** HOT FLASH ** EFIKA is now the biggest ever Team Aros Bounty! **

[bhoggett]

This is where I think AROS has it wrong. It should concentrate on goals to make it usable rather than have everything dictated by bounties - some of which do nothing to move it forward. In this case by the time AROS is ported to Efika, MorphOS will probably be available for it as well - and since AROS isn't anywhere near as useful as MorphOS it will probably have more developers working on the port than it will gain users when the port is done.

I know that programmers need to be paid if they are to spend serious development time on a project, but at the same time it is possible to invest lots of money and time into something that essentially has little to no value when it's done.

There are too many projects concentrating on porting AROS and not enough getting practical applications ported to it.

[bhoggett]

I'm seeing an increase in user apps being coded/ported, although they may or may not be reported on AO. Lunapaint and AmigGG are good examples of code in 06. I can count about four critical projects (atleast IMO, YMMV) that are being pushed ahead of user apps. Currently most of those are either in developement or awaiting developer to open a block of free time for the project. After they are completed, your going to be seeing a strong push on making things nicer for the users.

Let's say I'll believe it when I see it. Lunapaint and AmiGG are all very nice, but hardly enough to motivate anyone in booting up AROS when you need to get things done.

Of course, the more developers that come aboard, the faster things can improve for AROS. Being a community based OS, it's a two way street between devs and end users. There is no pretty package you can go down to the corner store to buy. You want AROS, either roll up your sleeve or open that wallet like so many of us have over the years.

Well, from a personal PoV you are still to persuade me that AROS has a future and is therefore worth me investing either time or money in. I have no confidence in the way it has been progressing thus far.

However, if for example BBRV really wanted to help he could buy out the MorphOS source and donate it to AROS under the AROS licence or whatever. Now that would be something really worthwhile. Instead, someone who might have been working on applications may now well switch to porting AROS to Efika because it pays better, the overall result being that in effect AROS stagnates.

[bhoggett]

@Piru:

Only if it was for sale, and it isn't.

Fair enough, yet that doesn't change the fact the porting AROS to Efika is an utterly futile exercise for AROS development and progress and would not even happen if it wasn't for certain peoples predilection to throw some money around for cheap publicity.

Ultimately, no one will use AROS on Efika and ARIS will benefit nothing from the port. BBRV gets the usual flah of publicity and some AROS programmer(s) get to work on a pointless project instead of something that will actually be useful.

While I accept Fabio's point that it is asn't "an AROS decision" because no one makes policy decisions, it is damaging to AROS progress nevertheless. IMHO, the lack of policy making in the AROS project is one of its greatest weaknesses.

[bhoggett]

@Fabio:

AROS is Open Source, this means that anyone can take its sources and do whatever he wants with it, even port it to the Efika. On the same fashion, anyone is free to offer as much money as he wants in order to incentive the port: there's an offer waiting for demand, a demand which might not be there at all in the first place.

I understand that. However, not all open source projects are bounty driven, and the ones that progress best* are the ones which follow a development roadmap and at least a loose schedule.

The ones that tend to drift wherever the wind (or bounties) take them are the ones which tend to get bogged down and stagnate.

In fact, if you haven't noticed it, no one has taken up on the bounty yet.

It would be damaging to AROS if and only if

1) someone had taken up on the bounty

True.

and

2) by accepting the bounty, that person would subtract valuable time to other kind of AROS development.


Considering that (1) hasn't happened yet and (2) is quite unlikely to be the case, there's simply no damage being done.

Well, we can't say much about (2) until the bounty is taken. Even then it may be impossible to know if the person who accepts it would otherwise have chosen to work on something more advantageous for AROS as a whole.

I remain of the opinion that a port to Efika is primarily meaningless at best and will use up resources best used elsewhere at worst. People who want to run things like Hollywood on Efika would do so on MorphOS - as that OS is considerably ahead of AROS in development and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future. Any suggestion that 68k emulation would be easier to do on PPC is pointless as well because in that case it won't be portable and thus of no use to AROS in general. The only benefit to AROS would be if it helped port more of MorphOS into AROS thus feeding back into the general code base, but as there seems to be very little enthusiasm for convergence from either MOS or AOS4 I don't see much mileage in that either.


* by this I refer to relatively complex team projects. Single developer OSS projects tend to follow a different pattern.

[bhoggett]

@takemehomegrandma

Hollywood and the Efika is a *perfect match* IMHO.

Perhaps, but unless I am very much mistaken a MorphOS "port" to Efika will be ready before a native AROS one will, and Hollywood works on MorphOS.

Alternatively, AROS works hosted on Linux so Hollywood on AROS on Linux is already an option - and it benefits from extra driver support compared to what is likely to be available to a native AROS version.