OSNews aren't really impressed with anything, to be honest.
Can you blame them? I despise Windows and have been looking for an alternative platform since I stopped using my Amiga as a primary system in 1995. So far, I haven't found anything that I like. I use Windows because I hate everything else I've seen even more.
I've tried about 20 different OS's. I worked on two versions of UNIX, as well as VMS as a computer science student (and hated every second of it). I've tried 8 distributions of Linux, as well as QNX, and they did nothing for me. They just feel like UNIX clones, and I'd rather not dig through web pages for 5 hours just to find out what a simple error message like "Signal 11" means. A good interface explains things like that. I've tried a few oddball OS's here an there, and they are all kernel experiments with no serious interfaces in development. I despise OS9 Macs because they crash too much, are slow as dirt, don't multitask, and have no shell. Mac hardware has always been a total ripoff, so MacOS X is not an option. Besides, I'm well aware of the way Apple does business. I'm currently learning OS/2 so I can keep the cash register at work running properly. Naturally, I also used AmigaOS since version 1.2, and every version of Windows since Win95 and NT4. Almost every machine I use at work runs NT4, and I must have re-installed Win95 about 50 times, so I'm quite familiar with that system.
Of all of these, OS/2 and AmigaOS were the only ones I actually liked, and I still have issues with OS/2. AmigaOS was just such a great system at the time, if only as a single-user machine. It was one of the few OS's that didn't treat people as either idiots or technical majors. It was just clean and logical. A GUI-driven system with a respectable shell. The design of the OS had some faults, but nothing that couldn't be corrected and improved. It was just well thought out, from the user's perspective. Hell, Windows still doesn't allow a method for defining paths properly, a feat easily achieved with the Amiga "Assign" command. The Windows "Subst" command doesn't cut it, and makes lots of apps freak out.
I hate to say it, but sometimes I think Microsoft is the only current software developer that really knows what they are doing. Most of the really talented OS interface designers are either working for MS, or they died when Commodore went belly up. Linux developers have NO originality at all, and as much as they hate Microsoft, they seem to be doing a good job of copying whatever MS does. They fix only what interests them, personally (working for free tends to lead to that). Besides, I'd rather pay for software that's developed properly, rather than run to forums every time I run into a stupid problem with free software.
Too bad Microsoft is just loading up all their systems with spam, scams, and backdoors these days. They have too much incentive to add new features that appeal to market slime, so even putting a pop-up blocker in IE is too much to ask. The future of Windows may be dim, but don't think for a second that MS doesn't have a "new" system based on .NET and XML in the near future. Heaven help us.
Less innovation, more intuition, please. Linux just doesn't cut it, and I have no faith in Amiga, anymore. I'd like to work on an OS project, developing GUI's and writing documentation, but I don't have the technical skills for that just yet. Looks like I'm stuck with Windows until I get my programming skills up to snuff.
To answer the topic question of "What's Happening with Amiga", well... nothing at the moment, as usual. AmigaOS4 is really designed to the small number of existing Amiga users. With such a limited hardware base, there won't be any new software for it. Don't hold your breath.
