Executive Update - Amiga Status Announcement

[Seehund]

Ivan,

OK, i think you have the misconception that Amiga will charge OEM's to sell Amiga capable boards. That simply isnt true.

Unless you have read the complete licensing terms you don't know anymore about that than the rest of us mere users here. It doesn't matter much anyways if the license itself costs anything.

The licenseing is free to anyone and all they must do is ensure the bios is flashed with the Amiga specific bits n bytes.

And get the boards approved by Amiga Inc. And get themselves and their combined software/hardware support organisation approved by Amiga Inc. And most importantly bother to apply for a license to market their boards at a tiny Amiga market.
And in the Amiga One case it's not a flashable BIOS according to Alan Redhouse. You need the ROM chip.

It is part of the OS as a whole and won't run without it.

It's not part of the OS. It's an OpenFirmware BIOS with some proprietary extensions that the OS is looking for. It's just copy protection. Amiga OS could run perfectly fine without those extensions.

That's why you either buy the OS for your PPC system and have your rom flashed or you opt for a non-Amiga PPC system and buy a kit later on to allow AmigaOS to run.

No, no, no, no, [color=FF0000]NO![/color][/b][/u] If it only were so well! You have to buy the OS together with the hardware, and the OS will only be shipped with licensed hardware from licensed distributors. This is what's so horribly insane.
The only exception is for the old CS/BlizzardPPC boards and the pre-ordered Amiga One G3-SEs, where what you describe is valid (and for the A1G3-SE you buy a ROM chip, BIOS images for flashing will not be available other than for the pirates).

This is also a far cry from the M$ 'tactics' that some people have thrown out.

Well, Microsoft doesn't require every distributor of Windows compatible hardware to be bundling Windows (though I'm sure they'd love to), and they sell Windows separately, and they don't care about who makes Windows compatible hardware since they, like Amiga Inc., are a software company (not counting the X-Box and computer peripherals). So I guess you're right... It's worse than Microsoft's tactics. *shudder'

[Ivan]

>Unless you have read the complete licensing terms you don't know anymore about that than the rest of us mere users here. It doesn't matter much anyways if the license itself costs anything.

Accoring to Ben over on Ann.lu, this is infact the case. No OEM pays for the license. Then again Ann *IS* an unmoderated forum (well the unmoderated section at least) and there are no real user accounts there. I'll leave it to someone else to clarify for us. For now i'll drop the point and move on, as you said, it's irellevent, and all OEM's would pack thier business costs into the pricetag anyway.


>And get the boards approved by Amiga Inc.

Not a problem, if it's a good board people will buy it. To date i haven't heard of a single design being refused.


>And get themselves and their combined software/hardware support organisation approved by Amiga Inc.

Here, i may agree with you. Reluctantly, but i do agree that this could be an added cost that might push off a perspective vendor. Then again, how is Eyetech organizing such a huge support network? I think this requirement is far too vague for either of us to make educated comment on so, i just won't comment.
But if i were to venture a guess, (here i go, i said i wouldnt comment didnt i?) i'd guess this is showing proof that the OEM has some form of warranty on the hardware they package up as an amiga product, as well as possibly some OS purchase/replacement scheme(maybe). It remains to be seen. But there have been horribly unreliable HW vendors in the Amiga scene before, i tend to think of this as a step forward.


>And most importantly bother to apply for a license to market their boards at a tiny Amiga market.

The process seemes simple enough. Here's our mobo, here's our signature, this is how we will support users. And yes, but Amiga has always been a small market. I don't mind. If another OEM can find new sales so much the better.


>And in the Amiga One case it's not a flashable BIOS according to Alan Redhouse. You need the ROM chip.

This still doesn't negate the possibility of a CD packaged with a ROM. The bios is in all probability socketed. Do correct me if im wrong. Hey i'm waiting for one myself so i haven't seen the board either.


>It's not part of the OS. It's an OpenFirmware BIOS with some proprietary extensions that the OS is looking for. It's just copy protection. Amiga OS could run perfectly fine without those extensions.

It *IS* part of the OS. Those "proprietary extensions" are in the OS now, like it or not and calling it 'only a copy protection' does not exclude it from the OS package. Amiga is entitled to put any anti-piracy measures they feel fit into thier OS. Neither you or i have the right to complain, we don't own it.


>No, no, no, no, NO! If it only were so well! You have to buy the OS together with the hardware, and the OS will only be shipped with licensed hardware from licensed distributors. This is what's so horribly insane.
>The only exception is for the old CS/BlizzardPPC boards and the pre-ordered Amiga One G3-SEs, where what you describe is valid (and for the A1G3-SE you buy a ROM chip, BIOS images for flashing will not be available other than for the pirates).

*sigh* To date i havent read a thing that says a CD+BIOS pack can't and won't be sold. In fact, quite the opposite. A CD+BIOS package will be offered by Eyetech (if there is a demand) for the people who buy a bogg standard bios with thier PPC mobo, so they may legaly place a bios with the amiga specific copy protection codes into thier system. This was announced by Eyetech themselves and i don't think they are about to sell pirate copys of the bios/os on the sly.

And yes, we are all aware of the skill of todays hackers. Unfortunatly, it would be a more costly solution than purchasing a legal copy. Something that pleases me no end.


