS4.0 feature set? It's right here:

http://os.amiga.com/os4/OS4FeatureSet.php

I'm sure you will find it an interesting read.

>The sources laid 10 years in deep slumber, but they weren't gone. I really
>don't see it. Sure, hardware drivers, these are a lot of fun, which Hyperion
>should've known beforehand. I consider the rest of the OS (recompiling
>existing C and porting existing 68k code to C) a time-consuming, but
>straightforward and easy job. Olaf Barthel already did the Filesystem and
>contributed a TCP stack. The rest isn't exactly rocket science, with the
>sources at hand.

All sources were far from C. Some parts of the Amiga operating system were indeed written in C, but the larger part was still in MC68000 assembly code. DOS was even written in BCPL as a reminder of the AmigaOS TRIPOS heritage.

It would make more sense to say that AmigaOS4 is a rewrite rather than a port, while the truth is probably somewhere in between. In any case, I surely wouldn't call it a "straightforward and easy job". But then, you're more of a programming expert than me, I could be wrong.

>If I remember correctly, more and more features were taken from later 4.x
>releases into the initial release. My evil conspiracy theory is that this
>project entirely got out of control, and that they needed backup excuses.

Well, as a theory I cannot prove it right nor wrong. However, have you ever heard of such thing as a planned feature set that would have never been revised from day one until finalization?

>I don't want to forget anything, but to come to simple calculations, like
>
>Genesi vs. Amiga: -1 : -1
>
>and then successively remove these arguments from being cooking up over and
>over again. :)

Agreed. =)

>Oh well, it is STILL possible that AROS will be the only survivor in a couple
>of years. Neither would that appear to be the least probable nor the worst
>scenario to me.

It sure is no impossibility, but not far from a worst case scenario to me.

>> The different branches taken by the former Amiga community is bad enough as
>>it is, the only way for the Amiga to survive is through unity and as one
>>defacto standard.
>
>Fully agreed. I only believe that all commercial entities sunk too deeply to
>handle that burden anymore. Without the name being the protective shield for
>Hyperion, OS4 development would be immediately crushed by reality. If Amiga
>Inc. would be the weakest member of the chain, what would happen without
>them, who's the owner of the name then? Is it free? Does it belong to
>Gateway? Can I attend an auction in the U.S. and buy it then?

That's speculation out of my leauge, I'm afraid.

>So you see, the efforts by Phase5 and bPlan, which is basicly the same
>people, is worth exactly zero to me. On the contrary, I strongly believe we
>would have been better off without them.
>
>Yes, that's well possible. And nowadays we would be better off without Amiga
>Inc., which would result in the first -1 : -1 notch on my woodblock. :)

I'm not so sure about that. I mean, they coughed up those $5 million it cost to buy the Amiga trademark and intellectual property in order to secure it from ending up in Gateway's archives, doomed to an eternity of uncertainty. And then they spent 9 months of negotiations in order to secure the continuation of the classic Amiga product line, even sacrificed the legal rights to the OS in case they would end up in insolvency. Do you realize how much this has cost them vs the tiny revenue they will make from AmigaOne and AmigaOS4 sales? Do you think any other company in the Amiga market would be willing to do the same?

Well sure, there is quite a few things that could have been done differently if they would have known what we know today. However, atleast it's quite appearant to me that they did things for the right reasons and I just wish things would have turned out a little different than they did.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 240 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 02-Feb-2004 21:06 GMT
In reply to Comment 238 (Oppressor):
Great. We surely don't need another AmigaOS alternative and a new OS project such as yours (as well as Pro-POS) is probably better off without the Amiga heritage as a ballast. Though, there is nothing wrong with keeping the Amiga spirit and thinking alive, which BTW can be applied to more than just things related to computers, like basicly everything in your life. =)

I will definitly keep an eye on your project and watch it progress with great interest. BTW, do you have any contact with Solar (Martin Baute) these days? Even if Pro-POS is still in a *very* early stage and progressing *very* slow at the moment, I'm quite sure you should be able to sooner or later, if not already, reach a point where joint efforts could be made. Or, maybe he could just use a few words of advice from someone who has more experience and has already accomplished the problems he is facing right now?

