@zidz

Do you mean OS 3.1 or OS 4.x? Looks like you meant 68K. Well if that happened like you say and AmigaOS was cleaned up to be portable, a lot of work in itself and rewriting to C/C++. Replacing licensed modules with OS compatible ones. . Then it would be competing with Linux.

If the Amiga is dead what is alive? the place which sells the most units? then that wouldn't be computers as we knew them. What os does consoles have that make it so alive and well? at least with phones you know os made a huge difference. So here we are with 2 markets which are very different and both compete with what the amiga tries to do yet are not very computer-like. The smartphones os came to a pretty vacant market just like the old Amiga did. What was before them was horrible. The companies that took that market were giants who could back up failures and even did their best to use the open source world in their favor. It seems to me that the difference between alive and dead is money and resources, but then I look to the pc market - alive, right? so alive my almost 10 year old pc can do everything with a new gpu and is monopolized by a single os. I guess computers have very special parameters for being alive (well as long as you disregard the fact that the pc world is controlled by consoles this days and that had a lot to do with the corporation which controlled it entirely and then could just easily move to consoles due to the lack of competition).

Speaking of parameters, I have never seen those parameters you judge Hyp with. They are always bad just without any definitions of being bad. Is it delayed products? then Aeon is right there with them, along with any Amiga company I can think of maybe other than Amiga technologies under Petro. Is there some ratio for size of company X development by which Hyp are failing? Or is it only because they keep to themselves and don't follow your leads? a valid point, it's just needs to be said rather than constantly suggested.

I don't understand what is the goal or better - where is the goal? before being a valid choice in computing you need to know you're not stepping into a vacuum. If you want to seize even a small market share you need to do it differently. Amiga isn't alone in this. Outside the bubble there are other instances that try to do their own thing to some success. Mozilla is one example and there are others. That is also the example of open source which is not exclusive to Linux which has become synonymous with open source. Again, this is pretty similar to the closed source world, but maybe the point is that it is a world, by which the Amiga is not. It can withstand splits and fragmentation because it will always have that world going back to its kernel (roots). Evolution took place in a world of guaranteed support. That comparison is again not valid and it's not about eras. Not only do we compare a world to a platform (which is varied and divided), that world is a software only world today (which wasn't 10-15 years ago). Is that Amiga? for the nostalgia pc fanboys that might be the case. They want it as a tool on their desktop and guess what? my opinion is not very far from that wish, just with a vastly different wish at the end of it. Lastly, for some (loud) people here open sourcing is a means to an end of getting it to the right developers. In the meantime they are as closed about their reasoning as Hyp is. This goes against the very free nature of open source which is its own end goal. A lot of what I see from the linux world makes me question the obvious pairing of open sourcing with freedom of development and usage. A lot of parts of closed Amiga seems to me more open than linux ever was. My comparison between Aros and 4.1 didn't get me to a place where the user is right there at the heart of the open source enterprise of that os. The collaborative effort behind Aros did it. I guess some want Amiga as linux and it shows right there because you need to really dive into linux to see how much the user is on the minds of the people who are developing for him/her.

I compare Amiga to something else entirely: a country, a x-territory, a collective which feeds from values, principles and heritage. That country or a collective also has a civil society which needs to be included in the process of stirring that entity. While a state might seem like the most closed / behind closed doors thing, its citizens have the same access to its history and values and know about it character as well as those at the helm if not better. That is why I would like to have a discussion about Amiga itself and what can make it be the best it can be (no need to define it - think of the time it would save). That entire metaphor made me treat Aros as Amiga's ambassador. What does an ambassador needs? something to carry it and a clear message to bring. A real connection. That is why I also think about scummvm from an open source viewpoint as a carrier model for a potential Amiga-part that can "sit" anywhere. What is that part? that is the same question as what needs to be open sourced. Finally, I don't think that question is a software only question and that making its past (3.1) compete with its present (AOS4.1, MorphOS, Aros) is the dumbest move you can make - from every direction (genuine use or emulation) possible.

Last edited by Srtest on 13-Dec-2016 at 04:42 AM.

@paolone

Quote:

Opening AmigaOS sources would have been a smart move 20 years ago. Now there's no chance to recoup all this lost time. We're kinda stuck in this niche and we will never get outside of it.

Recoup lost time for what exactly?

Even if Cloanto were to open source 3.x and strictly oversee its versioning, there is a vast amount of information that could be drawn from the code, optimizations could be made, countless patches and bugs could be eliminated and the issue of preserving it would never be a concern.

It's not a question of whether this would make the OS competitive, it's to maintain its relevance.

This community has become a lot more resourceful in the last year and there are many eminently qualified people still out there who could contribute. So why not let them at least take a look?