>Well, Microsoft doesn't require every distributor of Windows compatible hardware to be bundling Windows (though I'm sure they'd love to), and they sell Windows separately, and they don't care about who makes Windows compatible hardware since they, like Amiga Inc., are a software company (not counting the X-Box and computer peripherals). So I guess you're right... It's worse than Microsoft's tactics. *shudder'

BUT BUT BUT Eyetech are fully within thier rights to refuse to ship a single AmigaOne and still sell the hardware design to anyone they please. The only exception being, if you add AMIGA'S (cant stress that enough) "proprietary extensions" to Eyetech's hardware for any purpose, be that to run OS4 or not, then by contract you must package the rest of the OS along with it and then pay Ainc on a sale of thier OS. (while taking a slice for themselves no doubt) This agreement only applies if your selling Amiga Systems. If you sell the same hardware devoid of all Amiga bios codes, extensions and OS, then they have no say in who or where you sell the boards. No corporate stranglehold here.




Ya know, i love this place. You can have a decient debate/discussion without someone comeing out of the woodwork to pee on your bonfire.

Ivan.

[Seehund]

Ivan,

We seem to agree on that hardware licensing is not a bad thing in itself. I think it's a Good Thing that a prospective Amiga OS user can buy a complete package from a dealer who is guaranteed to be good and provides support for the complete package.

The main point I'm trying to push is that you should be able to buy any damn compatible hardware you wish to buy and from whomever you want, licenced ditributor or not! Amiga Inc. are a software company and thus I should be able to buy my OS from them separately  to install on my hardware.
There simply will not be enough licensed hardware manufacturers/distributors around who will accept terms of selling their hardware bundled with an OS and providing software support and providing a separate product line if they want to sell to the bigger non-Amiga market to ensure competition and provide every piece of current and future Amiga compatible hardware at sensible prices.

This will hurt PPC development, PPC pricing, Amiga OS consumers and Amiga Inc themselves.

It *IS* part of the OS. Those "proprietary extensions" are in the OS now, like it or not and calling it 'only a copy protection' does not exclude it from the OS package. Amiga is entitled to put any anti-piracy measures they feel fit into thier OS. Neither you or i have the right to complain, we don't own it.

If the BIOS + Amiga OS specific BIOS extensions are part of the OS it's yet another reason not to bundle it with the hardware. It should be available separately from the hardware, together with the OS.
I have a right to complain as a customer, even if nothing I say will change their minds. I will buy Amiga OS and as a paying customer I'll have to buy the hardware which Amiga The Software company wants me to buy, from the distributor they tell me to buy it from. The pirates on the other hand - they'll download dc-amigaos4.iso and dc-amigabios.img and then do what I should be able to do; choose the hardware they want.

To date i havent read a thing that says a CD+BIOS pack can't and won't be sold.

Do these quotes sound familiar?:
"the AmigaOS only being available to licensed solution providers for the shipping of combined hardware and software solutions"
"AmigaOS4 and all future versions will ship only on those hardware products to which Amiga Inc has specifically granted a license"
"For hardware which is not capable of being used in conjunction with Amiga WB 3.1 (such as the AmigaOne) we will require, as part of the licence conditions, that a copy of Amiga OS is purchased with all boards sold that are capable of running it."
Add to that what Ben Hermans, Gary Peake and Alan Redhouse have written in various forums.

In fact, quite the opposite. A CD+BIOS package will be offered by Eyetech (if there is a demand) for the people who buy a bogg standard bios with thier PPC mobo, so they may legaly place a bios with the amiga specific copy protection codes into thier system.

I know, and pre-ordered A1G3-SE's from Eyetech are the only possible exclusion from the bundling policy, together with OS4 for CS/BlizzardPPC.

Eyetech are fully within thier rights to refuse to ship a single AmigaOne and still sell the hardware design to anyone they please.

I don't think they're allowed to sell somebody else's hardware design.

If you sell the same hardware devoid of all Amiga bios codes, extensions and OS, then they have no say in who or where you sell the boards. No corporate stranglehold here.

Exactly, that's why hardware distributors and manufacturers won't bother with the Amiga market. The stranglehold is applied to the throats of us Amiga OS users who don't give a flying fsck about from whom we buy *our* hardware or whether that hardware is licensed or not. It's our market that loses competition. It's our market that won't grow as fast as it could have, if at all. It's us who have to pay for all this stupidity.

I wish everyone would stop speaking of the A1G3-SE as if it was the only and final solution. There might be and come boards that don't have ROM sockets or incompatible ROM sockets. Their distributors might not be interested in Amiga at all, even though their hardware would be Amiga OS compatible. And so on and so on. Are people so starving for new hardware that they'll settle for this one specific motherboard from one single distributor for all future without any foresight and rational thought? Is every misconduct and ugly trick and even legally dubious business practice which ultimately will backfire at yourselves in one or more ways accepted and forgiven because this one specific piece of hardware will have "Amiga" in its name and it happens to run a certain number of multiples faster than your ancient 68k system held together by duct tape and paper clips?

Ya know, i love this place. You can have a decient debate/discussion without someone comeing out of the woodwork to pee on your bonfire.

I dunno, people are already throwing things like "idiots", "pirates" and "vicious paranoia" around.

[edit: forgot to close a "quote" tag]