@Bill Hoggett:
- They would have to pay a license fee, which even when passed onto customers, would hurt their bottom line.
You are
assuming that they would have to pay a license fee, I doubt that you know more about that issue than Rogue. They could aswell have to guarantee a minimum amount of sales to Hyperion (as in: "you want OS4 on your hardware? you'll have to buy XX copies in advance").
And even if they have to pay a license fee: How is paying a license fee any different than paying your own programmers to adopt OS4 to your hardware ("Drivers should be supplied by the hardware manufacturer")?
- They would have to give Hyperion detailed schematics of their hardware.
And that's a bad thing because...? They certainly would want to have Linux running on their hardware (PPC hardware not running Linux wouldn't run much software at all), so their hardware docs wouldn't be the biggest secret anyway. And there's that thing called "NDA" - you make it sound as if they would have to disclose important business secrets to the whole world.
- They would have to manage first-line support for any problems on their system, including software they have no involvement in. This would include training staff for the purpose.
Are you suggesting that a manufacturer should port OS4 to his own hardware ("Drivers should be supplied by the hardware manufacturer")
without training his support staff? That idea sounds scary to me.
And as far as I can tell, everybody who sells desktop computers to end users manages first-line support on its own, regardless of the operating system running on the hardware.
- They would have to take on the burden of administrating their customers as two distinct groups, meaning they would be administering two products instead of one.
Right. So a manufacturer (or a dealer or whoever else may apply for a license) does the maths and either comes to the conclusion that it's worth the effort (and affiliated risks) or it isn't.
Let's assume there would be two or three hardware platforms (in addition to the A1) that would be capable of running OS4. Which scenario is more likely to get OS4 ported to all of them:
1. Hyperion (a company with three full-time employees and less money in its bank account than Amiga Inc.) ports OS4 to all of them (financing the port upfront, taking all the financial risks involved with porting the OS), handles end-user support for all five platforms (Classic Amiga + A1 + 3) and still continues to develop new improved versions of AmigaOS.
2. Porting OS4 to each platform is supported - both financially (e.g. by guarateeing a certain amount of sales to Hyperion) and in terms of marketing and end user support - by a third party.
- They would gain an unproven OS based on IP whose future is uncertain.
Sigh. If it's doomed anyway, why should
anybody (including Hyperion) bother about porting it to new hardware?
That's like saying: "Only fools would mess with that crap. Hyperion are fools, that's why they are the only logical choice."
- They would gain a couple of hundred extra customers at best.
I guess every remaining Amiga dealer would be very happy about "a couple of hundred extra customers at best".
And you're completely ignoring the fact that both Alan Redhouse and Ben Hermans are pretty busy hyping AmigaOS' appeal to the B2B market (embedded appliances, info terminals etc.).
