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Announcement   Announcement : New AmiZilla Website
   posted by DiscreetFX on 10-Aug-2008 21:01:54 (7638 reads)
A few of you have noticed that a new AmiZilla website was launched recently. The talented artist that created it did a great job. AmiZilla has been a catalyst for change in the Amiga marketplace and an inspiration to all. AmiZilla shocked the Amiga market and even received wide press on Slashdot, Mozilla forums and many other news sites when it was launched in 2003. Many were caught off guard that an Amiga effort could bring in over $10,000 in donations, the Amiga is suppose to dead right? The Amiga is not dead, the AROS Bounty system, MorphZone Bounties and many other bounty systems were all inspired by AmiZilla and went on to collect thousands of dollars. DiscreetFX did not consider this competition to AmiZilla, in fact we embraced it and put lots of money into AROS Bounties, MorphZone Bounties and many others. The small community that is Amiga proved that it was not giving up and it was willing to pay for quality software to be ported to the Four Headsmen of Amiga.
(Read more)


A paradigm shift occurred in the Amiga market and has been going on ever since. Amiga owners don't mind reaching into their pockets for quality software vs having no software at all. The sad news in all of this is that the dream of AmiZilla has still not been reached. Firefox proved that it is difficult to port and it will take talented programmers time to do it. Progress was made, a CVS was setup, NSPR was ported and other little models of Firefox but the main goal has not been achieved. Talented developers also gave us Sputnik for MorphOS and OWB for Amiga OS 4.0 & 3.9. Their skills are appreciated because the Amiga had no CSS capable browser. The blunt truth of the matter is that programming is hard and developers need to be paid for their time and work. Over $10,000 in bounty collections in the Amiga market is a great achievement but unfortunately it is not enough. Without Firefox running on the Four Headsmen of Amiga we are not taken seriously and miss out on the wealth of plug-ins and respect the web based platform that is Firefox would give us. Even small unknown operating systems like SkyOS have Firefox.

So we have a two new goals for AmiZilla, $15,000 & $20,000. At these higher bounty levels maybe Linux developers will get interested and run an Amiga virtual machine and or even buy an EFIKA running MorphOS 2.0 and or a used system running Amiga OS 4.0. Even a virtual AROS system is free to setup and use on most environments. Maybe an old Amiga developer that feels inspired and loves Firefox will return to Amiga programming to collect the bounty. We don't care how it gets done we just want it completed to help the Amiga marketplace. To help the contest reach a new level we have added another $1000 to the bounty. To reach a goal of $15K & 20K we will also need the help of others that believe in the dream of Firefox for Amiga OS, MorphOS & AROS.

Best regards

DiscreetFX Team

Links:

New AmiZilla Website

Four Headsmen of Amiga
    

STORYID: 4466
Related Links
· More about Announcement
· News by DiscreetFX


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PosterThread
K-L 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 10-Aug-2008 21:46:16
#1 ]
Super Member
Joined: 3-Mar-2006
Posts: 1427
From: Oullins, France

Frankly, I don't beleive anymore in AmiZilla.

Thanks to Joerg and Marçik, OS4 and MOS2 have some "up to date" browsers.

I prefer send money to them instead of something dead for a long time (in my opinion).

By the way, don't even tink of launching FireFox on Efika (128Mb RAM, remember?).

So, sorry but for me (who really believed in Amizilla years ago), I think this is over and that the money we gave is now lost.


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DiscreetFX 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 10-Aug-2008 21:48:33
#2 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-Feb-2003
Posts: 2543
From: Chicago, IL

We understand your frustration K-L, turns out Firefox is a hard one to port. It will happen though. The achievements that Joerg and Marçik have made are outstanding.


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bitman 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 10-Aug-2008 22:45:42
#3 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 25-Mar-2008
Posts: 705
From: Fredericia, Denmark

The donate link does not work for me - only me having problems?


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DiscreetFX 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 10-Aug-2008 22:54:13
#4 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-Feb-2003
Posts: 2543
From: Chicago, IL

Did you use the one at the top? Try again, it works fine.

Last edited by DiscreetFX on 10-Aug-2008 at 10:54 PM.