I wish I knew more about low level programming and kernel design myself... :-/
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 241 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 02-Feb-2004 23:04 GMT
In reply to Comment 239 (samface):
> Amiga Inc. spent their first 9 months in office negotiating, the idea was to try uniting the Amiga community and make use of the many talents and resources as a unified effort to ressurect the more than 10 year old Amiga corpse. I suspect that the announcement that they would abandon the classic Amiga product line was more strategic than sincere, inspired by how Gateway got Haage&Partner and Phase5 to actually cooperate with each other for the sake of trying to save the Amiga PPC market.

We are close to the point, but not quite there yet. I was a DE developer at that time. I remember I was in a DE developer channel on IRC, when I was suddenly told by Amiga officials: Sorry folks, continuation of the previously abandoned classic line is it now. Wham!

> Anyway, during those negotiations, the community kept pressuring Amiga Inc. to release information about their plans and release dates.

The community except me...

> At this time, Amiga Inc. may have been naive and thought that the negotiating partners dedication to the platform would be strong enough to make certain compromises. For this reason, they made announcements based on the assumption that the negotiations would be successful. They were wrong. The negotiations failed and the only cooperating partners that remained after this major setback was Eyetech and Hyperion.

... and supposedly the people working on MorphOS at that time. By the "negotiation partners", did you mean them? I think we can assume we believed Amiga Inc. would be working on their own plans of pushing forward their DE.

I didn't read much "Classic"-related news at that time, for I didn't consider a continuation of OS3.x commercially viable. It's a safe bet that the bPlan staff was laughing into the face of Amiga Inc. If so, that was probably the ultimate humiliation and error, the death strike to both.

Amiga Inc. has literally painted itself into the corner. At that point they deserved the stupidity reward and should have surrendered to their fate, while at the same time Genesi would have been rewarded the asshole award. Unfortunately Amiga Inc. believed the asshole award was also theirs and wanted it back!

Here's my view: Amiga Inc. failed with the DE. They were marketing people, and too sparsely backed with technical competence. There were a few individuals, but those silently vanished from the mailing lists one after the other... Amiga Inc. couldn't handle their own vision technically. They've made a deal with TAO about technology which they failed to control and extrapolate into something useful.

Well, many companies failed at that time, but things work differently in Amigaland. If a company fails, it can still continue to throw dirt into people's faces and live on by creating a new destructive API, or by starting a new war or camp. Please correct me, add facts, assumptions, your point of view to this picture. Or can we agree that the asshole award is now to be rightfully shared between Amiga Inc. and Genesi?

> All sources were far from C. Some parts of the Amiga operating system were indeed written in C, but the larger part was still in MC68000 assembly code. DOS was even written in BCPL as a reminder of the AmigaOS TRIPOS heritage. [...] It would make more sense to say that AmigaOS4 is a rewrite rather than a port, while the truth is probably somewhere in between.

Agreed, it is somewhere inbetween. My take on this: Porting is intellectually light-years behind creating something new, and still far from reconstructing a functionality. It's not that difficult, it's something to keep your fingers busy while you're almost falling asleep. (I also ported a few game titles from the PC to the Amiga, commercially...)

>> [...] And nowadays we would be better off without Amiga Inc., which would result in the first -1 : -1 notch on my woodblock. :)

> I'm not so sure about that. I mean, they coughed up those $5 million it cost to buy the Amiga trademark and intellectual property in order to secure it from ending up in Gateway's archives, doomed to an eternity of uncertainty. And then they spent 9 months of negotiations in order to secure the continuation of the classic Amiga product line, even sacrificed the legal rights to the OS in case they would end up in insolvency. Do you realize how much this has cost them vs the tiny revenue they will make from AmigaOne and AmigaOS4 sales? Do you think any other company in the Amiga market would be willing to do the same?

No, and right so, because I'm calling this stupid. Better let something die when it cannot live, when it is not self-supporting. Btw., why don't you take into consideration that $5 million may have been too much? It was their risk to take, I supported them with my work already (by writing a PDA game, a soundsystem, and much more, and releasing all sources to the public), and it wasn't appreciated. They closed the doors for open development.

> However, atleast it's quite appearant to me that they did things for the right reasons and I just wish things would have turned out a little different than they did.

