I already made my hardware exodus to the PC many years ago, it's cheap affordable, and runs all of my old stuff very very well..
As for my OS exodus.. Today I am putting a copy of AROS on one of my machines for good and I plan to stick with that, because it's a community supported product. I am not stuck with the motives of a profit-minded CEO..
Personally though, this is my thoughts on this.. If we look at OS 3.9 and OS 4.0 they were developed by different organizations.. The strategy of having someone else develop a later version of Amiga Inc.'s OS (which might be an OS not even related to current development and hardware) isn't unreasonable considering many companies adopt this kind of strategy.
Amiga Inc. being a viable company has every right to come up with a totally new product and go off in a different direction. It's how you stay in business. I refer to my Amiga computers that I own as Commodore-Amigas.. Because the reality of it, is they were computers made by Commodore that run an OS that was Commodore's design.
You can't blame Mr. Hare for wanting his own company and his own direction. It's a normal business motive.. Don't get stuck in 1985 folks. It's hard to let go of something you love, but sometimes you need to take a look at your spot in the world, and see if it's competitive or that it's viable today. The platform has weathered the storms and as long as people are still using it there will be a reason to talk about it and celebrate it's capabilities.
If you go to Atari.org you will notice there is a lot of people there still involved because they like that technology. They aren't bemoaning the fact that Atari label is now with a games company and the company that made the atari ST is no more..
I think the community can learn from that example and it's still very popular websites and community supported hardware.
@pjhutch: okay silly question why does Amiga need Java.. Microsoft's .Net is proof and Amiga Anywhere is further proof that you can do all of that yourself and build your own virtual machine.. Java YUCK!
-Don
PS Did Commodore try to make money off of selling the OS other than upgrading it? NO! They sold incredible hardware for it's time and provided a decent OS for that hardware.. Did they loose money off of the OS? Most certainly.. Their situation is very unlike today. Amiga is nothing but a brand, who needs to make money? Hyperion and Eyetech, does Amiga need to make money? If someone came out with a compatible OS that ran on the A1 hardware that ran the software they wouldn't even "need" the name Amiga to get customers.. You can't call it Amiga, but can you really say AInc. has much to do with the product (besides the license) anyway?? I think Mr. Hare is very smart to bring whatever they do back "in house".. it's a company directional issue..Maybe he will in essence create a new OS for mobile computing, the internet etc. and call it the "AmigaOS" that has nothing to do with the computer that this board is all about. It's well within their rights, and that's what I took that whole conversation to mean.
smithy wrote:
I'm disappointed, angry, and bewildered... for the at least 5th year we face yet more total uncertainty. I am fed up of all of this. Someone needs to produce a concise statement of WTF is going here, or else this disaster is going to turn into yet another exodus of Amiga users to the Mac or Linux.
smithy
