Eyetech CEO Clarifies AmigaOne/OS4.0 Announcement

[Seehund]

I won't explain again why it is so painfully obvious that not allowing separate OS purchases is totally idiotic and will harm users, the PPC hardware market and Amiga Inc themselves.
This isn't the Bad Old Amiga Days, neither are you trying to sell to iMac users.

Then I see childish flamebait and insults like this from company executives:

This tight anti-piracy regime has obviously upset some individuals on the mailing lists who clearly did not expect to have to pay for OS4, or hoped to buy unapproved/unlicenced PPC Linux boards to save a few bucks.

Bad consumer! Stupid user! Sit!

Well tough, we dont want your business under those circumstances and will do all in our power to make sure that if you buy one of our boards for Linux-only use you will not be able to use it for running OS4+ unless you are prepared to pay Hyperion and Amiga Inc their proper licence fees.

We are prepared to pay for Amiga OS. Hell, it's my highest wish (when it comes to somputer related wishes anyway...). I am NOT prepared to have what's supposed to be a software company (Amiga Inc) tell me what hardware I can and can't use.
Why do some people seem to assume that there will never be any other Amiga OS compatible PPC hardware than the AmigaOne G3-SE?

And I'm sure that all other potential serious licencees of endorsed Amiga hardware will see it this way too.

Yeah, LOL. I can't see the end of the line of queuing potential licencees, fighting over an Amiga approval. :-P
 It's nice that in addition to a familiar OS, we'll also experience that cosy feeling of little choice among hardware, hardware manufacturers ignoring Amiga OS and overpriced hardware due to nonexistant competition that we've been enjoying ever since C= died.

[Seehund]

Hi Ivan,

Read the latest Executive Update again, then read my reply to your last post in the comments to the "Executive Update - Amiga Status Announcement" news item and you'll see why the sensible and natural course of actions you describe above cannot happen.
We're kicked back into the eighties, and hardware distributors won't be keen to follow us there.

[Seehund]

pteppic,

*trying really, really hard not to lose my temper and start swearing uncontrollably by bashing head against keyboard* Calm... Calm... Calm...

I dont get it Wayne, why do you still have this idea about not selling the Amiga OS seeperately?

I'll do it slowly this time, okay?
The. Pre-ordered. A1G3-SE. And. The. Blizzard/CS-PPC. Are. The. Only. Exceptions. From. The. OS4/hardware. Bundling. Requirements.
The pre-ordered A1G3-SE and the Blizzard/CS-PPC are the only exceptions from the OS4/hardware bundling requirements.

Won't somebody please read the Executive Update?

I don't care about the pre-ordered A1G3-SE. It's just another motherboard - and that's the way it bloody well should be. It's not an "Amiga". There are no "Amigas". I don't care about Eyetech. They're just another hardware reseller.  These things should be considered to be irrelevant to the platform as a whole. We want OS4 to run on as much PPC hardware as possible. Will you all please stop thinking "Amiga One G3-SE" all the time? Well, OK, if this OS/hardware bundling crap comes to reality it's very likely that's all the hardware and Eyetech the only distributor we'll have to choose from...
There is Amiga OS, which I care about. I want to buy that OS and install it on any damn compatible hardware I want to. No compulsory bundling. No compulsory licensing.

You don't. Just pull the chip and replace it with the new version of the rom

Gnnnnnnnn... Which new ROM? You have to buy a computer or motherboard to get that.


If you want to have a more clear view of what I'm thinking, or rather was thinking before rage and fatigue got the better of me, check out ANN or the Exec Update discussion here on amiga.org. I can be bothered to write it all again just as much as a non-Amiga hardware distributor can be bothered to become an Amiga licensee. :-P

[edit: I'm tired and I forgot how to spell and form coherent sentences.]

[Seehund]

This is incredible. I'll quote the executive update again.

[color=6600CC]"the AmigaOS only being available to licensed solution providers for the shipping of combined hardware and software solutions"

"AmigaOS4 and all future versions will ship only on those hardware products to which Amiga Inc has specifically granted a license"

"The only exclusion to this policy is a temporary measure to support the community members who have invested heavily in existing PPC accelerators" -[/color] and, as pointed out recently by Alan Redhouse, those who pre-ordered an A1G3-SE from Eyetech without AmigaOS and AmigaOS-perverted OpenFirmware BIOS ROM chips.

