@Oppressor

You still not get the point. Whatever way leads towards the future, it will come or will not. Just use what you have, make it a bit better, work together with other enthusiasts and simply watch the things go on. Keep the alternatives in mind (if it´s named MOS or OS4 or AROS), because they may surprise you in the near future. Very simple.

The biggest problem of the community around the Amiga is, that this community finds its pleasure in complaining. We are used to wait and do nothing (or doing very few things) except complaining. Is THIS the way to the future? Just complaining and doing nothing else?

I get sick when I read something about "on other systems there are programming schemes like x and tools like y", because they are not the final solution to all questions. If you really need something like this, do it! If you don´t really need them, why complain about?

I saw a lot of "urgently needed development tools" without any noticable effect on AmigaOS software development appear in the last months. They are used for some quick´n dirty (and very few excellent) ports of linux software, that´s it. Nothing that´s worth mentioning.

So, where is the "professional" and "urgently needed" work like Mozilla or OO? We wait for it! (or maybe we are not really waiting for it, maybe we wait for a Amiga like solution?)

Is it possible, that all that cracks in development are only able to do things the linux/windows (speak: bloated) way? Sometimes I think so. If that´s true, why are you complaining about the AmigaOS situation? The alternatives exist, go for it.

I for myself would like to see AmigaOS software in the spirit of AmigaOS. Intuitive, fast, lightweight and fun to use. The tools for that kind of development exist for years. It´s not a matter of CPUs or MP or XML or Shockwave Flash or...

Greetz

@madtrekker

Quote:

if things do not go exactly as stated then there are people that jump on them, and there are lots of flames and attacks that probably do a lot more damage (at both ends) than the waiting game we have at the moment.

No - what actually happens is a couple of guys have an okay idea that might work if done correctly but then proceed to run the project in such a way that only calamity can befall it. Flames do not cause projects to be cancelled. If they do then that project wouldn't have had the strength to get to production anyway. Anyone that weak will find life very difficult indeed.

I too believe that Hyperion have a plan. I also believe that that plan is taken, as all things in this market, at incredible risk and may never come to fruition. I hope that OS4 does get released. I for one will be purchasing it if it does.

Quote:

If I was developing some new hardware (and no, I'm not BTW - this is hypothetical, sorry) then I'd keep quiet until I was ready

And that is exactly what you should do. The only problem is this should all have been completed years ago. This hasn't happened and the handful of people left are dwindling to almost nothing. You can't go on and on promising a new Amiga and not delivering indefinitely.

_________________
Sam

@Oppressor

Quote:

And here's the problem. In 2000 this chapter seemed concluded -- but the just founded ex-Amino Amiga Inc. startup suddenly offered a SDK for developing for a cross-platform multimedia OS and applications under the Amiga name and brand, which I found intriguing enough to jump on. As it turned out, it was a great idea in the hands of incompetent idiots,

DE may have been quite a good idea, but in retrospect tacking the Amiga name onto it seems as cynical a move as the new "Commodore" selling VIC branded mp3 players. Sure, you could argue that throwing out the past may be a good idea when the past was so out of date, but DE was mostly just the Amiga brand on Tao's technology. Interesting, certainly but not what most Amiga owners wanted.

Quote:

but instead of pushing it forwards Amiga Inc. suddenly resurrected the classic OS which it had publically abandoned before. Treason!

To be honest though, "resurrecting" the classic OS never seemed to take up much of Amiga's time or money - as far as we know they managed to get Eyetech and Hyperion to take on the task without having to spend much time on it themselves, but it kept the "community" on-side. They did announce some nebulous plans for an OS5 further down the road, but it seems that this was never much more than a bit of brainstorming, revealed to give a sense that there was a path. (And also to tie the future of the classic OS into DE)

Quote:

The work I spent for DE was down the drain, when I realized that behind my back, my own community, my own breed turned against me and suddenly convinced Amiga Inc. to scrap DE in favour of such a braindead endeavour as a second PPC AmigaOS.

And here was perhaps the only downside to Amiga's move (at least from their POV) - by setting Amiga OS4 in motion, much of the community lost interest in DE, since it seemed that OS4 offered more of what they wanted.

