Executive Update - Amiga Status Announcement

[Ivan]

Oddly enough i bought AmigaOS 3.1 with, believe
it or not, a ROM CHIP!!! Yes! Really a ROM! It
plugged right in! I couldnt believe it!

Here comes the pirates flames.. Awe i can't pirate
a copy of OS4 from some anon ftp for my system and
have it run anymore. Damn, them greedy bastards.
It almost sounds like Brecht over at Ann.lu...
WHAT? FIRST NO 486 OS AND NOW I HAVE TO BUY IT!?
NO WAY!! THATS SO UNFAIR!!!

I only have one thing to say, suffer. And please
suffer in public with many flames and a great deal
of whineing so i can enjoy it all the more.

Everyone who owns PPC Amiga's are going to have OS4.
Anyone who buys a AmigaOne or future incarnations
will have OS4 and be able to run future versions of
the OS. The only ones i see here not gaining
anything is the bPlan group who sadly are being
held back by Ralph Schmidt who won't allow OS4 on
Pegasos because he wants to own and control the
whole show. Hard luck.

Sorry for the Pegasos system. Really. I kind of
liked it and it was on my "might buy one" list. No
longer. AmigaOne is the system i'm buying period.
It seems they blew it by not coming to terms with
Ainc.

Oh btw, this dosnt stop Ainc from bundling a CD
with a ROM to run OS4 that future Pegasos owners
can't purchase. But, you WILL have to pay for the
OS. Tough life aint it? No OS4 without buying it.
My heart bleeds. (no it really dosen't)

[Ivan]

Hi Kronos

>Its not about buying AOS4 but about paying a licence on HW that has nothing
>to do with AInc.

I think it has everything to do with Ainc if anyone wants to sell
something as an "Amiga Computer". And the license isn't on the
hardware anyway. The license is to allow it to run the OS. In short
you can't make Amiga Hardware and market the Amiga name brand without
Amiga's approval. This comes in the form of buying a license to do so.


>The price for a full AOS4 on CSPPC is ~100Euro according
>to Vesalia. That price would be fair for the Pegasos-version.

Agreed. 100% i agree. Totally i agree. Without pause and/or reservation
do i agree.


>AInc didn't help developing the Pegasos and they didn't help the
>Taiwanese developing the TeronCX/Agimmesomenumbers.
>Eyetech decided to sell their product under the AOne name and therefore
>have to pay $xxx to AInc.

Irrelevent. The cost of production is entirely thier affair. If they
want to sell the Amiga name they will have to buy a license to do so.
Eyetech did it and at a real nice price. However, there are a few
baseline specs you need to meet before being an "Amiga System".
Eyetech did this quite well and at a good price. All the current
PPC Amiga accelerators will be able to run OS4 and they are negotiating
the final bits as we speak. Hyperion are also doing the work on
that hardware as well. The OS will expect a few things, PPC cpu, usb,
etc, etc... The license agreement outlines those and allows hardware
makers to create compatables that wont die as soon as they try to boot
with the OS.


>BPlan decided to sell their board mainly to industrial costumers and a few
>Amiga-fans. They don't want/need the AOne-name so why should they pay?

They should pay because they are selling Amiga Computers to those
Amiga-fans. Anyway this is all because Ralph Schmidt wanted to clone
AmigaOS and sell it as MorphOS with so called "Amiga compatability".
I'd like to know where he got the OS sources from and how he got
permission for them.





One thing im slightly worried about though is being able to run linux.
I know the dev boards/beta boards are moving with linux on the drives
but once you swap in the ROM will linux still be able to run? It might
take a bit of tinkering with the kernal to get a linux build but i'm
hopeing it will run as is. Even so, i've never been a real linux user.
It's just been something i could always boot when i wanted to tinker
around in linux.

[Ivan]

>Yes, you will be able to buy a linux-only (actually non Amiga OS) board, and subsequently buy the OS4+ROM upgrade package.

>The upgraded ROM will still have all its open firmware code intact so you will still be able to run Linux etc

>Alan

>Eyetech


Thanks Alan, you answered before i even made my post

[Ivan]

Hi Kronos,

I love that crusty the clown icon you use btw,
cracks me up every time.

OK, i think you have the misconception that
Amiga will charge OEM's to sell Amiga capable
boards. That simply isnt true. The licenseing
is free to anyone and all they must do is
ensure the bios is flashed with the Amiga
specific bits n bytes. It is part of the OS
as a whole and won't run without it. This is
also why the OS must be shipped together with
the boards. Because a portion of the OS itself
must be on the bios (even if its just a few k)
the OS will need to have it there or your Amiga
system just wont run and you can't go about
selling bits of the OS without the rest.
That's why you either buy the OS for your
PPC system and have your rom flashed or you
opt for a non-Amiga PPC system and buy a
kit later on to allow AmigaOS to run. Which
i personally think will ship with a CD and
a flashed rom. Just pop in the new bios and
slap in the CD. And it won't interfere with
your linux setup at all. Unless of course
your such a geek that you've gone and
customized your bios as well.

