Amiga, Inc: Close That Open Hardware!

[samface]

Not a bad scam if you look at the whole picture.

I didn't think I would have to go into this as well but since you couldn't restrain yourself from cooking up this lame conspiracy theory, I simply have to.

The only reason for a price difference (if any) is the OS. Yes, you won't get the AmigaOS4 for free, if that's what you expected. There are more issues involved such as preparing the hardware ROM, distribution to Amiga hardware dealers, product demand, providing Hyperion and other important AmigaOne software developers with developer boards, providing hardware support for AmigaOS4 and LinuxPPC users and developers, etc. All of these things costs and affect the price.

Also, you're scam theory doesn't even make sense. I mean, how much do you really think they will be making on the AmigaOne sales? You see, I don't even think this whole thing will be profitable for Eyetech even if they were adding to the price. It will cover their costs, tops. Besides, do you really think another distributor would give you the same hardware support for AmigaOS4 and/or LinuxPPC + UAE users?

[Alkemyst]

@T_Bone

URL pls

Plus any alteration from IBM POP may make the modo non POP compliant + the ref was old.

Pegasos has custom parts.
Aone has had alterations as well that were not part of the Ref.

The fact is you can use as much or as little of the Ref as you want.

[samface]

Who cares about if it was based on the POP reference design or not? You still need a firmware and chipset standard in order to have a complete hardware platform standard with only one HAL for all motherboards complying to that standard.

[T_Bone]

@Alkemyst wrote:
> URL pls

Like I said in the quote, it was reprinted without permission, however it is quite public knowledge, and Mai should be able to clear up this concern for you with a simple email. Failing that, you could get ahold of their SDK where I quoted from.

> Plus any alteration from IBM POP may make the
> modo non POP compliant + the ref was old.

Irrelevant, Mai has confirmed already that this isn't the case here, so has terrasoft, so have the authors of the linux modules for the Mai chipset support (which BTW work unmodified on all Mai chipset boards). The reference doesn't "age" as it's not a set of "standards" as much as it is an architecture.

> Pegasos has custom parts.

irrelevant, as these parts are not the chipset, and appear on the other side of the PCI-CPU bridge, it doesn't invalidate the 'architecture standard" of the board any more than plugging in a PCI card does. All the add-ons on the AmigaOne and the Pegasos are bus-isolated from the chipset. that's what busses are for. it wouldn't be very handy if adding soundcards and videocards to PCI slots changed the architecture of the board somehow, would it?

> Aone has had alterations as well that were not part of the Ref.

Look, the same comment from above applies here. This isn't a constructive arguement, because what you've chosen to put forth as fact is not only innacurate, but completely made up. No offense, but that's the case. All current production Mai chipset boards are POP boards. Don't take my word for it, ask Ross Heinlein, who tasked himself with ensuring that the Linux PPC modules for the POP boards were well tested on all Mai chipset based boards. Make no mistake, these are all POP boards, no matter what soundcard or video you integrate on the board, they are still isolated by virtue of being bus-based, and don't interfere with POP standards as you suggest.

if you'd like to discuss wether AmigaOS4 should be open or not, that's another story, as that's your or my opinion, however the AmigaOne is a POP board, there is no opinion involved here and there's nothing to dispute.

Just out of curiosity, did someone happen to "tell" you that the A1 isn't a POP board, or did you decide this on your own? I'm just sort of curious where this started, as rumors like that might happen to hurt Eyetech if they decide to compete with Terrasoft on sales of PPC linux boards, and I wouldn't want to see anything like that happen unfairly. You know how bad these places can be with rumors.

As for the rest of the debate, I'm staying out of it =) I only posted because of the "not a POP board" comment.
 :-P

[T_Bone]

@samface wrote:
> Who cares about if it was based on the POP
> reference design or not?

That was the whole issue I replied to, I won't get into the larger debate, but felt I did need to correct the POP comment.

> You still need a firmware and chipset standard in
> order to have a complete hardware platform
> standard with only one HAL for all motherboards
> complying to that standard.

