by Kurt on 2002/12/31 21:33:17
>You Sir are a LIAR !
> Okay folks let me say this again for you people who
> have not been listening.
> AMIGAOS 4.0 WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE FOR ANY
> HARDWARE COMPANY THAT WANTS IT.
Why would "Hardware companies" want it? They make hardware. Targetting software is the job of "Software Companies" ie. Amiga inc.
I think this quote, from Ross Heinlein of Tratechnology, developers of the "Barbie" PPC board, sums up the position from a hardware manufacturers POV quite nicely.
QUOTE - Ross Heinlein
"I'm in developement of a POP board, the "barbie"
http://penguinppc.org/dev/pop/ If I can make AOS4 run on this, I'll contribute my sources/drivers, if not, well, one board is better than none, eh? Barbie will NOT be licensing AOS, we don't deal with software companies, it's not our job to chase down OS developers. If you'd like to work on this board, fine, I'll help, if not, that's fine too. Your policy guarantees that your OS will only run on boards specifically manufactured for that purpose, which is very shortsighted considering many PPC boards are about to begin developement due to recently available PPC chipset solutions. You need to realise that as Hardware manufacturers, your OS licensing is NOT our concern, we just build hardware, we don't play games and tailor separate product lines for every "niche-OS" who has crazy ideas, you should rethink yours. I do not speak for my employer in a manner I can be held accountable for, but what I say is a valid representation of their (and my) views on the matter"
So far he's been right, the choices in available motherboards available in the POP PPC market have more than tripled since he's written that, and Amiga have positioned themselves in a way where they gain no advantage whatsoever from it.
Hardware companies -don't care- about AmigaOS because they have no incentive to waste their time with it for the prospect of a whopping 1000 sales. if you leave system integration up to the hardware developers, AmigaOS will simply be ignored, and Amiga has lost potential sales.
Ross is right, why would Tratechnology bother to go through the hassle of licensing, when there's nothing in it for them? Amiga, however, have something in it for them if they let their OS run on this board, sales!
The HAL issue with respect to this board is incorrect, this board is HAL-Agnostic compared to the Pegasos and the AmigaOne, this can be verified by examining the sourcecode available in the URL quoted from Ross above, Linux uses the same HAL for this group of boards listed there.
In any market, you're better off expanding your potential market, not limiting it.
In any business, you're best handling responsibility for market proliferation yourself, rather than expecting others to do the promoting of your product, that they gain little to nothing from doing anyway, for you.