[color=6600CC]"we will require, as part of the licence conditions, that a copy of Amiga OS is purchased with all boards sold that are capable of running it"[/color]

I can't help but wonder how some people possibly even can begin to form the notion that we will be able to purchase Amiga OS separately to install it on hardware of our choice (NOT only on CS/BlizzardPPCs and pre-ordered A1G3-SEs) after reading this Executive Update and Alan Redhouse's clarifications. Are you all living in a parallel universe where common sense still applies in the Amiga market?

If we will be able to buy AmigaOS (and ROMs) separately that can only mean that:
1. Bill McEwen lied in this Exec. Update
2. Amiga Inc. needs to hire someone who knows English well enough to convey what they actually mean with their public statements, press releases and Exec. updates.
3. They changed their minds, which I hope so intensely that it hurts. Imagine that, common sense, reality as perceived by The Rest Of The World and normal business rules applied to the Amiga market!


Allen wrote:

You do have a point. But maybe Amiga should walk before it can run...by that I mean we all (almost) agree that the hardware of the AmigaG3 is dated...

Exactly. That is just one of the reasons why we should be able to buy the OS separately and install it on hardware of our choice.

What company would want to be seen to make dated hardware?

So far, just the single licensee there is. Though they don't make or design it, just distribute it.

We know that the hardware must have a ROM chip licensed from Amiga Inc.

What company would want to make proprietry hardware?

We know the market for this item is tiny...

What company would want a piece of this small market?

Who really cares about/is interested in/is investing in the Amiga OS 4.0/G3 anyhow..? Anyone from outside the community..?

Precisely. There's no incentive for distributors to become Amiga licensees, and becoming an Amiga licensee is the only way they'll be able to offer their products to the Amiga market as well as their other markets. We, the Amiga OS users lose. The hardware market that's interesting for us loses competition.

Everyone, please stop talking about the A1G3-SE all the time. Aren't we interested in the future and other, competing hardware? As I said before, there is no "Amiga" anymore, and there shouldn't be one. There should be Amiga OS, and hardware which we pick to run that OS of ours.

Rodney wrote:

You'll still have a great choice of hardware in the comming months/years and at present.

Ah, yes, look at all those licensees from all over the PPC hardware world breaking down Amiga Inc's doors. Eyetech and... Eyetech. Oh yes, two distributors of some PCI expansion cards and Merlancia with their fabulous... vapourware... are on the list of possible licensees under negotiations.
I really wouldn't care if there were 10 or 20 more licensees on that list, even though that's an utopia. What matters is that licensing should be a way to provide the licensor, the licensee and customers choosing licensed hardware with what the licensees and customers would perceive as advantages suitable for them - not to lock out any other customers and the non-licensed market.

My point exactly, there will be so much hardware we wont know what to do with it!

Unless the manufacturers/distributors get a license, all I know we'll be doing with that hardware is not running Amiga OS on it.

That is, a lot of copmanies/persons in the hardware industry that are sticking behind the platform, such as Eyetech/Merlancia/Elbox/KDH, just to name a few...

I want to buy my hardware from the ones who sell me the best hardware at the lowest price. If they don't give me that I don't care if they're an "Amiga" company or if they're licensed. They won't get my business. That's at least what things should be like, if Amiga would let the consumer choose.
And why on earth would a "non-Amigan" interested in buying Amiga OS and PPC hardware care if the company they buy the hardware from has sold A1200s in the past?

And bplan, if they ever decide that AmigaOS running on their machiens is a good thing ... All looks good.

In that case they or another distributor would have to apply for a license and be deemed a suitable licensor by Amiga Inc, and rebuild the Pegasos mobos to accept socketed ROMs, then sell two different product lines - one with Amiga OS and modified ROMs for Amiga OS users, one without OS and ROMs for everybody else, and this would raise the price of the Pegasos. This is valid for any current or possible future hardware.
We know that OS4 will run on the Pegasos, according to Hyperion and Thomas Frieden, they only need a developer's board, but even when it runs on the Pegasos we despicable consumers won't be able to buy one to run with OS4 unless bplan or a distributor decides to be licensed, and then we'd only be able to buy from that distributor. How can some people say that this is good?

These conditions are totaly different to the conditions of use of the classic Amiga hardware.. That is, Anyone can make an Amiga now, it justhas to be certified and their company has to be approved once, they have gone through an Amiga Inc Auditing so that Amiga Inc may assure quality!

