OS4 rollout schedule

[Karlos]

Sorry if thats been aswered already, I wasn't paying a lot of attention - thought this would just be another flame fest ;-)

-edit-

@Rouge,

LMAO, that's one funny avatar!

[HyperionMP]

So how do you explain that fact that Genesi are sponsoring the development of OpenBEOS, NewOS, AROS and a few other OS's to be ported to Pegasos?

These products are not directly competitive to MorphOS unlike AmigaOS 4.

They do not run 68K legacy software transparently.

Not even AROS. And let's face it, both MorphOS and OS 4 have a hell of a lot more to offer in terms of functionality than AROS.

AROS simply is not a competitor to MorphOS and OS 4 unless it catches up in the field of functionality and offers transparent binary compatibility with OS 3.x applications.

AROS simply is not a competitor to MorphOS and OS 4 unless it catches up in the field of functionality and offers transparent binary compatibility with OS 3.x applications.

When bernie releases his PPC 68k JIT source, then AROS WILL have binary compatibility with OS 3.x

That's the beauty of open source.

Anyway, Apple Mac support.  I would presume that te subject has been discussed quite considerably at Hyperion.  I know that the main problem would be supporting several models etc, but couldn't you just say AOS4 will run on these 3 models of mac only, and then release it?  Or would Apple have to pay you a license fee to allow your OS to run on their hardware too?

I really would love to run OS4 on an Mac laptop, and would pay upto US$100 for the priveledge.

[specfreak]

Reading this thread, I'm seems to me that all Gensei want to to is take a slice of a very small cake.

I agree with everything that Hyperion say, it seems that Gensei and anyone else who's appears to be an advocate of them would go to great lengths to tarnish/destory Amiga Inc/Hyperion etc... Are you actually Amiga enthusiasts or just a bunch of trouble makers who want a new system but are unwilling to pay licence fees and bide by terms and conditions of an agreement.

There's nowt wrong with the licence/dongle that is being proposed.  There's no point having sh1t load of boards and 'hope' OS4 will run.  You have to start with a list of known and working components and work with that, hence A1 board.  From here and once A1+OS4 is out other boards could be catered for like Pegasos.  Although if they're not willing to negotiate or pay licence fees, then WTF should Amiga Inc/Hyperion take them seriously or adhear to their demands.

I've never had MorphOS running on my BPPC, just seems a arse on to get running.  So I couldn't really care less for it.  I want OS4 on my BPPC and if it seems good, I will consider investing in a A1 motherboard.  So CPPC and BPPC are giving us a preview of what's to come and an incentive to migrate to A1+OS4. that what Amiga Inc/Hyperion's plans are and are sound.

So Gensei, pay the licence fee if you want support for Pegasos, work hand in hand... no wonder the Amiga keeps getting screwed up, too many people wanting a slice of the action instead of working together.  Stop being selfish...
Perhaps your only goal is to destroy Amiga etc cos you can't have it your own way ?

Well, I'll get back to my Spectrums until you lot sort out what you really want.  I'm waiting for OS4 for my BPPC, and WILL purchase it.  I will then purchase an A1 if OS4 satisfies what I'm looking for.

Thanks for listening.. probably just made things worse, although I don't see how as you're already hot under the collar.

Good luck Hyperion, looking forward to OS4, don't give a sh1t about Pegasos/Gensei etc.....

Cheers.......

[Dietmar]

1. Ben claims that the license scheme is to protect customers from fraudulent mainboard manufactures. Ignoring for a second the inherent below-the-belt quality of this justification, what makes a group of developers the court and judge of the market? Next thing that might happen is that developer x is unsatisfied with the ethics of Hyperion and blocks his software to run on the A1. I don't think we should enter the road of judging competitor's ethics.

2. It was claimed that the scheme is used to protect IP by complicating piracy with a hardware device. That's a perfectly valid approach but it is just unreasonable to charge the mainboard manufacturer for a service that primiarily benefits Hyperion. Many of us are developers, none of us requests special chips on mainboards. If we feel the need to protect our software, we use cheaper methods that work reasonably well. In the case of A1 and Pegasos mainboards, the unique MAC address of the built-in ethernet controller would be a good hook for an unlocking procedure.

3. Some claim that Hyperion has to cover high development costs, in a small market, and that justifies milking money from the mainboard manufacturer, on top of charging customers for supplying the OS. Considering that the mainboard manufacturer has had considerably higher development costs, I don't see the moral justification for the software side charging the hardware side. One side gets an OS, the other side gets a platform, costs and benefits are evenly split, and the money comes from the customers alone.

specfreak wrote:
Reading this thread, I'm seems to me that all Gensei want to to is take a slice of a very small cake.

I agree with everything that Hyperion say, it seems that Gensei and anyone else who's appears to be an advocate of them would go to great lengths to tarnish/destory Amiga Inc/Hyperion etc... Are you actually Amiga enthusiasts or just a bunch of trouble makers who want a new system but are unwilling to pay licence fees and bide by terms and conditions of an agreement.

