Hi,

I just wanted to share some ideas for financing and speeding up OS4 development. Hyperion is making a great job with their given ressources but we all agree that OS4 still lack important things like recent OpenGL implementation, support for dual cores and more...
In the Haiku OS world, there are full time developpers that are paid by the community. I was wondering if something like that could be applied for OS4 development.

For example, Hyperion would announce the given ressources needed for OpenGL 3.2/Mesa (and of course the graphic card drivers) implementation for example and we could start a bounty.

Other idea, possibility for the amiga users to have a monthly subscription with Hyperion (for example 10¤/month, 120¤/year) to give ressources to Hyperion. In return, all OS4 updates would be freely available to subscribers. At the end, it wouldn't be a lot more expensive than buying a new OS4 update every one or two year and it would ensure Hyperion incomes on a regular basis, what would be better to fund development projects.

We could also imagine polls to the subscribers so that they chose where has to go the given ressources (technical updates on OS4 itself like OpenGL, multiprocessing... and also on OS4 marketing side like improving website...).

It would be a nice way to implicate the community in the development. I would be happy to subscribe for such a system and put my money directly for OS development, recent software bounties having proved not very successful (except maybe Timberwolf).

@Seblam

Haiku is open, AmigaOS4 is not. AmigaOS4 is commerical thing, I see no reason "donating" cash. OTOH we have bounties and they are mostly successful.

"Software subscribtions" are very, very bad idea. Comapnies would love to see that model. It sucks for end users.

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I could consider donating if they went open source.

I gotta agree with opi here..the bounty system works fine

Last edited by klx300r on 19-May-2010 at 11:04 PM.

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@Seblam

I thought I was financing OS4 development when I bought a copy of OS4.

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@Trev

Quote:

Trev wrote: @Seblam I thought I was financing OS4 development when I bought a copy of OS4.

You were. Personally, I think that this is a great way of financing OS4 development.

Hans

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@Seblam

I think Hyperion would have to set goals and by that I mean that they would have to submit concrete and ordered logical steps they would have to take to get from where they are now to what you want them to be. Then you have to compare the work necessary to be done to what has already been done. How many man hours would it take? Does any new materials, people or hardware have to be brought in? Are you prepared for cost overruns and what would they be?

Do they even want to do it? It is basically their product and a lot of employers don't necessarily like the ideas from outside and neither would some people want their ownership transfered to open source where they no longer have sole ownership.

@Trev

Right, you were financing OS4 development and I also doubt the Friedens made a living during the last 2 years by selling some hundreds of copy of OS4... The idea is to increase cash incomes in OS4 development team so to speed up the development process and maybe have people working full time on it.
And I didn't speak about donating cash because I speak about a monthly subscription that would make all OS4 major updates free for subscribers...
And don't agree, major bounties are not so successful, gnash, amizilla... Timberwolf seems to be in the good direction though...
Of course, it was just an idea and my opinion...

@Seblam

Sorry I agree with others here, I personally am not comfortable with subscriptions. I like buying a product and owning it. Subscriptions/support agreements work for companies as it atomises the cost of very expensive software over its lifetime. OS4 is not very expensive. There are also not insignificant costs in running such a scheme.

Bounties are great and seem to work for the community so I believe something along this line may work better for us. Perhaps they could be better organised this is something that could be addressed; but I think the concept is sound. Maybe a thread on how can the bounty system be made more affective would be more useful.

Kad.

@Seblam

I dislike bounties because they lack accountability, although I'm open to donating hardware and software to worthwhile projects, which I have done.

I would be open to a subscription-based support and maintenance service (it's a way of life in the corporate world), but if frequent updates were promised as part of that service, they had better be delivered. I'm pretty sure no one is working on OS4 full time, and Rogue, Thomas, and everyone else are most likely coding for someone else during daylight hours.

@Hans

I didn't think I was the only one that thought so.

@thread

What I think we really need to do is convince some of the younger, more attractive community members to become houseboys/girls for wealthy eccentrics and funnel their allowances to a VC pool for OS4 developers.

Last edited by Trev on 20-May-2010 at 02:34 AM.
Last edited by Trev on 20-May-2010 at 02:32 AM.

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more borked A1200/MBX1200z/Indivision
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@Trev

Quote:

Trev wrote: I dislike bounties because they lack accountability, although I'm open to donating hardware and software to worthwhile projects, which I have done.

The developer(s) has to deliver what the bounty specifies or they don't get the money, so there is a level of accountability. However, there's nothing to stop a developer from giving up and walking away, in which case any code that they did write is lost. I'm not sure that you'd want the code of someone who walked away from it.

Quote:

I'm pretty sure no one is working on OS4 full time, and Rogue, Thomas, and everyone else are most likely coding for someone else during daylight hours.

I can't remember where it was said, but Rogue and Thomas are working on OS4 full time.

