Petition: AmigaOS distribution policies and PPC hardware

[Seehund]

 There's a petition aimed at Amiga Inc. set up at www.petitiononline.com/amigaos/ for all those who disagree with Amiga Inc's presented plans regarding compulsory OS/hardware bundling and licensing.

An excerpt from the petition:

On April 12th, 2002, you, Amiga Inc., published your plans regarding distribution policies for the forthcoming AmigaOS4 in an "Executive Update" on your web site.

In short, what you say and what we the undersigned object against is this:

* Any hardware capable of running AmigaOS must first be modified with "AmigaOS specific extensions" to its "boot ROM" in order to be allowed to run AmigaOS.

* Such hardware and its distributors must be approved and licensed by Amiga Inc. and the hardware distributors must also sell and support AmigaOS4.

* AmigaOS will only be available bundled with such hardware.

We think that the above will seriously hurt AmigaOS users, the POP/PPC hardware market and thus ultimately you, Amiga Inc., yourselves.

To read the entire petition and sign it, please click here.

Before those imagining sides, factions, camps and personal enemies everywhere start commenting, it must be emphasised that this poll is not intended to "promote" anything else than the success of AmigaOS, the POP/PPC hardware market, free choice and ethical business practices

[Crispy_Beef]

Well I ain't signing it.  I think what Amiga is doing is absolutely fine.  They are protecting themselves.

Having the AOS extensions in the BIOS doesn't stop people from running other OS's, it just stops AOS running on boards that aren't approved.  And a manufacturer can't expect to use the Amiga name if they haven't applied for a licence.

[Argo]

I concur with CB. If you want to market your product under the Amiga name then you have to follow Amiga, Inc.'s guidlines and policies. There's nothing stoping a manufacturer or retailer from producing or selling a POP board and selling two different versions of it. One under the Amiga name with the specified bios hooks and the same board with a different bios. It's just that the board sold under the Amiga name has to licenced by Amiga, Inc.

[Elektro]

As far as I understand this licensing business this is not at all about selling boards under Amiga's name. It is about EVERY amiga os capable board having to have a license.

[Argo]

Obviously, that can't be right. You can't force someone to licence your product from you.
oh, If the board has a ROM on it that doesn't have the OS4.0 hooks in it, guess what? It's not an Amiga OS capable board as the OS won't boot due to the hooks it's looking for won't be there.
Eyetech can take the A1G3SE board with a plain Power Rom (by Softex, Inc.) and sell it whatever way they want, call it anything but Amiga Whatever. If the put the BIOS with the AOS 4.0 hooks in it, then they have to have a licence from Amiga, Inc. Though, anyone selling an Amiga branded board would have to get the licence first to get access to the special BIOS. It's not like that can just run out and get a copy then sell boards with that special BIOS. They have to get the licence first. That the point they have to want to sell an Amiga branded board.
Admitiedly, the Amiga, Inc. statement about their licencing is abit confusing, if you take it literally.
Not to mention that a two sentance long paragraph is rather insuffient to describe the complexity of thier licencing. As it covers classic Amigas, Classic Amiga PPC addons, new boards, etc.

[Seehund]

Crispy_Beef:

it just stops AOS running on boards that aren't approved.

Exactly. That's not "just", that's a software company trying to tell hardware distributors and users what to do. Amiga Inc. do not have the weight to throw around to do such a thing successfully. It's an unnecessary obstacle without technological relevance against having AmigaOS running on as many hardware products as possible available from as many distributors as possible.

And a manufacturer can't expect to use the Amiga name if they haven't applied for a licence.

Well, of course not! The point is that nobody should have to license and use this name to begin with in order to sell their own hardware, regardless of what OS the buyers are using. If someone wants to use the Amiga trademark or sell OS/hardware bundles they should of course have to get a license, but not just to sell their hardware, regardless if their customer uses OS X, Y or Z. Please read the petition before you decide to sign it or not.

Please STOP thinking about only two pieces of hardware called Pegasos and AmigaOne. If there was no compulsory licensing, no compulsory BIOS modifications, and no compulsory OS/hardware bundling,  you could choose unrestricted between these two and whatever other POP mobos there are and might be.
 Before someone comes along and says "but AOS must still be compatible with the hardware...", yes of course. But if a hardware distributor must modify potentially compatible hardware, get a license and start selling OS4, then the chances that OS4 will ever run on that hardware are drastically reduced before any compatibility work can even be planned for OS4.

