Genesi : 'How we see things'

[greenboy]

Billsey,

I am hard-pressed to see what you are seeing as regards "truth" or "crowd-pleasing". Or the "fluff" that someone else mentioned, either. This is not Amiga Inc talking publicly about going to IPO when it was clearly illegal. This is not a company asking for handouts or community "good will".

Neither is it especially about the post-CBM Amiga community, which clearly can not sustain resellers or developers or publishers.

This is about building business relationships that can place product in a larger world. That means that Genesi needs strong partners with some common vision who can leverage their understanding, connections, and finance. Genesi can only do so much of this in-house, and one might view the GLADIATEUR thread to see some examples of what much of this statement is talking about.

Genesi is not asking for mercy sex because they don't have the cred to get anything real going (which is the approach we have seen all too often in this neighborhood for years). How crowd-pleasing is it, really, to ask that anyone who can contribute in the expanded definition of DEVELOPER begin to think of a larger world in BUSINESSLIKE terms, and to stretch out their expectations of themselves and their abilities? How crowd pleasing is it to mention much of what is said there? ... We are talking some ambitious planning and work, and stepping beyond the comfortable, the secure (a security that has been largely based on low expectations and ultimately failure), and the known.

And with that comes risk, and the need to think past noble failure in the Amiga marketplace that comes with just making an app and expecting to sell a few copies. Larger projects with wider scope built on realistic understanding of the markets and the opportunities and risks are needed for anyone to truly enjoy a long-term future.

Genesi is saying where it wants to go, and offering others a clue on how to participate for bigger stakes. There is no "don't worry be happy" here. The rewards mentioned do not come from simply sending some money. It comes from participation at a very ambitious level, and one needs to grok fully the implications to have a shot at succeeding.

BBRV's statement is not especially geared for people who want to play armchair analyst. It is for people who might consider participating at any level, and so they might understand a larger picture - one that ups the risk but also widens the field of opportunities.

As for PROFITABLE, I've said it all along: Genesi is planning for a long campaign wherein selling a thousand or few boards has little to do with success - unless you are putting those boards into more useful hands, they are wasted. The so-called Amiga market will never matter unless it is tied into a larger view of computing. Which means rethinking what methods to COMPETE are available, and what technology itself implies about the future.

I don't expect that everybody will really see those implications since the field up to now is riddled with failures of vision and commitment, and because people tend to think that what they are familiar with is all there really is to the future - only thinking that the future will be faster and cheaper.

Well, it takes all kinds of development to support this kind of a roadmap that BBRV is presenting, so I expect that developers of all levels can find something to do on a large number of OSes and distros that will satisfy them, and all of it will contribute to the larger picture.

But people who have the ambition to go farther will likely help redfine the context and the geography. I think BBRV and Genesi are working on that angle and already have some partners to get this rolling. These people rightfully understand that the way it is right now is NOT ENOUGH, or they are convinced that the risk of their financial alliance is well-considered. Again, see the GLADIATEUR threads to get an example of the synergy of partners we are looking for.

[greenboy]

There is nothing wrong with providing an example of a fairly recent IPO strategy that was proposed within this community - and died just as quickly. That attempt to involve people of the community was a good example (at the best), of clueless research and strategizing - and at the worst, the willingness to entrap people in the community in a non-legal situation.

Several posts above supplied the need to make such a comparison; to make it clear that BBRV is NOT mentioning IPO or stock in the same context whatsoever. Indeed, the mere mention of stocks by one of the above posters made it imperative to make sure that nobody confuse Genesi's intentions with your company's unrealizable intentions of several years ago. Those Amiga Inc announcements and forum posts of "going public" were not legally realizable, and have NOTHING to do with the HOW WE SEE IT item above.

So. I want to make it perfectly clear that Genesi is NOT proposing to place any burden on users, and that Genesi DOES understand legally what is possible... The last thing this community needs is more half-baked "send in your money" evangelism to dent its resolve.

HOW WE SEE IT is another large slice of the roadmap that BBRV shares with the community from time to time,  revealed in mostly general terms so that those who might choose to participate in some way are not later shocked by where things are going and how they are getting there. We do not want people to think this is just about some Amiga desktop replacement and that it ends there, or either that it is about servers and home gateways without memory protection, or any of the dubious and poorly researched things Amiga Inc have said in slideshows and voice and print since their first tradeshow.

Your company was either misleading the users or was incapable of researching the simplest technical issues, and bungled the job of leading the community as it proposed to also do. We are attempting to do better. We've made mistakes and we've had obstacles, but we are going to do our best not to misrepresent what our plans are, regardless of the chance of not always looking like we made the full goals. To work with others at this level has a terrible responsibility with it, and we want everybody involved to have open eyes about the risks.