This is already the case, actually. Thank god too, because that's what allows linux to run with the same modules and drivers on all current Mai chipset based boards. Linux would have been a nightmare to make work if all the Mai based boards required a separate HAL for every flavor. Thank god that's not the case.

Granted it's possible to manufacture a board that is NOT POP compliant that uses the Mai chipset, however nobody has done so yet. (It wouldn't make much sense to do so anyway, as you wouldn't be able to run the current Linux distros on it)

I'm not going to get involved with the license issue discussion, as it's pretty much a done deal, for better or worse, but as far as the "Open hardware" goes, the AmigaOne IS open hardware, it's just the OS that's closed, (for better or worse).

[Seehund]

samface wrote:

Seehund wrote:
The licensing/dongling/bundling requirement does however not have anything to do with TECHNICAL reasons. It's an additional restriction on top of the valid technical reasons, and it helps preventing the OS to be ported to more hardware in the first place.

Despite that I have disputed this argument of yours at several occasions

No you haven't, and you didn't address the argument quoted above in this post either.

Once more, dispute this if you can:

1. Anyone can make any PPC hardware officially supported AmigaOS4 hardware by simply applying for a license and sharing a developer board and/or as extensive as possible hardware documentation. Hyperion will then create the neccessary hardware drivers, HAL and AmigaOS4 ROM. Compare that with Apple's approach if you like.

I won't dispute that, and I never have done so. You just described the problem. There is a licensing/bundling/dongling requirement. What's your point?

And again, Apple's approach has nothing to do with this. Apple's livelihood is selling computers. AI's/Hyperion's is not.

2. The ONLY thing preventing AmigaOS4 from running on basicly any PPC hardware is if Hyperion has for some reason no access to the hardware nor proper hardware documentation and therefore cannot make it happen even if they wanted to.

You just contradicted your point #1 above. The licensing/dongling/bundling requirement, remember. Hardware documentation, cooperation from HW developers, ease of porting and all those VALID and RELEVANT issues don't mean squat unless "somebody" also gets himself and his product licensed. Even in the highly unlikely event that this ever happened, AmigaOS would still be limited to running on this new hardware ONLY when it's sold bundled with dongled hardware from a particular vendor or distributor, á la the situation with Teron boards only being allowed for AmigaOS users when sold by Eyetech.

All this naturally goes for any other hardware as well.

An example of this is the Pegasos, they even applied for a developer board themselves but has still not as of today recieved one, AFAIK.

AFAIK(!), Hyperion never actually ordered a board, they filled out this form, put online by bplan in December 2001, reporting their preliminary interest in the MorphOS + Pegasos developer's platform.
Read it and you'll note things like "Da nur eine begrenzte Anzahl an Entwicklungssystemen zur Verfügung steht behalten wir uns eine Prüfung der gemachten Angaben vor", "Die Registrierung ist keine Bestellung [there's even a big fat tag there!] der oben aufgeführten Entwicklungsumgebung" and "Nach erfolgreicher und akzeptierter Registration erhalten Sie per mail eine Auftragsbestätigung die Preis / Liefertermin / Konditionen beinhaltet.
Diese muß 14 Tage nach Erhalt per Post oder FAX zurück an die bplan GmbH übertragen werden und gilt dann als nichtübertragbare Bestellung." I doubt the developers of a competing OS was placed very high on the list of receivers of developer boards, and even if they were approved, the "word on the street" is that the final order/confirmation was never returned...

Anyway, whatever happened is moot. AmigaOS will never run (legally and payed for) on a Pegasos as long as the compulsory licensing/dongling/bundling requirement is in effect. Genesi will not apply for a license for the "privilege" of selling somebody's competing OS, and if somebody else actually applies it still means that AmigaOS users will only be allowed to buy their Pegasos boards via that distributor. NOW it's relevant to start comparing with Apple; "License Omega-what? Get lost."

You see, even though some of the chipsets are the same as the AmigaOne, the Pegasos obviously has a different design. For this reason Hyperion cannot and will not guarantee interoperability with their OS which is fully understandable, don't you think?

Of course. No need to try to be patronising, really. But again, there can be no (legal) port, documentation or not, as long as there's a licensing/bundling/dongling requirement.