[hnl_dk]

I will not do anything against Amiga! I trust Amiga, untill they fail!

I will not do anything against Hyperion! I trust Hyperion, and I trust them to bring AmigaOS to the PowerPC platform! They have made grade things for the Amgia platform "in the past", and with their knowledge with other operationg systems give them a basis for porting the AmigaOS! I trust Hyperion "Totally"!

I will not do anything against Eyetech! I trust Eyetech. Eyetech has made grade tnings for the Amiga and could make some great hardware - I hope they will ;o)

[System]

Amiga OS should be sold separately. Who cares if it runs on machines some other company is saying is 'Amiga compatible'? That translates into Amiga OS boxes--UNITS--being sold.

Of course, Amiga should cover themselves, insofar  as  warranties go with the software. If the hardware that is 'Amiga compatible' runs the Amiga OS but the hardware vendor doesn't have the stickers and license...say, 'powered by Amiga' logo, then Amiga isn't obligated to make sure the OS runs on that hardware and the hardware vendor is responsible... Amiga can't mother every piece of hardware out there; but they can examine and approve  and ordain with licenses those hardware vendors which approach them and want the OS to run on their machine--and thereby provide a better sense of stability and assurances.

I don't see benefit of Amiga being against Amiga clones (on PPC or x86); but I have said before they should have a focal Flagship. They can set the minimum specs (as I thought the Zico specs were), and greater support/warranties/distribution could be given to those who obtain licenses and so forth from Amiga.

The Amiga OS box should list minimum required hardware--it's no longer a case of someone buying the Amiga OS and thinking it is only  going to go on an 'Amiga'.

I just have this idea of being able to buy Amiga OS (thinking  5.0 here, so don't have a cow) and it says on the box 'installable on PPC, x86.." etc. and proceeds to  list minimum specs.  It says it includes an embedded AmigaAnywhere  module (which will already  exist on other platforms and such as an interesting 'lure' and 'programming target' that will bring back other software), and says about an emulation module that it 'can run almost all previous Classic Amiga programs' and recognize Amiga  floppies on a regular PC disk drive (or be able to use real Amiga floppies with optional PCI card or something)... :-)

Anyway, I think that would be the ballpark.

If someone wanted to make a deal with Abit for a  batch of KR7A-133 motherboards, and build an 'Amiga' by adding a Matrox G550 video card, Creative SoundBlaster Audigy Platinum sound card, and a few other things...and call it 'Amiga compatible' in advertising, there shouldn't be anything wrong with that (if the new Amiga OS will run on that hardware)... but if they're selling the Amiga OS with it, surely they'd have have a license, unless they just happened to be carrying the OS as  part of their stock. But if they're pushing an 'Amiga clone', I'd think they'd need a license from Amiga to be a vendor, etc.

I don't think I'll sign the petition. I do agree with somee things in it, though--Amiga shouldn't close itself off to some things that will get it more sales where there is no harm to it.

I thought Merlancia were producing systems that could run Amiga OS, BeOS, Linux, QNX, etc. Sort of OS-agnostic systems.

Amiga OS is supposed to be CPU-agnostic...at least in its eventual incarnation.

--EyeAm
"Sir, I beg you...don't do this. The catapult didn't work and, well, you've got your arm in a sling and your head is all in bandages. This rocket is simply out of the question. Surely, there are better ways to obtain our goal of getting the secret Amiga plans."
"Soldier, I've come too far to let technicalities get in the way. Any and all means necessary will be employed to stop those Amigans from producing. Now stand back..."
{{{click}}} [hummm] {{{click}}}}...
WHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOSHHHHHH!!!
{{{BOOM!}}}
"Ooo, pretty... It's a shame he didnt' wait til 4th of July. Greater shame he forgot this parachute."

[4pLaY]

man how much more is this community going to sink? im so sick of all this anti this and that crap it makes me puke! grow up kids.

[Argo]

How do we then certify that said software and hardware are going to work together? People like to know that what they buy is going to work. From the software producers POV they want to make sure that more than a few people buy it only to share it with the rest of the world. I don't think anyone would like Microsoft style software audits.

[Argo]

I believe it's the OS that's claiming to be "Amiga OS compatable" this other companies machine only claims to run it.

