@smithy

Quote:

smithy wrote: @samface Quote: Anyone claiming that there wouldn't be any risks involved with trying to survive as a commercial stand-alone OS (ie shipped without hardware) on the mainstream hardware market simply hasn't thought all things through. I never claimed there was no risk. I think I did claim there was substantially less risk though.

Which is exactly what I'm trying to say too, although I'm refering to the reduced risks with a dedicated hardware provider rather than the open PC market.

Quote:

Quote: First of all, forget about support from the hardware manufacturers, their too busy licking M$'s hairy behind to bother with a niche like the AmigaOS. Studying Linux drivers and reverse engineering chipsets is the only thing you can do to in order to be able to write hardware drivers, always one step behind those that are one step behind the cutting edge of hardware. So exactly the same scenario as the present then? Where people plug in old Radeons and Voodoos into their AmigaOnes, with no support from hardware manufacturers, and always one step behind the cutting edge.

Now you're not talking about dedicated custom hardware anymore and actually supporting my argument. But you're right, there are no AmigaOS4 dedicated expansion card suppliers so, as you say, that is something we have to live with regardless if we target the x86 market or not.

Quote:

Quote: Remember that it has taken thousands of developers world-wide many years to get Linux where it is today with regards to hardware compatibility, yet it is still always one step behind M$ Windows which alot of hardware is specificly designed for nowadays. You don't seem to realise that the hardware compatibility problem exists nomatter what processor you have. You use off-the-shelf graphics cards and sounds cards with your AmigaOne - there are no specific AmigaOne graphics cards, printers, or joysticks that will get you out of this trap. Hardware support is needed for these even (yes) if you use PPC.

But the hardware we're discussing here isn't expansion cards such as graphics and sound cards, much less printers and joysticks. What we're talking about is the hardware that you would connect those addons to, usually a mainboard with a certain set of chipsets, HAL/Firmware, and as in the case of the µA1, even integrated graphics and sound. For example, all the fuzz about the AmigaOne's soutbridge as well as northbridge. Both Eyetech and Hyperion has spent quite a significant amount of time on finding a solution to the oddities of those chipsets because the manufacturers in question didn't bother to help out with proper documentation and/or because they refused to acknowledge that there would be something wrong with their product, especially to someone as insignificant as Eyetech and Hyperion. Please don't start another debate about wether the chipsets has bugs or if it is "undocumented features", what I'm trying to point out here is that those kind of issues are not as uncommon in the PC hardware industry as one might think (just take a look at the sources of some Linux drivers for certain VIA chipsets and you'll know what I mean) and I doubt Hyperion would have managed to get AmigaOS4 to run as well as it does on the AmigaOne hardware without the help they got from Eyetech. That kind of support is not anywhere to be found in the PC industry unless you're M$.

You do the math, how much do you think it costs to develop hardware drivers for many various chipsets with their own set of "oddities" with no support from the manufacturer what so ever vs just the few chipsets of a specific hardware, willing to sacrifice both their time and money on helping out with hardware driver development?

Quote:

Quote: All Amiga related efforts in the world combined would still not make up a fraction of the resources we would need to maintain compatibility with the middle- nor low-end PC standards of today and tomorrow. Again, the exact scenario we have today by using PPC processors, then?

No. The AmigaOne and other possible PPC hardware alternatives that the AmigaOS4 might run on in the near future is not a large range of different hardware standards. I think you're talking about expansion cards here which is an entirely different matter. Adding support for graphics cards, sound cards and other kinds of expansion cards/devices does not enable the AmigaOS to run on any other computer then it was intended for, it just gives more expansion possibilites to those who owns an AmigaOS4 compatible computer. Such hardware addons from third parties is not neccessarily something that has to be developed by the OS developers themselves nor is it as critical for the functionality of the OS since few applications for the Amiga requires nor supports the latest bleeding edge addon cards/devices.

