Amiga, Inc: Close That Open Hardware!

[Seehund]

Korodny wrote:

Can you imagine Ben Hermans facial expression if you would have asked him 15 months ago to develop OS4 as a "secondary" OS for Apple and Pegasos customers? I can.

I'm not sure. The classic "dollar-signs in the eyes" expression?

Hyperion's most important condition was that somebody provides a dedicated hardware platform for their OS.

Ah, but there is no dedicated hardware platform for AmigaOS. The Teron boards are not dedicated to any OS. A mobo will run any OS that's compatible with it. For the Teron boards that has predominantly been Linux.

The distribution of some of the Teron boards, and the distributor of those is artificially dedicated to AmigaOS, and there can be no alternatives. That's what's so grotesque.

Escena had left a few months earlier and the Pegasos runs MOS. Eyetech was the only candidate left, and as they don't have the neccessary engineering skills or the money to fund an external development team, they had to adopt an existing design - the TeronCX/PX.

No, Eyetech has never been a sole alternative since the Escena A1-1200/4000 projects failed. They're "just" another computer shop and distributor. The Teron boards have never been dependent on Eyetech. The more distributors the merrier though. The current dependency on Eyetech is an artificial invention, which has arisen from a licensing deal.

Despite the fact that they're using a finished motherboard design, Eyetech have pumped serious amounts of money into the A1-G3/XE. But now other companies (Terrasoft) will be selling the very same motherboards (this was planned from the beginning) at a lower price, as they don't have to pay licensing fees to Amiga Inc. Would you buy an Eyetech AmigaOne if you could get the same motherboard from Terrasoft - at a lower price? I know I wouldn't.

Precisely. There's no reason to why a user of AmigaOS should be treated as a retard compared to if he was running e.g. Linux. If a customer prefers one vendor (for whatever reason; price, support, geographic proximity, ugliness of the logo, whatever) over another for the EXACT SAME product, he should naturally be allowed to choose that vendor for his purchase. This is healthy and desperately needed competition.

Whatever money one distributor has pumped into the sales of somebody else's product is irrelevant to the end-customers. We're not here to play charity. AmigaOS can't be dependent on that people should be prepared to pay extra for one third-party hardware distributors' "investments" (and even the Escena failure!). If a customer feels that "this distributor has payed more money for selling the same board" (which is odd...) would be relevant to his selection of vendor, then fine, let him have the OPTION to buy from there.

By the way, even before Terra Soft became a Mai VAR/distributor (which of course has been anticipated since the first hints that they were testing YDL on the boards), Mai sold the boards themselves, cheaper than Eyetech. I don't know what Inguard charges for their complete Teron systems.

The licensing scheme (amongst other things) protects Eyetech's investments into the AmigaOne. Without such a protection, Eyetech wouldn't have started the project at all (IMHO). Without the A1, there wouldn't be OS4.

Nonsense. The very existence and the development and sales of Teron boards have never been dependent on Eyetech. That's a ludicrous notion. If anything, OS4 has been dependent on Mai. The invented dependency on Eyetech (and all those other eagerly waiting hypothetical licensees... ) is a business construction - and it's totally unnecessary, IMO.

As for the licensing scheme protecting Eyetech's investments in Teron boards, whatever those investments might be... I can only say that it's highly unfortunate and sad that AmigaOS, its possible hardware base, marketshare, commercial potential and customers are to suffer and pay for the costs of a third party hardware distributor. If a distributor has invested money it is to be recovered by sales of the product he's distributing. If he can't compete with other dstributors, tough luck! Then customers of ANOTHER product - AmigaOS - should be allowed to turn elsewhere for their hardware neds.

[AmigaHeretic]

Alright -D- you've inspired me some more.

Does that look like a cat fur toupee to you?

AmigaGuy

[Alkemyst]

by Paul_Gadd on 2003/1/11 3:27:11

@Alkemyst

If you have read those comments then it clearly says why they wont purchase a A1 board,

But again we are back to the good old "someone has said something negative about the wonderfull Amiga" which must be tearing you apart inside,

They is no mention of Boycotting on there or even plans to do so unless you have visited a page which i missed (url please).

