"A couple of clarifications" from Bill McEwen

[System]

I received this in e-mail just now from Bill McEwen (CEO, Amiga Inc), in regards to the 25 Q&A session from earlier.  Hope it helps...

(Permission was granted to post e-mail).

Wayne,

A couple of clarifications for the Amiga.org users who participated in the earlier Q&A session.

1.  The Security Certificate address is correct.  Amiga, Inc. (Delaware) has a Washington office, and we used that address when we acquired the certificate.  Delaware is a very popular state to incorporate in, and many, many companies that do their business from other states are incorporated in Delaware.  Dell and Hewlett-Packard are just two examples out of thousands.  There are many reasons to have your company a “Delaware” corporation and we are just one of thousands.  I am not sure why this was a problem for some in the community as we are just trying to make sure that we get it right as we move forward.

2. I want to make sure that it is understood that we at Amiga want OS 4 to ship and to ship on a variety of hardware.  We would not have spent the money for the embedded products if we did not think that OS 4 could fit into the long term as well as short term plans of the company and the community.  I probably spoke too loosely when I referred to certain things being "in the hands of the lawyers" and so forth.  People can (and did) interpret this in a variety of ways, some of which were far away from what I intended (a lot spicier, but wrong).  What I meant to get across was that we are in discussions, and that some of these discussions involve our lawyers talking with their lawyers (we are talking about legal documents, after all) -- and we have every reason to believe that everyone will continue to get along just fine.  Anyone looking for blood and guts will just have to be disappointed.  (It is a very interesting experience having your every word interpreted, re-intepreted, misinterpreted, analyzed, dissected, spun, massaged, clarified, confused, etc., etc.  You should try it some time.)

I will be spending some more time in the next couple of days to try and better clarify my answers, where questions have come up.

Bill McEwen

[System]

> "Oh, I'm sooo excited about OS 5.0."

Sarcasm aside, you have a valid point and it's a battlecry I've shouted for years.  The only exception is that ALL operating systems started somewhere.  

Even the almighty Windows started as nothing but a task switcher.  It's not "thousands of programmers" that got them there, it was a few men making great decisions and making great deals that got their foot in the door.

I can't speak for Amiga Inc's greatness, but I'm more than willing to let them try.  After the first 10 years since the fall of Commodore, I'm not in so much of a hurry any more.  

If they come out with something I'm interested, I'm cool with that, but the time of people being really interested in learning about computers (ala the vic-20 and Coleco Adam) has long-since passed.

Hell, my 6 year old niece probably knows more about computers than I did at age 20, but it's all Windows and/or Mac-based.  The idea of there being  a "real" market for a tinker's machine is something that will need to be proven.  

Personally, I think they need to fall back to Commodore's original concept of "here's a game machine, and oh, by the way, you can add a keyboard and -- wow, it's now a computer!"

Wayne

[System]

I'm not foolish enough to believe in unrealistic tripe.

Ok, I'm not sure that we're not talking about two different things here, but my point was not challenged.  All operating systems, including Windows, AppleOS, AmigaOS, and even BeOS started with the bare minimum.  

I'm not suggesting that Amiga could become the next Windows. The facts are, it can't, but given the right circumstances, push, and decisions, it could very well become the next BeOS or at least as big a market as some of the smaller Linux distros which have a rabid following.  

Rabid community, we gots.  Software we ain't gots.

Just out of curiousity, just to prove that I have no problems with contrary opinions, your original post remains unfettered, but I wonder... If you see "all of this" as "unrealistic tripe", then why are you here anyway?  

Wayne

[System]

What is the term for someone deliberately making extremely unrealistic promises?

From Thesaurus.com;
Main Entry:   con man
Part of Speech:   noun
Definition:   confidence man
Synonyms:   bilker, bunco, cheater, clip artist, con artist, crook, deceiver, fleecer, flimflammer, fraud, hoser, hustler, mountebank, scam artist, scammer, shark, sharpie, smoothie, swindler
Source:   Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1)
Copyright © 2006 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

{Edit : I don't think either Con Man or liar (pre-edit) applies because both denote intent, which I don't think is there, but you asked}

[System]

I prefer "hoser" eh?

As in "take off, ya hoser".

So, if like you take a little baby mouse, and you put it in a empty beer bottle...