Sorry to ask that again, but...

[hbarcellos]

I was again thinking: Wouldn't be great to run Amiga OS 4?

Then I started again to search for options: Sam440!

Well, I can buy one but... I would need to find other parts, including a case and then I would need to assemble it. Ok, I know how to assemble dummy modern pc parts but...

Wouldn't it be perfect to buy a MacMini and a fresh copy of OS4? I KNOW THIS IS A BAD, REALLY BAD QUESTION!

But, can someone please explain me why Amiga Inc does not allow the OS to be sold to any machine? Really...

[Flashlab]

Sigh. Only Bill McEwen can answer your question and :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:  :horse:

[Lorraine]

/

[terminator4]

:horse:
somehow i doubt its up to only A Inc to allow this.  Also, I doubt Apple would let them run anything on their hardware legally (if i was them i wouldn't, no need for another competing OS since Apple has their own).  and finally other engineering issues discussed at length at this and other amiga forums...  :horse: lol

[Painkiller]

You can run legally linux on any Mac machine... and MOS is coming to Mac Mini. Which in my opinion is better and more finished product than OS4.1

[hbarcellos]

There's a lot of information on this thread.... Thanks.
Specially this one:

"It is quite a dilemma for those of us who want to do the right thing and would gladly pay for AOS4 if we had something we could run it on, knowing that someone out there right now is probably successfully running AOS4 on their MacMini, or other PPC Mac."

So... the word "lawsuit" appears several times. Is there a common sense about what it all about? Something related to licensing Amiga?

The Amiga brand is now from that Cell Phone game development company right? They have objections about Amiga OS 4.0?

If there's some legal stuff going on, preventing OS4 to be licensed to other machines like the MacMini, shouldn't also be preventing OS4 to be sold to classic Amigas with PPC and/or Sam440?

1) Who receives money every time an OS4 copy is sold?
2) This group/company (Hyperion?) want's to earn money selling the OS or selling hardware?
3) IF they want to make money selling hardware, they're making a terrible job! Why not just pack a complete set into an A1200-like case type (which is by the way leading the best looking Amiga model pool)?

[klx300r]

maybe one day Hyperion will release an offical Moana for the Mac Mini but right now it's  :horse:

[hbarcellos]

Just found that on arstechnica:

"The elephant in the room

At the time of writing, Hyperion is still in the middle of a lawsuit brought by the company that contracted the development of the OS, Amiga Incorporated. The lawsuit hinges on the original OS4 development contract, signed in the wake of the dotcom crash of 2001, when Amiga Inc. had lost its funding and did not appear to be financially viable going forward. The deal specified that if Amiga Inc. were to declare bankruptcy, Hyperion Entertainment (which prior to the development of OS4 specialized primarily in porting games from Windows to the Mac, Amiga, and Linux) would gain full control of the rights to the OS.

Amiga Incorporated survived, but only through some sleight of hand that involved being purchased by a shell entity known as KMOS, which acquired Amiga's assets piecemeal and then changed its name to Amiga Incorporated (Washington) once the original Amiga Incorporated (Delaware) dissolved. Now that we're in the middle of the second dotcom boom, the new Amiga Inc. has additional funding sources and wants control of the OS back. Hyperion, on the other hand, maintains that the "escape clause" should be in effect.

Making matters worse, the original hardware manufacturer, Eyetech, that produced the AmigaOne and AmigaOne Micro motherboards ran into trouble when a crucial chip manufacturer (Taiwan-based MAI Logic) went bankrupt. No new AmigaOne boards are being produced, and while Amiga Inc. has announced that new, licensed, hardware for OS4 is underway, such announcements have been mere vapor so far.
Not giving up

Such a dismal situation would mean the end of most computer platforms, but Hyperion is not throwing in the towel. Not all is doom and gloom: the OS is solid and evolving, and there are many places it could go. The announcement of support for the SAM440 motherboards is just a start: there is a large existing base of PowerPC-based Macintoshes that could easily be made to run OS 4.1, and the low RAM requirements of the OS would make it perfect for running on Sony's PlayStation 3 or on any number of mobile platforms. After all, hardware is typically the easier side of the platform equation: it's the software side that takes the time. OS 4.0 was already a quantum leap forward for the Amiga operating system, but 4.1 takes it to the next level. "

[/size][/i]

 So, looks like the Cell Phone Game Company is fighting to gain control over the Amiga OS again?
 That makes sense, but, why it prevents them to release other ports? It should prevent them to sell anything for any platform...
 Maybe they're holding other ports because those would generate real profits!
 :rtfm:

[Piru]

@terminator4

I doubt Apple would let them run anything on their hardware legally (if i was them i wouldn't, no need for another competing OS since Apple has their own).

That is just laughable excuse. You've bought the hardware, and as such you have right to run whatever software you want on it. What apple can do, however, is to try disable hacked versions of their own software (read: hosing unlocked iphones on firmware update for example). Clearly this does not apply to 3rd party OSes.

My Mac Mini is running Linux and MorphOS in addition to Mac OS X. I've yet to hear from Apple legal department.

finally other engineering issues discussed at length at this and other amiga forums

What issues exactly? I don't see any issues.

As far as I can tell the only reason OS4 doesn't run on Mac Mini is because Hyperion decided against it. Clearly it can't be any licensing issue (see Sam440). I won't even try to speculate what the reason is.

[Trev]

Whenever I come across any language in a license agreement that attempts to limit my fair use rights, I ignore it. Copyright law, both in the United States and abroad, has been twisted beyond recognition. Copyright owners have no less control over their works in a digital format than they did in other formats, and the fact that most western nations (or perhaps just the US) spend more on copyright enforcement and contract litigation than they do on healthcare or feeding and clothing the poor speaks volumes about our misguided priorities.

[zylesea]

at hbarcellos

If you like to go the Mac Mini route, use MorphOS. IMO the smarter choice over OS 4.x anyway.

[hbarcellos]

Where can I find a real good comparison between MorphOS and Amiga OS 4? Feature by feature and etc...

And, is Mac Mini is officially supported or there's some hacking in the process?

And, finally, only Mac is supported? I have a really nice PowerMac G4 with an nvidia card here... in the closet...
 

[hbarcellos]

Just saw that: http://www.morphos.de/hardware.html

Only Radeons and 3dfx. That looks common on Amiga OSes. Just for curiosity why nvidia is not supported?

[Hans_]

hbarcellos wrote:
Just saw that: http://www.morphos.de/hardware.html

Only Radeons and 3dfx. That looks common on Amiga OSes. Just for curiosity why nvidia is not supported?

NVidia refuse to give anyone the developer documentation required to write a driver, and their own driver team won't develop for a platform with so few users (it's just a waste of money and time for them). It is theoretically possible to reverse engineer the drivers, but, seeing as AMD (ATI) are more cooperative, why bother?

Hans

[hbarcellos]

Didn't knew that. Actually some time ago, when I was playing with FreeBSD on my x86 box I found that only NVIDIA had 3d acceleration support. And I remember reading somewhere that Nvidia had better support to free operating systems. Now, you're telling me something different...