New Kickstart 3.9.1 68k on the way

[wawrzon]

It doesnt matter if they have the evidence or not. Reality shows that about a week ago they allowed a remastered AmigaOS 3.1 kit to be sold, and no one had proof that they could legaly challenge that action (you can now buy this version at AmigaKit). And most importantly, if I am not wrong, I believe they still have a lawyer that doesnt charge a single penny, and is willing to go all the way (Ben Hermans).

I for one, dont care what happens to OS4. It is just another product, that I have tried, and I do not find it interesting all. But on the contrary, a new or recompiled OS for real Amigas sounds really tempting for me.

And most importantly, Hyperion is just like any other company, driven by profit. So if OS4 doesnt give them enough revenue, maybe a 68k AmigaOS might, and it is not a bad move, it is the way that business are (you choose the product you find its more profitable).

it depends on purpose. once they try to insist that they are viable commercial company. at other times they play poor or try to portray themselves as charity or act as community driven project. a true chameleon. all depends on purpose and context.

Hyperion may not be the company with the best rep out there to do this, but this is certainly better than having nothing at all (because that is what we have now).

i am opposite  opinion. im happy as long as that kind of companies stays away from amiga. look at what they did to os community and market over the years, now after it barely exists anymore the traditional amiga looks attractive out of the sudden. as example what is to be expected you can look at groundbreaking hardware proposals in the queue, do i need to be more specific?

And please, lets not talk about Aros on a real Amiga, because for the time being it is just a pain inflicting OS for our Miggies. Maybe that can change in the future, but not now.

i respect your work and opinion. i realize that without effort put into that it isnt a solution for an end user at this time, but it is a safe haven. now, things get done, as example: last week deadwood and phx worked together and got vasm so far that it is suitable to compile aros asm inlines, and aros source has been updated to be able to make use of it.
i just have realized is that one needs to get more involved if someone need something. i prefer to invest some time and work and try to learn something instead to invest money in uncertain projects.

[wawrzon]

AmigaOS 3.1 for 68k machines was not considered a viable product. There was nobody who could have developed it, provided support, documentation, etc. There was nobody who would have wanted to buy it in sufficient numbers to even sustain development, support, etc.

The situation seems to have changed by now. But given the twisted history of the Amiga as it happened in the last 20 years, it would still need capital and manpower to "resuscitate" AmigaOS 3.1 for 68k, which entails quite some risk.

how has the situation changed? os4 market has dried up and one needs to look for something else to ruin? and that needs to be founded yet?

If there is a genuine appetite for an updated AmigaOS 3.1 for the 68k platform ("classic", emulated or reborn in FPGA), it's up to you (well, not you personally: I mean everybody who would want to see such a project happening) to state what they want from it and let Hyperion know that there is sufficient demand for it.

We can swap stories and speculate all day on this forum. But nothing tangible will happen until you convince the people who can make it happen.

whoever is interested, me not. not after all the years.

[wawrzon]

No, I haven't. But I'm not a lawyer in first place, so you're probably expecting a bit much from my side. One way or another, if you attempt such a project, you want at least somebody at your side that can defend your position, and it has been shown that they can, all legal uncertainties aside. If you have other recommendations as for whom to approach for such a project and who could provide licenses - and more important - legal backup, I'm happy to hear them.  The sole purpose of a company is not keeping their face. The sole purpose is "making money". As soon as there is a chance for making a profit, they would be stupid not to take it. The problem is: Activities like this one - ripping Os components and publishing an "Os" - is showing the unwillingness of the community to invest money into any new Os, hence makes the whole project less likely, not more likely. I believe I said this before. The best you can do is probably setup a web page where you collect voices for such a project, and more specifically, how much individuals would be willing to invest.

It's a small market, so I don't think we can expect "bugdet prices". After all, some people also want to get paid, and rightfully so. The problem I have now is that they sell a "low end product" for "high end prices", and -even worse- a product I'm not at all interested in. At least a couple of factors would have to change: Better engagement in the community would help to lower prices by using man-power that is available for little money right here. And, from the side of the community: Respect for the legal constraints. There is certainly no market if some people believe that AmigaOs is essentially "free to take".  

As always, every story has two sides, and there are certainly matters that have to change at Hyperion, but the same goes for this community as well, this thread is exactly a demonstration this problem.

im not sure where anybody has proven to defend their position, as im not sure one needs associate like that so much if one can avoid it.

to be clear, im not going to try to convince anybody to prove that amiga is commercially viable, let alone to invest money in it up front. those in question need to evaluate their plans for themselves. ot has nothing t do with the attitude of particular individuals in the scene. people are fed up and are taking things in theor own hands, one way or another. whoever let it came to that can now blame himself.

