Rassilon wrote:
The majority of people wanting to buy OS4 will be in three camps:
1) Blizzard users - they will buy the appropriate upgrade pack.
2) Cyberstorm users - they will buy the appropriate upgrade pack.
3)People wanting to buy newer/faster Amiga's - Currently their only option is an Eyetech AmigaOne.
Slight correction; the people above are the only people that are allowed to buy AmigaOS4. Replace "Eyetech AmigaOne" with "whatever hardware that is or will be licensed", it's still just as abysmal.
That's us hardcore AmigaOS nuts. That "market" alone doesn't make it worth bothering.
As software developers in a small market its not profitable for Hyperion to write OS4 so that it runs on every PPC mobo out there. So what did they do? They decided to target OS4 for specific mobo's.
Which is quite natural and obvious. No software developer no matter their size supports all hardware...
But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a compulsory licensing scheme for third party hardware. For all future versions of AmigaOS. If AmigaOS runs on hardware X, we AmigaOS users in contrast to everybody else may not buy this hardware X (which has nothing to do with AInc or AmigaOS) from anyone we like, in any way we like, new or used. Furthermore we may only buy AmigaOS in conjunction with the purchase of one piece of hardware X from this/these licensed dealer(s).
This has nothing to do with the technical issue "with which hardware is this OS compatible?" That should be a simple question of whether there are drivers for the hardware - either by Hyperion or a third party - and whether AInc says that "AmigaOS is compatible with this hardware". Most software companies no matter how small/insignificant/poor seem to manage that simple task just fine.
Trying to substitute a simple hardware compatibility list with restrictions on whom your customers are allowed to buy their hardware from does not make sense. It's counterproductive. It makes the OS (the product that's supposed to be sold) less attractive. It prevents porting to more hardware from ever happening.
But how do you decide which ones?
..... by running a certification process.
Yes, but again that's not what we're talking about. A certification process is allegedly supposed to be
one part of the whole licensing lunacy, and if we didn't know it before, it has been proven continuously since it was all announced just how worthless, or inexistent, that process has been. There can be certification without telling customers from whom they're allowed to buy their hardware, that they're not allowed to by the exact same hardware from any vendor they prefer. Hardware is not an AInc product.
If a manufacturers wants OS4 to run on their board they approach Amiga Inc for certification.
Generally, manufacturers couldn't care less about AmigaOS, no matter how much we wish things would be otherwise. However, if AmigaOS was allowed to be a player on the manufacturer's normal playing field, together with other OSes, it could potentially generate extra hardware sales without any licensing/bundling/software support/market division hassles. Like other OSes.
It's nuts to make everything dependent on the hardware market's interest in licensing (with all that involves and with the absence of licensee benefits compared to an open market) for ever even seeing AmigaOS
ported to a piece of hardware and
for sale.
I've said it before, that if someone would be interested in certification or trademark licensing, like Eyetech today, then I think it would be great. Obviously there are some customers who even give a damn about things like that. But this simply cannot be restricted to be the
only venue of development and sales for AmigaOS!
To stick more specifically to the topic of this thread: Say some dealer got a license to sell Pegasoses with AmigaOS. Yay! He gets the right to call it "AmigaPeg" or something. Now, the problem and question remains, why should AmigaOS users/customers only be allowed to buy their Pegasoses from this dealer? Why should AmigaOS lose the opportunity for marketshare among those who bought or will buy their Pegasoses elsewhere?
The same of course goes for Macs, Terons and whatever you could think of. The "licensed" and the "normal" hardware are exactly the same, there are no more Amigas. But we would only be allowed to access a subset of the market, divided by something that doesn't need to be there and can only be removed by those who put it there with a stroke of the pen.
Its encomies of scale really, get it to run on a small selection of baords first, and then when it has proven (hopefully) a success other manufacturers may want it to run on their mobo's.
Very true, but even if AmigaOS would become The Dominant Player on the PPC market (heh), it still would be a crazy idea to reject hardware and vendor options solely on the grounds of a trademark licensing situation. Keep the doors open, and then there might be growth in the first place, and maybe even interest in licenses (however not
compulsory ones, from a customer/user perspective). I think hardware targets for porting should be chosen on criterias that actually benefits and matters to us customers and AmigaOS's sales and future, like ease of porting, features, availability, price, current market penetration et c.