So, yes, I am going to mention Amiga Inc. It is simply the most relevant example of multiple apparent changes of face and strategy - and the community has paid dearly for all of the incidents, those remembered and those forgotten and overlooked. Blaming all downturns on the market for I.T. has been disingenuous. The root of Amiga Inc problems are deeper and more troubled.

[greenboy]

seer,

It's not a bad thing to have an in-house, light footprint OS in constant development, one that incidentally has Amiga 3.1 API capablities to start with (though that also carries its burdens - stability truly comes only from running apps that are REALLY clean). Owning the IP and thus being royalty-free has benefits that some would prefer, and some will also like the simplicity (as you noted).

If one is selling complete solutions in various smaller form factors and besides desktops, this can be of increasing value. Again, thinking in longer terms, MorphOS has the potential to morph into much more than a legacy replacement with extensions... and the developer cross-pollination is desirable as well.

Horses for courses, etc.

[greenboy]

>>It's not a bad thing to have an in-house, light footprint OS in constant development, one that incidentally has Amiga 3.1 API capablities to start with (though that also carries its burdens).

>? I wasn't saying anything about this, I was trying to answer ssollie's answer on why a compagny would want to boot into MOS... I just forgot to put an @ssollie above it..

seer, I was not arguing your point, I understood fully who you replied to. I was simply supplying more, along similar lines : }

>>Again, thinking in longer terms, MorphOS has the potential to morph into much more than a legacy replacement with extensions...

>The potential... That's the keyword.. As long as MOS hasn't reached that potential yet (It may be fine for the average home user now, or the non mainstream user) but for a bussiness it's to risky to gamble on a platform this young and unproven.

Understand MorphOS itself is really not the platform here, not what one is required to gamble on. Pegasos is the platform, and solutions built around it may use MorphOS or use a variety of other OSes. And this allows MorphOS to become more than what it currently is. This allows funding, and cross-pollinating. The potential is not entirely dependent on our little neighborhood's buying habits or needs - which I'm sure many will agree is a GOOD thing ; } - though the intention is to meet those long-desired needs and lots more besides... The MorphOS development team LIVES to that ideal and I doubt anybody will change their obstinant work habits or their ideals.

And as far as gambling and risk: if nobody gambles, nobody wins. The spoils will continue to go to the established high rollers for sure then. But rather than fold and take up careers in knitting there are people who would decide to stay at the game. Maybe it is foolish to try, but there you have it - that kind of foolishness is also usually the start of something new. Without trying and persisting where would the bumblebee or the Wright Bros be?

>Like the dual boot Windows "problem", what would you do ? Boot Linux and run major office packages and industry standard software or boot into an "unknown" OS with very little support so far while the competion and "your" would be customers use the industry standard sollutions ?

We really are not shooting at dual boot machines in a world that really won't care. There are many more interesting things that can be done in developer terms and in business terms - with Linux or any other OS - and the Linux community or companies looking at Linux have known this for years. There have been many products and solutions built around Linuxes or BSDs or QNX, etc, and some have succeeded, and others have been promising enough to make it worthwhile to keep trying. That there are communities behind all of these, and even proven businesses to work with already gives us some hope.

Of COURSE we could fail! But it would be even more foregone if we just stopped seeing goals worth achieving.

[greenboy]

Hey Rodney,

It's really no more about looking for investors than it is about getting people to consider in investing in their own companies, to be partners in various project ventures, as well. At least from my angle. The post is so dense with general information on so many fronts that we could extrapolate about the specifics well into next year. And that is probably desirable - to maybe get beyond this mess of "modest apps running on my desk" mentality and really stir the BIG pot might be the way to get a lot of LESS-modest apps running on our desks, eh? Imaginations are one investment...

We are trying to establish many levels and types of investment (time, money, imaginations). And truthfully the investments with individuals and smaller established Amiga-favoring companies are already going. And then there are collective efforts with high finance beginning, like the one behind GLADIATEUR. This is some ambitious stuff.

Somewhere, we know, there are entrepreneurs or would-be entrepreneurs who are not ready for that yet, but who might have big enough plans and ambitions to work in concert with others on such concepts as the internet ideas alluded to in BBRV's post : }

[greenboy]

omigod bloodline - your agenda is showing! ; }

[greenboy]

iamaboringperson : I have a couple of programs I wouldn't mind submiting. However, ofcourse there are the programs that I will not give away -

Hmmm. Evidently someone didn't write what I read ; } Sheeesh, maybe I didn't read what someone didn't write. Or something.

Do you get fries with that?

...Anyway, commerce is encouraged : }