And yes, I'm limiting this to the legacy side. Bringing the AmigaOS up to modern standards is an entirely different issue, but one that would also benefit.

@Srtest

a platfom is alive if it has both users and developers, wins new users and developers and gets new software

and if you dream about a modernized AmigaOS... where would it better than Linux, Windows or MacOS?

Android or what is installed on iPhones were a new market, supported by big money. Where would be the professional niche left, where would AmigaOS be better than the competition? Why not use f.e. Linux as base with much more developers, software and so on?

3.X (or Aros 68k in my case) at least is a niche, the retro niche. Of course you will not win millions of users with it but at least there is a chance to get a growing userbase, mostly former amiga user. And perhaps the market grows big enough to become interesting to some indy developers. That is most we can realistic get. The rest are pipe dreams in my view, the endless discussions like this one despite everybody knowing that it will never happen. If someone is interested in open source there is Aros 68k and there is at least the option to backports components to 3.X (if you do not want to use Aros as a whole).

Last edited by OlafS25 on 13-Dec-2016 at 09:49 AM.

@ne_one

simply because of commercial reasons

Hyperion is not interested in open sources because they sell 4.X as the only true successor, opening sources and making it possible to take over parts of it would destroy that and offer the others the chance to improve code (compatibility). Hyperion obviously is not interested in helping others or cooperation.

Cloanto also still earns money, they sell the roms. It is certainly not making them rich but it offers income. Look at vampire and future standalone devices, all need licensed roms. Why should they give away that? I understand that

@OlafS25

Quote:

OlafS25 wrote: @Srtest a platform is alive ....................

And there it is right there.....PLATFORM.

Now you must define platform.

_________________
Tinkering with computers.

@OlafS25

Once again one of you vocal persons who can't see through your own opinions is giving false information.

Quote:

Hyperion is not interested in open sources

It's Amiga inc who doesn't allow open sourcing of AmigaOS. Hyperion has nothing to do with it.

(Don't ask me to give any links to quotes. Find them yourself.)

Quote:

Hyperion obviously is not interested in helping others or cooperation

OpenAmiga.org. Anybody can join and contribute code to Open Amiga. The new Menu class is a great example of that. Hyperion added that Menu class to AmigaOS to be part of it.

_________________
Rock lobster bit me. My Workbench has always preferences. X1000 + AmigaOS4.1 FE
"Anyone can build a fast CPU. The trick is to build a fast system." -Seymour Cray

@Tomppeli

Hyperion's take on open source is and allways been where its o.k. to take but not even an option to give. See Quake2 or Timberwolf.

Pointing fingers at AInc is mainly done as they are an easy scapegoat regardless of whar their actual standpoint might be, or if the even (are entiteld to) have one.

_________________
- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

@Kronos

Right, I doubt Bill has much influence over OS4 development, so that point is a bit absurd.
And we have an open OS variant, AROS, so those of you that want to hop on board...

In the meanwhile, we have two proprietary PPC OS', and I hope to be using both on new hardware soon.
If I want an open OS on that, I'll use linux.

Given that two companies are now developing competing commercial 3.x releases, the idea of AmigaOS ever going open source is even more dead than it used to be - which is quite an achievement, given it was already dead 20 years ago.

@Tomppeli

Quote:

It's Amiga inc who doesn't allow open sourcing of AmigaOS.

Amiga Inc. doesn't own anything AmigaOS related anymore. All they have is the trademark and the amiga.com domain.

Quote:

Hyperion added that Menu class to AmigaOS to be part of it.

That's not what people usually refer to as "Open Source".

@iggy:

Quote:

And we have an open OS variant, AROS

...which doesn't bear THE NAME. And without THE NAME, it's pointless. Because people are too busy buying doorstops labeled THE NAME.

@cgutjahr

Christoph, im really enjoying your posts so much. Im always eagerly waiting for your input. Its like a fresh breeze blowing up the rubbish;)

@Tomppeli


"The preferred license for OpenAmiga software is either to use MPL(Mozilla Public License) or to simply use no license at all (Public Domain with no commercial restrictions). MPL requires that individual source files remain Open Source, but does not require that files linked to it must also be MPL. This means that Hyperion must provide OpenAmiga with changes they do to the individual source files that OpenAmiga has provided but not for files that Hyperion has developed themselves or been provided by some other means. MPL is also the license that was suggested by Hyperion for the OpenAmiga project.

Licenses such as GPL and LPGL should be avoided as much as possible"

Looks more like "Work for free for Hyperion" than actual Open source iniative.

@Kronos
Quote:

Hyperion's take on open source is and allways been where its o.k. to take but not even an option to give. See Quake2 or Timberwolf.

