AmigaOS 3.1 source code leak - official statement

[Kremlar]

biting the hand that feeds them against all common sense and in blatant violation of copyright.

I think what Hyperion doesn't understand is that most people that are happy about the leak are not AmigaOS 4.x/PowerPC fans.  They are 68K people and will likely NEVER move to AmigaOS 4.x/PowerPC, so they are not biting the hand that feeds them.

Perhaps if Hyperion catered a bit to the much larger 68K market their statement might make more sense.

The buzz around Natami showed that what most Amiga users want is a continuation of the original Amiga idea, what most users would have liked future Amigas to look like - which is not necessarily what Commodore would have done.  I, and I think most 68K users, would have liked continually enhanced custom chipsets to keep the Amiga unique and better than the rest of the PC market.  AA/AAA/SuperAGA/whatever.

Catering to the tiny AmigaOS 4.x/PowerPC market seems bizarre to me.  Hyperion/A-EON would be much better off continuing development of AmigaOS 68K and moving forward with a FPGA project in my opinion.

[Kremlar]

I think Hyperion has it backwards anyway.  They are not the hand that feeds their users, their users are the hands that feed them.

I have to say, I can't fathom how they are possibly still in business.

[Kremlar]

Were they smoking something really good, or did they believe the ghost of Jack was walking the halls at C=? By that time I would have hoped they had realized you can't just do like in old times and scrap what you had and bung out something new and incompatible. Why would a loyal Amiga owner want a totally incompatible PA-RISC thing? Starting from scratch with 0 installed userbase is next to nuts.
That washing-off-hands at AAA also makes me scratch my head.

It would have had to be a huge jump to attract the user base, much like it was going from the C64 to Amiga.

I find it odd that AAA had no backwards compatibility with AGA, but I knew that already.

What amazed me was the constant reference to the CD32 as Commodore's most strategically important product.
And the idea of a modular CD32 (main cartridge based unit with CD addon) just shows they had no idea what they were doing at that point in time...

The sad part is they were right.  By that time they had lost a large chunk of their user base (me included) and were running on fumes.  They were considerably behind the market in the features that made the Amiga what it was (graphics and sound).  As much as I would have liked to see them push forward with an Amiga 5000 / AAA system, the reality is they didn't have it in them.  Their best hope of survival would be success with the CD32.

I'm confused - AFAIK, hyperion has a license to the 3.1 sourcecode - not to internal strategy papers made by commodore employees?

LOL, +1!

The trouble with introducing a new system is that you reset everything. Your old customers will not only be evaluating your new system, they will be comparing it to your competitors without giving you any inherent benefit. As happens in the game console market where they seem to be syncing releases with each other - customers have even less reason to be loyal or wait out in such a situation.

I think you're wrong.  There is brand loyalty.  Some may deviate, but happy Amiga users would look long and hard at C='s next product and if it's competitive most would favor the familiar brand.