For the record, I haven't been to the Seattle since 2003 when I attended a game developer conference.. I just won the award this last year for starting a user group in Michigan USA (home of the endangered auto industry). I do make money going out and consulting to enterprise and give individual training in WPF and XAML for mostly interactive advertising companies. And I do create custom controls for businesses that pay me to do so.
Before that I did a lot of Macromedia based web development and before that I worked on several CDROM storybooks for Disney Interactive (Lion King, Winnie the Pooh, and Pocahontas)..
As far as McBill goes, I tried to visit Amiga Inc. back in 2003 when it was in Snowqualmi Falls or supposedly. The old saying "The lights were on but no one was home".. It looked like an abandoned building if you ask me..
I tried to get back into Amiga development also when they called for developers but I got a really nasty snubby response back. Considering my actual Amiga background I expected quite a bit different response than I got..
I really don't think Microsoft would really even see the product as competitive based on marketshare etc..
I still have a fondness for the product and even AOS 4.1. I am just getting more and more disappointed with the community and the realities involved with people who even think you could eek out even a meager living at the moment creating Amiga software.
If you look at the "community bounties" the work isn't commensurate to the amount of work required to produce something. What's there is out of love for the product.
Of course there are a lot of people on this forum who are negative about other platforms, but in the real world people have to eat work and live no matter how much they are diehard Amiga folks or fans of other platforms. I remember and still know people who made a living writing Amiga software. Most of that ended for them about 1994. It's 2009 today and while I'd like to see more, I think we are just about where it can go.
In my mind the folks at Hyperion who did OS 4.x are COMMUNITY HEROES, and they certainly didn't get anything out of doing it so far (except maybe lawsuits.)
To be honest the world is a free place we should all use what works for each of us the best.. I just don't like misinformation spread about anything.. I spent many years close to ten defending Amiga. I still am happy to do it with anyone, it was way ahead of it's time. The world moves on though too..