No not at all but its that i know many of the ppl who have signed the petition & i knew their views before the petition was started.

They had no intention of buying any PPC mobo. They wanted AmigaOx86 or nothing.

Many have other motives to sign the petition.

Some hoping to kill AmigaOS ppc in the hope that amiga.inc will turn to x86
other are MOS guy's hoping to put ppl off Aone/AmigaOS4, so that may get them over to pegasos/MOS.
 
You & mips_proc should stop your self centered norrow mined view of other ppl,
with your continualy telling ppl what they are feeling & saying.
You have to see things from their point of view & not yours all the time.
Cos your too busy thinking what you would really meen  if you were useing them words your self,instead of just reading what is said to be exactly what is said.

Just Look at seehund's post's for a good example to having a totaly different view to me.
But  nowhere does he tell me what im feeling or what your really trying to say is all the time comments. And no name calling or worship comments.
 

[Alkemyst]

by -D- on 2003/1/11 3:52:59

Come on Alkemyst, it's not the 'petition' that's
hurting anything, it's A - Inc's policies that
upset these people enough for there to be a
petition in the first place. There wouldn't be a
petition otherwise. And if this is really about
you believing in the principle of a dongle (I'm
not saying you said this, just inferring) or a
license deal, would you be one of the first to
head up the charge for a software dongle,
if there wasn't one?

That comment implies that im not being truthful in what im saying.
I stand by what im saying, i will not say anything wich to hide what i really think.
I say what i think.

The last bit of your comment implies that you know what i would & would not do.
The fact is you have No idear what i would or would not do & nore do you know the depth of my pockets.

[Kurt]

Remember folks
The Teron board as sold by Mai was over 2 Grand not sold cheaper as some people have erroneously
posted here.
If it wasn't for Eyetech Terrasoft wouldn't have a "Cheap" Linux board to sell.
( Uh my AmigaOne board cost me $550 delivered.  Not much more than the $500 + shipping  advertized
price by Terrasoft.  Not bad considering I have had my board since November and Terrasoft is not yet
shipping. )
The boards sold by Terrasoft will have the PPCboot ROM Developed by Hyperion.
which BTW is constantly being updated right now.
The main difference being that the Amigaone version will have Amiga OS Extensions in the ROM
You want to run Linux get the Terrasoft board.
You want to run AmigaOS get the AmigaOne simple really.

Most of the idiots crying about the So called Dongle have NO INTENTION OF EVER BUYING AN AMIGA ONE
WITH OR WITHOUT THE SO CALLED DONGLE!!
It is just an excuse to push people to Their side of the fence.
The Amigaone is no more or less dongled than the Pegasos board.

Yes Hyperion could try to develope for a hostile system
but not only would be hard, and costly, it would be dangerous.
The DMCA in the US would make such an attempt illegal
Just look at the current lawsuit Lexmark has launched against
Manufacturers of generic ink cartridges using the DCMA.

Most of what is posted here is shear lunacy.
Burying people in a mass Email is a sure way to make sure nothing gets done as they spend hours just
reading massive amounts of garbage in an attempt to find someone with an intelligent Email.
That plan must of been thought up by someone who wants to make sure nothing gets done.

Just a side note the MorphOS Public Developers list had about 50 posts for all of December.
The AmigaOS 4.0 List gets more than that in a Day.
Read what you want into that.

Kurt

[Damion]

@AmigaGuy

LOL!

@Alkemyst

I wasn't implying that I know what you would
or wouldn't do, I was asking a question, but you
seem to have ignored the last sixteen or so of
them anyway, so feel free to keep rockin'.

@Kurt

You're totally full of it with that BS back
there, and you know it.

>The Teron board as sold by Mai was over 2 Grand
>not sold cheaper

Yeah right, maybe 50 years ago when it was new,
but the price drops as the technology ages,
Eyetech never sold ONE of those boards for
$550 or whatever when a regular Teron sold for
'2 Grand', your point here makes absolutely no
sense at all, really. And what are you so scared
of, you speak of 'OS extensions' like they were
something other than a dongle.

