Merger between AmigaOne and Pegasos dev teams

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itix wrote:

While there were quite a few very helpful and courteous attendees, I would have expected more from the creator of MorphOS than asking me to leave simply on the basis of my association with Amiga Inc. Amiga has never and would never ask anyone to leave our PUBLIC support channel simply based on association. There would have to be some netiquette offense for that to happen.

I was there when you were asked to leave.

First of all, owner (that is a guy with op of IRC channel can decide who can be there and who not. So, if they dont want Amiga Inc. employees, then they dont. Maybe not nice for you but such is life. And to be honest, you are not always that kind person either.

Another thing is that IRC channel is not strictly dev support channel. It is also for general discussion and you were not only one asking if his app works in MOS. Although me and many other are often helping and testing if requested it can get boring.

And about AmiFTPd: As I told on IRC it should work if it is written in system friendly. Nothing worry about.

Ralph Schmidt used to be on (and occasionally post) the official AmigaOne Mailing list.  No-one ever asked him to leave, even when he posted crap.  Why should Ray not be allowed to join the MorphOS channel?  He has been an Amiga developer for far longer than he has worked for Amiga Inc.

Also that whole thing about system friendly is bollocks quite frankly, there are bound to be cases where things don't work quite properly, it comes with the territory when you are reimplementing and emulating a computer system.  I've heard of a few programs that don't work properly straight out of the box on MOS, checking this is something sensible to do. First rule of networking - "Assumption is the mother of all ####-ups"

If Amiga Inc are really as broke as you people say, and AOS as ####e and doomed as the fanatics claim surely it would be beneficial for Ray to look at MOS.  Or is it just all crap, and you guys are bricking it? :-o

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downix wrote:
From my angle (mind you, I work for Genesi) I see resistance, and fear, regarding our products.  Resistance because we lack the name.  Fear because, from my observation and opinion, we have the superior product.  

Don't agree with this totally, while there are people out there who may be like this, I don't think it's the main bulk of people.  From what I have seen of your postings you have totally dismissed AmigaOS out of hand, I don't think you have been objective about it (comments about the new amidock spring to mind).  I haven't had chance to try out OS 4 yet, but I don't think from experience that MOS is the superior product (Cue 10 of the most hardcore to tell me how wrong I am)

However, I see it from the other viewpoint as well.  Genesi is the upstart, the new kid on the block.  It is taking away mindshare and loyalty from AInc's solutions.  From their angle, this is a low-blow, and cheating ones way to the top.  Add on top of it announcments that hurt your products or those of your licensees.  It seems Genesi is going for an all-out war, so you retaliate in kind.  

Again I think you're half right.  But to be honest it it's not about Genesi's existance, but rather their attitude and public behaviour.  

But this schism goes deeper than just Genesi/AInc.  I saw it during the GateMiga days, with competing vendors kept pushing their own, proprietory API's on the market.  Over time, these API's consolidated into 2 groups, the MorphOS and the AmigaOS4 camps.  MorphOS gained the CyberGFX, MUI, PowerUP, AROS strengths while AOS4 gained the Picasso96, ReAction/ClassAct, WarpUP and AmigaOS strengths.  This polarization of the community is difficult to heal, and is only a direct result of ignorance by those that have held the trademark in the past to define a STANDARD.  This resulted in a splitting of the community, and the situation we have today, with 2 OS's, 2 motherboards, 2 solutions to everything.

I think this is pretty much as close to the truth as you can get, obviously it's a bit more complex than this, but that's the general gist of it.  Really when you look at it it's quite pathetic. :-(

I'd point out, an attempt to correct this has begun, with the openamiga project at:  http://www.openamiga.org

If you really want to see this community heal, that's where to look, in my personal opinion.

At least one other Genesi empolyee dissagrees with you there, calling it "A joke"

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Open sourcing would have worked 5 years ago, but it's too late now.  If Gateway would have released the sources (although they'd be incomplete due to licences and trademark issues) I think the community (back then) could of made it work.

The thing is I could see that we'd end up with a similar situation as today with several different vesion due to the fact that you'd still get differnt people wanting to take the OS in different directions.

Downix was right, it has been the lack of leadership since '95 that has led to the current situation (although saying that some people have always pushed to go in thier own direction anyway).  TBH though I don't see anyone here who is suitable to lead the community, not Amiga Inc., not Hyperion, and not Genesi

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downix wrote:
So, have I dismissed it?  Yes, I have.  Not as an OS, but as a step forward, much like WinME.  Even the screenshots and data given show nothing of the necessary evolution, nor even the framework *for* an evolution of the platform.  It is a very tough world out there, and if AOS4 is not ready to tackle MacOS X or Windows XP, it will not survive.

This is where I'd disagree.  From what I've read OS 4.0 is very forward looking, and with some of the things hinted at in future revisions 4.1 4.2 etc. (not counting "OS 5") it's looking very good indeed.  

While I like the philosophies behind MOS, as it stands it's just an sandbox emulation, not VM no MP no other wizbang enhancements, just AmigaOS 3.1 on speed.  Everything depends upon the mythical "Q box" which is apparently "years away".

I think, in the end, AmigaOS's biggest problem is overoptimism.  They misjudged timelines, they misjudged the marketplace, they misjudged their customers.  All due to overoptimistic feelings and lack of business skill.  This, more than anything, makes me dismiss it as the solution for the market.  Unless Amiga gains some real management, this will remain so.

I think the real problem is that fact that until Hyperion picked up the baton there was zero development (discounting the minor changes from 3.5 and 3.9) since '94.  A PPC port of amigaOS should of happened in '97 we should be up to OS 5 or 6 by now, but Gateway/Amiga, then Amino/Amiga were too busy trying something new with the name rather than capitalising on the assests they already had.

