BigBenAussie wrote:
However, the Amiga One will eventually be released as THE AMIGA [snip]
The Pegasos, through no fault of its own, actually subverts this public legitimacy from happening, and I would imagine there are a lot of people out there that feel the same way.
The "legitimacy" of "THE AMIGA" is subverted by the simple fact that there is no and will be no more Amiga. AmigaOS is supposed to be running on hardware that third parties bring along to sell under trademark licenses, remember?
It's subverted by the fact that the "AmigaOne" trademark that's currently licensed by Eyetech for distributing Teron motherboards means absolutely nothing at all with regards to the hardware. There's no specification for Amiga hardware. There's no Amiga reference design. Contrary to what the ridiculous excuses for the licensing scheme once said, the hardware that's currently sold hasn't passed any quality, compatibility, or any other kind of certification of AInc's to earn the label. The inane gibberish about "guaranteed supplies", "support", "protection against price gouging" et c. has all turned out to be the pure spucatum tauri (ed: don't throw "bleeps" at me, xoops!
) that many saw it was from the very beginning. It's been proven again and again, for each new piece of hardware that has been introduced (sometimes only being in a planning stage is sufficient to earn the label) and/or discontinued as an "AmigaOne". Then it turns out that the "AmigaOne" trademark (the one that's erroneously marketed as "the new Amiga" on e.g. the licensor's own website) actually BELONGS to the hardware dealer that invented the scheme and is the only distributor of licensed hardware.
The only tangible thing that the "AmigaOne" trademark has meant so far is "antiquated and dysfunctional (or discontinued, or not yet available) hardware that's a sh*tload more expensive than the exact same hardware sold without the license".
And this is what AmigaOS has been tied to, not by technical requirements, driver development issues or any other valid reason, but simply because an irrelevant (to AmigaOS) hardware retailer thought it would be nice to out of nothing invent an "Amiga hardware market" to control when his (or Escena's) attempts to actually build a new Amiga failed, and apparently because AInc couldn't give a damn about AmigaOS to simply say "no" to this retailer's idea.
The Amiga One is our only hope at becoming a mainstream platform again.
I nominate that for the "most bizarre statement of the year" category, even though it's only March.
AInc/Eyetech pretending that there's a reason for us to only buy "Amigas" from "Amiga dealers" is what sadly has turned AmigaOS4 (and "all future versions of AmigaOS") into a waste of time. At least if anyone was hoping to increase, or at least stop the shrinking of, the AmigaOS userbase.
