Brown grass both sides of the fence?

[DaveP]

AdmVs pessimistic assessment of the situation

I guess we all know how precarious the "Amiga" marketplace is, and in fact has been for some time.

AdmV posted a critical summary (rant) of his/her views of the situation on ANN and it makes interesting reading for market watchers.

It got me thinking - what if the unthinkable happens? What if the AOS4 project folds AND the MorphOS/Pegasos project folds in 2003? What next?

I guess AROS but that does not seem to get even
a tenth of the community investment that it deserves.

What is everyones C-Plan? What alternatives to
MOS/AOS do you think will work or is the last chance
for all these people to be considered part of the same community again?

[gnarly]

Plan C:
Stick with WinUAE for now, investigate other options. Perhaps install Xandros Linux, looks quite spangly to me. Perhaps buy a Mac. Perhaps stay with WinXP. Depends on the apps available more than the OS itself...

[Glaucus]

It got me thinking - what if the unthinkable happens? What if the AOS4 project folds AND the MorphOS/Pegasos project folds in 2003? What next?

Unfortunately the "unthinkable" is not that unlikely.  However, what if they both go kaput?  Well, I think it's the end of the road.  How could it ever go any furhter.  AROS is little more then  port of the existing AmigaOS to the x86 platform.  Although I really like this idea AmigaOS needs to advance as well and it's also unlikely that any company (or individual) would want to stake a financial future on something like AROS.

WinUAE is great for nostalgia but that's about it.  Same goes for Amithlon.  I like WinUAE and use it more often then I use my A4000 but if you wanna talk about the future of the platform then really all our hopes lie with AmigaOS4 (although some think MorphOS has a chance too).  If those two ventures fail then there's really no future for this platform.

I believe that if the community is at least five thousand strong and invests into the next generation Amiga, the platform should survive at least another year or two, but the only way to stay alive is to grow the market share and that's the tricky part.

  - Mike

[jd997uk]

Dangerous thread this one. A single misquote could _really_ do a great deal of damage :~/
Anyhoo, C-Plan? Whatever happened to B-Plan?
err, ah, oh yeah, OK  :-D
Seriously though, I suspect that unless there is a serious last minute problem, OS4 will see the light of day. Hyperion have, remember, also been earning money outside the Amiga, so AFAIK, they're still on track to get OS4 'Out There', it just ain't now.
Without trawling through the archives here or at Ann.lu, I've simply had a quick check on e-mails to certain people. It's barely a month since the OS4 feature list was published and little over 2 weeks since all that "OS4 NOT READY TILL THE END OF THE YEAR' b0110We have a problem where a small unit of people constantly 'spin' this crap. If it isn't one thing, it's another. Then, suddenly, (nearly) everyone gets enraged and demans a personal explaination from the head of the company.
Well, excuse me, but real-life don't work like that.
If your Ford (insert model name here) breaks down and you have to wait a couple of weeks for a part to arrive, do you _really_ expect to have direct communication with the chief executive?
People get real. Stop believing any old crap the same old faces start reeling out every couple of weeks.
In fact, don't even believe me. Use your own brains and think for your self.
Ask youself one question: Do I believe that there is a future for the Amiga whatsoever?
If you answer no, WTF are you doing here anyway?

-john

[DaveP]

@John

We have a problem where a small unit of people constantly 'spin' this crap. If it isn't one thing, it's another. Then, suddenly, (nearly) everyone gets enraged and demans a personal explaination from the head of the company.

Ive noticed that too. But then OTOH if the CEO
makes themselves available when everything else
is going wrong for personal discussion people start
to believe they have rights.

Actually our CEO *is* the one that gets the calls when
things go wrong and they aren't getting fixed by the
people on the ground.

But you have strayed a little off the topic here. We are talking about what *IF* AOS4 and MorphOS fail
this year ... what each person will do. AdmVs rant
is just showing why I am thinking about this right now.

Personally I haven't made my mind up. I thought I
knew ( Linux ) but Im bored with that direction now
having explored it as far as I want to go. Probably
something small and lightweight and incomplete like
SkyOS.

I would hope that all ( most ;-) ) of us are mature
enough to debate this without getting personal or
making flaming remarks about MorphOS and AmigaOS given that this is a hypothetical discussion
which precludes the situation where both solutions
have failed for some unstated reason.

[zacman]

>Hyperion have, remember, also been earning
>money outside the Amiga

What except PPCBoot for MAI do they have
currently?

[Glaucus]

@Dave

I get the feeling you're not asking about the future direction of the community, but what each individual will do?  Well, in that case I'll probably just continue using my WinXP system.

  - Mike