The new conditions is another reason to why compulsory licensing combined with compulsory bundling of the OS is Evil and Harmful. Licensing in it self is not bad, it's even Good, but there should be choice, damnit!

Anonymous wrote:

You all get upset about having to buy a new motherboard for each OS.
Where did you get THAT idea from? There can be plenty of solutions to get AOS copy protection to work.

The idea came from the Executive Update and the clarifications from Alan Redhouse.
In a normal OS market there can be plenty of solutions for copy protection, but now you'll have to buy a licensed motherboard/computer to get the OS and ROMs.

(another?) Anonymous wrote:

Quote:
- To put this in hard-coded, socketed ROM at a specific address in the PPC memory map, rather than in Flash ROM, which could easily be pirated/updated


Sounds to me like a socketed rom.

Yes, but to get that ROM you have to buy a licensed motherboard, in this case an A1G3-SE! Sheesh!

SlimJim wrote:

Or in the words of Alan Redhouse (another post on the
AmigaONE ML):

"You can buy OS4 without an AmigaOne board but it will only work on hardware
that has a dongled ROM or an original 3.1 kickstart chip (in the case of
CyberstormPPC accelerators)"

Ties this subject up quite nicely, I'd say.

It opens up a new can of worms. Firstly, this was mentioned in a post where he was talking about the possibility of  a "LinuxOne" sold by Eyetech (i.e. the same board as A1G3-SE but delivered without OS4 and dongled ROMs). In that case nothing has changed - you can get OS4 + dongled ROMs separately only if you bought a pre-ordered A1G3-SE or "LinuxOne" from Eyetech.

He said nothing about the end-customer being able to purchase the OS and dongled ROMs separately from hardware, to install on hardware of the end-customer's choice, but if that's what he means - then Amiga Inc. have changed their minds from what clearly without room for different interpretations is presented in the Executive update, and all would be well!

P.S: Argo (and others), please quote or make clear whom you're replying to. There's no way of telling that, and your posts look like blurted out random thoughts from a "stream of (sub)consciousness".

[Seehund]

Hello Ivan!

We seem to agree on a number of areas. Off hand i'd say,

1) We both like the licensing of HW. It's like a boingball sticker on the box saying buy this one it's what we had in mind when making the Amiga.

Yup.
The part I think is bad is that we can't buy any hardware that doesn't have that sticker to run a separately purchased OS on. Not to forget the fact that there are no "Amigas" anymore, neither should there be.

2) We think competition between hardware vendors is a good thing. Pushes out better quality and quicker release of designs.

Yes Siree!
But I think that the proposed compulsory licensing/bundling scheme will be a hindrance to competition and development, and delay or stop us Amiga OS users from getting the hardware we want.

3) We think there should be more hardware vendors pushing out Amiga boxes. (this should probably be #1 eh?)

Again I agree, if "Amiga boxes" means any Amiga OS-compatible PPC hardware.

4) Amiga needs to protect its OS from pirates.

Of course.
Although they need to weigh the degree of piracy antimeasures (will they be circumvented in a week or in a month?) against cost, hassle and freedom of choice for honest paying end-users and possibilities of market expansion. They seem to have forgotten that they are a software company.
There are countless of anti-piracy measures around, and if they insist on a hardware dongle-type solution, the USB dongle idea someone mentioned seems to be at least as secure as on-board mounted ROMs, inexpensive and could be easily installed (also by the most computer illiterate end-user who bought the OS) on any hardware, licensed or not, with a USB bus. That's just one idea.

5) Amiga Inc needs to hire a PR man. A web designer for that matter as well.

You can say that again!

There is incentive for them. Selling thier PPC systems to the Amiga market plain and simple. 1 more sale is 1 more sold box period. And it's free to that OEM to make that sale.

Yeah, that's the only incentive there can be, plus expecting to make a profit out of it all. I however can't see the great probablity of a hardware distributor to get themselves, their organisation and their hardware licensed, setting up a software support dept., installing special ROMs on part of their hardware and bundling an OS with that, just to reach a tiny market as the Amiga OS market currently is. This will reduce the chances of a larger Amiga OS market to be formed where this compulsory OS/hardware bundling/licensing would have a chance to work.

>not to lock out any other customers and the non-licensed market.

I don't see anyone being locked out. Even bPlan was offered a license by Amiga and we all know they never sent Amiga a dev board.