There's nowt wrong with the licence/dongle that is being proposed.  There's no point having sh1t load of boards and 'hope' OS4 will run.  You have to start with a list of known and working components and work with that, hence A1 board.  From here and once A1+OS4 is out other boards could be catered for like Pegasos.  Although if they're not willing to negotiate or pay licence fees, then WTF should Amiga Inc/Hyperion take them seriously or adhear to their demands.

I've never had MorphOS running on my BPPC, just seems a arse on to get running.  So I couldn't really care less for it.  I want OS4 on my BPPC and if it seems good, I will consider investing in a A1 motherboard.  So CPPC and BPPC are giving us a preview of what's to come and an incentive to migrate to A1+OS4. that what Amiga Inc/Hyperion's plans are and are sound.

So Gensei, pay the licence fee if you want support for Pegasos, work hand in hand... no wonder the Amiga keeps getting screwed up, too many people wanting a slice of the action instead of working together.  Stop being selfish...
Perhaps your only goal is to destroy Amiga etc cos you can't have it your own way ?

Well, I'll get back to my Spectrums until you lot sort out what you really want.  I'm waiting for OS4 for my BPPC, and WILL purchase it.  I will then purchase an A1 if OS4 satisfies what I'm looking for.

Thanks for listening.. probably just made things worse, although I don't see how as you're already hot under the collar.

Good luck Hyperion, looking forward to OS4, don't give a sh1t about Pegasos/Gensei etc.....

Cheers.......

I WILL buy OS4 also, but i would also like to buy it for the PPC board of my choice, not some overpriced under powered heap of junk.

[Rogue]

and Hyperion the game porting house gone OS developers is just showing the characteristic AI camp honesty. ..

What a nice comment.

FYI, when I was attending university one of the courses I did was Operating Systems design. I'm afraid that games programming was not offered at our university.

[Warface]

Plus if they would enter into the license agreement, they would be required to cough up all hardware and firmware specifications in order for OS 4 to happen.

Do you mean the ZICO specs?

[bloodline]

HyperionMP wrote:

bloodline wrote:
You skillfully avoided my Question about the OS, there Ben (you could be a politician). Ok fine I imagine there are some things you don't want to talk about. We wil let the individual make his/her own conclusions then.

I did?

You mean this question:

"Question: How much of OS4 has been written? From what I can gather only exec and maybe dos and intuition have been "ported" to the PPC... at what point does this become an OS one asks? The implication is that the original AmigaOS is required to boot and provide a significant amount of functionality... if this is the case then quite a bit more work will be required to make the A1 boot. "


I had hoped that my subsequent posts would have cleared up the misconceptions underlying your question.

OS 4 has an inbuilt emulation layer and the difference between 68K and PPC code is minimal.

There is no sandbox involved.

As a result, you cannot distinguish between OS 4 in its current status (with quite a number of modules still in 68K but very few original 3.1/3.5/3.9 modules) and its final status (with those same modules recompiled for PPC).

The only difference is speed, not functionality.

I quite frankly don't have a clue as to what this has to do with booting on the AmigaOne other than that the devices need to be reimplemented, an issue which I discussed already quite extensively.

Ok, fair point. I did not mean to discredit you or the tremedous effort that is going into AOS4.

My point was, AOS4 needs AOS3.1(?) to boot the Amiga and then the new subsystems come into play.

That's fine, if you recal that's exactly how the old Amiga version of AROS functioned.

Now that's fine and good, and is a great way to boot up the old Cyberstorm.
My question was relating to exactly how much of AOS4 has been written, and that my point was from what I can tell, a serious amount of work will be required before enough of AOS4 is PCC to allow it to boot the A1, regardless of the "68K emulation" (which would have to be started very early if you want to use 68k subsystems to boot the machine).

Again this is not an attack on either you or Hyperion but simply an observation. I would also appreciate that you probably can't and don't want to answer that. I will not hold that against you.

PS. I'd like to keep AROS out of this, as these are my personal observations and have nothing to do with AROS (for a change :-D ) :-)

[Rogue]

what makes a group of developers the court and judge of the market?

What makes anyone judge of the market? Do you want to say that a group of developers should no longer be in control of their product? Like, that I have any sort of obligation to write my software for a specific set of hardware?

Next thing that might happen is that developer x is unsatisfied with the ethics of Hyperion and blocks his software to run on the A1

Hyperion has never done anything like that, a claim easily proven by the fact that our 68k software runs on Amithlon/XL and our PPC software runs on MorphOS to a certain degree. We didn't ever block anything, and we don't do so on OS 4. However, as I already stated, OSes don't port themselves.

It was claimed that the scheme is used to protect IP by complicating piracy with a hardware device.