[System]

All this whining about something that, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't even exist yet.  Jeez...  Just shut up and wait until there's something tangible.

[ShadesOfGrey]

I'm hoping that pretty much what you've described will eventually happen.  For right now though I'm going to give Amiga Inc. the benefit of the doubt.  I believe Amiga and Hyperion need the current license to protect themselves.  I would think it irresponsible of Amiga/Hyperion to not insure that a hardware vendors products designed and licensed to run Amiga OS will support Amiga OS.  I also don't think it utterly unreasonable for Amiga Inc. to ask a hardware vendor, initially, to bundle AOS with their hardware product.

I expect that by AOS version 4.5-4.6 Amiga/Hyperion will include support for non-Amiga branded hardware with OEM licensed copies of Amiga OS with hardware dongle.  By AOS version 4.7-4.8 there should be a retail copy that allows users to install AOS on any PPC hardware meeting the "zico" spec with or without hardware dongle.

If Amiga OS 5 is the AA/DE enabled version of AOS (who knows, we may not see AA/DE integration 'til 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0, or X - diez - 0x000A - 1010, or whatever).   Then I suspect x.0 will have full PPC support, partial (beta) X86 support, experimental (post-alpha/pre-beta) MIPS, SH4 and StrongARM support.  Later revisions would of course providing greater support based on which CPU platforms are in most demand...

If this doesn't come to pass and Amiga Inc. shows no signs of relaxing their license(s).  Then I'll sign a petition, join a mail campaign, or whatever it takes to make Amiga Inc. change its license.

[reticuli]

I'm not going to sign this and I urge everyone else with a positive
interest in the official AmigaOS to abstain too.

Amiga, Inc. are enforcing the inclusion of the ROM to ensure only
certain systems are able to use AmigaOS. But it seems some people
aren't thinking too much about as to why.

There are numerous reasons, many of which have been mentioned in the
past. However, has anyone even thought about the issue of quality
control?

If a board hasn't been officially endorsed by Amiga, Inc. how can we,
as users, expect a board, developed by a third party with absolutely
no involvement with Amiga, Inc. whatsoever, to be completely 100%
AmigaOS compatible?

Answer: We can't.

The model adopted by Amiga, Inc. may seem draconian but it ensures
they don't fall into the same trap that other OS developers have
fallen into in the past who have had no control over the quality of
machines their products get used on. The result, in theory, is that
the situation where the OS works fine on some machines and falls over
regularly on others should never occur. Therefore if something claims
to be an AmigaOS compatible machine... it'll be an AmigaOS compatible
machine.

The inclusion of the ROM is the ONLY way Amiga, Inc. can ensure a
machine that claims to be AmigaOS compatible is exactly that and 100%
compatibility should be in every future AmigaOS users interest - as
it'll ensure the AmigaOS acquires a reputation of being reliable and
who want's to use an unreliable machine that fall over all the time?

Of course there will inevitably be ways around this. Crackers will
invariably crack it in no time. However, any board manufacturer worth
their salt would be insane to release a machine claiming to be
AmigaOS compatible with an illegal copy of the OS and the only people
left are those who will quite happily go to the trouble of installing
pirate versions of the OS themselves on whatever 3rd party PowerPC
boards they find and quite frankly, they deserve everything they
get... including an uncertified crappy machine upon which the OS may
fall over all the time.

The question you should ask yourself before signing this is: Would
YOU be happy to buy a machine that can not be guaranteed to any
degree of certainty to be AmigaOS compatible?

I know I'm not!

[asian1]

>Piracy problem - machine certification.

Hi
I think it is better to use APPLE approach, but with hardware outsourcing.

1. User can run AMIGA OS on emulator / other hardware, but there is no support for them. To track which customer had bought the AMIGA OS , perhaps Amiga Inc can use serial number, password and online registration.

2. Although 3rd party can sell machine that can run AMIGA OS, they cann't advertise this feature or mention AMIGA OS / applications on their brochure / manual. They cann't sell their machine bundled with AMIGA OS.

3. On each box of AMIGA OS, they should mention list of compatible / certified machine, with a warning to customer that using AMIGA OS with uncertified machine is illegal.

4. Post announcement / advertisement about the name of illegal vendors and their machines.

AMIGA Inc should have a good legal team / lawyers to protect their IP / against pirates.

There is no need to modify ROM, install new ROM etc, as long as the above rules are used.