@DiscreetFX

Not to mention the "AmigaOS" brand may not belong to Amiga, Inc. after the court case is done for all anyone knows at this point.

Amiga, Inc. seems quite content holding on to the brand and doing nothing with it. You say let them screw up, but thats already the case as you point out with "inaction for almost 8 years". It already should be worth not much. So don't hold your breathe that they'll be calling you up to buy it on the cheap as you are hoping sometime down the line.

Last edited by fairlanefastback on 25-Sep-2007 at 09:39 PM.

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Pegasos2 G3 running AOS 4.1 and MorphOS 2.0
Amikit user, tinkering with Icaros VM (AROS)
EFIKA owner
Amiga 1200

I have to agree that AROS really needs proper UAE integration to access the huge repository of code on Aminet. That, plus a native web-browser and e-mail client (plus the already existing native Hollywood) and you'd have a very usable system. Native PageStream would be pretty cool, too!

So why don't developers move to AROS? I imagine it's simply because, given the effort they're putting into their coding, they would like some financial recompense for their efforts (more so than a one-off bounty could provide), so they develop for the commercial Amiga-ish systems in the hope of future remuneration. How could this be reconciled with an open-source, free-to-download AROS? As already mentioned in this thread, maybe the Red Hat model is the way to go. Sell the 'value added' packs with nice boxes, real CDs and proper printed manuals (now that would be a task I'd like to put my copy of PageStream to!), and give the developers a slice of the profits from each sale. AROS would stay open source but developers could see some return for their hard work.

In terms of hardware, if resources allowed I think a range of options would be great for the platform. x86 for the standard user, minimig/CloneA for the retro-gamers, and SAM for specialist embedded applications, those users for whom only will do PPC will do, any maybe some cool applications of that FPGA.

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If Amiga inc lose the court case what is there left to buy? The Name Amiga? its not worth it. All companies that have had the name amiga which has been connected with the computer has gone under.

That's the only thing going for AmigaOS 4 otherwise most would went MorphOS, AROS like... eons ago.

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Indigo 3D Lounge, my second home.
The Illusion of Choice | Am*ga

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How could this be reconciled with an open-source, free-to-download AROS?

I don't know where you're getting this idea from, but there's nothing stopping one commercial entity to develop for AROS and making a profit in AROS environment, it's not as Linux where you cannot link without opening your code to it...

PS- You can buy Hollywood for AROS

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Indigo 3D Lounge, my second home.
The Illusion of Choice | Am*ga

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About the Amizilla bounty, we are back to the problem of no hardware to new users meaning no new coders meaning blahblahblah If I had an A1 I will try for sure, I not have the coding skills but that $10000 are so tempting :)

It might be of some help reading the bounty conditions before applying, Amizilla isn't solely for AmigaOS 4...

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Indigo 3D Lounge, my second home.
The Illusion of Choice | Am*ga

@pixe
I wasn't referring to applications (I have purchased Hollywood 2 specifically for its AROS support), but for developers contributing to the core OS - file systems, drivers, UAE integration, etc. The sort of bits you'd expect to download as part of the OS package.

Once the core OS is more complete and stable, I would hope more applications developers would take an interest in producing releases for it.

Last edited by ntromans on 25-Sep-2007 at 10:25 PM.

I'd like to see a Minimig 1200, with built in 68060 and PPC. Legal to build, OS 4 Classic compatible, and with AGA for running all my favourite games and demos!

YES, exactly what I've been thinking an A1200 (hence AGA) minimig with both 68k and PPC on board (if possible). I wonder if Dennis van Weeren is willing to do a successor to the current minimig??

Last edited by AmigaMac on 26-Sep-2007 at 12:12 AM.

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I have some rather blunt questions to ask? We have machines waiting in the wings and a ready OS. If the machines were sold without the OS, who would be the most upset by the clandestine OS use that would follow. Would it be Hyperion or AInc that would be most upset? Surely Hyperion could release a special version for the new hardware later to get the sales back on course. They seem the most caring for the community. We are not communicated with yet many members produce and port software for free and out of good will. Where is Fleecy? Why does Bill only speak every few years? Rogue is here and his brother. I see several developers here from time to time. Piracy ruined the Amiga once, but I ask you who are the biggest pirates? I am an A1 owner, but I face a drastic loss of software and if this machine dies no other machine to replace it. Who are the victims in this? Maybe Bill and Fleecy are the victims. Maybe they cry themselves to sleep every night. I remember Fleecy's wife's empassioned plea to the community eight or ten years ago. I know he did care, but as a psychologist he should know that all solutions stop with the end of communication. If the captain is steering for the rocks with a hand full of ballbearings, do we head for the lifeboats and risk being called pirates?