Quote:

Quote: The only solution would be settling for a very specific sub-standard PC setup as a requirement for running AmigaOS, requiring most PC owners to replace their computer, either in part or completely, in order to run AmigaOS anyway. For Pegasos and AmigaOne there are lists of supported hardware. So your hardware argument, while valid, applies equally to using PPC hardware too. The only way to get round this is to sell a Linux clone complete with x86 hardware (or maybe Tao) and slap an AMIGA sticker on it. I think we all agree that nobody wants that, so we just have to accept that the hardware problem is just one of the many unavoidable challenges of using a non-Windows operating system.

Expansion cards and devices are usually not made for any specific processor architecture, just a certain internal or external connector of a computer mainboard, and is therefore not a part of the discussion of x86 vs PPC based hardware. If you would be talking about finding an x86 hardware supplier willing to cooperate with Hyperion like Eyetech, including supporting development, "slapping an AMIGA sticker" on their hardware and bundle it with AmigaOS4, then I think it wouldn't be such a bad idea. Find that hardware supplier and have them talk to Hyperion.

Quote:

Quote: Then we have the problem of piracy. With a dedicated hardware supplier, it's possible to bundle the OS with the hardware, making the OS a part of the hardware purchase. Doing so renders the entire piracy issue null and void. [.......], is about as vulnarable to piracy as any other PC-game out there. In fact, certain level of compatibility with hardware it wasn't originally intended for is sometimes enough for people to pirate copy the software in question. As an example, the leaked x86 version of MacOS is still one of the most popular "warez" on piratebay. There are two ways to combat piracy: you can either give up and go work for the public sector. Or you can make your product so unattractive that nobody wants it anyway. Amiga's solution of over-priced, under-performing hardware with serious supply problems meant they obviously went for the second option. Clearly though, both options will consign you to failure. Just look at AmigaOne sales figures compared with its nearest rival that went for open hardware (YellowTab/Zeta) for proof of how much of a failure this strategy was.

Again, Zeta's success cost a bancrupcy and probably quite a significant amount of investments by the new owners and their investors. It's not realistic to believe that Hyperion would be able to take that kind of risks nor make that kind of investments. These last five years spent on developing AmigaOS4 has cost them quite alot as it is and I'm quite sure they are about ten times more worried about getting a return on that investment than you and I will ever be. Let them finish the product they've set out to do and see where they go from there. Whatever they do, it'll probably be very well thought through first.

Quote:

Quote: There is no point in pirate copying an OS that is delivered with all hardware that it is compatible with. A stand-alone OS on the other hand Then why is Windows the most pirated piece of software ever when it comes with almost every PC sold? It's because they release new versions that everybody wants. How are you going to get around this? Custom CDs that only expensive, proprietary CD-drives can read?

Why do you think M$ continues to do so well despite the piracy if not because Windows comes with almost every PC sold?

Quote:

Quote: Considering all this, especially the articles I refered to in the beginning of this rant, there is quite alot of risks involved with making the AmigaOS a stand-alone OS on the PC hardware market. Risks that the companies involved simply cannot afford to take at the current state of affairs. I, for one, can atleast understand why they have chosen to "play it safe", atleast until they have managed to build up a self-sustainable market. I believe someone from Hyperion once said that it would require something along the lines of 10,000 sales, which is something they also seem to think that they will be able to achieve. The whole point of business is about risk-taking. If a business is frightened of risk then they should give up and put its money in a low-interest savings account. Doing business is about taking calculated risks. The people in charge of OS4 have gotten it spectacularly wrong. Their strategy has failed: look at the sales figures for proof. And now they have no hardware and no credible plan to get any. Now is the time to re-engage brains: in 6 years now, nobody has come up with any real commonsense arguments why not to use x86.

I have a business of my own and know all too well what you are talking about here. I just don't agree to your risk calculations. We're not living in the IT-boom days anymore and the Amiga has suffered too many bancrupcies before. We probably won't survive another (I'm not sure if we survived the last one yet) and really need to think twice before chasing another vain idea about playing with the big boys again.

Quote:

Quote: Now please don't get me wrong, I really don't have anything against an x86 version of the AmigaOS per se. It's just that I think we need to take one step at a time and not take any risks that we cannot afford to come true. As the old saying goes; the elevator to success is broken, use the stairs. The elevator was never broken - somebody just pressed the DOWN button. And now they've gotten out and started digging.