I mean we would be locked out from any non-licensed alternative since the licensing and OS bundling is compulsory for them to sell us hardware and for us to buy it.
BTW, is doesn't seem like anyone is offered a license. You'll have to apply for it yourself if you're interested.

You want the OS sold seperatly, where I don't find it an inconveniance but a reasurance that the HW and SW will live up to expectations.

I'd also find it a convenience. I'm not willing to be deprived of freedom of choice and competitive pricing by getting this kind of "compulsory convenience" though.

Sure this would be great. I like discounts too. In fact, i've been known to clip a coupon or two. BUT, what hardware companys??? Where are you getting these PPC systems from?

The point is that I don't know that anymore than you or Amiga Inc or anybody else do. I just don't want to rely on that any current or future hardware that might come along will have to be licensed and bundled with the OS and offered to me only by licensed distributors.
Since you brought it up, one concrete example is the Pegasos. Thomas Frieden @ Hyperion said that OS4 will be compatible with the Pegasos (with what is already known about the Pegasos you don't need a dev. board to say that). However, bplan are for some reason or other which I won't be speculating about in here apparently not willing to even apply for an Amiga license. Unless another distributor buys a bunch of Pegasos boards and modifies them to accept dongled ROMs and has/gets a license, we Amiga OS users just lost the Pegasos as a hardware alternative for reasons totally irrelevant to OS/hardware compatibility. If someone after all do the licensing routine, we'll have no choice but to buy the Pegasos from that/those licencee(s) only. Just like with any imaginable other compatible hardware. IMHO this sucks.

Don't you think if IBM approached Amiga that Amiga wouldn't bend over backwards to ship an OS solution for the hardware being offered them? Damn right they would.

Sure they would. But why would IBM have to apply for a license for this wondrous machine just to sell it to us Amiga nerds as well as the other markets where no such requirements exist? Why shouldn't Amiga/Hyperion just make the OS compatible to this machine as well (if any changes/additions in the OS are necessary), sell the OS separately from hardware like That Other consumer OS vendor does and rake in the profits? We should be able to buy it from the same distributors as others who buy that machine - in addition to licensed dealers if we so choose.

The bios, ok let's pop that out and stuff it in the new system, ok good, the OS is runing on my dream machine now.

Seeing that the HPDell is a modern (heck, it's not even made yet ) computer, there will probably not be any ROM socket in it, those things are old fashioned even today.

You know, i really don't see a problem with bundleing an OS with the hardware so long as it's provided as an option the way Amiga is doing it.

What option?

But just to be fair. If the OS was sold seperate and i had to slip in the bios chip myself, i wouldn't mind either. It's just one small step i have to take to get an Amiga. And secondly, haveing more than one avenue to purchase the OS i wan't will also allow for more competition. But do be fair to me and admit it's an inconveniance i shouldn't have to deal with and that it really gets up the pirates arse.

Nope, you shouldn't have to deal with that. That's why I agree with you that licensing and OS/hardware bundling isn't Evil in itself and it removes that inconvenience you mention. I think it's only Evil when it's compulsory.

Sorry if i burned you Seehund

Not at all. I enjoy a sensible discussion, which I think this is, without flames and trolls for once. Thanks! I'm sorry too if I sounded abusive somewhere.

[Seehund]

Anonymous wrote:

But what hardware? We Have the A1 and accel cards and the Peg (which isn't supported as of yet). I don't see many computer resellers selling PPC main boards of other types.

Exactly. See what I think about that part in my reply to Ivan above:

The point is that I don't know that anymore than you or Amiga Inc or anybody else do. I just don't want to rely on that any current or future hardware that might come along will have to be licensed and bundled with the OS and offered to me only by licensed distributors.

And so on. Just scroll up and read the rest.

Someone also said about the Peg not being able to have the ROM, but does it not have a BIOS of some description? Could that not be used to the same effect somehow?

According to what Amiga Inc. has said only pirates will be able to get a copied ROM image and flash it on to the BIOS of modern computers which don't and won't use ROM sockets. We who want to buy the OS can't do that.

And don't Microsoft do a similar thing (note i said SIMILAR) If you go out and buy a PC (whole thing not Mainboard) you nearly always have to have the latest version of windows on it.

Yes, but the similarities aren't that big since you are still allowed to buy hardware without Windows and buy Windows separately. I'm sure MS would love to force every Windows-compatible hardware distributor to bundle Windows if they could get away with it.

