Long post follows. I'm on a sucky pay-per-minute modem right now and try to reply to "everything" in one go, offline.
Rogue wrote:
Seehund, I think I asked you before how you would handle customer support. Did you ever answer to that?
Yes, and now mips_proc did it again.
mips_proc wrote:
red hat support network
suse customer care
Add to those every single commercially sold Linux distro, from every single commercial distributor no matter how small. And there aren't that many "big" distributors around.
they kindly say 'that isnt supported' wich is why they release hardware support sheets so consumers dont make those mistakes...
you arent expected to support 'ALL" or even 'MOST" you the company pick a set of hardware and use it and then tell users what to buy... its that simple..expanding from a set spec to support more and more...
you could have hardware compatability lists... you have dealers following them creating systems useing the compatability lists ...and you let dealers handle the support to their clients... it wouldnt all fall back to little ol hyperion the way you're making it out... you could even still bundle it on a dealer to dealer basis so you can avoid support entirely...
Exactly. I'm in favour of the
optional availability of licensed/bundled systems, for which the licensed dealer would be obliged to provide support.
The exact same system (as we see today: Teron PX) doesn't magically change technical characteristics and user support needs when it's sold by a licensed dealer (as we see today: "AmigaOne XE").
The cost of support will always be payed by the customer, regardless of whether he buys the OS bundled with a piece of hardware (then the licensed dealer grabs his share for support costs) or he buys the OS separately for installation on the exact same hardware bought elsewhere (then the cost of support is included in the OS price).
EntilZha wrote:
I don't really like the dongle either. I see, however, the necessity to protect against piracy.
Agreed on both points. However, I don't see why you put a "however" there.
Even if the Dealer Dongle would stop piracy, the price payed for this would be silly.
Which alternative is the preferred scenario: 1000 payed for copies sold bundled with newly sold licensed hardware and 0 (heh) pirated copies. Or 10,000 payed for copies running on hardware regardless of hardware dealer, plus 50,000 pirated copies floating around?
From a mile away I can see someone picking apart what I wrote now and shout "those who want to buy AmigaOS want to steal it, Seehund condones piracy" or whatever. But no. Please read it again. I condone a bigger potential hardware and user base through increased OS
sales.
The Dealer Dongle will not stop piracy. Not any better than a dongle delivered with separate copies of the OS or any other anti-piracy method. OTOH, the latter alternative doesn't actively exclude a larger potential market, like the first one does.
Anyway, the facts that we'll see AmigaOS 4 sold separately for Amigas (CS-PPC), and that Hermans said that other prospective licensees would be free to choose e.g. an external USB dongle have already rendered the "anti-piracy" argument worthless. As if that wasn't apparent before, IMO.
BTW, I presume that those Teron boards that Eyetech already has delivered came without dongle code? If so, will those customers have to send their mobos back to Eyetech or whoever to have them dongelized when AmigaOS is available? Will they download a new firmware revision with the dongle code attached to reflash their mobos themselves? Or will they be offered a "special" (well, normal, really) version of AmigaOS that's not limited to run only on hardware from select dealers?
What a mess.
And what would we gain ? The only viable alternative for OS4 would IMHO be the Pegasos. Apple users are far too concerned about Apple to care for AmigaOS. Of all Pegasos users, I would estimate that a lot of them are not even interested in AmigaOS.
The currently available userbase, commercial availability, second hand market etc. of any one given piece of hardware is an essential factor. Since you brought the subject up, I wonder how large the existing userbase of dongled Teron boards sold by Eyetech is, compared to e.g. a given model of the PowerBook G4 series? Pick the least sold model if you wish. How about compared to one, just one, model of the PowerMac G4? How many units and users are there out there, for each piece of hardware respectively?
I don't believe for a second that the
only people, or even the
majority of people that are prepared to pay for AmigaOS are those that can be expected to buy a "new" (as in newly manufactured/sold) motherboard together with the OS from an artificially restricted dealership, and that everybody else can be dismissed as not enough customers to bother with.
As for a Pegasos (I) port, judging by the hardware a port should be trivial to make. New drivers for the differing southbridge, firewire? And if the bundling/dongling/licensing requirement was removed, somebody else could write those (and even provide support for this "Amegasos enabler package", should Hyperion find the task too daunting).
Rogue wrote:
Barbie is canned, last thing I heard.
Well, they canned the design based on the Articia S at least.
Terrasoft is canned, last thing I heard.
Well, after one week's "extensive in-house testing" of the Teron PX, they decided that "it is not, at this point in time,
prudent to carry the Teron mainboards nor offer Teron-based Boxer systems."
For our Teron needs, this currently leaves Mai themselves, Inguard and Eyetech (AFAIK anyway, there might be more). Anyone is free to order a batch of Terons to sell, like Eyetech/Inguard, but as things are this can't benefit AmigaOS users by increased competition on an open (as in regardless of what OS the users choose) market.
Pegasos: They didn't want it last time we asked.
Therein lies part of the problem: you (or rather AInc) can't expect and depend on hardware manufacturers/vendors to "want" AmigaOS. For that strategy to work, AInc needs to wait until Bill Gates starts trembling when he sees AmigaOS's marketshare (i.e. it's not realistic, for many years to come at least...). Currently, all that getting a license could do for a dealer is to use the "Amiga" trademark when selling a dongled perversion of his hardware. It's not all that attractive as it could've been 10 years ago. An "Amiga hardware" market for third party hardware is a very silly idea, IMO.
To get slightly more back to what the subject line says, I don't know if Genesi would have AmigaOS ported to more platforms / another platform from different dealers. If Genesi's main focus is to sell Pegasoses, they're a bit like Apple (unlike AInc), i.e. it's not really in their interest to have people buying other hardware.
But... If they can make their hardware more competitive to e.g. Macs... If the best work made on AmigaOS and MorphOS respectively could be merged into one OS... If the main focus would be to sell Amiga/MorphOS instead of hardware... Or both... Or if...
A whole lotta ifs.