That said, given what then happened to the community it's probably come to be regarded as a good thing, since the community became more of a hindrance than a help to the company. (I'm sure when they started up the company they were able to say to investors "and the Amiga name carries with it a loyal community of users", while later on they'd probably hope potential investors didn't know anything about the "community")

I think this is why Amiga Inc generally seem to be ignoring us. Their current owners/investors are obviously more interested in AA and selling content for mobile devices, since this is a big industry at the moment. Reviving old operating systems on the other hand is hardly something you'd do just to turn a profit (which is all investors are likely to care about)

Personally, though I'm happy that OS4 was started. I am one of the people who left the Amiga for quite a while since I needed a PC to do college and later university work. I gave my Amiga to my brother who got several more years use out of it, but I did try to look up Amiga from time to time. I had assumed that after Escom went under it was dead and buried so I was rather surprised to find Gateway had bought the company. When I next checked into it sometime later it seemed that Gateway's plans had amounted to nothing so I wrote Amiga off again, but when I stumbled across news of a new Amiga OS I started following things more closely again (and here I am).

All of this means that I only found out about MorphOS much later, and this, I think, is the key problem with the OS. Because it is completely unofficial it hasn't the name recognition that might draw back old users, whereas OS4 has the capability to do just that. It's a shame that MorphOS and Amiga OS4 couldn't have co-existed more peacefully. Heck it may even have made sense for MorphOS to become the official "OS4" at one point, but I'm not in a position to judge whether or not Amiga's decision in that regard was sensible, since negotiation between companies of that sort can fail for a variety of reasons, some sensible, others ridiculous.

I'm personally not convinced that DE could ever have amounted to much more than it has. The trouble with investors is that they want a quick return which often precludes doing anything truly innovative or risky, so I feel that a lot of Amiga's high plans for DE would have come to nothing and it would have gone pretty much the way it did (i.e. a games platform for portable devices) with or without the Amiga community along. Disillusionment would have set in and Amiga would probably have wound up "disowning" the community just as it seemingly has now.

@-Sam-

Quote:

No - what actually happens is a couple of guys have an okay idea that might work if done correctly but then proceed to run the project in such a way that only calamity can befall it. Flames do not cause projects to be cancelled. If they do then that project wouldn't have had the strength to get to production anyway. Anyone that weak will find life very difficult indeed.

Sorry, I didn't intend to suggest that. But the flames do contribute to a negative atmosphere. As you point out all Amiga projects have a high risk of failure because of the nature of the market and a bunch of other factors (including software and hardware frequently being developed by very small teams or single individuals)

Also, you get a sort of vicious cycle, of someone coming along intending to do something good and worthy and having the whole history of failed or abandoned projects put against them right from the start. i.e. "All of these projects failed, so you will too". That kind of pessimism is demoralising, and suggests that the people espousing it don't believe it's possible to succeed in the market. (Which does lead me to wonder why they bother to stick around)

Quote:

And that is exactly what you should do. The only problem is this should all have been completed years ago.

New hardware was completed years ago. Unfortunately it ceased being available just as the OS was finally almost ready. Perhaps if OS4 had been ready sooner Eyetech might have been able to hold out, but the timing was rather unfortunate. I know I originally planned to wait until OS4 was finished before buying a machine, but I was lucky that I gave in and bought a pre-release machine because I couldn't stand the wait!

Now we find ourselves in a Plan B/C/D/etc kind of situation where the OS is ready, but we need the hardware, and we have to wait while things are worked out. How long did it take Eyetech to put together the A1 from initial announcement to final product? Surely it's only fair to give the people working on hardware now at least as long before giving up on them? (Although I would hope that it would take less time - there seem to be more options than there were when Eyetech started out which should make it slightly easier)

@whose

> I get sick when I read something about "on other systems there are programming schemes like x and tools like y", because they are not the final solution to all questions. If you really need something like this, do it! If you don´t really need them, why complain about?

I'm not complaining about the lack of programming tools. I was pointing out that developing software for the Amiga is especially difficult and risky in terms of protection of your investment, as it might lead you into all sorts of traps. For example, there is neither QT or GTK on the Amiga nor Gadtools on Windows, so you should've taken extra care to separate GUI and logic from each other if you ever choose to port your work to a different platform.