This is also a far cry from the M$ 'tactics'
that some people have thrown out. Amiga
places no other limitations other than if
the OEM plans to distribute any portion of
thier OS that they must ship it as a
complete and intact OS. I think this
is acceptable and if linux were my main
OS i wouldnt have any troubles at all
getting a PPC mobo without the Amiga
specifics in the bios. You can't do this
with much ease in todays wintel market,
even after the lawsuits.

Even then i'd consider picking up the flashed
bios and CD at a later date. $100 dosnt sound
too high to me. Heck it could come out for less
if things ever do get rolling along. Who
can say 100% one way or the other. If your
a linux guru and you just got to have the
linux PPC system then maybe while your
dropping $550 for that mobo you might drop
an extra $50 for the flashed bios and CD just
because AmigaOS is another alternative to the
universally hated standard.

Anyway i will probably be putting linux in
my A1 as well. Which shouldnt be much
trouble. Strike that, i know i'll put linux
in the system. Dual boot is just cool.

Ivan.

[Ivan]

>Unless you have read the complete licensing terms you don't know anymore about that than the rest of us mere users here. It doesn't matter much anyways if the license itself costs anything.

Accoring to Ben over on Ann.lu, this is infact the case. No OEM pays for the license. Then again Ann *IS* an unmoderated forum (well the unmoderated section at least) and there are no real user accounts there. I'll leave it to someone else to clarify for us. For now i'll drop the point and move on, as you said, it's irellevent, and all OEM's would pack thier business costs into the pricetag anyway.


>And get the boards approved by Amiga Inc.

Not a problem, if it's a good board people will buy it. To date i haven't heard of a single design being refused.


>And get themselves and their combined software/hardware support organisation approved by Amiga Inc.

Here, i may agree with you. Reluctantly, but i do agree that this could be an added cost that might push off a perspective vendor. Then again, how is Eyetech organizing such a huge support network? I think this requirement is far too vague for either of us to make educated comment on so, i just won't comment.
But if i were to venture a guess, (here i go, i said i wouldnt comment didnt i?) i'd guess this is showing proof that the OEM has some form of warranty on the hardware they package up as an amiga product, as well as possibly some OS purchase/replacement scheme(maybe). It remains to be seen. But there have been horribly unreliable HW vendors in the Amiga scene before, i tend to think of this as a step forward.


>And most importantly bother to apply for a license to market their boards at a tiny Amiga market.

The process seemes simple enough. Here's our mobo, here's our signature, this is how we will support users. And yes, but Amiga has always been a small market. I don't mind. If another OEM can find new sales so much the better.


>And in the Amiga One case it's not a flashable BIOS according to Alan Redhouse. You need the ROM chip.

This still doesn't negate the possibility of a CD packaged with a ROM. The bios is in all probability socketed. Do correct me if im wrong. Hey i'm waiting for one myself so i haven't seen the board either.


>It's not part of the OS. It's an OpenFirmware BIOS with some proprietary extensions that the OS is looking for. It's just copy protection. Amiga OS could run perfectly fine without those extensions.

It *IS* part of the OS. Those "proprietary extensions" are in the OS now, like it or not and calling it 'only a copy protection' does not exclude it from the OS package. Amiga is entitled to put any anti-piracy measures they feel fit into thier OS. Neither you or i have the right to complain, we don't own it.


>No, no, no, no, NO! If it only were so well! You have to buy the OS together with the hardware, and the OS will only be shipped with licensed hardware from licensed distributors. This is what's so horribly insane.
>The only exception is for the old CS/BlizzardPPC boards and the pre-ordered Amiga One G3-SEs, where what you describe is valid (and for the A1G3-SE you buy a ROM chip, BIOS images for flashing will not be available other than for the pirates).

*sigh* To date i havent read a thing that says a CD+BIOS pack can't and won't be sold. In fact, quite the opposite. A CD+BIOS package will be offered by Eyetech (if there is a demand) for the people who buy a bogg standard bios with thier PPC mobo, so they may legaly place a bios with the amiga specific copy protection codes into thier system. This was announced by Eyetech themselves and i don't think they are about to sell pirate copys of the bios/os on the sly.

And yes, we are all aware of the skill of todays hackers. Unfortunatly, it would be a more costly solution than purchasing a legal copy. Something that pleases me no end.


>Well, Microsoft doesn't require every distributor of Windows compatible hardware to be bundling Windows (though I'm sure they'd love to), and they sell Windows separately, and they don't care about who makes Windows compatible hardware since they, like Amiga Inc., are a software company (not counting the X-Box and computer peripherals). So I guess you're right... It's worse than Microsoft's tactics. *shudder'

BUT BUT BUT Eyetech are fully within thier rights to refuse to ship a single AmigaOne and still sell the hardware design to anyone they please. The only exception being, if you add AMIGA'S (cant stress that enough) "proprietary extensions" to Eyetech's hardware for any purpose, be that to run OS4 or not, then by contract you must package the rest of the OS along with it and then pay Ainc on a sale of thier OS. (while taking a slice for themselves no doubt) This agreement only applies if your selling Amiga Systems. If you sell the same hardware devoid of all Amiga bios codes, extensions and OS, then they have no say in who or where you sell the boards. No corporate stranglehold here.




Ya know, i love this place. You can have a decient debate/discussion without someone comeing out of the woodwork to pee on your bonfire.

Ivan.