Just another reason to leave the elevator in favor of the stairs then. It may not be as fast as the elevator, but atleast it will takes us in the direction we want, right?

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@t3g

Quote:

Do we have thousand of developpers to feed, and hudge bills to pay? Are we planning an OS that has to sell millions of copies to be affordable?

That's just the thing, we don't. Why? Because you would need millions of $$$ to invest in such project to begin with. Fact of the matter is that we didn't even have the $$$ needed for the 5 years of development that has been invested into AmigaOS4 up to now. The solution was the pre-release of the AmigaOne, sold before the AmigaOS4 even booted on it. Money from those sales was then injected into the AmigaOS4 project and enabled it to survive. It is to Eyetech and the early adaptors of the AmigaOne that we have to say our thanks for AmigaOS4 as it exists today. Have you realized the value of a truly dedicated hardware supplier yet?

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@umisef

Well, they would hopefully make more on the sales to end users rather than from selling the sources and related rights after having commercially exploited it. Just out of interest, how much do you reckon Ralph would get on selling the sources and related rights of MorphOS if he put it out auction today?

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@samface

Quote:

samface wrote: @t3g Quote: Do we have thousand of developpers to feed, and hudge bills to pay? Are we planning an OS that has to sell millions of copies to be affordable? That's just the thing, we don't. Why? Because you would need millions of $$$ to invest in such project to begin with. Fact of the matter is that we didn't even have the $$$ needed for the 5 years of development that has been invested into AmigaOS4 up to now. The solution was the pre-release of the AmigaOne, sold before the AmigaOS4 even booted on it. Money from those sales was then injected into the AmigaOS4 project and enabled it to survive. It is to Eyetech and the early adaptors of the AmigaOne that we have to say our thanks for AmigaOS4 as it exists today. Have you realized the value of a truly dedicated hardware supplier yet?

That's completely circular logic. I mean, we're talking *round* dude, Pi r square!

Sometimes I swear Edith Bunker is behind everything.

Last edited by T_Bone on 24-Jan-2006 at 05:25 AM.

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@samface

Quote:

Well, they would hopefully make more on the sales to end users rather than from selling the sources and related rights after having commercially exploited it.

To the best of the public's knowledge, the OS4 contract contains a $25k buyback clause which can be triggered by Amiga Inc, at Amiga Inc's leisure (within a certain timeframe), after the release of the OS. And when exercised, Hyperion's involvement with OS4 is over. Finished. No more.

There is no guarantee that any "commercial exploitation" would be allowed before such a buyback. No "sales to end users" are required to be allowed. It's "here is $25k, hand over the stuff, get lost, you have no more rights!". A pretty screwy clause, don't you think?

Quote:

Just out of interest, how much do you reckon Ralph would get on selling the sources and related rights of MorphOS if he put it out auction today?

I have no idea. I would expect it to be significantly more than $25k (just ask Genesi how much they alone paid the programmers). Similarly, if the rights for OS4 were available for auction, chances are more than $25k would be paid (if only by a certain butterfly-oriented competitor :). Which probably would make it attractive for AI to invoke a buyback clause (assuming there is one in the actual contract), if not to own the IP themselves, then to make a quick profit from selling it on. Heck, even without $25k, AI could auction of the right to pay $25k for OS4 rights, no up-front investment required.


Now, considering that MorphOS is Ralph's baby, has always been Ralph's baby, and was done for the heck of it, because Ralph felt that someone, somewhere needed to do it right for once, any contract which may require Ralph to give up all control over it would have to have *damn* big numbers in it. Bigger numbers, I suspect, than $100 times the number of hours spent on MorphOS.

But anyway, the argument "The MorphOS team couldn't reach agreement with AI over the OS contract, yet Hyperion could, so the MorphOS team must have been unreasonable" doesn't hold water. Another perfectly possible (and in fact likely, given the history of the last 4+ years) explanation would be that Hyperion got duped, got roped into a contract on which they will make a massive loss, at least partly because they hugely underestimated the complexities of writing an OS from scratch (original estimate: 4 months. That target has now been missed by 4 YEARS). There is also a chance that Hyperion assumed that AI was on its last breath, and that any buyback clause would be irrelevant due to being preempted by a bankruptcy clause. If so, the joke is on them, and you can hardly blame the MorphOS team for not having similar devious, yet fruitless plans.....

