OS4 rollout schedule

[Rogue]

The Draco has real CIAs

The absense of CIA's is no problem when you have the actual OS source code and can compile appropriate replacements.

Of course, you won't get cia.resource.

[Rogue]

DarthX wrote:
So what's preventing Hyperion from porting OS4 to the pegasos? Hyperion was offered a FREE Pegasos board, correct?

Is there a contract with AmigaInc to limit OS4 to MAI manufactured AmigaOne's?

Oh, boy.

There is no contract to limit to a certain hardware, otherwise there wouldn't be a CyberStormPPC version now would it?

It wouldn't have been a problem to actually buy a Pegasos if we want to port OS 4 to it.

All that is required to get OS 4 on the Pegasos is a proper licence. Why do people think that licencing schemes are so much of a problem? They're in place everywhere. If you want a port of, say, Heretic II, you don't send a free Amiga to Activision. You obtain a licence. What's so strange about this concept?

[Rogue]

Dietmar wrote:
A license requirement on top of the OS price looks like a thinly veiled attempt to milk money out of the hardware manufacturer.

It doesn't exactly take rocket science to figure out that an OS doesn't port itself to a different platform. It might be easy to get a prototype of some sort running on a Pegasos, but nothing can remain at prototye status. Yes, the northbridge is similar, but what about different mainboard components that require additional drivers.

Furthermore, do you actually know what such a licence would cost, if at all?

The second thing is that a licenced hardware will take part of the support problem away from us. If this wasn't the case, Hyperion/Amiga would need to exclusively take care about support, which would also mean having access to all hardware platforms it is supposed to run on (if we're talking about the Pegasos, this doesn't seem to be the problem although you would need at least one Arpil1 and one April2 machine, pluse a Peg II if available). Add to that Apple hardware (everybody's screaming for Apple hardware)...

Finally, what is wrong about extracting some money from it? After all, it might be a selling argument for the hardware manufacturer too. Obviously there are people that want OS 4 on the Pegasos.

[Rogue]

Tickly wrote:
Thats a great new avatar, but isn't the light sabre the wrong colour?

No, you need to see the Avatar of my brother.. HINT: people have been asking me about T-Shirt colors... This is the answer :-)

[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.

[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.

[Rogue]

What I meant in my previous post, was that the 68k ASM stuff that you had to rewrite in C, could have been taken from the AROS code to be used as a base and modified until it suited you.

As has been said, there are compatibility issues. DOS is a good example. I'm sure there are others. We might have taken a slow route, but I think that the result is worth it. We already have a high degree of compatibility now, and are improving it

[Rogue]

Darth_X wrote:
Hi Rogue! Cool Avatar!

Hehe, thanks. The dual-bladed saber didn't fit into the picture, so I had to dig out that old one ;-)

Sometimes giving away free boards helps.

Well, that was a different time. That trick doesn't work anymore. Not yet at any rate.

Did a company or individual come forward representing the CyberstormPPC and acquire a license, or was the decision to develop AmigaOS4 for CyberstormPPC come from Hyperion 'in-house' because of the installed base of users?

Work was simply started on the Cyberstorm because the AmigaOne wasn't available at that time, and because it is easier to do it on a hardware that is already supported by the 68k components. The installed user base is also a factor, which is still higher than for AmigaOne and/or Pegasos.

Isn't that a much brighter future for the Amiga market than what we have now?

There is no reason why this shouldn't work out, however, see Ben's explanation for the licencing scheme. I say again, I don't think it is in any way unreasonable, and from the replies I've seen I can only conclude that most people didn't know the details, or had a wrong perception about it.

[Rogue]

My post wasn't meant as an insult, just an observation.

I didn't take it as such. I just tried to explain why we did what we did.

Is that you in your avatar?

Yes, it's me, although I must admit that the lightsaber is a special effect (courtesy of Photogenics) - my real lightsaber is purple, but since there was the question about the t-shirt color on the Augsburg shots, I repainted it blue ;-)

It's not the image I had in my head of you! I had this "Teutonic twins" image of you and your brother in my head!

I hope that doesn't include leather pants and a hat.  :-) Even folks down in bavaria don't really look like that - not all the time at any rate ;-)
(No offense to Bavaria intended)

[Rogue]

I thought, "Six foot 5 inch tall, golden blonde 'mullet' haircut, and very muscular" or as we say in England "Built like a brick sh!t house!"

By all means, no! :-)

[Rogue]

Yeah, long live the imperial Army... Black is way sexier than white

Cough...

I don't need to remind you what happened at the end of "Return of the Jedi", do I :-)

[Rogue]

Kronos wrote:
 :roll:  :roll:  :roll:
 SHAWN_THE_BUS_ARCH_TROLL
 :roll:  :roll:  :roll:

Speak not his name so loud, lest he awakens ;-)