I was thinking... couldn't a port of Opera browser for AmigaOS 4 be nice?
I mean, Opera exists for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and a lot of other platforms (including mobile devices, even smart phones...), so... caouldn't we try to contact Opera developers, asking for a version for Amiga?

There's no internet browser on Amiga fully supporting CSS, XML, DOM, JavaScript, etc, so... OPera would actually becam the main browser under AmigaOS, at least until Gecko or KHTML aren't ported to Amiga, so it would be convenient for both Amiga users, and Opera Software...

What do you think?

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@FeliceMente

I believe that there was an Amiga port on the cards way back in 1998 or so - some code may even have been written, however for some reason of another the project stalled. Considering the platform hasn't exactly experienced massive expansion since then, I'd have thought that the chances of getting a port now would be even slimmer...

There appears to be an "Opera for Amiga" newsgroup still hosted by Opera, although I doubt that contains anything useful.

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whoops

Last edited by alx on 24-Feb-2006 at 03:58 PM.

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@FeliceMente

I have written a message to the opera team and asked if they could port it for the amiga. Probably they wont, but maybe, you never know. Will se if they answer my mail.

I told them to announce it here on amigaworld, if they decides to do it or if they want help or have questions about things.

BR
JJ

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@jonssonj

Isn't the CEO of Opera like a BIG Amiga fan?

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@AmigaMac

ask Nicomen..

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@AmigaMac

I have no Idea if he is. If so, it should be easier to talk him into it.

:)

Everyone that wants the opera web browser should go to their homepage and use their online contact page and send them questions about an amiga version.

http://www.opera.com/contact/

BR
JJ

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@FeliceMente

If Opera would become availabble for AOS4, then I see no need for ports of other HTML-engines. As having too many programs to chose from at this time would render even smaller sales for each program. Of course the other ones would/should be freeware, but I can't see how freeware can take this small a community very far. Money has to be made be by various parties for the Amiga to ever again be a recognized platform by serious softwarevendors.

In my opinion people have to start thinking in longer timeframes, and not just for the moment. This is surely the last chance for the Amiga, and even though freeware/public domain has always had a lrge impact in the Amiga culture, it is time to become open for real apllications as well. If the professionally maintaned software has too much competition from freeware the software will never even be written for the Amiga.

To conclude my point:
Freeware isn't always good. Freeare as in small applications is ok, but the real software used daily would propably be better of if it wasn't freeware. Ok, so Opera would be a exception to this if Opera would release the Opera browser for free on the Amiga.
In my opinin Opera would be _the_ one application to get for AOS4.

@jonssonj

I sent a similar e-mail long ago. Their reply was very polite, but they basically said that the Amiga market is not worth the investment at the moment.
If we increase the user base to more appealing numbers, I would say it could be an option for them. They didn't reply with the usual "go away!". ;)

@Vikke

Yes, big time free programs are poisoned gifts. I remember when magazines started giving programs away. It may have had some positive exceptions (IMagine3D is one), but as a whole, I think it hurt the Amiga scene. IT meant less sales for other similar programs and, to some extent, to the companies behind the free offers. Many didn't feel the need to upgrade when newer versions came out (usually the commercial reason for the offer), so sales dried up_

Last edited by BrandonLee on 24-Feb-2006 at 05:57 PM.

@BrandonLee

Quote:

Many didn't feel the need to upgrade when newer versions came out (usually the commercial reason for the offer), so sales dried up_

If there's no compeling reason to buy it, usually that's what happens...

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@Vikke

Hopefully people wouldn't stop the porting of KHTML and Mozilla (if anything is being done?) just because Opera or an updated IBrowse was made available.

I agree that Opera wouldn't have many sales on the Amiga if Firefox/mozilla was available but that is because it has not enough to offer in comparison (please no religous war over browsers).

People in the world generally expects a browser to be free or be delivered with the operating system, so I guess any commercial browser will have a hard time unless it offers something the open source browsers cant deliver.

Other Amiga programs could perhaps even use parts of open source browsers. think about being able to create your own browser in Hollywood (if that could utilise parts of for example KHTML), or what about TuneNet or other programs with an integrated mini browser? I'm sure people can think of many better ideas, it was just to give an example.

I would prefer Firefox or KHTML over Opera anytime and it's not because I wouldn't pay for Opera it's just because I believe any platform NEEDS a good free browser to be accepted by the general audience. ohh and I believe the opensource engines will give us possibilities that Opera couldn't.

Having said all this I would gladly pay upto £150 for either of the 3 browsers or a version of IBrowse with same features.

What I find crazy is that we OS4 and MOS? users haven't been able to collect the money and get someone to do the actual port of either KHTML or Firefox. Why not get it done fast and proffessional?
If we are some 3000+ users it should be possible if everyone contributed...!

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@Troels

Quote:

What I find crazy is that we OS4 and MOS? users haven't been able to collect the money and get someone to do the actual port of either KHTML or Firefox. Why not get it done fast and proffessional? If we are some 3000+ users it should be possible if everyone contributed...!

Who would ever do anything professional if the product is opensource? You do the work and lose the control over the product? And I don't see contributing as a possible way to get software, the money has to come from _sales_.
Let's take the 3000-figure you mentioned.
How many do you think would contribute to a bounty or similar, and how large sums of money?
Then again, if a product of high quality would be available to buy... how many do you think would buy this product at a reasonable price?