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Petah 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 6:25:16
#5 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 10-Mar-2003
Posts: 432
From: EU <3 ❤️

Errors found while checking this document as HTML 3.2! - "The following missing or conflicting information caused the validator to perform guesswork prior to validation. If the guess or fallback is incorrect, it may make validation results entirely incoherent. It is highly recommended to check these potential issues, and, if necessary, fix them and re-validate the document."

Kind of awkward, would you not say?


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koan 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 6:25:23
#6 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 5-Dec-2003
Posts: 126
From: Kyoto, Japan

This is an unrealistic and pointless exercise in website redesign. The development guidelines are a joke. I'm sorry if you feel this comment is overly negative but this is the cold hard truth. Personally I would be very happy to see Mozilla on Amiga but trying to put a lot of money in a jar and hoping someone is going to bite off a massive project like this is naive and futile.

You need someone with real commercial programming experience to

1. Go through the source tree for Firefox and all its dependencies
2. Break down the code into much smaller components
3. Define criteria for validation and testing
4. Determine individual bounties for components
5. Define a proper set of requirements and guidelines
6. Handle integration of components and packaging

I am sure that you could find an Amigan with the requisite skills who would do it for a few thousand US$. That would only be 15-20% of the current pot. The rest would be assigned to the various components' bounties by this manager person depending on the priority and difficulty. As more money gets donated this could be added to the individual bounties.

Finding the right person to manage it could be quite difficult and ideally you need that person for the whole project, so the bounty for the manager should increase as an incentive to keep them on the project. e.g.

Tasks 1-5 above = US$2000
Validating and signing off components -
First 10% of components = $200, next 10% = $300, etc...

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Pleng 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 6:57:37
#7 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 17-Nov-2005
Posts: 458
From: Unknown

I love this quote, from the FAQ:

Quote:
Amiga One and Pegasos system sales can go thru the roof!



This one is pretty amuzing too:

Quote:
Imagine a world where your general purpose computer user that just needs internet access would be free from the illegal practices of companies trying to control/monopolize their whole computing experience.

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ChrisH 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 7:38:01
#8 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 30-Jan-2005
Posts: 6679
From: Unknown

Personally I always thought that this requirement will put-off quite a few people:
Quote:
3. The AmiZilla Project must fully compile with running binaries on each of the following Amiga-like OS's: OS3.1, OS3.5+, MorphOS native version, Amiga OS 4.0 native version, UAE, Amithlon, DraCo.

It would make far more sense to just say "OS3.9, MorphOS native & Amiga OS 4.0 native".

It might even make sense to only say "OS3.9 (but also runs under 68k emulation on MorphOS & Amiga OS 4.0)", since MOS & OS4 native ports should be quite easy for someone with experience of those OSes.

Last edited by ChrisH on 11-Aug-2008 at 07:38 AM.


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CodeSmith 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 8:36:05
#9 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 3045
From: USA

@Pleng

Quote:
Imagine a world where your general purpose computer user that just needs internet access would be free from the illegal practices of companies trying to control/monopolize their whole computing experience.

Yikes, attack of the tinfoil hat brigades! Even if one assumes that all that paranoia is even remotely valid these days, with Apple's growing market share and Google proving that MS is no longer a serious threat to anyone, it's still so goofy... haven't these guys heard of Linux, for crying out loud?

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Amigo1 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 8:48:02
#10 ]
Super Member
Joined: 24-Jun-2004
Posts: 1582
From: the Clouds

Quote:

You need someone with real commercial programming experience to

1. Go through the source tree for Firefox and all its dependencies
2. Break down the code into much smaller components
3. Define criteria for validation and testing
4. Determine individual bounties for components
5. Define a proper set of requirements and guidelines
6. Handle integration of components and packaging


I would suggest umisef, but I suppose he does not have the time for this task..
and maybe unfortunately even a quite lack of lust to put his heart in something amiga related..

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Leo 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 10:02:05
#11 ]
Super Member
Joined: 21-Aug-2003
Posts: 1597
From: Unknown

I'm sorry but I fail to get the point of this announcement...

It's been 5 years (5 !) since this project has been announced... And you make a big announcement of a new design of the website ?!