[guest11527]

im not sure where anybody has proven to defend their position, as im not sure one needs associate like that so much if one can avoid it.

I thought the case against Amiga Inc concerning the rights on AmigaOs for development of Os 4.x should be known in the community. So at least this court case provided the following answers: a) Hyperion has the rights for developing Os 4.x on the basis of the existing Amiga Os, and b) they're willing to fight for this.

Whether a) includes the rights on the *original* 3.1 AmigaOs is still open to my very knowledge, so it could still happen that somebody else comes up with claims. Whenever that happens, see b): I *then* want a partner (and not an enemy) that is willing to fight this through. That this worked is shown by a), even though it did not establish a decision concerning the rights on 3.1 to my very knowledge. Whether there is anybody else who claims to have rights on 3.1 and has willingness to provide that in court is unclear to me, but it would at least establish a complicated situation that I wouldn't be happy to support.  

to be clear, im not going to try to convince anybody to prove that amiga is commercially viable, let alone to invest money in it up front. those in question need to evaluate their plans for themselves. ot has nothing t do with the attitude of particular individuals in the scene. people are fed up and are taking things in theor own hands, one way or another. whoever let it came to that can now blame himself.

The problem is this: Without such engagement, nothing will happen. Or at least: Nothing *legal* will happen. At "best", you're creating a project that puts its developers in a very delicate legal position - you're creating a legal (and financial) risk for the projects and the people engaged in such projects. I'm not willing to take this risk, not only as a matter of a "probability estimate", but rather on a moral ground. Too much problems were already created in the past by "ignoring" such questions, and opening up another case is unlikely to help.

If you want a legal alternative for free, the route is in front of you: Create an AmigaOs from scratch, only from the publically available documentation. Essentially, this means AROS. It also means, however, that you have to exclude some folks here, for reasons that those folks were engaged in the original development (Olsen, Heinz, and - amongst others - also me).

Nothing will happen if you're neither willing to make a contribution in the form of money (AmigaOs, official) - or in the form of work (AROS). Make your pick. Or to put it simple: "Nothing is for free in this universe", not even AmigaOs 3.1.

[olsen]

how has the situation changed? os4 market has dried up and one needs to look for something else to ruin? and that needs to be founded yet?

The situation has changed insofar as there is new hardware available on which the 68k software can run well, if not extremely well. Personally, I'm wondering why one couldn't do more with the FPGA-based solutions than just to reuse an existing Kickstart ROM -- why not customize it for a specific purpose and go beyond merely reproducing existing functionality (both the CDTV and the CD32 are customized versions of the existing Amiga operating system platform, to give you an idea of what could be possible by building upon the operating system to deliver something new)? It's certainly possible.

Also, see the ongoing discussion in this very forum. As Cosmos has demonstrated, there is an appetite for an operating system version which is different from and better than what was last cast into ROM images in 1993/1994.

Funny people such as Thomas and me, who were involved in updating previous operating system versions, haven't exactly unlearned how to do that, so there is an option to actually make profound changes to the operating system if this were called for.

This is all hypothetical, of course. It could be done if there were sufficient interest to back an AmigaOS rework if the current technology owner gave its consent, a plan were made, the time, manpower and funding could be found. None of this is impossible.

[number6]

@olsen

t could be done if there were sufficient interest to back an AmigaOS rework if the current technology owner gave its consent,

And who would that be to the best of your knowledge?
(given the understanding that likely only a court could decide this)

#6

[kolla]

I find it hilarious that you guys cannot contribute to AROS, it's just mind blowingly silly.

[olsen]

@olsen

It could be done if there were sufficient interest to back an AmigaOS rework if the current technology owner gave its consent,

And who would that be to the best of your knowledge?
(given the understanding that likely only a court could decide this)

#6

I may be wrong on this, since I didn't pay enough attention at the time, but I seem to remember that the settlement between Amiga, Inc. and Hyperion back in 2009 (?) gave Hyperion exclusive and permanent use of AmigaOS 3.1. This may not cover the rights of 3rd parties who provided CrossDOS, bru and the bitmap/outline fonts included on the Workbench, only those parts owned by Commodore.

My best guess is that Hyperion would be the party to ask for consent.

[olsen]

I find it hilarious that you guys cannot contribute to AROS, it's just mind blowingly silly.

Well, we could try, but there's a risk of tainting the project. AROS is on safer grounds if it's a clean room implementation of the API rather than if people who had access to the original AmigaOS source code had been involved. Personally, I don't want to risk compromising the AROS project.

