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Offline NidingTopic starter

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[Vampire] OS3.x VS AROS
« on: February 23, 2016, 01:03:50 PM »
So, there has been alot of chatter lately with regards to the way forward regarding Vampire.

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=81535

While Im currently a OS3.9 user, and enjoy it as it is (plus the improvements thru boingbags ofcourse). Some users enjoys OS 1.3, 2, 3.1 etc, while some might want a OS that is being developed within the 680x0 hiarchy.

AROS has been considered dead in the water since its not gotten the attention it needs from more than a handful of developers, but that might change in the coming months.
Reason is the issue of OS3.x and potential legal issues with regards to using/developing it futher.

Tbh I havent bothered following the xxx threads and pages regarding this issue on both this and other forums, but as I said above, there is to an increasing degree discussion wether or not to go all in AROS instead of the dormant OS 3.x.

Im sure the Vampire crew will let people intrested in sticking with OS3.x do so regardless of the choice forward, but for futher development it might be a intresting discussion to be had since it could potentially affect vendors for example.
One of the "problems" with OS3.x, is that if Vampire sticks with it, they might face issues down the road, enhancements being blocked since those holding the OS sourcecode might (?) not be intrested in developing it futher, or parts of it depends upon others copyrights.

Im just starting a thread on this topic since it was raised as "something someone should do", but noone seems intrested in doing so :)
 

guest11527

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Re: [Vampire] OS3.x VS AROS
« Reply #1 on: February 23, 2016, 05:20:04 PM »
Quote from: Niding;804465
One of the "problems" with OS3.x, is that if Vampire sticks with it, they might face issues down the road, enhancements being blocked since those holding the OS sourcecode might (?) not be intrested in developing it futher, or parts of it depends upon others copyrights.
Actually, that's not quite my impression. It's not so much a "they" issue either. The problem is rather that at this point, there is not (yet?) enough confidence of each of the parties involved in the overall business, so much talk has still to be done to understand the interests of each other, and to get everyone "in line" with goals and targets of a business.

I certainly understand that Vampire cannot build on 3.xx if there is no long term committment. However, neither can there be a long term committment from the Os owner(s) if vampire is an untrustful business partner and if there are no developers that want to tackle the work in long term - after all, any such commitment would require a continuous stream of income, and this continuous stream of income would be again required to finance the further development of the Os components, namely the developers. This is neither coming for free.

The third party, namely the developers, also need to have confidence that their enthusiasm is well-invested into a long-living project again, i.e. a stable platform to invest any time into, and potentially, to get an (even small) monetary compensation for this investment.

If you ask me, the vampire needs as much an updated Os as updating the Os requires the vampire. So, why the heck not try to make a business case out of this? I believe one of the important reasons why AOS development focussed on the PPC was because nobody could imagine that there would be any further hardware development on the 68K side. Now that this obstacle has been overcome, there is neither a reason to let the 68K development stall. Actually, there is *more* reason for 68K development than for PPC development. Legacy applications are a very important, if not the most important asset here.
 

Offline NidingTopic starter

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Re: [Vampire] OS3.x VS AROS
« Reply #2 on: February 23, 2016, 05:34:30 PM »
Thanks for the response Thomas!

Well, depends on the amount of money being discussed vs what can realistically be recouped from Vampire sales. Kind of a chicken and the egg conundrum.
Lets say $xx xxx, thats alot of money to recouped on a hobby project.
On the flipside, I strongly belive that developers needs to get paid for their efforts.

But I can see hesitation from the hardware side if they have to pay that kind of money upfront for example. And then there is the issue of who gets access to the source to futher development.
 

Offline UberFreak

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Re: [Vampire] OS3.x VS AROS
« Reply #3 on: February 23, 2016, 06:08:04 PM »
I dont understand the need to bundle a KS with the Vampire.
Just let the user load whatever he/she wants.