Seems like it clearly failed to me... Maybe it's time to admit it. And either do something about it, or simply close it... But please, please... stop making useless announcements like this one.


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Bit7 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 11:04:55
#12 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 20-Jun-2007
Posts: 170
From: Australia

I like the new website design.

I really like koan's idea for splitting the bounty into smaller components, starting with a bounty to organise the whole process.

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DiscreetFX 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 12:14:30
#13 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-Feb-2003
Posts: 2543
From: Chicago, IL

@Amigo1

A Manager cutting AmiZilla down to smaller manageable chunks is a nice idea. Anton should be told about this, he is managing the project. We only sponsor the contest.

@Leo

We understand your frustration, as the sponsor of this contest we would like to see this wrap up too. The mailing list and Sourceforge page is the place to keep track of what the programmers are doing. AmiZilla is a contest that anyone can win.

Last edited by DiscreetFX on 11-Aug-2008 at 12:25 PM.
Last edited by DiscreetFX on 11-Aug-2008 at 12:18 PM.
Last edited by DiscreetFX on 11-Aug-2008 at 12:17 PM.
Last edited by DiscreetFX on 11-Aug-2008 at 12:15 PM.


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bitman 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 12:44:14
#14 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 25-Mar-2008
Posts: 705
From: Fredericia, Denmark

I used the one at the top and it still dosn't work - i use Internet Explorer!


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DiscreetFX 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 12:47:46
#15 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-Feb-2003
Posts: 2543
From: Chicago, IL

@bitman

Since this is a bounty page to port Firefox to an alternate OS maybe you should use a different browser, LOL.




@CodeSmith

Obsolete information removed from FAQ.

Last edited by DiscreetFX on 11-Aug-2008 at 12:54 PM.
Last edited by DiscreetFX on 11-Aug-2008 at 12:53 PM.


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Troels 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 13:49:17
#16 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 8-Mar-2003
Posts: 2005
From: Unknown

Good luck with the project.

It's really a shame that the support for this project was so weak to begin with. It should have raised much much more mooney back when it was launched but the number of donations is dissapointing.

IMHO we should have been able to raise so much money that developers could almost accept it as a normally paid job.

Also the rules might have turned a lot of developers off and perhaps still do?

EDIT: I am considering making another donation, will money be given back if Firefox is not available in a given timeframe?

Last edited by Troels on 11-Aug-2008 at 01:52 PM.


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billt 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 14:28:10
#17 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 24-Oct-2003
Posts: 3205
From: Maryland, USA

Quote:
Thanks to Joerg and Marçik, OS4 and MOS2 have some "up to date" browsers.
I prefer send money to them instead of something dead for a long time (in my opinion).


I put money into the Amizilla bounty for a Mozilla port. I don't want a different product, I want what I paid for. And I don't want my payment going to a different product, no matter how great it may be. I'd rather not see bounties getting into the habit of taking money for one thing and then paying to another thing. If a bounty turns out not going to pay for the item advertized to the donors, then the money should be returned to them (prorating any interest gained as well to everyone) and then they can decide if they want to invest their own money into bounties for different products. Some people will happily do so, others may not, and their choice should not be taken away from them.

Last edited by billt on 11-Aug-2008 at 02:31 PM.


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bitman 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 15:36:34
#18 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 25-Mar-2008
Posts: 705
From: Fredericia, Denmark

Quote:
Since this is a bounty page to port Firefox to an alternate OS maybe you should use a different browser, LOL.


I knew this comment would come - If we're going to be religious about browsers I can find another project to support.


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DiscreetFX 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 16:04:34
#19 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 12-Feb-2003
Posts: 2543
From: Chicago, IL

bitman, it was just a joke. Just tested with IE 7, works fine.

Last edited by DiscreetFX on 11-Aug-2008 at 04:28 PM.


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Snuffy 
Re: New AmiZilla Website
Posted on 11-Aug-2008 16:11:04
#20 ]
Super Member
Joined: 25-Oct-2005
Posts: 1121
From: Michigan, USA

We understand your frustration
I don't believe that, nor Amizilla, nor Sputnik. But, I may believe in the U.S Justice Department!


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