Oh I always buy all my software. These questions come from the dark place I find myself in. Abandoned, with no solutions on the horizon and Captain Queeg is out of his mind.
Sincerely,
John Paul

@Tedd @DiscreetFX

I bet Amiga Inc. wanted something in the $20-$50 million range and the DiscreetFX group was wanting to pay somewhere in the $2-$5 million range for "Amiga". I'm sure your DiscreetFX offer is looking better and better all the time to Amiga Inc. and they may eventually get back to you but that may take a long time. What can the Amiga community do about this problem? Forget any e-mail campaign as Amiga Inc. really doesn't care. I have a few ideas though...

Step 1.) First you want to talk to Hyperian and the Friedan brothers as they have kept the Amiga alive with AmigaOS 4 that is better than it was ever supposed to be and with the modularity and lack of bloat that will help it run on a small hand held device as well as take advantage of a multiprocessor environment. Their creativity and dream needs the freedom to continue but they will need financing after the current lawsuit to get them out of the hole and enough to accelerate the pace of Amiga development. How can this be done without wasting all the capital on purchasing the Amiga? That's step 2...

Step 2.) Hurt Amiga in the pocket book to lower the worth of the company. With the blessings of Hyperian, the Frieden brothers, the Amiga community as a whole and any other major Amiga developers you can persuade to join the movement, you would create a "Save the Amiga" license clause addition that would be distributed to AmigaOS 4 developers that would make it illegal to use their software on any (new) Amiga licensed hardware from the current day forward. Additionally, get everyone involved in the movement to boycott all Amiga Inc. products and licensed products.

Step 3.) Once Amiga realizes they have no future by themselves they should lower their asking price. The DistcreetFX group would then buy them and raise plenty of extra capital to be in it for the long haul and fund development with an IPO and create a public company. The public company could be created with more direct voting by the shareholders and a shareholder suggestion box that goes straight to the board of directors of the company. This would be put in the charter so that the Amiga community could buy some control (shares) of how the Amiga is run. The charter could be setup to be as ahead of it's time as the U.S. Constitution was for it's time with more control directly by the shareholders than most companies allow. Find a CEO with the vision of a Google or Apple that will use open standards and open licensing to create new markets for the Amiga. If the Frieden brothers can create a better OS (AmigaOS 4) than the thousands of programmers at Microsoft (Windoze Vista) then anything is possible.

Well, maybe that's all too utopian and there is much I don't know and would need to find out first but I too am willing to put my money where my mouth (and my heart) is and I have been very successful doing it. I hope my ideas give you some ideas.

Another 2 cents from me. That's Euro cents, not Dollar cents.

It looks like we arrived at another stalemate.

IMO currently the only tangible thing that can bring back a little bit of Amiga back to the community is the MiniMig.

DFX first stated that if that's what the community wants, that's what they'll do, but later they brought in Jens for a stalemate.

As a devil's advocate, is this DFX tracking back, or a true concern?

It might be wise to wait (let's say a month) for Jens to comment on this new development. Meanwhile DFX could already start investigation for a production run of either the MiniMig or the Clone-A. We could have a petition at AW and perhaps also at A.org to see the interest in a completely soldered MiniMig. (For as far that is still needed)

Anyone with me on this one?

Regarding SAM and AROS, at the moment SAM is "only" a Linux board and AROS has more bounties than developers (well, that might be an exaggeration, but I guess you know what I'm trying to tell you).

Last edited by jiyong on 26-Sep-2007 at 09:24 AM.

I seem to remember Jens saying that his target for the CloneA was an Amiga-in-a-Joystick type thing, to be sold in Toys R Us and supermarkets, etc. He was waiting for an open kickstart replacement for it.

The Minimig seems to be a different product, designed for Amiga enthusiasts who don't mind tinkering with it and providing their own Kickstart files. Also, the Clone A is designed to be a cycle exact A500, I remember Jens saying that he doesn't want to expand it because then it wouldn't be an A500 anymore.

It seems to me that they're targetting two different markets, so I don't think the projects would step on each other's toes.

I've actually been thinking about this all morning, and like to see a Minimig with:

* 68060
* Optional PPC add on (reduces cost for basic board)
* Expansion slot
* 2.5" IDE socket
* PCMCIA
* At least 32MB Fast RAM
* Amiga floppy controller
* SD card slot for ADFs

If someone can build that, then I have an empty A600 case that would thank them very much!

