You want AmigaOS to be a great OS?

You need 10-20 million dollars and a couple years of intensive development to:
- refit the core to modern standards
- port to a major architecture, either arm or x86
- write a ton of drivers for the most common devices

What you get in return is AmigaOS with all its defining characteristic preserved, but modernized. Nothing revolutionary, but at least you give a 2nd life to "the original" thing.




You want a futuristic OS which differentiates itself from everything else out there, and call it "Amiga" ... just because?

You need a 100 - 200 million dollars, 5 years of intensive development, and some very unique ideas and UI design.

What you get in return is a great OS which can TRY competing with the big ones.
Of course, remember it has nothing to do with Amiga at all, except the name.




You just want something open-source and running on popular architectures, that keeps those AmigaOS characteristics that makes it familiar to you, like Datatypes, built-in Ram disk, Kickstart, etc. - and that can run Legacy amiga software too?

You've got it already, it's called AROS, but don't expect it to ever do much more than the above or leave its niche status.




And that's about it.

Last edited by resle on 26-Feb-2015 at 03:39 AM.
Last edited by resle on 26-Feb-2015 at 03:33 AM.
Last edited by resle on 26-Feb-2015 at 03:33 AM.

@resle

This is being pragmatic or pedantic?

@ne_one

This is being pedantic for the sake of pragmatism.

@resle

How so?

Aren't you basically saying it's nothing or nothing?

@ne_one

I am saying it's "something or something else",
instead of "everything, magically, randomly".

@resle post #1

I 100% agree that you need a lot of money as a start ... then when it is done you need to attract users and developers.

Competitors can count on thousands of developers and money, that is the difference.

Last edited by Massi on 26-Feb-2015 at 02:12 PM.

_________________
SAM440EP-FLEX @ 733 Mhz, AmigaOS 4.1 Update 1

Quote:

You just want something open-source and running on popular architectures, that keeps those AmigaOS characteristics that makes it familiar to you, like Datatypes, built-in Ram disk, Kickstart, etc. - and that can run Legacy amiga software too?

What makes you think something new cannot have these AmigaOS characteristics ? While dropping the aged design ?
RamDisk, DataTypes,... you can have it all, in a secure and powerful environement that makes use of today hardware.

It's not about money. You just have to give up with the idea of competting with OSX/Win/Linux.

A few thousands would be a nice target, and enough to keep things rolling.

Last edited by Leo on 26-Feb-2015 at 04:52 PM.
Last edited by Leo on 26-Feb-2015 at 04:51 PM.

_________________
http://www.warpdesign.fr/

I want AmigaOS, and i'we got it!

@resle

Quote:

You just want something open-source and running on popular architectures, that keeps those AmigaOS characteristics that makes it familiar to you, like Datatypes, built-in Ram disk, Kickstart, etc. - and that can run Legacy amiga software too? You've got it already, it's called AROS, but don't expect it to ever do much more than the above or leave its niche status.

I don't expect it to leave the niche but to dominate it, and even to do more once given the cash of point one :)

_________________
Scarabocchi Binari - Italian AROS Blog
Binary Doodles - English language AROS Blog

@Leo

Quote:

What makes you think something new cannot have these AmigaOS characteristics ? While dropping the aged design ?

Nothing. In fact, I think the opposite.

Quote:

RamDisk, DataTypes,... you can have it all, in a secure and powerful environement that makes use of today hardware.

Yes, and that's what I always hoped for. There were two conditions for this to happen. One was 50% fulfilled, the other is unlikely to ever happen, if it didn't in the last 20 years.

1) People should realize that an OS spirit (any os) lives in the user experience and tangible cornerstones (such as the ones you mentioned) - not in what's under the hood. See what happened with OSX: underneath it's 75% Unix, but people perceives it as an iteration of MacOS. And no one made a tragedy out of the move from PPC to X86.

2) A wealthy company should inject a ton of cash in the project. A company, not some individual.

Again, it's as simple as this, and everything else is just peripheral arguing.

@resle

I 100% agree with you.

_________________
APOLLO the new 68K : www.apollo-core.com

@resle

So if the spirit and the user experience are the essential elements of the Amiga why would a ton of cash be necessary to implement the "tangible cornerstones"?

If the baggage is de-prioritized (legacy compatibility) and the OS leverages an existing Linux distribution (ButterflyBSD?) what would the list of Amiga "must haves" be comprised of and how much effort would it actually take to implement them?

I would argue that the list of Amiga must-haves is an order of magnitude shorter than the list of things that would need to be done to make the existing AmigaOS current. A lot of work (and money) has been invested maintaining and reverse-engineering the original OS. And to what end?

@ne_one

that's true. Probably you won't need a ton of cash, but still a sizable investment. Think the development costs, effort and time that took to derive Debian into Ubuntu. We're not talking just some skinning here, there are some peculiar things to be re-engineered.

You're right about AmigaOS too. That's a dead end, no matter how much you want to invest into it. You'd have to perform so much surgery on it that you'd end up with replacing every part of it so why bother at all.