Personally, I very much prefer native GUIs like MUI or gtlayout... but then I have to seriously question myself whether my work will be honoured by more than a handful of people, and for how long people will be able to enjoy it, given the current situation.

I definitely don't want or need OpenOffice or Mozilla on the Amiga. Why not run them on Windows or Linux in first place, where they belong? I'm not using office software in my free time, and AWeb is quite sufficient for the sites I visit and I can do my internet banking with it as well.

> Is it possible, that all that cracks in development are only able to do things the linux/windows (speak: bloated) way? Sometimes I think so. If that´s true, why are you complaining about the AmigaOS situation? The alternatives exist, go for it.

You completely misunderstood me. The problem here is that very few people are left that are capable of anything but porting, I'd reckon. Or they are lurking and waiting for things to improve, I don't know. I certainly do.

> I for myself would like to see AmigaOS software in the spirit of AmigaOS. Intuitive, fast, lightweight and fun to use. The tools for that kind of development exist for years. It´s not a matter of CPUs or MP or XML or Shockwave Flash or...

Fully agreed. So what's your point again? I was complaining about the lack of prospect and vision and protection of work invested. Technically I can deal with the limitations of the Amiga quite well. It's all about politics.

_________________
Eagerly awaiting the X1000

@madtrekker

Quote:

New hardware was completed years ago.

Tell me about it. Probably the worst case of mistiming in the Amiga's history.

Quote:

Surely it's only fair to give the people working on hardware now at least as long before giving up on them?

Absolutely - but each day missed the possible core customer base gets weaker. The new Amiga needs that core to get the first burst of revenue else it's all over. Let us hope the mystery people may be working on something are aware of this.

_________________
Sam

@madtrekker

I'm not bemoaning that Tao Intent failed in the hands of Amiga Inc., quite the contrary. The failure took shape rather quickly. The problem is that Amiga Inc. has driven huge cracks into the community in the aftermath of its failure. We're all suffering from these mistakes up to this day; worst of it all is that OS4 was announced in 2001 for late 2001 or early 2002, which caused immeasurable damage to contenders that were competing for valuable development resources. OS4 wasn't just a duplicate effort, it was a hindrance for the others.

Well, so is life. People demanded the competition and probably got what they deserved. Today the course of OS4 is still dictated by Amiga Inc.'s rotting corpse, at least according to Hyperion. To me, any obligations are as bogus as Amiga Inc. itself and Hyperion's willingness to resolve the situation. However, as a developer I wouldn't let a dummy company dictate the fate of the environment in which I'm supposed to work for my free time... that's the whole point.

Last edited by Oppressor on 18-Jul-2006 at 12:22 AM.

_________________
Eagerly awaiting the X1000

@elwood

The amigascene doenst need just people like elwood but hardware like elwood to run os4 on ;)

@Kicko

_________________
Philippe 'Elwood' Ferrucci
Sam460 1.10 Ghz
AmigaOS 4 betatester
Amiga Translator Organisation

@Oppressor

Quote:

However, as a developer I wouldn't let a dummy company dictate the fate of the environment in which I'm supposed to work for my free time... that's the whole point.

I don't think they are a "dummy" company - you see the occasional flicker of life over there and they may even be making money selling their games. The real problem is that they have no interest in the community. I doubt that equates to no interest in OS4 though. If it eventually becomes a success then it enhances the Amiga brand, and they can claim credit for it, to boot. If on the other hand it doesn't it does them very little harm, so I could believe that they and Hyperion do work together behind the scenes. Hyperion do seem to have complete autonomy when it comes to the OS itself, they simply have no control over hardware licensing. They are just developing the software. I think this is a fairly common situation (although with some odd quirks, because with Amiga you seem to have to have those).

@Oppressor

Seems that I misunderstood some of your points. Apologize...

Quote:

I'm not complaining about the lack of programming tools. I was pointing out that developing software for the Amiga is especially difficult and risky in terms of protection of your investment, as it might lead you into all sorts of traps. For example, there is neither QT or GTK on the Amiga nor Gadtools on Windows, so you should've taken extra care to separate GUI and logic from each other if you ever choose to port your work to a different platform.