A little different, well... Maybe you're so forgiving because you were not personally damaged by Amiga Inc.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 242 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 03-Feb-2004 07:01 GMT
In reply to Comment 241 (Oppressor):
>We are close to the point, but not quite there yet. I was a DE developer at
>that time. I remember I was in a DE developer channel on IRC, when I was
>suddenly told by Amiga officials: Sorry folks, continuation of the previously
>abandoned classic line is it now. Wham!

That's strange. I specificly remember that when they announced continuation of the classic Amiga product line, they repeatedly stated that none of the AmigaDE plans had been changed. IIRC, the plan was that these product lines would be developed in parallell without effecting each other and not "meet" until AmigaOS5. However, I aslo remember that many people made the same interpretation as you, ie that they would be dropping their initial plan for the AmigaDE. Want to know what I told them?

http://www.amiga.com/corporate/041201-mcewen.shtml

"Amiga has made NO change in strategy with AmigaDE. Things are going great, as expected, and we have some impressive new customers; Sharp being the first."

>>The negotiations failed and the only cooperating partners that remained after
>>this major setback was Eyetech and Hyperion.
>
>... and supposedly the people working on MorphOS at that time. By
>the "negotiation partners", did you mean them? I think we can assume we
>believed Amiga Inc. would be working on their own plans of pushing forward
>their DE.

Yes, I mean bPlan (MorphOS), but also Haage&Partner.

Read this thread:

http://www.ann.lu/comments2.cgi?view=1075320857&category=news&start=101&154

Comment #118 to #154.

>Here's my view: Amiga Inc. failed with the DE. They were marketing people, and
>too sparsely backed with technical competence. There were a few individuals,
>but those silently vanished from the mailing lists one after the other...
>Amiga Inc. couldn't handle their own vision technically. They've made a deal
>with TAO about technology which they failed to control and extrapolate into
>something useful.

Well, I'd say it was probably more about certain unfortunate scenario of events which was like an unexpected backstab in their back. I mean, it's not like it was Amiga Inc.'s fault that Nokia dropped the MediaTerminal, for example. Not sure what happened with the Sharp deal, but it was surely not expected since Sharp even had their own AmigaDE support section on their developer site.

>Well, many companies failed at that time, but things work differently in
>Amigaland. If a company fails, it can still continue to throw dirt into
>people's faces and live on by creating a new destructive API, or by starting a
>new war or camp. Please correct me, add facts, assumptions, your point of view
>to this picture. Or can we agree that the asshole award is now to be
>rightfully shared between Amiga Inc. and Genesi?

Not really. Amiga Inc.'s vision always was to unite the Amiga market rather than divide and conquer, which obviously wasn't a priority for companies like bPlan and Haage&Partner. I mean, if things would have gone the Amiga Inc. way, these companies would have been working side by side on AmigaOS4.5 by now. There wouldn't be any AmigaOS "alternative" (except for AROS, of course) and all Amiga hardware alternatives would be supported by the same AmigaOS. We would have only one defacto standard set of API's for this new generation of AmigaOS, either as complete rewrites or as derivates based on already well established API standards of today.

But like I said, since this wasn't a priority for everyone, the attempts at negotiating for the sake of unity was doomed to fail. However, atleast it's a "+" on Amiga Inc.'s behalf for trying, IMO.

>Agreed, it is somewhere inbetween. My take on this: Porting is intellectually
>light-years behind creating something new, and still far from reconstructing a
>functionality. It's not that difficult, it's something to keep your fingers
>busy while you're almost falling asleep. (I also ported a few game titles from
>the PC to the Amiga, commercially...)

Did you read the AmigaOS4.0 feature list? If not, please do. We're talking about the biggest AmigaOS revision made, ever. It's not just a rewrite nor a port, we're talking about the difference between Windows3.11 and Windows95, or MacOS8 and MacOSX.

>Better let something die when it cannot live, when it is not self-supporting.

Sure, we would be much better off with the Amiga Trademark and IP somewhere in the dark Gateway2000 archives and no other industry standard besides the old legacy AmigaOS3.x API to lean on...

>> However, atleast it's quite appearant to me that they did things for the
>>right reasons and I just wish things would have turned out a little different
>>than they did.

>A little different, well... Maybe you're so forgiving because you were not
>personally damaged by Amiga Inc.