While it would of been good for Amiga inc and MOS/bplan to hook up for OS 4 way back when (at least there wouldn't be this split to this degree), in some ways i'm glad that MOS didn't become AmigaOS 4, because I don't think I'd get the kind of AmigaOS I'd want.  

Who knows perhaps the co-operation would of made something different to MOS as it stands today a halfway house between MOS and OS 4. But as it stands while I like the look of the Peg and Peg 2,  I'd only ever buy one to run AOS 4.x or AROS 1.0.  I simply don't like MOS.

As for OpenAmiga, I stated my personal opinion, as well as other Genesi employees have done.  I would note, the "a joke" comment was with the discussion of 68k binaries, not the idea itself.

That's not what was actually said -

But because they have nothing to do. Can you imagine anyone's Amiga system NOT having the features as above? AROS is about a week away from matching most of it already, OS3.9 matches and therefore AmigaOSXL and Amithlon match, AmigaOS 4.x is based on 3.9 so automatically matches, and MorphOS has had the features of the list since the year 2000.

So what are they enforcing here? Are they expecting a new project to pop up that they can encourage to use this standard? I seriously doubt this will happen

Again we have another bunch of Amiga users trying to make a name for themselves by doing something in the public eye. Now, if they were offering money like DiscreetFX, then it'd be interesting, but they're not, so it's actually just redundant.

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downix wrote:
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Huh?  Where the heck are you getting this stuff on the OS's design?  BOTH OS's are using a sandbox technique here.  The only difference is that one seperates the new MP-enabled kernel from the old non-MP kernel.  This way, should a non-MP app kill itself, you don't loose the entire system, just the non-MP protected section.

The OS 4 feature list it explains that it does not use a Sandbox approach.  I mean before you started slagging it off you did actually READ the information available on it didn't you?

So you are saying that I can write an application for MOS that makes use of all the advanced features of Quark including MP?
That's either great news or total rubbish.

-EDIT-
And MOS has VM.

Available to the applications written for ABox?

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downix wrote:
I read Ben Hermans latest statements on AOS4, and he said clearly that to seperate new-API from old-API they will be using a sandbox.

And, yes, I have read the AOS4 feature list.  I dissected it quite completely, and it meshes with what Mr. Hermans said, a sandbox is needed for future roles.

Can you link to this comment?  I've had a look through all the recent interviews and have had a look through the some comments (it gets boring reading the same stuff over and over) and i couldn't find anything about a sandbox.

If you are refering to what was said about the OS4 sandbox for the mythical "OS 5" then that is a different story and hardly relevant to what we're talking about here.

Nope, but you can't make an application that can use all of the advanced features of ExecSG either.  So no difference here.

This is where I'd disagree as some of the functions are already in place such as resource allocation and limited MP.  Can MOS apps have access to *any* of quark's functions?  I was told (some time ago admittedly) by Ralph that things running in the A Box *Including* PPC native apps could not see Quark at all.

You see, unlike other people, I actually did lots of research into MOS (which wasn't easy as information is rather thin on the ground), I've read nearly every interview, I've actually tried it on Pegasos.  

On this point I'll just have to leave it at I agree with you on some points but not others.

Yes.  However, like in QNX, with MOS the VM is added using a system module, so apps can only make use of VM if they are designed to.

Having run such a system with QNX, I know very well how nice that is, not having the OS decide when to allocate VM but instead the app decide on exactly how much VM it needs.  Gives me far more control over the applications that way.

Cool.  I can see the advantages of that.  I note that AOS can turn off VM (on the fly in some cases) which would be good to.  Personally I've never had a problem with VM and am not so paranoid about having it on or off.

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downix wrote:
@Russ

Made an offer, when?  IIRC, it was Genesi that made the offer, not Hyperion.

I still find it laughable that people actually take Bill's "offer" seriously.  If it was serious surely Hyperion would have recieved thier free board by now.  And how comes (as was originally offered) Ben had to go to Paris to collect it when the other boards were sent to the developers in question?

And the biggest one of all.

Why did Bill need to offer a free board anyway?  Why didn't Genesi just process Hyperion's orginal order for a Pegasos?  All this nonsense about Hyperion not accepting a free board when Genesi wouldn't *sell* them one in the first place!!!

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@Kronos

:lol: :lol: :lol:

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downix wrote:
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Egads, you really don't know how OS's work, do you?

Then explain it to me.

-Edit-

I hope that just wasn't a lame excuse to get around my statements.

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downix wrote:

man, that was one long rant.  But did any of that make sence to you?

Yes and no.

Firstly I think you misunderstood what I meant about using Quark (Likewise I'm not that great at explaining what I mean all the time) So I knew most of it anyway.  I also know the problems of MP and message passing in AmigaOS, and I know that you can't just shove MP on willy nilly.

The window idea is something I hadn't heard of before (although isn't the HAL what the kernal sits on?) in MorphOS what features of Quark would this allow you to use in the ABox?

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downix wrote:
@uncharted

Right now not much, as Quark's QBox is not fully developed.  But, the VM I mentioned is one example of how an ABox app can access a Quark feature.

But, as more and more functions get added to the QBox, more and more things the ABox gets to exploit without breaking the app.

Also, I'd point out how with Quark one will be gaining such things as transparent networking.  Imagine a single ABox running on 4 or 5 computers.

So, you get a choice.  Pick an OS with new functions you can't use, or one without new functions, but a way to use them as they are added.

Thanks for the answer.

Here's a question I've been trying to get answered for a while now.  How will things change in structure and usage once the QBox gets introduced fully?

Will it be like OS X where everything changes, but the old stuff is kept to one side and is called upon when needed (classic) or will it all just fit together with the abox OS3.1 reimplented stuff.