But isn't that the usual way? I've seen a lot of oss code with this separation, even Mozilla or OO provide this (but it's harder to change the GUI there, as it's very much code that has to be written again. Not to speak of several support libraries that are not existent yet). Nonetheless it is saved by the userbase only, which would have been never grown if nobody would have done work in the first place.

Quote:

Personally, I very much prefer native GUIs like MUI or gtlayout... but then I have to seriously question myself whether my work will be honoured by more than a handful of people, and for how long people will be able to enjoy it, given the current situation.

I think it will be honoured by much more than a handful of people, if it is useful for a broad base of users. And it will live as long, as OS3.x is in use (maybe even using UAE). If you start to develop it for OS4/MOS, it is a "risc", that's true. But the risc will be there for these build forks only, not for the entire project.

Quote:

I definitely don't want or need OpenOffice or Mozilla on the Amiga. Why not run them on Windows or Linux in first place, where they belong? I'm not using office software in my free time, and AWeb is quite sufficient for the sites I visit and I can do my internet banking with it as well.

Agreed, except that I use Wordworth7 very often (nowadays on the µA1 and I would like to see a version of WW7 for OS4).

Quote:

You completely misunderstood me. The problem here is that very few people are left that are capable of anything but porting, I'd reckon. Or they are lurking and waiting for things to improve, I don't know. I certainly do.

That may be the case. I don't know exactly either...

Quote:

Fully agreed. So what's your point again? I was complaining about the lack of prospect and vision and protection of work invested. Technically I can deal with the limitations of the Amiga quite well. It's all about politics.

When it's all about politics, why are people so negative today? Old Commodore made bigger mistakes in their policy, we are still here. And I think it's a mistake to give Amiga Inc. nowadays more interest than they deserve. They will do their thing (even going bancrupt) regardless of our standpoint regarding OS4 or MOS. The protection of someones work is not really their job, it's ours. Divide your code as good as you can, if AmigaOS gets down, use the bigger code portion with any other GUI system on any other platform and hope that it will be rewarded there. But even this won't be guaranteed...

Greetz

@elwood

Waiting for the new Revolution

_________________
retired

@madtrekker

It's exactly Amiga Inc.'s interest in OS4 which holds back development and ports to different platforms, including PPC ones. If the Amiga brand is enhanced, then judging from Amiga Inc.'s current website, this is to enhance the sales of mobile games -- or maybe it's just the value of the name and brand itself that is getting enhanced and nothing else, as even the development of mobile games was practically non-existant in 2003 already.

The price we are paying Amiga Inc. for having taken the name and brand and community hostage is too high, we cannot even tolerate it as a necessary evil or qualify it as mere coexistence. Even in the coexistence of parasite and host it's necessary that one doesn't kill the other.

I'm currently working on software development contracts myself, and it's not common practise for the consignee to have full autonomy over the product -- Hyperion's alleged autonomy, if any, is likely to end with OS 4. Whether new hardware finally gets a license from Amiga Inc. remains to be seen. In its current state the OS4 platform is extremely unattractive for development, and this problem would have to be addressed at its root; that's dissociation from Amiga Inc., not repeating the same mistakes with new hardware over and over again.

_________________
Eagerly awaiting the X1000

@Oppressor

Hmmm so far I have been watching this thread with interest as I have seen some good points raised...

Speaking as a developer who has been stung when I tried to previously enter the Amiga scene (Amiga DE) I thought I would add my 2c to the debate...

What currently stops me from developing for the Amiga: -
-Lack of hardware (long term viability of the platform is suspect without it)
-No final release of Amiga OS 4 (due to lack of hardware I suspect)
-Very bad experience with the Amiga DE (paid money, no support, no communication)

What would encourage me to develop for the Amiga: -
-Hardware, hardware, hardware...
-Final release of Amiga OS 4 (I'm aware the DE and OS4 are seperate beasts so I won't hold Hyperion responsible for my Amiga DE disaster)
-Cross platform development tools (I'm not going to buy exclusive tools...just yet...because of my previous experience with Amiga DE)

Why I would like to develop for the Amiga: -
-My general affection for the platform, its always been an interesting platform
-Do I need another reason?

Until then...all I can do is make my code as flexible as possible and hope for something to happen on the Amiga side that will get it started again...at the moment...its just sitting in the same state it was the last time I checked (3 months ago)...