Most people these days dont use a "clean" KS3.1 anyway.
 

guest11527

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Re: [Vampire] OS3.x VS AROS
« Reply #4 on: February 23, 2016, 06:57:03 PM »
Quote from: UberFreak;804487
I dont understand the need to bundle a KS with the Vampire.
This is about much more than bundling a kickstart with the vampire. It is providing an extensible environment within which the vampire can grow and blossom.

For example, the vamire requires in the long run a stable graphics system to offer true color output. As soon as it gets more registers, it needs a new context switch in exec. As soon as there are new hardware units, it would require new datatypes to take advantage of the new features.


Quote from: UberFreak;804487
Most people these days dont use a "clean" KS3.1 anyway.
And this is exactly what needs to resolved and part of the problem. If everybody is using a different operating system, there is no longer a common ground to develop applications upon. There is already an increasingly complex playground of patches and extensions, and this does not exactly facilitate the usage of new hardware as it makes its use unnecessary complex.
 

Offline nicholas

Re: [Vampire] OS3.x VS AROS
« Reply #5 on: February 23, 2016, 07:59:50 PM »
Let's ask the MorphOS team to target the vampire instead of AMD64 for the next version and the Vampire guys to bundle a copy with each board sold. ;)
“Een rezhim-i eshghalgar-i Quds bayad az sahneh-i ruzgar mahv shaved.” - Imam Ayatollah Sayyed  Ruhollah Khomeini
 

Offline UberFreak

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Re: [Vampire] OS3.x VS AROS
« Reply #6 on: February 23, 2016, 09:08:07 PM »
Quote from: Thomas Richter;804489
This is about much more than bundling a kickstart with the vampire. It is providing an extensible environment within which the vampire can grow and blossom.


Yes, but bundling it together with no other options, makes me have to participate in financing the KS license.
I already bought it more than once, dont feel like doing it again.

Also, I'd like to continue using my patched/enhanced KS.

Quote from: Thomas Richter;804489
For example, the vamire requires in the long run a stable graphics system to offer true color output. As soon as it gets more registers, it needs a new context switch in exec. As soon as there are new hardware units, it would require new datatypes to take advantage of the new features.


No problem. When that time comes, the user can decide if he wants the new features, and then buy the updated KS.

Quote from: Thomas Richter;804489
And this is exactly what needs to resolved and part of the problem. If everybody is using a different operating system, there is no longer a common ground to develop applications upon. There is already an increasingly complex playground of patches and extensions, and this does not exactly facilitate the usage of new hardware as it makes its use unnecessary complex.


Well, in my opinion the users should get the option to buy the product without bundled KS and load their own, knowing that certain features will not be available to them if they do so.
 

Offline nicholas

Re: [Vampire] OS3.x VS AROS
« Reply #7 on: February 23, 2016, 09:23:03 PM »
Quote from: UberFreak;804499
Yes, but bundling it together with no other options, makes me have to participate in financing the KS license.
I already bought it more than once, dont feel like doing it again.

Also, I'd like to continue using my patched/enhanced KS.



No problem. When that time comes, the user can decide if he wants the new features, and then buy the updated KS.



Well, in my opinion the users should get the option to buy the product without bundled KS and load their own, knowing that certain features will not be available to them if they do so.

The laws that allow us to get a refund from Microsoft for the unwanted operating system sold with a computer we buy would also apply to the Vampire.

If there is not an option to buy it without KS3.1 then I'd ask for a refund under those laws as I already own several KS3.1 ROMs.

AFAIK even ACube issue a refund for the cost of OS4 if you buy a SAM and don't want the bundled OS.
“Een rezhim-i eshghalgar-i Quds bayad az sahneh-i ruzgar mahv shaved.” - Imam Ayatollah Sayyed  Ruhollah Khomeini
 

Offline HaukeVB

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Re: [Vampire] OS3.x VS AROS
« Reply #8 on: February 23, 2016, 09:33:20 PM »
As a developer, I agree, we should go all in for AROS.

For one, it is open-source. This is a really important for a developer. It helps in understanding the OS and it gives security.
 