3. Hyperion are very much willing to support as much hardware as possible and is actually using this licensing scheme for preventing the OS to be restricted at a technical level.

You're joking, surely?

An example of this approach is the old PPC accelerator boards from Phase5; despite having no contact with the original manufacturers, very poor documentation, probable reduction of AmigaOne sales, very custom and different hardware design from the one of the AmigaOne, they will be supported by the AmigaOS4. How could this be if it was about restricting the AmigaOS4 to run on the AmigaOne from Eyetech only?

Heh. Aren't we lucky that AI didn't require Amiga-owners to send their old PPC-cards to a licensee to sell them back dongled and bundled with AmigaOS... Seriously, what relevance does ancient hardware that people already own have to this? If anything, it's contradictory to the lame excuses we've heard from AI about the compulsory licensing. It will sell shrinkwrapped copies of AmigaOS (and even unprotected from piracy at that, mind you!), something that otherwise apparently is A Very Bad Thing for some weird reasons (even with protection).

Wouldn't this be impossible if the AmigaOS4 was made POP + ArticiaS chipset only?

Uh, yes, but I haven't seen anyone suggest that this should be done. What are you talking about?

4. The Microsoft approach of supporting the most common hardware standard and let the hardware manufacturers worry about the rest simply isn't feasible on the PPC market. There is no common PPC hardware standard. No, POP doesn't count as it will still require a common chipset standard.

I haven't suggested that there's a common PPC hardware/chip-set standard (as in: an OS will run unaltered with the same drivers on all boards of that kind), so again I don't see what you want me to dispute, and similarly there's no common "PC" hardware/chip-set standard either. Honestly, what's your point? Drivers need to be written. Nobody can expect hardware developers to write drivers for a marginal niche OS, especially not if a license is required for the drivers to ever be used. The latter is a very efficient deterrent to any possible cooperation.

So, I'm sure MAI would be delighted if we made the AmigaOS4 dependant on their ArticiaS chipset but we would still have a very restricted OS. In fact, it would be even more restricted and give the us even less hardware options.

Are you suggesting that AmigaOS should only run on Articia S based boards, or are you suggesting that I or anyone else have said something like that? I really can't make any sense out of this.


(No, I won't dignify those last off-topic insults with a reply)

[Seehund]

samface wrote:
BTW, please not that this article at OSopinion.com is written by Emanuel Mair, A.K.A Seehund. There is similar articles on Slashdot and OSNews, all by the very same author.

Duly noted, thanks for the heads-up!
Though there's no Slashdot article by me on this subject.

This kind of publicity will surely boost the Amiga comeback, now won't it?

"The Amiga comeback"? Sigh. The Amiga died in the mid-90's and it's not due for a come back, thank heavens. Where have you been the last decade?

Well, that was irony on my behalf, I really do think that if something will kill the Amiga, then it is this kind of FUD mongering by people that don't even know what's best for themselves.  :roll:

LOL. What was it you said? Ah, yes... "But please, atleast tone down a bit rather than making such a fool out of yourself."

(Does nobody know what things like "FUD" and "troll" mean? No, it's not to be used as soon as one personally happens to disagree with someone else.)

[Seehund]

gary_c wrote:

I agree fully, but:

The OS company can either go the route of guaranteeing compatibility (Amiga/Hyperion's present course) or just sell shrinkwrapped boxes with a disclaimer about use on untested boards.

I don't see those two routes as mutually exclusive.

[Kronos]

@samface
Would you please stop that bullshit !!

Hyperion applied for an developer-board targeted to
 MORPHOS_DEVELOPERS !!!

and suprise suprise they didn't get one ...

But when a board was offered to them they started backing out
because of that plain stupid licence.

So it is AIncs own licence whats preventing OS4 from running
on the Pegasos in the fisrt place.

Well that is if OS4 would exist in any form suitable to run on anythiong  :-P

[Seehund]

samface wrote:

Not a bad scam if you look at the whole picture.