One things for sure...It'll be done, when its done...is looking more like never...that does not attract developers to the platform, even when they would love to develop for it.

anyways, this turned out longer than I meant ;)

John.

hope I haven't caused offence or ignited a fire or something ;)

@johnktaylor
Quote:

-Cross platform development tools (I'm not going to buy exclusive tools...just yet...because of my previous experience with Amiga DE)

We here you. The primary reason the current SDK is OS4 native only is because Hyperion lack the resources to properly support the cross-compilers, etc. Thanks to the efforts of 3rd parties, we have cross-compilers and a small community of devs that use them. Some guys develop from their Linux box. Some from Windoze. I compile via distcc on my Mac. This doesn't help you right now of course (hardware, hardware, hardware) but it may be comforting to know many developers are thinking along the same lines as you.

_________________
ExecSG Team Lead

@johnktaylor

You don't actually need to buy any tools to develop for OS4. The SDK can be downloaded for free and you could write source-code with editpad if you had to and just keep a shell window open to do compiles and test code. Of course, editpad doesn't have code higlighting etc.

You might want to have a look at AmiDevCPP. It's a cross-compiler environment for windows that includes cross-compilers for AmigaOS4, OS3, MorphOS and AROS. It's not perfect but it does have a decent editor.

Hans

_________________
http://hdrlab.org.nz/ - Amiga OS 4 projects, programming articles and more. Home of the RadeonHD driver for Amiga OS 4.x project.
https://keasigmadelta.com/ - More of my work.

@elwood

Hi there! I've contributed nearly my life for this hobby and buying A1 & os4 should be good too. I hope all comes well. Thanks for the guys who have the skills to make all happen. I am just only a customer but never complain.
Advertisement is the thing I can do. Not too loudly but "shrewdly"...
Maybe if some time I could help with a project.

Roll on IB,ps2,"skype-thingy",etc...

Roll on os4 Final.

Roll on the new HW.

Roll me over if I can't get these...

@elwood

Quote:

elwood wrote: ... Now to all the people that are waiting in the background for the hardware to come, I want to say: don't keep your hands in your pocket ! Don't hope "someone else will do it". Do something to bring the OS forward. ...

Sorry - but I can't do anything to bring the OS forward, as I'm not waiting for the hardware to come (I have OS4 capable HW since Oct. 1997) - I'm waiting for the OS itself!

How can I promote/support something that cannot be bought?

_________________
Ciao

Dandy
__________________________________________
If someone enjoys marching to military music, then I already despise him.
He got his brain accidently - the bone marrow in his back would have been sufficient for him!
(Albert Einstein)

@whose

Quote:

whose wrote: @Gleng Very simple. Develop useful software for AmigaOS, no matter what version you own, and take OS4 in the foresight. ...

Hmmmmmm - as far as I'm concerned, I rather see myself as an Amiga user/customer - but certainly not as an Amiga developer.

Why do you think we Amiga *users/customers* would all of a sudden start learning how to code and to come up with something just like "killer apps" for the Amiga the next day?

Do you really think that such skills are that easy to adopt?
And do you really believe everyone has the time to do so?

If that really would be so easy, we would not be here and moaning about missing things - then we would have "killer apps" abundantly (written by countless coders)...

_________________
Ciao

Dandy
__________________________________________
If someone enjoys marching to military music, then I already despise him.
He got his brain accidently - the bone marrow in his back would have been sufficient for him!
(Albert Einstein)

@Dandy

Quote:

Dandy wrote: Sorry - but I can't do anything to bring the OS forward, as I'm not waiting for the hardware to come (I have OS4 capable HW since Oct. 1997) - I'm waiting for the OS itself!

Your hardware is only a target specification for a classic version of OS4.

My understanding (and I have no insider knowledge) is that not all the plethera of classic add-ons, wil be or can be supported.
Simply because the source code for the required drivers are either commercial, or not available any more.
I would imagine a Classic/PPC OS4 release would have to be on specific hardware options for viability, the same as the A1 is specific hardware.

You can only hope your classic PPC hardware is of the required spec.

_________________
Peter Swallow.
A1XEG3-800 [IBM 750FX PowerPC], running OS4.1FE, using ac97 onboard sound.

"There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't."