Also, being able to have a powerful development machine (i.e. a fast PC) can really improve software quality.

All the effort put into AROS and applications for AROS help AOS4 and MorphOS anyway (as long as these efforts are open-sourced as well).

However, as I understand, Vampire V2 gives you 128MB of memory. This is very little for todays needs.

I would want to see a JDK 8 port for AROS, but that seems just not feasible on 68k (There is JAmiga 2 for AOS4). If we had 4GB, we could bring most modern applications to the Amiga, but I do not know if this is possible on 68k. And this is holding me back... big time :nervous:
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guest11527

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Re: [Vampire] OS3.x VS AROS
« Reply #9 on: February 23, 2016, 09:53:13 PM »
Quote from: UberFreak;804499
Yes, but bundling it together with no other options, makes me have to participate in financing the KS license.
I already bought it more than once, dont feel like doing it again.
I don't know what you bought or did not. There never was an upgradable license for any kickstart, so if you had 3.0, you were not entitled for a free 3.1 upgrade. If you had 3.1, you were not entitled for a free 3.9 upgrade.

So I don't see why there should be an "upgrade for free".

However, currently the vampire does require a customized kickstart, so yours does not work right away. Furthermore, if more features come, you need a new exec scheduler.
 

guest11527

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Re: [Vampire] OS3.x VS AROS
« Reply #10 on: February 23, 2016, 10:21:49 PM »
Quote from: HaukeVB;804502
As a developer, I agree, we should go all in for AROS.

For one, it is open-source. This is a really important for a developer. It helps in understanding the OS and it gives security.
Then, I would suggest that the vampire core should also go Open Source, don't you? After all, this is then a rather unfair game. Vampire as a closed source product depending on the work of open source developers, work that is required to run it and *sell it*?

Quote from: HaukeVB;804502
Also, being able to have a powerful development machine (i.e. a fast PC) can really improve software quality.
The development machine does not need to be identical to the target machine, and I don't see how this relates to the open vs. closed source debate.

Quote from: HaukeVB;804502
All the effort put into AROS and applications for AROS help AOS4 and MorphOS anyway (as long as these efforts are open-sourced as well).
The problem I have with open source is that it's mainly driven by making its developers happy. So nice software interfaces, nice code and so on. Not by making its users happy, which is something different. There is no, or only little target driven development.  

AmigaOs as an operating system carries a lot of legacy cruft along, old layers of software, weird and rough layers such as graphics or the shell. An open source developer would be very tempted to get rid of this cruft.

However, if you rather want to keep users happy rather than developers, such "unpleasant" code parts have to stay, and the design has to adjust to such requirements. This is typically an unsatisfactory, unpleasant task, a task that requires a lot of insight knowledge from how the Os has been used. Not everything of this cruft is really "coded in software".  
It's really hard to enforce that in an open source development. If I look again at Linux, interfaces change more or less on a daily basis, both within the kernel, and also on the application level. This is my personal nightmare, even more so as I consider running legacy applications a primary development goal. This problem simply does not exist for Linux - you can recompile the application for the new interface if you need to.  

But we cannot just recompile DPaint 4 if we like. Running an open source Os development that must run and support a huge library of closed source applications is something that looks like trouble for me.

If you'd say, ok, we start from scratch and write a new Os for 68K, and write new applications for it as well (as it happens for Linux), I'm all with you. But then I would surely not design the Os as AmigaOs in first place. It has too many misconceptions and design errors to begin with.

Quote from: HaukeVB;804502
However, as I understand, Vampire V2 gives you 128MB of memory. This is very little for todays needs.  
But that's really the point, isn't it? If you want to satisfy today's needs, why do you need a vampire in first place? You got your PC already, do you? Vampire is not about "today's needs". It's IMHO satisfying "the needs from 20 years ago".

You seem to dream of an AmigaOs that replaces your windows machine. However, this is not going to happen.  

