"Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"

[bison]

Linux has several important companies - yes, commercial entitities - that drive the process.

Linux didn't start out this way.

AmigaOs is "a bunch of hackers"

This is how Linux started.

if we end up with multiple AmigaOs flavours, how would it be possible to create products on such a diverse platform, if you cannot depend on "which version of the Os" the user has avaialble?

Target the dominant version.  In the Linux world, there are things that run on Ubuntu that aren't going to run on Void.  People who want a high level of software compatibility use the more dominant distributions.

[bison]

Who? The willing party, Cloanto. How? By research and contacting original owner/authors. As I am sure you are aware, most of the source files do have copyright and license information.

I'd be surprised if they haven't already done a lot of this.

[bison]

Linux as operating system is doable because there it runs on off-the-shelve hardware, and it has a critical mass of hardware and software to pick from, and a sufficient number of professional players that are part of the game that drive it.

Linux did not spring into existence in its current form.  Back in 1994 it did not run on off-the-shelf hardware; it was an arduous task trying to get a graphics card to work with X11.  If you wanted additional software beyond what was in the distribution, you compiled it from source, and it didn't have *any* professional support for hardware or software.

Too many open-source projects have started from nothing and succeeded to think that AmigaOS would somehow fail given the same opportunity.

[bison]

Linux worked on cheap, standard hardware. AmigaOs does not.

Only because Hyperion does not want AmigaOS to work on cheap, standard hardware.  If the source code were open-sourced, it would almost certainly be ported to AMD64 and/or ARMv8.

[bison]

We *must* cut complexity down, and we cannot in an open source world. See Linux.

Your argument seems to be "Linux is open source, and Linux is complex, therefore all open source software is complex."  This does not bear up under even casual examination.  OpenBSD, for example, is also open source, and yet they do a pretty good job of containing complexity.

[bison]

On the Linux side, I understand the business. You get support, some in-house components, certifications for particular hardware, you get the updates for a limited time, you get consulting and service - as long as there are commercial partners and customers on board, it is a viable model. We don't have that in Amiga-land, there *are* no commercial customers here. Just folly.

You seem pretty intent on ignoring the fact that Linux didn't start out that way.

[bison]

You seem pretty intent on ignoring the fact that Linux didn't start out that way.

You seem pretty intent on ignoring the fact that AmigaOs runs on obsolete hardware, and has an obsolete design as "operating system". Linux had a future because it had a sane design, and it run on hardware that offered a future. AmigaOs has neither. It is pretty pointless to compare the two.

You're making a lot of inferences.

I didn't say AmigaOS doesn't run on obsolete hardware, or that it doesn't have an obsolete design.  And I'm not comparing Linux to AmigaOS per se, I'm comparing the Linux *license* to the AmigaOS license; Linux is open source, and AmigaOS is not.

And I didn't say that AmigaOS has the potential to be developed into a system as sophisticated as Linux.  This is a straw man that you have constructed in an attempt to dismiss my position that it would be beneficial to the community to open source AmigaOS.

AmigaOS will likely never amount to anything significant, but if the code were open source, at least there would be 20 people working on it instead of two.

Edit: Tried to tone it down a bit.

[bison]

AmigaOS will likely never amount to anything significant, but if the code were open source, at least there would be 20 people working on it instead of two.

Look, we had this discussion on "user driven" and "developer driven" already. Which part wasn't clear?

It's not a matter of clarity, but of agreement -- I don't find your arguments very convincing.
 

20 developers help nothing if they don't work in a direction that helps the user. We have precisely that in Linux - or can you give me a reason for "systemd", replacing a completely workable, simple, easy to configure solution, by a feature monster that is hard to tame?

Well, now we finally agree on something.   systemd is an abomination.  But I don't think releasing AmigaOS under an open source license is going to cause it to run straight to systemd, or anything like it.

[bison]

Cloanto are the ones who have brought the litigation, so you should blame them instead.

If someone tries to rob you and you resist, that doesn't make you the aggressor.

[bison]

you guys completely unerestimates how much work it to create a own forke. Even on aros there are no forkes because it is too much work (even if someone is motivated)

This is a good point.  Not only is it a lot of work to create a fork, but it's a lot of work maintaining it, trying to back-port changes to keep it in sync with the trunk.

The Fear of Forks is overblown.  No one creates one unless they have a good reason to.  And I'm not really sure what a "silly fork' is -- it sounds like a Monty Python sketch to me.