The questions have been raised here and other places about the state of MOS development, as in, who owns it? Are the developers getting paid? It has also been said that wouldn't matter to a potential partner.
You bet your bottom dollar it does! If I'm a company wanting to run MorphOS on my set top box (just an example!) and spend millions of dollars on product rollout, etc.-then I want to know FOR SURE that the company who makes it is stable, that they have the right to use/sell the IP they're selling me, that the devs won't bail from lack of payment or after the first product release finds all the bugs that the testers didn't. A real, in house QA department is also good for warming the {bleep}les of potential vendor's hearts :-)
Never underestimate the ability of a potential partner to show up at your office (yes, an actual office somewhere that isn't someone's basement!) and see a legitimate 9 to 5 style effort being made at producing, maintaining and updating code. Especially when said potential partner is going to bet his company's, and probably his own, future on the product you are selling him.
Maybe us hobbyist types are the guinea pigs, if you will, the test bed for MorphOS in genesi's eyes. (For us, it doesn't matter if it's coded in a basement as a hobby, we eat that stuff up!) If it succeeds well and makes a buck or two in this small arena, we will be the ones helping them make sure it's mature enough to pitch to the bigger, outside world.
Just my two cents.