Oh and let us not forget MS' new 'Product registration'. Update your HW more then 3times and you can't get into your machine! You then have to call MS to get your machine unlocked after proving that the machine is still yours!

I would personally prefer that strategy compared to compulsory OS/hardware bundling and only being able to buy licensed hardware. And that's just one of many, many other anti-piracy measures already around.

After all Amiga INC like MS are only trying to protect thier income, which I think is only fair.

At least MS only care about their own product, the OS. Amiga has nothing to do with my hardware and from whom I buy that hardware.
If The Rest Of The World hates Microsoft for bundling a browser with the OS, what will they think of Amiga Inc's bundling?

[Seehund]

theTAO,

Please allow me to vehemently disagree!

I think the ArticaS chipset can address an 8MB flash ROM...so that's what I want.

Don't think about the Articia S chipset. Don't think about the A1G3-SE. It's just hardware. There is no "Amiga". There's just hardware, and if Amiga OS is or will be compatible with the hardware I think we should be allowed to buy that hardware from whomever we want and buy Amiga OS separately if the hardware distributor we choose doesn't sell it with their hardware.

I want a modern, writeable Kickstart, so Amigas can continue at least one hardware tradition that made them unique...not being completely tethered to a hard drive.

There are no Amigas, and I sincerely hope that nobody is planning to make Amigas.

If Eyetech is not willing to add any Amiga-only features to the AmigaOne, I thought they might at least push the hardware to its limits, and in the process perhaps evolve the industry in some small way.

Eyetech knows there are no Amigas. They don't design or make any Amigas. They distribute a POP motherboard.

Instead, this ROM dongle seems to imply that since mundane, cookie-cutter motherboards are good enough for PC users, they're also good enough for us.

Hell yes, they're good enough for me at least! I don't want anyone to start making "Amigas" like the closed proprietary designs from one single company, a.k.a. "classic Amigas". We who want to run Amiga OS haven't seen any new computers to run that OS on for 10 years because of that. People who are happy with closed proprietary hardware made by and delivered from one single company buy Macs today. Except for Apple and Macs this model is dead, buried and decomposed in the personal computer market and I hope it stays that way.

[Seehund]

Anonymous wrote:

1) There is no "PPC market". There is the "Apple market" and there may one day be a new "Amiga market" and there are the IBM servers, but PPC hardware is not commodity hardware, nor do Apple or Amiga want it to be. Commodity PPC hardware would eat into Apple's source of income -hardware.

There is the POP platform, which e.g. the A1G3-SE and its Taiwanese cousins plus the Pegasos are based upon, and nobody knows what the future holds. I can understand why Apple would try to stop a commodity PPC hardware market and development since they make their own machines, but Apple's OS only runs on Apple hardware anyway.
Apple released their report for the second quarter of 2002 yesterday. They sold 813,000 Macs in Q2/02 alone! They can afford relying on a bundled hardware/OS/software solution and they could hypothetically be harmed by commodity PPC hardware (but I don't think a prospective Mac user would build his own computer and install something like Linux or Amiga OS for that matter himself).

Amiga knows this is true for them as well - but because of brand licensing, so they are making sure that anyone who wants AmigaOS to run on their hardware has to go through Amiga.

If Amiga didn't try to play in the hardware market but concentrated on selling their OS in as big numbers as possible, it wouldn't even be possible for this to be true for them as well. They don't have any hardware, and they rely on licensees coming along asking them to make the hardware of the licensees into Amiga Inc's hardware. If this is not despicable in the perspective of people who want to use Amiga OS on the best and cheapest hardware available, it's at least incredibly stupid and FUBARed.

The OS is Amiga's product, so it is their platform, and they get to decide who gets to run their OS on their hardware.

"Their" hardware? Well, it seems like Amiga Inc. are trying to make the hardware of others into "their" by compulsory licensing, but I don't see why anybody would be interested in that, given the tiny Amiga market and no chance to profits.
Of course the OS is Amiga's/Hyperion's product, and it's Amiga's ("after consultation with our partners, developers,..." Bah!) decision. I just think it's an abhorrent and counterproductive decision.

You say "I should be able to choose whatever hardware I want to run OS4". No, you shouldn't.

OK, "I ought to be able to choose whatever hardware I want to run OS4, if only Amiga Inc. had any business sense and respect for their customers and didn't think they were Apple or that this was 1985".