Quote from: HaukeVB;804502
I would want to see a JDK 8 port for AROS, but that seems just not feasible on 68k (There is JAmiga 2 for AOS4). If we had 4GB, we could bring most modern applications to the Amiga, but I do not know if this is possible on 68k. And this is holding me back... big time :nervous:

But why, just tell me why? Why should the vampire replace your PC? Sorry, but this makes no sense to me. The PC is more powerful, faster, has all the applications, so why do you even want to start a competition? Amiga is exactly not about running a lookalike of the Windows Explorer on a 68K or a Java Applet (isn't that deprecated anyhow) in a browser.  

It's - for me at least - running DPaint 4, the shell and the workbench. Plus, not having to wait for so long anymore when starting SAS/C. Approximately.
 

Offline UberFreak

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Re: [Vampire] OS3.x VS AROS
« Reply #11 on: February 23, 2016, 10:30:14 PM »
Quote from: Thomas Richter;804504
I don't know what you bought or did not. There never was an upgradable license for any kickstart, so if you had 3.0, you were not entitled for a free 3.1 upgrade. If you had 3.1, you were not entitled for a free 3.9 upgrade.

So I don't see why there should be an "upgrade for free".

However, currently the vampire does require a customized kickstart, so yours does not work right away. Furthermore, if more features come, you need a new exec scheduler.


I said nothing about anything "for free", I said leave it to the user to decide.
If specific patches are required for the Vampire, release the patches so the user can apply them to his legally bought KS himself, then load it to the Vampire.
I see no problem with this.

As for me, I legally own KS3.1 and OS3.9 and would like to keep using the OS3.9 KS updates.
 

Offline OlafS3

Re: [Vampire] OS3.x VS AROS
« Reply #12 on: February 23, 2016, 10:37:30 PM »
Quote from: HaukeVB;804502
As a developer, I agree, we should go all in for AROS.

For one, it is open-source. This is a really important for a developer. It helps in understanding the OS and it gives security.
 
Also, being able to have a powerful development machine (i.e. a fast PC) can really improve software quality.

All the effort put into AROS and applications for AROS help AOS4 and MorphOS anyway (as long as these efforts are open-sourced as well).

However, as I understand, Vampire V2 gives you 128MB of memory. This is very little for todays needs.

I would want to see a JDK 8 port for AROS, but that seems just not feasible on 68k (There is JAmiga 2 for AOS4). If we had 4GB, we could bring most modern applications to the Amiga, but I do not know if this is possible on 68k. And this is holding me back... big time :nervous:

Gunnar has told me that they work on a standalone device that will both a lot faster and has more RAM, if I remember right 2 GB. That is enough for even modern needs. Do not ask me when it will be available and how much it costs, I cannot answer :-)
 

Offline OlafS3

Re: [Vampire] OS3.x VS AROS
« Reply #13 on: February 23, 2016, 10:40:06 PM »
Quote from: UberFreak;804508
I said nothing about anything "for free", I said leave it to the user to decide.
If specific patches are required for the Vampire, release the patches so the user can apply them to his legally bought KS himself, then load it to the Vampire.
I see no problem with this.

As for me, I legally own KS3.1 and OS3.9 and would like to keep using the OS3.9 KS updates.

I think this is the plan. But adapted will be Aros because (as already mentioned) no license fee, open sources and guaranteed availability. And it offers RTG, in case of Aros a implementation of CybergraphX 3.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2016, 10:42:16 PM by OlafS3 »
 

Offline OlafS3

Re: [Vampire] OS3.x VS AROS
« Reply #14 on: February 23, 2016, 10:40:49 PM »
Quote from: UberFreak;804508
I said nothing about anything "for free", I said leave it to the user to decide.
If specific patches are required for the Vampire, release the patches so the user can apply them to his legally bought KS himself, then load it to the Vampire.
I see no problem with this.

As for me, I legally own KS3.1 and OS3.9 and would like to keep using the OS3.9 KS updates.

double post