MorphOS for AmigaONE

[downix]

@BADHead

Isn't the Amiga1200 and Amiga4000 enough for MorphOS to run on for Amigas?

[downix]

@kgrach

Ok, where are you getting this information, because it's 180 degrees off of the information I have.  Genesi is the group that has offered Hyperion the docs, even a free board, for getting AOS4 onto the Pegasos.  Hyperion is the group that has flatly refused cooperation.

[downix]

@kgrach

Believe what you will.  Mr. Buck has tried in both private and public to secure AOS4 for the Pegasos.  As Genesi is a hardware company, this makes perfect sence.  Or, as Bill Buck put it himself, "It would guarantee the sale of 400 more boards."  400 boards is a decent enough quantity to give the Genesi management incentive to overcome the personal dislike of Hyperion and give them a developers board and the documentation needed to get a port over.

And huh?  What Genesi employees could have done squat with AmigaOS on the classic line?  

[downix]

@jahc

What license is needed?  From whom?  And why?

License says "giving rights to."  If Genesi is "getting a license to AmigaOS 4" then that means that Genesi is getting the source code *and* the rights to that source code.  That is not what anyone is discussing here.  They are discussing the current license holder, Hyperion, porting it to the Pegasos.  Genesi is not porting any OS's to the Pegasos, hence no license is needed for these OS's.  It is up to the owners of these OS's to decide if they want their software on the Pegasos platform or not.  It's not up to Genesi to decide that for them.  If Hyperion chooses to not port their OS to the Pegasos, it is their decision.  No license from AInc can change that.

[downix]

@Amigaguy

You are quite right, Genesi is the reason there will not be a port to the AmigaONE.... except that morphOS already runs on the Mai Teron boards that the AmigaONE is a copy of.  Only eyetech's choice to use a proprietory bootROM system rather than an industry standard firmware is preventing MorphOS from running on the AmigaONE, so I understand.  

[downix]

Last time I checked U-Boot was OpenSource...

OpenSource doesn't mean it's non-proprietory.  All it means is that it's open-source.  Can you find uBoot on other retail-box PPC machines?  Nope.  While it might be open source, it is also a proprietory, that is it does not follow any of the established PowerPC conventions (PREP, CHRP nor POP).

[downix]

Afaik U-Boot is GPL and supports other cpus too (like ARM)

Doesn't make it a standard now, does it?

There are 3 clearly established PowerPC platforms, PREP, CHRP and POP.  Anything outside of those are, by definition, proprietory.  The Pegasos is a CHRP machine, an open standard platform.  The AmigaONE is not PREP, CHRP nor POP, it is Mai's proprietory design, only differing from CHRP by it's boot-ROM, in this case the open-source uBoot.

[downix]

@HyperionMP

http://playground.sun.com/pub/p1275/

Read up before you open your mouth again and have to insert your foot.

The IEEE 1275 booting mechanism used by the Pegasos (commonly called Open Firmware with the implimentation used by the Pegasos called Smart Firmware) is an industry standard system originally proposed by Sun Microsystems and Apple Computers, and used by millions of machines in the US alone.  

In other words, it's not proprietory.

Now, yours and others claim is that if the system uses GPL software, it is non-proprietory.  Well then, please feel free to rebuttal my arguement:

TiVO

A clearly proprietory system, running GPL'd software.  

So deal with it, the AmigaONE is a proprietory system based on a non-standard BIOS while the Pegasos is a CHRP platform using the IEEE-1275 Open Firmware based boot system.  And what's the difference, really?

The boot ROM.

[downix]

@olegil

Don't know what Open Firmware is?  Glad you asked.

Open Firmware, also known as IEEE-1275, is an industry standard firmware, that is ROM-based booting system, used by hundreds of manufacturers worldwide to support SPARC, PowerPC, MIPS, 68k, Coldfire, ARM, PA-RISC, Alpha as well as other lesser-known processors.  The root of the system is the programming language FORTH, well known for it's performance and CPU-agnostic approach to handling tasks.  

Sun has good documentation on Open Firmware at:  http://playground.sun.com/pub/p1275/

Using the public documentation, one should be able to program any drivers needed to make their hardware "Open Firmware compatable."  

The IEEE-1275 implimentation used by the Pegasos is called Smart Firmware, and is made availible from Codegen, Inc. a world-renouned supplier of Open Firmware for 3rd party platforms.  (Apple, Sun as well as others use their own implimentations)

Any other questions?

[downix]

@HyperionMP

GPL'd software itself can be used as proprietory, as TiVO shows.  This is the case in the AmigaONE.  While sure, anyone can download Linux and run it on their machines, it doesn't allow them to run the TiVO's special software, does it?  Just because someone can install uBoot doesn't mean that suddenly they can run AmigaOS4 now, does it?

[downix]

Ya know, I really feel like showing off my full nerdiness tonight.

Ben Hermans, you want full docs on how to port your OS to a CHRP platform, then let's start at the source:

PowerPC(tm) Microprocessor Common Hardware Reference Platform: A System Architecture
ISBN 1-55860-394-8
Published by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc.

they can be reached at:
1-415-392-2665

In addition, it can also be obtained from IBM at:
+39-39-600-4455

Please refer to the above documentation for full understanding of the CHRP bindings for the IEEE-1275-1994 Open Firmware.

[downix]

Ya know, Ben Hermans, ya really got me to thinking.

So here is the answer to your problems:

http://www.openbios.info/

An open-source implimentation of Open Firmware.  While under-finished, it is no more underfinished than PPCBoot was when you started.

[downix]

@uncharted

the original offer was to send it to Hyperion IIRC.  After being rebuffed, it's been reduced to either a) coming to paris or b) Ben Hermans showing up at one of the Amiga shows and bbrv handing it over in-person.

But you are right, the major issue is that of ego.  The "My way is the right way" attitude of the Amiga community in general.

And without that ego, there wouldn't be an Amiga community at all, it is what defines us.

[downix]

@amigamad

Actually they tried to contact Hyperion privately at first, but to no responce.  As a last resort, they brought it to public, so as to say "hey, at least we tried."

[downix]

@HyperionMP

Rather than fight you Ben, I decided on instead focusing on our different viewpoints.

If Open Firmware is proprietory, then so is: PCI, AGP, USB, Firewire, AC97

As they all obey the same rules as open firmware:  establish a standard that allows any company to make their product able to work within the standard.  

In fact, that is what defines a standard.

But, if you'd like a clarification that will halt this arguement:

SmartFirmware is a proprietory piece of software on the Pegasos motherboard that follows the Open Firmware standard, enabling it to configure the system, add expantion cards and even boot up OS's in accordance with the Open Firmware specification and is guaranteed by the Open Firmware standards group.

uBoot is an open source piece of software on the AmigaONE motherboard that has no standards body behind it, thereby not guaranteeing it to work with any product, peripheral card, expantion port nor even an OS thereby making the implimentation on the AmigaONE proprietory to the AmigaONE.

Unless, of course, Hyperion is willing to guarantee uBoot will do the same things Open Firmware's trade association does, namely state that any firmware that follows the defined spec will work exactly how the spec details.  If you'd like to set up a trade association for uBoot, a friend of mine does this for a living and I'd be more than happy to pass along his contact information to you.

In the end, as with all things, it depends on your point of view.  I view things in terms of how they communicate.  Now, I might be wrong here, but you appear to view them in terms of ownership.  Neither viewpoint is invalid, but they don't see eye to eye either.