Among other things, yes. Surely you will agree that piracy on the Amiga tends to be a problem when you can find rips of Heretic II 12 hours after the game was released.

However, as has been mentioned before too, taking away the burden of support from us to the respective hardware vendor is also part of the scheme. That is because the mainboard vendor knows his mainboard better than we do, and unless the problem is more general in nature, the mainboard vendor would know the answer to the problem better. I don't see anything wrong with that.

Some claim that Hyperion has to cover high development costs, in a small market, and that justifies milking money from the mainboard manufacturer, on top of charging customers for supplying the OS

I am highly offended by your use of the word "milking". It suggests something illegal. There is nothing illegal going on. You don't happen to agree to the licencing, but that doesn't mean we're milking anyone. Again, do you have any idea about what amount of money we're talking here? I don't think so, so your term "milking" is at least as offensive as what you suggested about Ben's comment.

Considering that the mainboard manufacturer has had considerably higher development costs, I don't see the moral justification for the software side charging the hardware side.

You don't know our expenses on OS 4. You don't know how much the software side would charge the hardware side. Yet, you take it upon yourself to judge us as "milking" hardware developers.

[xeron]

My point was, AOS4 needs AOS3.1(?) to boot the Amiga and then the new subsystems come into play.

No it doesn't. Thats a strange conclusion. OS4 is based on OS3.1 sources, and some parts of those won't be changed, but that doesn't mean it NEEDS OS3.1 to boot the Amiga. Thats like saying Photoshop 7 needs Photoshop 6 to start up, then 7 takes over, because they took the Photoshop 6 code and updated it. Its simply not true; Photoshop 7 is just Photoshop 7. OS4 is just OS4.

[HyperionMP]

The 68K interpretive emulator is integrated with the kernel and is hence available at boot-time on the A1 once the U Boot firmware has successfully obtained the kernel image.

[HyperionMP]

>1. Ben claims that the license scheme is to protect >customers from fraudulent mainboard >manufactures. Ignoring for a second the inherent >below-the-belt quality of this justification, what >makes a group of developers the court and judge >of the market?

First of all, you are ignoring the facts. Are you denying that there have been hardware companies past and present who have failed to live up to their legally defined warranty obligations?

Is it below the belt to ensure that our customers do not fall victim to this in the face of overwhelming evidence?

Secondly, the warranty and support obligations are a legal standard set by the European and national legislators, not by Hyperion.

All we want is to make sure that a hardware manufacturer or reseller is equipped to handle support and warranty repairs as required by the law.

[bloodline]

Tickly wrote:

My point was, AOS4 needs AOS3.1(?) to boot the Amiga and then the new subsystems come into play.

No it doesn't. Thats a strange conclusion. OS4 is based on OS3.1 sources, and some parts of those won't be changed, but that doesn't mean it NEEDS OS3.1 to boot the Amiga. Thats like saying Photoshop 7 needs Photoshop 6 to start up, then 7 takes over, because they took the Photoshop 6 code and updated it. Its simply not true; Photoshop 7 is just Photoshop 7. OS4 is just OS4.

ok... bad turn of phrase... but you're a clever bloke you must know what I was saying....

anyway, I'm a little bored of this thread now  :-D and since I have no intention of bashing AOS4 or Hyperion, I'm gonna leave this alone :-P

-Edit- I'm sure everything is on Schedule and Rockin'  :-)

[HyperionMP]

2. It was claimed that the scheme is used to protect IP by complicating piracy with a hardware device. That's a perfectly valid approach but it is just unreasonable to charge the mainboard manufacturer for a service that primiarily benefits Hyperion. Many of us are developers, none of us requests special chips on mainboards.

Another misconception. There never has been talk of "adding" chips on the mainboard. This is something some MorphOS enthusiasts came up with.

We either require access to the already present  flashrom or are willing to consider some kind of external dongle like a USB token.

Furthermore, we are not charging the hardware manfucturer as such but only a per unit royalty for every copy of OS 4 sold.

[HyperionMP]

3. Some claim that Hyperion has to cover high development costs, in a small market, and that justifies milking money from the mainboard manufacturer, on top of charging customers for supplying the OS. Considering that the mainboard manufacturer has had considerably higher development costs, I don't see the moral justification for the software side charging the hardware side. One side gets an OS, the other side gets a platform, costs and benefits are evenly split, and the money comes from the customers alone.

First of all, your statement is erroneous in the sense that we are only charging a per unit OEM royalty. We will determine whether or not it is economically feasible to undertake support of a given platform and a manufacturer might or might not want to induce us by guaranteeing a minimum number of sold copies.

Furthermore, your statement betrays a lack of insight into commercial policy and economics. The consumer always ends up paying the bill whatever license scheme is put in place. The distinction between what the hardware manufacturer pays and what the consumer pays is therefore completely artificial.

Let's not fall victim to the same delusions that have people claiming MSN messenger and IE are free of charge. The consumer ends up paying for it through other products.