Timberwolf has been in an opensource repository at Github for over a year. Nobody has joined the project to improve or port it, so all the crying about open-sourcing it was futile.

_________________
X1000 with 2GB memory & OS4.1FE

@Xenic

Quote:

Timberwolf has been in an opensource repository at Github for over a year. Nobody has joined the project to improve or port it, so all the crying about open-sourcing it was futile.

perhaps because doing this port was futile in the first place, let alone updating and maintaining it?
one failed example doesnt prove the whole philosophie wrong, does it?

@Xenic

Timberwolf was named Timberwolf for the sole reason of Hyperion not having to provide sources in case they had any success with it.

The reality is that they never managed to realease something beyond alpha-state and years later they released sources a decade behinf current Firefox.


Thank you for prooving my point....

_________________
- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

@Kronos

Quote:

Kronos wrote: @Xenic Timberwolf was named Timberwolf for the sole reason of Hyperion not having to provide sources in case they had any success with it. Thank you for prooving my point....

Hyperion did not do Timberwolf.

_________________
Tinkering with computers.

@Xenic

they restricted it to use on AmigaOS as far as I can remember

not the spirit of open source I guess

@Signal

indeed

so any open source or cooperation initiative from Hyperion I missed? They not even supported Toni when he brought them a lot of customers

with open source or cooperation I mean cooperation with other amiga-related platforms (be it Aros or MorphOS)

I did not want to start this kind of discussion, just wanted to say why I do not believe that Hyperion would open-source 3.X even if they could

so discussion about that is completely senseless

@Signal

Nitpicking.

Same people had been whining bout GPL being evil in 2001 cos it didn'tallow freeloading.

_________________
- We don't need good ideas, we haven't run out on bad ones yet
- blame Canada

Seing as I don't think about Amiga as being just one thing (and I compare other companys and projects to it), I don't dream about a different state of Amiga or bringing it anywhere, as I actually dream about what I have right now. That is a quality you might want to put on a higher pedestal than simply overlooking it because you are not part of whatever is going on right now. That is something that you want to expand upon. If I would talk about the Amiga's need to move into different directions at the same time (future & past, non-platform specific & a platform in itself), I really wouldn't be comparing it to anything. If I need to make the best of what I have right now the situation makes it so you compare and see what needs optimizing. Never said it's perfect - perfect is an image in your mind while you use whatver is commonly available. Isn't there an entire popular os called Android which is based on taking whatever is suitable from open source and throwing away whatever principles that came with it? is that what Hyp are doing? funny as if I have any criticism of Hyp is that it didn't take browsing as a #1 priority and of course if they would ask me I would say bring the Mozilla suite and then everything else. Maybe I'm saying it wasn't enough of a closed effort...

I don't think you need to define a platform just as the Amiga is a platform and being a platform doesn't say anything. Is linux needs defining? you can make it a huge mess of derivatives and eventually you will come back to the kernel and certain developments. A place like ours which operates on participation and gets so much of it values from all of the poeple and groups who created it continueslly throughout the years, and then inspires in return, is also run on different fuels and energys that need to be clear and obvious to users and developers who develop and use vehicles for it. Just like any other group that comes together under a common cause, you know something even if you don't say it. This brings me to the very first thing I said here and I guess is now the simple question of what is Amiga to you, just as when I asked my mother if she had feelings for her comp at work and she looked at me as if I needed help. Maybe I do, maybe we all need it and then jump on the emulation wagon and live where everybody live and want to feel special.

It's not that I don't like emulation. I simply view it as a different area to where I and many here currently stay (although perhaps in different provinces). For me it exists only as connecting the X1k to the old Amiga as much as possible and whatever it means to people on other platforms I don't relate to and view it as something else. When talking about the brand name of Amiga being a magnet for former users of the glory days, one scratches his head by seeing those that want a name to attract people who are satisfied by emulation. Those that I met not so long ago on a closed Amiga facebook group where I live, were about the Amiga in past tense. If you could provide them with the brand + a time machine then they will be all yours, seing as they are not satisfied with what they have. That doesn't mean they are willing to part with a mediocre present situation to take part in an adventure even if that exciting past of Amiga was pretty adventurous. Bilbo Baggins didn't just go on an adventure, he comitted to it. I doesn't mean he didn't have doubts. He had them every step of the way. If you want to go to a better place maybe there is a trade off with standing on solid ground. What is open source from that viewpoint? is it part of the adventure or more about providing a safe harbor for some who the adventure was forced on them? on the same notion, do we simply move to different directions like close and open source because it's the most logical choice or maybe we don't have the resources and need to choose an effort? another question.

I view 3.x as something you take on the road to provide not the place where you want to be at (and pretty much the entire world).