If Apple didn't control their product so tightly, they'd be out of business, not more popular as some of you seem to imply Amiga would be if they just let any old hardware maker say their product can run AmigaOS.

The difference between Apple and Amiga is that the latter do not make their own hardware and their OS doesn't run exclusively on their own hardware, they think that other companies should modify their hardware and in return get a license to sell Amiga OS so they as licensees not only get a competitive edge over unlicensed hardware distributors but totally remove them from the competition.
Apple are still in business and earn money from their closed OS/hardware packages because they didn't stop updating their hardware in 1992, and they have a large enough piece of the market to be able to keep using that business model.
According to Ben Hermans, OS4 is aimed at current Amiga users and whatever other few enthusiasts there may be (not, as the exec. update implies, make Amiga OS king of the desktop world). If they aren't trying to take on Apple, then they shouldn't try to compete in their market. If they are pretending to be Apple, they're fscked.
Nothing would be contradicting Amiga to sell distributors licenses for "certified" hardware and hardware/OS bundles if Amiga at the same time offered OS4 for sale separately to us who don't care whether our identical hardware is labelled "made for Amiga OS", or us who don't care whether our hardware dealer once sold A1200's and C-1084's.

Amiga is NOT A SOFTWARE COMPANY!!! THEY ARE A LICENSING COMPANY. They make their money from selling the brand name "Amiga" and the rights to Amiga IP to other companies.

In that case, why not be happy with selling Hyperion's OS to anyone who's interested and earning money on licensing the Amiga IP and "Amiga OS" trademark to Hyperion, if that's an accurate description of what's happening?
I don't understand why any other hardware distributors than old Amiga-related companies like Eyetech (who even apparently still are "partners" with Amiga Inc) and the couple of others in negotiations would be interested in conforming to Amiga Inc's licensing terms and licensing the whole Amiga package to reach and compete in the tiny Amiga market?

Either they get a cut of your sales, or you don't get to use the name Amiga in relation to your product, nor do you get to sell a product that uses their IP

And that punishes us who may want to buy our hardware elsewhere. Hardware shouldn't be using IP from an OS anyway. Yeeees, it's Amiga Inc's (and their "partners'") decision, but that doesn't stop me from thinking it's bad, unless I have to be a licensee to think of Amiga OS compatible hardware.

What does it matter? There aren't enough consumers out there to buy any of these products enough to support all these companies. Amiga knows this, so they are trying to tighten the grip so they can squeeze the most returns out of this effort. Frankly, if all they sell is 5,000 machines, they won't last long.

If we could buy the OS separately, then we Amiga OS users would be an addition to the market currently constituted by Linux/BSD/whatever users. When we have to buy the OS together with modified licensed hardware, we are a microscopic market of our own.
Sure the current licensee(s) could probably sell a couple of thousand modified POP motherboards with OS4 bundled for a year or so. Then the well is dry.

The issue is really that the ones complaining most about this are more interested in commodity PPC hardware than they are in AmigaOS4.

Seeing that the major new feature of OS4 is that it's OS3.x ported to PPC, I am personally very interested in PPC hardware (and maybe even more than OS4 in itself - it doesn't do very much on its own), regardless if it's "commodity", sold from licensed dealers bundled with the OS or sold from unlicensed dealers like today. I just want to choose for myself from where I buy what ought to be my hardware.

PPC MB's will NEVER NEVER EVER be as cheap or accessible as Intel/AMD's.

Of course not. But OS4 took the PPC path (some say "unfortunately"), so there we are.
It surely won't help the PPC market if Amiga OS compatible hardware will be a separate and strictly controlled market on its own.

The idea of the Zico spec was not to "run AOS4 on any PPC motherboard", it was to say "if you have a motherboard that conforms to this spec, if you sign a deal with us we will allow AOS4 to run on it".

That the Zico "spec" is a pathetic joke has only added to the confusion. Any personal computer, regardless of CPU and architecture, made in the last 5 years is "Zico compliant". The P.O.S. Dell from 1999 I'm typing this on would be Zico compliant if I had a Firewire card and a "next generation" gfx card from Matrox in it.

The Zico "specification".

[Seehund]

Anonymous,

You say that AI will only ship the OS with the HW.... It doesn't directly say that. It say ON hardware that AI approve not WITH.

As we all know SW runs ON HW, which I belive is what Bill means.