@samface

Quote:

Expansion cards and devices are usually not made for any specific processor architecture, just a certain internal or external connector of a computer mainboard, and is therefore not a part of the discussion of x86 vs PPC based hardware

I recall that the UBOOT integrates a light weight X86 emulator....

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Really good to hear from Mr Haynie. Just finished reading the book about Commodore and could have cried at the end. What a bunch of arseholes Mr Ahli and Gould are!

I`m not entirely sure about a move to x86. I find myself agreeing and disagreeing. Most people who have a computer at home will have some sort of IBM PC compatible and having OS4 install on that would be good (I have both a PC and a Mac). This would help remove the need to re-buy an entire computer system. The problem with PC`s is for an industry standard they sure aren`t very standard with a whole host of variations on a theme chipsets and BIOSes. Getting OS4 to run on currently available PC`s would be a nightmare so you would have to produce your own Intel based motherboard. The answer is a little too complex for my tiny brain to work out.

Read this article on the register about Apples move to x86. Seems they don`t get much of a speed increase over their G4 and G5 machines.

The Register - Intel Macs only one fourth not four times faster

@smithy who said Quote:

Quote: In summary: What we won't get (no matter how much we whine) is OS4 x86. It's too late. Get over it. Didn't I just already cover this? The choice of CPU has no bearing on whether you can get hardware drivers

I actually agree with you (basically), but wasn't being clear. I was talking about the MOTHERBOARD hardware, which these days include the kitchen sink.

But try telling someone that they must buy a special PC for running AROS, when AROS is still lacking many programs. I sure as hell won't do it, since I don't know if AROS will even be functional at this point. But as you can run AROS from within Windows (emulation), this isn't such a problem.

Quote:

Quote: In summary: What we won't get (no matter how much we whine) is OS4 x86. It's too late. Get over it. Let it die quietly, eh?

No, I think you should be realistic. Moaning at Hyperion won't change a thing. You will have to stick your money where your mouth is - either pay Hyperion to port OS4 to x86 (very costly I suspect), or support the already existing Amiga x86 called AROS.

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@umisef

Quote:

To the best of the public's knowledge, the OS4 contract contains a $25k buyback clause which can be triggered by Amiga Inc, at Amiga Inc's leisure (within a certain timeframe), after the release of the OS. And when exercised, Hyperion's involvement with OS4 is over. Finished. No more.

While I suppose this is based on the "draft" contract that showed up on moobunny or sth like that, you should remember that there was a clause that if AInc excercised the "buyback" they also had to deliver a substantially new version in a limited timeframe - otherwise the rights fall back to Hyperion again. Given the current state of AInc, this would not be very likely. Now i can still understand why Ralph would not want to sign a contract like this for various reasons, but the above situation is a bit overrated given the overall terms.

Quote:

But anyway, the argument "The MorphOS team couldn't reach agreement with AI over the OS contract, yet Hyperion could, so the MorphOS team must have been unreasonable" doesn't hold water.

Right. The MorphOS team might have been able to reach an agreement, but didn't like the terms attached to it. This has nothing to do with being unreasonable.

Quote:

Another perfectly possible (and in fact likely, given the history of the last 4+ years) explanation would be that Hyperion got duped, got roped into a contract on which they will make a massive loss, at least partly because they hugely underestimated the complexities of writing an OS from scratch (original estimate: 4 months. That target has now been missed by 4 YEARS).