Seriously, for the first time in a long time, I'm actually excited about an Amiga project. Can we make a new thread for all this stuff, because this news item is going to drop off the front page soon?

Last edited by Gleng on 26-Sep-2007 at 10:29 AM.

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I don't see what's stopping some corporate entity from hiring a consultant firm to polish off AROS and box it up with an x86 machine that includes a certain A logo on 2 particular keys on the keyboard.

Heck, don't even sell the hardware. Just have different builds that natively install on Macs, PC's and whatever other hardware you like and include the necessary drivers for that hardware. No need to wait for bounties. The consulting firm will develop a closed solution.

If that consulting firm so happens to be the Friedens...who will complain?

So let's say DiscreteFX could fund the Friedens to complete an AROS build for several hardware platforms then publish the end product. Nothing is stopping anyone from selling AROS. You can download it for free and wait for bounties to be completed or you can buy this polished version that contains commercially developed binaries.

@Lou
I agree there.. I something along those lines are our best hope.

One thing I forgot to mention, if DiscreetFX owned Amiga getting Amiga OS 4.0 running on PS3 would be one of the first things we would make sure got done. PS3 + Amiga OS is another missed opportunity
and it's sad that has never happened.

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Sent from my Quantum Computer.

Mac Mini's with G4's + Amiga OS 4 is a missed opportunity!

Especially since the E-mail traffic we saw in the lawsuit suggests it already is running.

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AmigaOne-XE G3 OS 4.
A4000 PPC
A1200 PPC

i agree PulsatingQuasar, Amiga OS 4.0 on Mac Mini PPC would be awesome. Too many broken promises and missed chances under current leadership, that's why DiscreetFX wants a shot!

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Sent from my Quantum Computer.

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One thing I forgot to mention, if DiscreetFX owned Amiga getting Amiga OS 4.0 running on PS3 would be one of the first things we would make sure got done. PS3 + Amiga OS is another missed opportunity and it's sad that has never happened.

I rather see it on some standard hardware first... A ps3 port is such a much bigger project due to the cell processors and such. Also with a ps3 you dont have direct acccess to hardware, so you cannot for example use the gpu, which means you wont be able to play amigaos native 3d games. I think the Sam or Efika would be a nice first step and after that go on to more complicated projects like the x86 or ps3.

PS3 has "ONLY" little more than four mill. of machines worldwide, that's quite few for a console but maybe a lot if 5% of them installed the OS and making the community a little bigger because of enthusiasts playing with the OS. More than 90% of them will not be users, but that's more than none. Consider other stuff like being expensive (600EUR) and lack of direct hardware access or a proper HAL access able to do stuff like full graphic acceleration (2D and 3D), like said in the previous post to this.

I think both blue and red ways lost the common sense and being guided by too much illusion, being blind to the reality and having loads of ideas that never will success.

The solution is to merge the community again into one OS, a very powerful one and full of updated hardware and software to the needs of now and the future. That could be to do very big investments and being very careful about receiving help from the devil (see Nintendo and Sony, Microsoft and IBM...), and other very difficult tasks like reconciliate the blue and red user bases into one. I sincerely don't this to ever happen, I see AmigaOS, OS4 and MOS as some kind of nostalgic OS for geeks and nostalgics.

My idea about alternative operating systems is that none will survive in the long term if not being open-source, just look at how Linux is eating competence thanks to being of none and everyone at same time. See as anlterative project try to emerge and promising a lot, Haiku, it's open-source and full of talented people that even works for Google. Look at other alternative operating systems like QNX or RiscOS and see how the market changes, everything not owned by the criminal computer monopoly is going to the open-source way or will die.

I think the best thing to do would be merge the best things of MorphOS, Amiga OS 4.0 and AROS into one true Open-Source project with GPL or GPL-like license. Maybe shared-source, but that kind of license is not very good in the eyes of the open-source community and see if QNX and RiscOS become successful or not.

Of course I'm sure a lot of people from this community will see this comment as trolling or whatever, but they are blind to reality because wanting too many things that think it could "make amiga revolution" but in reality at this moment isn't profitable or realistic.

At the end, liars and thefts enter to the Amiga community for thefting the money to users with too much faith and hopes on their systems, in the way sects like Scientology get rich. This must change.

Last edited by timofonic on 26-Sep-2007 at 05:58 PM.

@DiscreetFX

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i agree PulsatingQuasar, Amiga OS 4.0 on Mac Mini PPC would be awesome. Too many broken promises and missed chances under current leadership, that's why DiscreetFX wants a shot!

I really hope to see the PPC Mac mini port released. I have one!

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@timofonic
Well over 700 euros here in Norway...