I don't think BIll would feel the need to mention that software runs on hardware.

But what in "the AmigaOS only being available to licensed solution providers for the shipping of combined hardware and software solutions" (my emphasis) leaves room for doubt regarding compulsory bundling of OS and hardware, and the OS only being available that way from licensed "solution providers"?

And: "The only exclusion to this policy is a temporary measure to support the community members who have invested heavily in existing PPC accelerators"

And in context of all this and the quote you provided: "we will require, as part of the licence conditions, that a copy of Amiga OS is purchased with all boards sold that are capable of running it"

If they really mean "you can buy our OS separately and hardware from anyone you like, but we will also let hardware distributors who are interested get a license from us to provide OS/hardware bundles", then that's the most unclear choice of wording since  "WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH" in Orwell's "1984".

[Seehund]

Jesus Christ on a Bicycle!

Anonymous wrote:

If you are so against AmigaINC and thier stratagies then why do you bother?

I'm not against Amiga Inc. (only moron trolls find factions where there shouldn't be any and take sides for or against companies and individuals merely based on their names), but I'm against their strategies and methods in this case. I bother because I'd like to buy Amiga OS and since I liked previous versions of the Amiga OS I have hopes that OS4 will be good. I was hoping we'd no longer be tied to only specific hardware from (a) specific compan(y|ies), since Amiga Inc. has fsck all to do with hardware.

Anyone who wants the AmigaONE for using Amiga programs seems to have no problem with the idea of getting the OS with the MB.

Of course they don't! The A1G3-SE is just one piece of hardware only available from one specific distributor. Why on earth would somebody planning to run OS4 have a problem with the OS coming bundled in that one specific case?

Maybe this could be the last time I'll have to repeat this in this thread: There is no "Amiga". Nobody makes Amigas. Nobody will be making Amigas. The A1G3-SE is irrelevant to the points I'm trying to make. It should be just yet another piece of hardware from just yet another distributor.

The only people who seem to have a problem with this idea is the peple who want to use it for other OS's ie Linux (although why when x86 solutions are far cheaper)

Did you really read the executive update? Did you read Alan Redhouse's and Ben Herman's "clarifications"? Did you read the posts in this very thread of the user you're replying to?
Why the fsck would non-AmigaOS users have a problem with this? They can buy whatever hardware compatible with their OS they bloody well want. They can even buy "Amiga licensed" hardware bundled with Amiga OS and run another OS on if they were insane and would like to pay more for their hardware. We who want AmigaOS can't choose our own hardware and whom we will buy it from. That's the problem.

You say you that MS is only protecting it's own product, but so is AI, surely you can see that.

Of course I can see that. AI just chose a completely brain-dead solution to the piracy problem, which will hurt us who want to buy Amiga OS, us who will have to buy only licensed hardware and the PPC market and development rate, and ultimately Amiga Inc. The pirates will circumvent a silly ROM protection anyway, if they'll bother with a doomed tiny market at all.

Not to mention the fact that approved HW and SW solutions normally mean that the machine is far more stable as all the programs have to conform to the correct standards and be OS legal.

If you had read my posts you'd have seen that I agree that this would be fine and dandy. Compulsory licensing and compulsory OS/hardware bundling is NOT.

If there are two identical motherboards available from
1. A licensed distributor, bundled with the OS
and
2. Everybody else
then I would go for the "everybody else" category and buy my OS separately if that meant it would be cheaper and if I hadn't had that option taken away from me by AI.
If I wanted guaranteed support and whatever other advantages I might get from the licensed dealer and if cost was no concern for me I'd buy it from him.
The thing is that now I have only the licensed dealer to "choose" from, and if there's no licensed dealer offering this motherboard I can't get the hardware I want at all.

I for one have no problem getting the OS and MB together as I suspect a majority of Amiga users don't mind either. We are simply happy that the Amiga is comming back on some resonably decent hardware.

"The Amiga" isn't coming back, thank God! The Amiga OS is updated and ported to run on PPC hardware.
I and a majority of Amiga OS users would have no problem buying the OS together with the hardware. I just don't want to be restricted to the hardware and distributors AI dictates.
*sigh*

Sorry for any harsh tone above, but it's annoying to repeatedly reply to someone who clearly hasn't tried to comprehend what was written previously in the thread, and having to repeat yourself. Well, that someone being anonymous doesn't help either...