I wouldn't say that Hyperion got "duped", due to the fact that this buyback clause is not as limiting as it seems considering the need of AInc to spit out a new version of OS 4.x themselves if they excercise it. If it's going to be a massive loss in the end has to be seen yet, from what we know Hyperion is NOT relying on the desktop market to get their revenue (at least thats what has been stated by them). As i simply don't know who they have already talked to and what their specific plans are related to their embedded market plans, iam simply not able to follow your path of argumentation here. Related to the estimations, well the original estimations were aimed at a completely different scope (read: smaller) of OS4 - i would agree that even with the original scope they wouldn't have done it in 4 month. As i remember it was planned to only port the OS core and have the rest run emulated. This could have been done a lot quicker. Now we have a full PPC native OS, and they have the benefit of having replaced all assembler and BCPL stuff and are thus better positioned when having to port OS4 to yet another platform.

Sure, even then there might have been some clever dev's (that counts you in) that could have done a new AOS on platform x with the right team in less time. Given the right ppl and enough money that would have been possible. But as a fact, there was no bunch of money - Hyperion did this on their own without external investments. Because of that, Hyperion had to put this thing repeatedly on the backburner to keep going. So it's not like they were working 4 years full-time on that. And since no one else started with AOS, iam actually glad they took the job -no matter if they missed their original estimations by some magnitudes. At least they DID it, and i can see and use the result of that here at home on my PPC machine. While it is sure nice to dream how it all could have been if Dave had assembled a team of Amiga and OS experts and presented us an AOS 2 years earlier, that just did not happen. No blame on Dave, he wasn't asked in the first place and there was no one who would have made the necessary investment for that.

Quote:

There is also a chance that Hyperion assumed that AI was on its last breath, and that any buyback clause would be irrelevant due to being preempted by a bankruptcy clause. If so, the joke is on them, and you can hardly blame the MorphOS team for not having similar devious, yet fruitless plans.....

Right now the only thing i see that holds up anything is the licensing barrier. Apart from that i do not see the buyback clause a potential death sentence for Hyperion for the above stated reasons. So i refrain from assuming that "the joke is on them" - but you're right that the MorphOS team has nothing to do with that and should not be blamed for not agreeing to the terms laid out by AInc.

@clebin who sais Quote:

Quote: In summary: What we won't get (no matter how much we whine) is OS4 x86. It's too late. Get over it. Why is it too late?

Because of everything I said before that: Hyperion have invested vast sums of time & money into PPC, which they sure as hell won't waste now. And most likely they can't AFFORD to switch to x86, due to the huge effort required (for compatability).

The time to switch to x86 was at the start of the OS4 project, not the end of it. It's too late. Hyperion will need to recoupe their development costs on OS4 before even *considering* an x86 port - and I'm not even sure that they can recoupe those costs.

So unless you can pay Hyperion for the x86 port, I suggest that we get realistic, and support AROS instead.

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@samface

Quote:

@t3g Quote: Do we have thousand of developpers to feed, and hudge bills to pay? Are we planning an OS that has to sell millions of copies to be affordable? That's just the thing, we don't. Why? Because you would need millions of $$$ to invest in such project to begin with. Fact of the matter is that we didn't even have the $$$ needed for the 5 years of development that has been invested into AmigaOS4 up to now. The solution was the pre-release of the AmigaOne, sold before the AmigaOS4 even booted on it. Money from those sales was then injected into the AmigaOS4 project and enabled it to survive. It is to Eyetech and the early adaptors of the AmigaOne that we have to say our thanks for AmigaOS4 as it exists today. Have you realized the value of a truly dedicated hardware supplier yet?

I'm just replying to this (don't have the time to see if someone already answered you).

First, why do you avoid addressing the fact I was answering to you in a context where you said we had to look Apple's fate on x86 before proposing anything. So first, what do you have to say about the irrelevance of what you had said?

Second, not having to feed hundreds of developpers is quite a good point for the time being. It remove most of the "risks" involved in the port (since you don't have to sell millions of copies the first day you ship them, you don't have to spend so much in publicity and R&D)

Third on one way you agree we don't have Apples resources and on the other you're saying we should keep bundling the OS with some specific hw, which is what only a big fish like Apple can still do

Finally, you seem to keep on with the myth that x86 hw is not well documented. I don't have time for a full answer, but with more than 80 OS, some of them open source, there's now way Hyperion would have encountered any of the pb they had dealing with PPC hw makers. Sorry, and this has been said before, but how did AROS developpers do if they didn't have documentation?

x86 hw makers are forced by the market to be competitive (not really the case in the PPC market) which means providing good documentation *even* to free OSes and providing really stable and thouroughly tested hw.