Quote:

I would prefer Firefox or KHTML over Opera anytime and it's not because I wouldn't pay for Opera it's just because I believe any platform NEEDS a good free browser to be accepted by the general audience. ohh and I believe the opensource engines will give us possibilities that Opera couldn't.

I don't see any greater possibilites through either Mozilla/KHTML than with Opera. Actually in Opera I see a program made in the Amiga-spirit: small, effective, fast and low need of resources.

@all
Opera seems to be quite easy to port to very different platforms, so I don't think it would be that much of work for Opera to get it running on AOS4. The market is quite small, but it could have some effect in the marketingcampaign of Opera if AOS4 would be supplied with the distribution of the operating system. This way everyone with AOS4 would have a very good and secure browser, which as I see it is the most important thing for a platform to have at this moment.

@FeliceMente

First of all, due to the fact that Opera isn't opensourced, you first have to convice them to do the port for you or at least hire someone capable of doing it (ok, there's Nicomen )
But i must say that it is very unlikely for the forseeable future, they didn't do it when the Amiga still had "a name", i can't see why they'd want to do it now with close to 0 interest.

On the historic side, the facts you all are referring to, was the (in)famous "Opera Project Magic", where they proposed to do a port to secondary platforms if enough interest raised. I was one of those (not-so-smart, apparently ) supporting the project and i also had a banner on many of my old websites, it all started around 1997.
In one of my ancient backups, i've found that banner, i'm putting it online again for those amongst you who may be interested or curious. You can find it here:

(hey, this is history! )
You may notice that Linux wasn't so popular at the time, nor it was the Mac, and both were in the list of those "secondary" platforms There were a lot of platforms listed, ranging from Atari to OS/2 and BeOS. It's thanks to the Project Magic that you now have Opera on Mac and Psion (later Symbian).
Here's a link from the wayback machine:
Opera Project Magic
As a final note, i must add that at one point the Amiga was obviously the one wich raised the most interest and maybe the platform more likely to be supported... but as time passed by, they had to ditch the port due to lack of interested programmers willing to help with the port (i'm not 100% sure but i seem to remember to have red it on an email or on the site itself), and suddenly even BeOS and OS/2 became best candidates for a port than the Amiga. Really sad.
Forgive me if i've used some broken english in some places

Last edited by Nibunnoichi on 24-Feb-2006 at 08:51 PM.

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@Nibunnoichi

Not quite. IIRC they found a company to do it, who then looked into it and found the Amiga market had almost completely dried up. Rather than commit what they saw as commercial suicide, they told Opera they wouldn't sell enough copies to make it worth their while and walked away.

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@FeliceMente

Ehh. Daydreaming again?

Opera is portable, because of Qt framework.

A person involved in Opera development who is/was a MorphOS developer also asked if the port is possible, even if made using his/Genesi resources. IIRC it was rejected.

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@FeliceMente

It would be better to get a decent JVM and use Opera Mini, but that's not even a browser - - it's a gateway (proxy) for server-side parser at Opera. It can do magic to improve PDA web experience.

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@Vikke

Quote:

Who would ever do anything professional if the product is opensource? You do the work and lose the control over the product?

I have no idea who would do a port, but fact is that opensource is ported for free everyday. My point was that a userbase of 3000 should somehow be able to hire developers to do the job, regardless of the result being on opensource software or commercial software

Quote:

Let's take the 3000-figure you mentioned. How many do you think would contribute to a bounty or similar, and how large sums of money? Then again, if a product of high quality would be available to buy... how many do you think would buy this product at a reasonable price?

I think max. 10% would contribute and thats what annoys me with the Amiga scene atm. But then again to many people have been burned by such (mostly hardware though) projects in the past.
I think more than 90% of the current MOS/OS4 users would buy Opera if it was available now, if they wouldnt they would be stupid. Paying a large sum for the hardware and not having a decent webbrowser is not ideal.

But it's all just a theoretical discussion, no sane company is going to license and port Opera with the chance of free competitors entering the market. And even without any competition I doubt it would be financial viable.

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@FeliceMente
They thought about porting it many years ago, but they dropped it in the end because of small userbase.. Now it is years later and the userbase is smaller than ever, so i highly doubt they would reconsider.

@gnarly

Quote:

gnarly wrote: @Nibunnoichi Not quite. IIRC they found a company to do it, who then looked into it and found the Amiga market had almost completely dried up. Rather than commit what they saw as commercial suicide, they told Opera they wouldn't sell enough copies to make it worth their while and walked away.

Uhm... isn't it almost the same as saying "not interested"?
Btw, here're the correct quotes:

"Amiga
This doesn't look so good right now, but it may be just another delay and not a 'giving up'. Here's the info straight from the Team.
Unfortunately the Cologne show did not provide the hoped
for boost for the Amiga Classic market, and Ramjam Consultants
have therefore abandoned the Amiga Opera port."

And:
" We are talking to a German team about the port, but we are currently not sure if this port will be resumed"

And:
"Current status:
Progress bar: 0 out of 20
No new news."

This was the last time Amiga was mentioned, after that, it was removed from the page

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Proud Amigan since 1987
Owner of various Commodore and a SAM440ep\OS4.1FE
See them on http://retro.furinkan.org/

The KHTML port is our best hope at the moment, unless the kids working on the Amizilla port kick things into high gear. Maybe Jeff S. and some others can find time to help out again in the future (I realize you have already put in a good chunk of work on the NSPR, Jeff - I VERY MUCH appreciate your efforts).

Last edited by Legion on 25-Feb-2006 at 04:28 AM.

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