I still have no doubts that user experience and SOME legacy compatibility - even through a VM - are the only things that matter.

@resle

I would say I agree with your assessment 90%

1. For the 1st option, $7M-$14M if you leverage global economies and don't spend money on ridiculous things like $200,000 on a logo. Obviously, the more money you have the more features can be developed (quantity and quality). You could have one or two things in there that are a little bit revolutionary.

2. For the second, $100M-$200M would be able to develop the ultimate OS. Not just better than the others but far superior. So I would say more than just TRY and compete.

One shouldn't compare these amounts with the sums of money Microsoft and Apple have spent on their OSs over the past 25-30 years; in 1985 Microsoft did not set out to build Windows 8.1, rather in that time they have had 10 OS developments that have cost ~$70M each. Same for Apple, they didn't decide in 1984 that the Macintosh should run OS X and realised it would take 30 years and $600M.

But yes, all in all a ton of money and many many many many development person-hours. There is no free lunch.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

@ne_one

Uh oh!. You just referred to ButterflyBSD as a Linux distro.
That's how wars get started.

_________________
All the way, with 68k

@Massi

Why would "AmigaOS" attract more people than AROS if ported? The APIs are very similar (AROS is basically 3.1. API with some extensions, AmigaOS 4.X is 3.1. API with some extensions), the concepts are the same, if ported to ARM or X86/X64 AmigaOS would certainly run 68k software in UAE too like AROS does (except you have plenty of money to pay lots of developer to develop something like Petunia), so even if many people claim other AROS is what they ask for. BTW one man will start on working on a 64bit distribution of AROS soon, AROS runs on Raspberry 1 and 2 and so on. The other limits like no memory protection and no SMP are right now the same on all platforms (ARIX as a AROS branch will hopefully solve missing drivers and SMP in a not too distant future). AROS even runs on original Amigas (in opposite to both AmigaOS and MorphOS who need PPC). So AROS is already (or at least will be soon) what people want. It is just not named "AmigaOS" or "Amiga" because of known legal issues. Instead asking for unrealistic things people should support what is there.

@resle

+1

@Massi

you certainly know that I used Aros 68k for my distribution. Now explain me what AmigaOS can what I cannot do. Then you could talk better. Funnily people say they prefer AmigaOS to AROS but when I ask why they mostly become quiet.

Last edited by OlafS25 on 27-Feb-2015 at 09:20 AM.

@Leo

"What makes you think something new cannot have these AmigaOS characteristics ? While dropping the aged design ?
RamDisk, DataTypes,... you can have it all, in a secure and powerful environement that makes use of today hardware."

we already have RamDisk, Datatypes and so on in AROS. Additionally you have MUI (Zune), AHI, CybergraphX, MESA/Gallium and much more

AROS has AmigaOS characteristics and makes use of todays hardware. Task completed, so you use AROS now?

@OlafS25

I will tell you why I use AOS;

Out of old habit, a touch of lazyness and nostalgica.

Im sure if I gave AROS a shot I would find it as capable or more so than AOS 3.x.

While I cant answer for AOS 4.x I suspect the "old habit and nostalgica" is strong there too.
Plus, once you get used to something, you tend to have tweaked the system to your liking. It works for you etc.

Pure logic doesnt necessary apply 100%

@Overflow

Yes I understood in recent years that it has not much to do with logic..

But what some people seem not to understand that AmigaOS (or MorphOS) ported to another hardware platform would be very similar to what is AROS already today. Many of the differences (f.e. that 68k software only runs in UAE) are related to being crossplatform. That would be the same if AmigaOS or MorphOS are ported (MorphOS dev have already stated that "if" they would port MorphOS to ARM or X64 68k would only run in emulation). So finally AROS is already what AmigaOS or MorphOS basically would be (of course there are differences between the platforms). So if people dislike AROS because of being different they should not ask for AmigaOS or MorphOS for running on modern hardware and better stay on PPC. There is no free lunch, there is always a price to pay and if people do not want that then should not ask for it. To get a modern 64bit AmigaOS with SMP and MP running on modern hardware and feeling the same as they have now (like the way 68k software is running on it without UAE) is impossible and will not happen.

Instead they ignore AROS and ask for AmigaOS or MorphOS getting ported. That is what i totally not understand and will propably never understand. People should think to themselves that the AROS devs are not (and were not) stupid so they did certain decisions for some reasons. Why do they think that other devs are more intelligent than those and will do something magically better. The challenges are the same, the problems to solve are the same and the resources are limited in any case. So there is a high propability that the decisions will be mostly the same.

Last edited by OlafS25 on 27-Feb-2015 at 09:57 AM.
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Last edited by OlafS25 on 27-Feb-2015 at 09:48 AM.

@OlafS25

in fact it's the third point of my first post. I agree, it would look like Aros.

But as someone else pointed out, Aros' developers tripped on the very, very, VERY bad idea of replicating not just the look and feel and the defining characteristics of AmigaOS, but also a lot of the old fashioned core. They set the OS for failure, or at best "niche status" from that point on.