[wawrzon]

@thor, olsen

i can understand you pretty well. you have invested considerable amount of work in something and dont want it to be in vain, i honour that. earlier i would have enthusiastically embraced your propositions, as lack of update and lack of universal kickstart was one of the first things i was considering a handicap for existing, inexperienced and especially new users and this is why i support unofficial boing bags but even more i support aros as potential solution.

in contrary to you i dont have confidence left in the entities you still seem to trust within limits. it may sound conservative, but im simply using logical induction, like in when you know the history you know the future. i dont expect someones behaviour to change even if he suddenly accepts opportunities there existence he denied for years. and as i consider the attitudes displayed so far very counter productive, i dont see it as option im interested in.

edit: also consider that agreements with said entities effectively rendered it impossible for people like you to contribute to alternative projects, that might be a more rewarding solution. whether it would be personally an option for you or not is another matter, but it is now remote beyond any choice. with this experience i would be very wary as to contibute again to projects these entities are involved with, as this is effectively draining and blocking off resources and expertise from the free community.

I thought the case against Amiga Inc concerning the rights on AmigaOs for development of Os 4.x should be known in the community.

well, here both sides of the conflict seem to be about to worth the counterpart. an actual proof of ability to defend ones standpoint would be to stand up against a serious threat, not just another pretender.

[number6]

I may be wrong on this, since I didn't pay enough attention at the time, but I seem to remember that the settlement between Amiga, Inc. and Hyperion back in 2009 (?) gave Hyperion exclusive and permanent use of AmigaOS 3.1. This may not cover the rights of 3rd parties who provided CrossDOS, bru and the bitmap/outline fonts included on the Workbench, only those parts owned by Commodore.

My best guess is that Hyperion would be the party to ask for consent.

My problem here stems from numerous posts of this nature by those you indicate should be contacted with an idea/plan etc.

Also, please no business advice.

We'll take our advice from people like Trevor, Matthew Leaman, Steven Solie (who came up with the "Hyperion Blog"), Jens S. from Individual, Michael from Cloanto etc. i.e. people and developers who have put their money where their mouth is or have actually contributed significantly to AmigaOS development.

Take a look at Trevor's recent Blog post and the picture he posted from the meeting in Brussels.

Those are the people that Hyperion management relies on for decision making.

And even if you think they are bad decisions, it is our money and we can spend it any way we want, yes, even on AmigaOS development.

Source

Anyone from outside your inner circle would have to think twice about offering advice or ideas if we are to take the owner's posts at his word, no?

#6

[guest11527]

I find it hilarious that you guys cannot contribute to AROS, it's just mind blowingly silly.

Consider we would. Consider somebody would find a suspicious function in AROS, where a potential rights' owner might consider his rights violated. How can Olaf, or I potentially prove that we haven't contributed this code by copying it from the original, hence violating the rights of the owner? I personally don't want to be in this position. Just in case you believe that this is a constructed case, I give you three letters: S, C and O.

[guest11527]

Anyone from outside your inner circle would have to think twice about offering advice or ideas if we are to take the owner's posts at his word, no?

#6

I don't quite understand what you want to say here. (Neither would I consider myself part of an inner circle - Hyperion never asked me for advice, and if they had, you know what my advice on this would be.) The statement from the owners is certainly correct and justified. These are persons that know the market better than I do, persons I would also listen to for adivice, and its certainly the right of the right holders to do with their property and their money whatever they please.

[number6]

I don't quite understand what you want to say here. (Neither would I consider myself part of an inner circle - Hyperion never asked me for advice, and if they had, you know what my advice on this would be.) The statement from the owners is certainly correct and justified. These are persons that know the market better than I do, persons I would also listen to for adivice, and its certainly the right of the right holders to do with their property and their money whatever they please.

I'll attempt to clarify.

Olaf said:

Funny people such as Thomas and me, who were involved in updating previous operating system versions, haven't exactly unlearned how to do that, so there is an option to actually make profound changes to the operating system if this were called for.

This is all hypothetical, of course. It could be done if there were sufficient interest to back an AmigaOS rework if the current technology owner gave its consent, a plan were made, the time, manpower and funding could be found. None of this is impossible.

This might give the impression (after he clarified that he believed Hyperion was the one to contact) that such ideas might be discussed with Hyperion.
Whereas, we're really talking about Hyperion in terms of "consent", as mentioned.

It might be wise to discuss ideas with those on that "trusted" list and sell them on an idea, and then have them take the idea to Hyperion for the "consent" part.

Just consider this an option based on past experience. The average forum reader might not know to consider any option other than direct contact with the parent company in order to make a proposal.

#6

[Gulliver]

There is a new thread with a poll.
It is rather simple:

Would you buy a new OS for 68k Amigas?

[kolla]

There is a new thread with a poll.
It is rather simple:

Would you buy a new OS for 68k Amigas?

What do you mean "a new OS"?