Hans

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@Hans

Quote:

I can't remember where it was said, but Rogue and Thomas are working on OS4 full time.

I hope no-one tells them that developers of their calibre would almost certainly be making a hell of a lot more money doing anything other than OS4 development. I doubt they make a fortune from this work, I may be wrong but I doubt it. I suggest that we all keep this very quite and be very nice to them. Still I'd love to be able to do OS4 dev for a living. Unfortunately I my wife and my kids have got used to eating and living in a house etc. Now where is my X1000 I have the money (I hope) and now I want to spend it.

Kad.

Quote:

kadenaa wrote: @Hans Quote: I can't remember where it was said, but Rogue and Thomas are working on OS4 full time. I hope no-one tells them that developers of their calibre would almost certainly be making a hell of a lot more money doing anything other than OS4 development.

I hope they're in a cave somewhere and didn't read that..... I am kidding!!!!


But it's true, they could be making a LOT more money and with MUCH less stress,.... I think they might love us or something, and AOS4.x goes on....


But, I think that they see "The Big Picture" and are waiting for that breakthrough opportunity, which is just around the corner... An AmigaOS4 PPC NetBook made by a major manufacturer.

@Atheist

Quote:

An AmigaOS4 PPC NetBook made by a major manufacturer.

Oh yes I would also love that. Btw I just bought an Acer Netbook $324 AUS and it runs E-UAE very nicely indeed.

Kad.

@Seblam

Many ideas are here

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@kadenaa

Quote:

kadenaa wrote: I hope no-one tells them that developers of their calibre would almost certainly be making a hell of a lot more money doing anything other than OS4 development.

Some people claimed the AOS4 development might just be a hobby project for most AOS4 developers and if you look how many people have to be paid and how much customers exists you get the impression it could be true.

Last edited by Arko on 20-May-2010 at 02:18 PM.

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I borrowed this comments from here (#27 & #28):
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=38873&forum=2&start=20&order=0

@Atheist
Heck, I'm nowhere near that calbre and I make far more money on iPhone development as a so-so programmer than I would make on OS4 are a brilliant programmer. It's a problem when you are developing for a tiny market.

Add that to the fact that it is considerably harder to develop for OS4. There's no good solution to it. Perhaps the best hope is the cloud. Both Microsoft and Google are going to battle the office suite war in the cloud. This a great since all you need in OS4 is a relative modern webkit or gecko based browser.

The bigger the cloud the less relevant the OS becomes. As the OS becomes less and less relevant, people will care less and less what OS their desktop runs. Indeed you could see a burgeoning of alternative OSs, Haiku is brilliant, Chromium should be good. Maybe there are others.

@persia

Quote:

As the OS becomes less and less relevant, people will care less and less what OS their desktop runs.

As I watched non-geeks using my computers (Linux, Windows, OS X) they never seem to care much about OS. As long there's orange "Firefox" icon they feel like home at any of my computer, whatever wacky stuff it does for me in background. Firefox, "download files to desktop" and automounting USB devices (MP3 players, USB keys and cameras) makes everyone happy, it seems.

This is good news for me from professional perspective and makes me sad from geeky standpoint.

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@Seblam

As far as I know the last similar (known) project failed :/

Amiga Development Support Group now open:
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=28146&forum=15#477366

AmiDevsupport looking for more members:
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsafir.amigaos.se%2Fmain.php%3Fd%3Dnewsfull%26news%3D821&sl=sv&tl=en

How it started - Employee Amiga programmer (amidevsupport.com):
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=sv&tl=en&u=http://safir.amigaos.se/main.php%3Fd%3Dshowthread%26f%3D1%26thread%3D5967&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&twu=1&usg=ALkJrhju6NK6KX7F66Z-ubGawp6kV6u8Kw

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@opi

Quote:

opi wrote: @persia Quote: As the OS becomes less and less relevant, people will care less and less what OS their desktop runs. As I watched non-geeks using my computers (Linux, Windows, OS X) they never seem to care much about OS. As long there's orange "Firefox" icon they feel like home at any of my computer, whatever wacky stuff it does for me in background. Firefox, "download files to desktop" and automounting USB devices (MP3 players, USB keys and cameras) makes everyone happy, it seems. .

This is exactly why Microsoft started the browser war and why the fought against Java.

When the OS doesn't matter any more, no one would need Microsoft. On the other hand most people doesn't care what hardware they use as long as it fits their needs.

And if you look to the media and news tickers, no one talks about hardware, they are talking about services on the internet, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google ... this makes the whole Amiga community looking like a joke.

Last edited by Arko on 21-May-2010 at 07:50 AM.

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AmigaONE. Haha. Just because you can put label on it does not make it Amiga.

I borrowed this comments from here (#27 & #28):
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=38873&forum=2&start=20&order=0