I also disagree with the "scam" bit. It's not a scam or anything illegal, it's just business. Not necessarily commercially sound business in the long run for Eyetech and it's directly harmful for AmigaOS and its users, but it's not a "scam".

I didn't think I would have to go into this as well but since you couldn't restrain yourself from cooking up this lame conspiracy theory, I simply have to.

I'm sure Paul_Gadd shakes in his boots.
Do you always take yourself so seriously?

There are more issues involved such as preparing the hardware ROM,

The dongle-bit? An unnecessary and extra cost.

Unless you're talking about the actual and functional firmware, which is the same on all Teron boards regardless of distributor. I.e. the adaptation of PPCBoot/U-boot and SciTech's x86emu project (adapted by Hyperion, funded by Mai)?
 

distribution to Amiga hardware dealers,

Which is cheaper than e.g. Terra Soft selling single boards to end users. But it's still more expensive to buy directly from Eyetech bypassing those pesky "Amiga hardware dealers" than it is to buy from Mai or Terra Soft.

product demand,

Ah, exactly. AmigaOS users could otherwise have bought their Teron boards (and whatever future HW there might be) from the same unified market as e.g. Linux users.
== larger volumes, competition, lower prices

 providing Hyperion and other important AmigaOne software developers with developer boards,

Selling boards is an income, and don't these boards ship directly from Mai? Would seem to be a pretty awkward arrangement otherwise. What other important Teron software developers are there that must get their boards via Eyetech?

providing hardware support

I.e. the same cost as any other hardware vendor has...

 for AmigaOS4 and LinuxPPC users and developers, etc.

Again, the software support should be included in the price of AmigaOS, and I haven't seen any figures saying that the separate copies of OS4 for Amigas will cost way over $100.

Unless Eyetech will sell their own Linux distro, then Linux support is provided by - GASP! - the Linux distro company.

 All of these things costs and affect the price.

I don't think Eyetech invented these compulsory licensing ideas only to be able to sell Teron boards more expensively than others. Far more important is a monopoly on hardware for AmigaOS users. A price markup is less valuable than a 100% marketshare.

[Edit]
You also forgot to mention the trademark licensing fee for calling the Teron boards "AmigaOne".
[/Edit]

[Damion]

Exactly, Samface. Besides, why should a board manufacturer
allow their hardware to be 'rommed' and bundled with
anything? It's not going to happen...and as far as that
'knowing what's best for them' comment, I don't think
marketing clowns provide the best tech instruction.

Despite that I have disputed this argument of yours at several occasions, you keep repeating it like a mantra as if it would somehow make it happen. Once more, dispute this if you can:

just because you dispute something dosent mean its wrong.

Well, that's probably because they atleast had access to the hardware. When it comes to the AmigaOS4 on the Pegasos situation, Hyperion never recieved a developer board despite applying for one. So, in this case it's quite impossible for them to make anything run on it, don't you agree?

why dosent hyperion 'buy one' ?... or are they that broke.

[Damion]

Alke - myst wrote:

>@D

>You fail to see that its not just what you see.

I don't understand your comment here,

>As MOS does not run on the Aone yet either.

>The primarily reason is Genesi.

Oh, I get it. Could you please provide further
explanation for this one?

>so for Aos4 not running on Pegasos its the license.

Yes?

>For MOS not running on Aone its Genesi.

Once again, further explanation please, but if the
only limitation here is drivers, that's a given
consequence of almost any hardware, and entirely not
comparable with with A - Inc's license idea. Both
systems need drivers, yet OS4 is dongled, and
there's the restriction that I pointed to earlier,
the one that made your original comparision biased.

>Different methods same outcome.

So you must be implying that MOS is somehow inherently
restricted (ala OS4), apart from the eventual drivers?

[AmigaHeretic]

Let just take a little advice from my avatar and lets all quit being so
'negative'.

Sorry Mips I had to see what it looked like.

AmigaGuy

[gary_c]

Alkemyst wrote:

As MOS does not run on the Aone yet either.
The primarily reason is Genesi.

I believe Genesi staff said MorphOS does run on a Theron motherboard and so it will run on an AmigaOne unless something's been added to prevent it.

-- gary_c