Amiga, Inc: Close That Open Hardware!

[Damion]

@Alke - myst

You fail to mention however that A - Inc's dongle
is primarily what prevents OS4 from operating on the
Pegasos, and they are the ones forcing a license. It's not
exactly an even comparison, but I do understand your
reasoning.

The drivers wouldn't be as much of an issue, IMO.

[Damion]

Exactly, Samface. Besides, why should a board manufacturer
allow their hardware to be 'rommed' and bundled with
anything? It's not going to happen...and as far as that
'knowing what's best for them' comment, I don't think
marketing clowns provide the best tech instruction.

[Damion]

Alke - myst wrote:

>@D

>You fail to see that its not just what you see.

I don't understand your comment here,

>As MOS does not run on the Aone yet either.

>The primarily reason is Genesi.

Oh, I get it. Could you please provide further
explanation for this one?

>so for Aos4 not running on Pegasos its the license.

Yes?

>For MOS not running on Aone its Genesi.

Once again, further explanation please, but if the
only limitation here is drivers, that's a given
consequence of almost any hardware, and entirely not
comparable with with A - Inc's license idea. Both
systems need drivers, yet OS4 is dongled, and
there's the restriction that I pointed to earlier,
the one that made your original comparision biased.

>Different methods same outcome.

So you must be implying that MOS is somehow inherently
restricted (ala OS4), apart from the eventual drivers?

[Damion]

Samface wrote:

>The Microsoft approach of supporting the most
>common hardware standard and let the hardware
>manufactures figure out the rest simply isn't
>feasible on the PPC market. There is no common
>PPC hardware standard.

Hmmmm, great point. So shouldn't A - Inc (the
software people) worry more about the adapta-
bility of their OS to these emerging (and
established in some cases) standards as opposed
to forcing their own set of such on a slim
userbase, and demanding other companies to adhere
to their idea of standards? I'd be the
first in the line of I'm sure many to allow a
small software firm (no insult intended) to
dictate and control/limit my hardware products,
that's for sure. It makes perfect business sense,
especially considering the vast throngs of users
imbedded into the current market.  

I agree 100%, this market is way to small for the
Microsoft approach.

[Damion]

AmigaGuy, nicely done. Perhaps I too shall create  
my own twisted version of LX -8...  

[Damion]

damn...I'll get it up tomorrow at work, these old
ghetto amiga paint programs won't scale or size it
down enough.

[Damion]

Come on Alkemyst, it's not the 'petition' that's
hurting anything, it's A - Inc's policies that
upset these people enough for there to be a
petition in the first place. There wouldn't be a
petition otherwise. And if this is really about
you believing in the principle of a dongle (I'm
not saying you said this, just inferring) or a
license deal, would you be one of the first to
head up the charge for a software dongle,
if there wasn't one?

[Damion]

well here it is....I'm no Picasso - but I think it
does exhibit a certain 'frenchness' or something.

[Damion]

@AmigaGuy

LOL!

@Alkemyst

I wasn't implying that I know what you would
or wouldn't do, I was asking a question, but you
seem to have ignored the last sixteen or so of
them anyway, so feel free to keep rockin'.

@Kurt

You're totally full of it with that BS back
there, and you know it.

>The Teron board as sold by Mai was over 2 Grand
>not sold cheaper

Yeah right, maybe 50 years ago when it was new,
but the price drops as the technology ages,
Eyetech never sold ONE of those boards for
$550 or whatever when a regular Teron sold for
'2 Grand', your point here makes absolutely no
sense at all, really. And what are you so scared
of, you speak of 'OS extensions' like they were
something other than a dongle.

[Damion]

>In effect, the Pegasos and G-REXX are hardware
dongles and thus provide copy protection.

That's not even close to the same thing as a
specific ROM and OS coded to work together for
vague corpo reasons...besides, the intended
purpose of the G-REXX and Pegasos have nothing
to do with copy protection, unlike the A1/OS4
scenario. It's not an accurate comparison.

[Damion]

@Madgun68

I agree, so let them have a supported board or two,
the people that desire an 'out of the box' solution
can get one, and those that want to doctor up their
own rig can do that, too. It would be like the
OS3.9 scenario, but less hacky.  

Although hotlines are very helpful to some, I've
never needed one, but it could be there
anyway for those who bought the Teron or whichever
other board.

Plus...we're not talking about the dude who just
bought his first Dell here, 90+% of those interested
in OS4 are more than capable of setting up their
own system. I didn't need A - Inc to protect me
when I upgraded my old Amigas, and I really can't
see this being any more difficult. Using it as
a reason to force people into buying Eyetechs's
board is a bit ridiculous, IMO.

Besides...I can buy XP and install it on whatever
the heck I want to build, so why is this different?
Are Amiga users too dumb to do the same?
 

[Damion]

Samface wrote:

>The Barbie? I'm sorry but that Linux dude is the
>kind of guy that expects others to create software
>specificly for his hardware on their own initiative.
>That's not how it works. If he gets a userbase for
>his hardware than maybe, but that on the other hand
>requires software for it.

Once again here you're completely missing (or dodging?)
the point again...remember you telling us about how
the software defined the platform? How you can use this
ghetto argument to justify the license scenario is
not only silly, but once again contradicts your own
definition of 'platform'.:-P The hardware is just as
important as the software, and has equal defining
imperative, just read your definition if you don't
believe me. This being the case, to unnecessarily
force this decision upon the users is questionable,
considering that even Microsoft allows its users
to choose their hardware (because Microsoft is a
software company, like A - Inc) and also makes the
platform less appealing to new users, observing
especially the social paramemters of the capitalist
'ethos'.

@Rogue

Nobody said that OS4 would just fire up and run
perfect on anything 'pop 3', you kind of missed it
there. The issue was that the ability for the
OS to run on anything but the special Teron (I'm
not counting those old - ass p5 PPC boards, and the
Sharks aren't here yet, 'if' the Sharks run it)
is now not possible due to the license scenario...
if necessary, drivers could be written to adapt
the OS to different hardware configurations, just
like Linux/Windows.

@Madgun

So....why not have both options available?  
If those hubcaps had to go only on an '86 escort,
how many people would still buy them, even if they
were totally slick? :-P

Just a general question, is there anybody here
who would totally support a license campaign if
there wasn't one? Since it's been proved that
piracy is not the real issue, would you actually
want to limit the OS instead of allowing the
possibility for different hardware options,
provided the support for drivers?

[Damion]

LOL! Thanks, 420Dude!:-) It's my version of LX -8,
with a little help from mips_proc and amigaguy's
versions...

[Damion]

@ShadesofGrey

Um, yes, the G-REXX and Pegasos are different from
the OS4 dongle, the G-REXX is a PCI solution for
the old A1200, and the Pegasos is a PPC board, while
the OS4 dongle is just that...why some people have to
continually contrive these theories to support their
weak arguments :-P is beyond me...to say that some
contrived 'protection in itself' is somehow the
same as a REAL, ACTUAL, EXISTING dongle
(by this I mean physical, 'real') is completely
baffling.

Don't get me wrong, I understand how somebody
could say this, but it's like saying that a
dog and a chicken are the exact same because
they both have heads...

And I'm not supporting either 'side' here, I'm
just pointing out an inaccurate comparison, IMO.