They owe me $150, and I intend to get it back. :-P
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 243 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 03-Feb-2004 11:24 GMT
In reply to Comment 242 (samface):
> IIRC, the plan was that these product lines would be developed in parallell without effecting each other and not "meet" until AmigaOS5. However, I aslo remember that many people made the same interpretation as you, ie that they would be dropping their initial plan for the AmigaDE. Want to know what I told them?

I've always read all executive summaries and press releases carefully. Judging from where we are today, I'd be calling this wishful thinking, reality disorder, lies. Pick one. I intentionally did not include "trying".

From their website:

"Amiga has made NO change in strategy with AmigaDE. Things are going great, as expected, and we have some impressive new customers; Sharp being the first."

Yes, even I believed them and did not immediately stop to work for DE! Can you even remotely imagine how blunt and insulting citing JUST THIS must sound to me, after I explained my view on these things to you? Press releases from the Reichsministerium für Propaganda were also "official" at their time. What does officiality prove? Trying?!

You still don't get to the point. They failed, and I'm not accusing them of the failure, but of not giving in to failure, accepting it, stopping to insult people.

> Did you read the AmigaOS4.0 feature list?

Yes.

> Sure, we would be much better off with the Amiga Trademark and IP somewhere in the dark Gateway2000 archives and no other industry standard besides the old legacy AmigaOS3.x API to lean on...

Fully agreed.

>> A little different, well... Maybe you're so forgiving because you were not personally damaged by Amiga Inc.

> They owe me $150, and I intend to get it back. :-P

Hmm.. Is it remotely possible that we're finally approaching the problem... I don't want to push too hard on this, but sometimes we're all making mistakes.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 244 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 03-Feb-2004 12:57 GMT
In reply to Comment 243 (Oppressor):
>I don't want to push too hard on this, but sometimes we're all making mistakes.

But, surely you are not suggesting that every failure would be a reason to "give in"? And once more, I seriously don't agree that it would be a good thing if the Amiga trademark and intellectual property would cease to exist and only remain as some form of public license or something similar. Like I said, we need strict and unified industry standards, not a djungel of various incompatible standards and derivates. The definition of beeing official is of course very subjective, but surely you can see the advantages of having an "official" path forwards?

I agree that it's sad that the AmigaDE hasn't become such success as expected, but I fail to see why that would be a reason to "give in" and just leave the Amiga to it's fate. Even if they don't contribute much to development of the classic Amiga product line at this time, they got the ball rolling and giving in now would be like pulling the carpet from under their partner's feet.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 245 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 03-Feb-2004 13:04 GMT
In reply to Comment 243 (Oppressor):
>> Sure, we would be much better off with the Amiga Trademark and IP somewhere
>>in the dark Gateway2000 archives and no other industry standard besides the
>>old legacy AmigaOS3.x API to lean on...
>
>Fully agreed.

BTW, that was sarcasm.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 246 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 03-Feb-2004 13:13 GMT
In reply to Comment 245 (samface):
>>> Sure, we would be much better off with the Amiga Trademark and IP somewhere
>>> in the dark Gateway2000 archives and no other industry standard besides the
>>> old legacy AmigaOS3.x API to lean on...
>> Fully agreed.
> BTW, that was sarcasm.
In know.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 247 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 03-Feb-2004 13:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 244 (samface):
> Like I said, we need strict and unified industry standards, not a djungel of various incompatible standards and derivates.

At least MorphOS is maintaining OS3.1 compatibility on sourcecode level. This is a refreshing break from past mistakes like PuP, WuP, the last time with DE, and soon with OS4. (Well, of course this doesn't work with libraries, hooks, tasks, timer interrupts, processes... I would've suggested to build the entire system on 68k code virtuality, but that's an entirely different story.)

> The definition of beeing official is of course very subjective, but surely you can see the advantages of having an "official" path forwards?