So please, are we going to keep saying things that were proved wrong the day IBM had to face PC clones?

@samface

Quote:

You do the math, how much do you think it costs to develop hardware drivers for many various chipsets with their own set of "oddities" with no support from the manufacturer what so ever vs just the few chipsets of a specific hardware, willing to sacrifice both their time and money on helping out with hardware driver development?

Could you please wake up?
It took *one* AROS developper, on his free time, a few month to support the nforce chipset, thus supporting lots of the actual x86 mainboards, including ethernet and such.

So how do you expect us to believe the myth of x86 developpement costs? That's one of the cheapest hw to support!

Hyperion could even just copy/past part of Aros code in OS4 if they didn't even have a few days to code it themselves (that's possible with AROS license, unlike GPL)

@t3g

Quote:

t3g wrote: @samface Quote: You do the math, how much do you think it costs to develop hardware drivers for many various chipsets with their own set of "oddities" with no support from the manufacturer what so ever vs just the few chipsets of a specific hardware, willing to sacrifice both their time and money on helping out with hardware driver development? Could you please wake up? It took *one* AROS developper, on his free time, a few month to support the nforce chipset, thus supporting lots of the actual x86 mainboards, including ethernet and such. So how do you expect us to believe the myth of x86 developpement costs? That's one of the cheapest hw to support! Hyperion could even just copy/past part of Aros code in OS4 if they didn't even have a few days to code it themselves (that's possible with AROS license, unlike GPL)

c'mon now are you saying os4 can be written from scratch to support x86 with no expense in under a month or two? now who is dreaming.

porting os4 to x86 is a LOT more involved than just creating a driver or two.

Last edited by jkirk on 24-Jan-2006 at 03:24 PM.

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@jkirk

He's not saying that an OS4 port to x86 would take a month or two, he's just replying to the "x86 hardware is impossible to support" nonsense.

_________________

@t3g

Why do YOU avoid addressing the point I made that AmigaOS4 would not even exist if it wasn't because they had a hardware provider willing to start selling the hardware before the OS was finished and use the profit to finance the AmigaOS4 project? Recognize this fact and all other arguments you could possibly have about why they should have targetted the open PC market instead of cooperating with a dedicated hardware provider such as Eyetech becomes null and void.

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@AMiGR

Noone said anything about supporting x86 hardware would be *impossible*. It's just a whole lot more hardware and different standards to support than if you have the few chipsets of a few carefully selected hardware designs.

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@samface
Quote:

Why do YOU avoid addressing the point I made that AmigaOS4 would not even exist if it wasn't because they had a hardware provider willing to start selling the hardware before the OS was finished and use the profit to finance the AmigaOS4 project?

And how do you know that? I mean, just because that's what happened (with the poor, very poor results we all see now - generally speaking), does that mean, in your head, that that's the only thing that could possibly happen? You really can't imagine any better scenario than the one that unfortunately took place?

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@falemagn

In what other way are you suggesting that Hyperion would have managed to fund the AmigaOS4 project during the last 5 years without taking away time from developers?

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@samface

Hyperion is out of question here, you talked about the mere existence of AmigaOS4. I'm questioning whether you REALLY think that the only possible way for a product named "AmigaOS4" to come in existence is the one that was really taken.

In other words, are Hyperion and Eyetech strictly necessary to the existence of AmigaOS4, as a product?

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@falemagn

In the form as AmigaOS4 exists today, yes. In the form of some other unknown hypothetical product labeled AmigaOS4 that doesn't neccessarily have anything to do with any previous versions of the AmigaOS nor any kind of functionality that we see in AmigaOS4 today, I'd say you've gone way too far down the hypothetical situations lane. Hyperion was the ones that stepped up when noone else did and saved the AmigaOS from being put back into Amiga Inc.'s original plan to entirely discontinue the classic AmigaOS product line.

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