It can be argued whether we have zero, one, two, three, four, ... paths now. And I mean this seriously, not sarcastic. Just a few examples:

Zero: No strong company around
One: Either MorphOS or AmigaOS
Two: Both MorphOS and AmigaOS
Three: DE, MorphOS, AmigaOS
Four: AROS, DE, MorphOS, AmigaOS
Five: AROS, DE, MorphOS, AmigaOS, Amithlon
...
etc. Add more combinations at will. This is all highly subjective. Thanks to unprofessional work from Amiga Inc. who failed to protect their investment. Btw., I'm having the OS3.1 sources on my harddisk. If I'm releasing them on my website, will Amiga Inc. have the power to sue me? I don't think so.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 248 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Oppressor on 03-Feb-2004 14:06 GMT
In reply to Comment 240 (samface):
> Though, there is nothing wrong with keeping the Amiga spirit and thinking alive, which BTW can be applied to more than just things related to computers, like basicly everything in your life. =)

Well put. Yes, that was the intention, to keep a design principle around first, and an actual implementation second.

> I will definitly keep an eye on your project and watch it progress with great interest. BTW, do you have any contact with Solar (Martin Baute) these days? Even if Pro-POS is still in a *very* early stage and progressing *very* slow at the moment, I'm quite sure you should be able to sooner or later, if not already, reach a point where joint efforts could be made. Or, maybe he could just use a few words of advice from someone who has more experience and has already accomplished the problems he is facing right now?

I'm constantly watching your project since we met the first time, and it's listed in our links section. I'm still hailing to the initial ideal to prepare the ground with uncompromising transparency in the design phase. I didn't believe this would work, and I'm now even more firmly believing that opinions are always justifiable targets to destruction, i.e. you need to come up with something that actually works to seed the ground. The less that needs to be, the closer your attempt is to perfection. There are points of ultimate resistance in the human thinking that cannot be argued logically.

> I wish I knew more about low level programming and kernel design myself... :-/

We don't have a kernel. Not yet, and maybe we will never have one. The AmigaOS was an OS without kernel, that's why it always worked so well and why it can be taken to any degree of virtuality you like. For us it's just a collection of services, we're only borrowing threads, memory and signals from the underlying OS throughout a host abstraction service.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 249 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by Lennart Fridén on 04-Feb-2004 08:21 GMT
In reply to Comment 222 (samface):
>>Science is very much philosophy.

>>Furthermore, philosophy used to be the only form of science.

>The words of a true philosopher.

Thank you. :-)

>Hey, I'm not arguing against you, but merely pointing out that this is one way
>of looking at it... :-P

My first sentence, yes. The latter though is a fact. There was no such thing as "science" before, there was only "philosophy", be it the terms that was used.
Hostage Negotiation : Comment 250 of 260ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 04-Feb-2004 16:39 GMT
In reply to Comment 247 (Oppressor):
>> Like I said, we need strict and unified industry standards, not a djungel
>>of various incompatible standards and derivates.
>
>At least MorphOS is maintaining OS3.1 compatibility on sourcecode level. This
>is a refreshing break from past mistakes like PuP, WuP, the last time with
>DE, and soon with OS4.

...and soon with OS4? I'm sorry if I'm misinterpreting you again, but are you saying that AmigaOS4 will not be AmigaOS3.1 compatible on sourcecode level? I mean, I thought AmigaOS4 will actually be more compatible at sourcecode level than MorphOS since MorphOS only provides AmigaOS3.1 compatibility through a so-called "sandbox" solution (A/Box), while AmigaOS4 provides AmigaOS3.1 compatibility through inherited AmigaOS3.x Exec functionality in the new ExecSG? Correct me if I'm wrong.

>> The definition of beeing official is of course very subjective, but surely
>>you can see the advantages of having an "official" path forwards?
>
>It can be argued whether we have zero, one, two, three, four, ... paths now. >And I mean this seriously, not sarcastic.

While "official" is indeed a highly subjective word, I doubt anyone would question the fact that only AmigaOS4 is the official next generation AmigaOS. The main advantage of beeing "official" is that while many developers don't mind supporting whatever option they favor, few would compromise support for the "official" alternative. That's why I see AmigaOS4 as our last chance to unity and therefore also our last chance to survival.

>Thanks to unprofessional work from Amiga Inc. who failed to protect their
>investment.

Sure, one could say that theft is a failure of the owner to protect his property, but that's not how I see it...

>Btw., I'm having the OS3.1 sources on my harddisk. If I'm
>releasing them on my website, will Amiga Inc. have the power to sue me? I
>don't think so.

No, but Hyperion probably do. :-P
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