[ShadesOfGrey]

@bloodline

Thank you!  THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!!!

I'm not alone!  Some one else actually has the same opinion on this whole licensing issue as I do!  I don't seriously believe that Hyperion (and for that matter AI) would want to restrict the hardware their product (license revenue) will run on indefinitely.  The fact that everyone...  Err, well, almost everyone...  ...  ...  The fact that most everyone neglects to mention that the current license IS AN OEM license and not a RETAIL license drives me nuts!  The AI/Hyperion/Eyetch OEM license is no where near as Draconian as some other OEM licenses, yet everyone is so quick to judge AI/Hyperion/Eyetch on the assumption that the OEM license excludes the possibility of any other licensing terms.


@ Everyone else

The facts, yes the FACTS!

The facts are Genesi have not stated their official licensing terms.  Genesi have also made no substantive indication that they will support anything other than the Pegasos and phase 5 PPC boards w/G-REX PCI (produced ?largely? by hardware partnerDCE).  In effect, the Pegasos and G-REX are hardware dongles and thus provide hardware copy protection.  

The facts are that AI/Hyperion/Eyetech have not made it clear whether there will be no retail license.  Nor that a retail license will be an exact copy of the OEM license.  AI/Hyperion have stated that an OEM license with terms requiring hardware bundling and copy protection has been obtained by Eyetech for the AmigaOne.  AOS4 support for phase 5 (and potentially Elbox and Matay) PPC boards will be available, most probably, under similar terms as the OEM license.  In this case using the original Amiga as means of hardware copy protection dongle.

Until Genesi AND/OR AI/Hyperion/Eyetch explicitly confirm or deny licensing terms that are ultimately exclusive, the prejudice most stop!  


[Note: I want to re-iterate, my stance is not a pro/anti Genesi or AI/Hyperion/Eyetch one.  Regardless of percieved or implied bias.  I recognize the implied anti-Genesi bias in my post.  IT IS INTENTIONAL!  BUT IT IS NOT INTENDED TO ACTUALLY BE ANTI-GENESI!!!  It is there merely to highlight the fact that (to my knowledge) Genesi has no official licensing policy, as of yet!  I am willing to give both parties the benefit of the doubt.

Anyone ignoring this notice, is trolling merely for the sake of trolling.  Thus I will ignore them!]

is no where near as Draconian

ahhh but what other company that dosent make hardware... has romed their OS to one board?.....find one...

I do & if you read some of the comments you can see that the petition is doing exactly that.

amen....the petition is where I first heard about the license scheme...thats when I decided I wouldnt buy an A1/OS4...

[Kronos]

@ShadesOfGrey

AINc has made it 100% clear that there wonb't be a retail version
of OS4 except the one for the old P5-HW.

Just reread those exec-ups.

Both AInc and Eyetech have invested 0.0$ into OS4, and so I see no
reason why they should be entilted for a "save return".

Eyetech had invested  some money in the a piece of HW that was a dead-end
from the beginning(Escena-A1). Though luck !!

[Madgun68]

How many of you against the licensing system have considered support as one reason to have it?

Generally, if you call a software company looking for support, they'll do the best they can (including Microsoft.) They'll make sure that you aren't, first of all, suffering from a well known issue. Past that, they'll check the installation, rogue software and possibly virii. If you pass all that, you're most likely going to be passed off to the hardware manufacturer.

If you're running an operating system that isn't supported by the company, you will receive very little if any support at all. As an example, if you're running Linux and they only support Windows, you'll be forced to install Windows on the machine first (if it isn't installed) and they'll go through a little software support first.

Now lets say the same thing happens with AmigaOS 4.x. Hyperion will go through the steps similar to what I've outlined above. At some point, your hardware WILL become suspect and you'll be referred back to the hardware folks. Exactly how much support do you expect to receive from them when you're running an operating system they don't support and know very little (if anything) about? It's going to be limited. The troubleshooting process is going to take longer than it would have if the hardware been certified.

There are a lot of people who thought at one point that they'd never need to call a support line doing just that. Is saving a few bucks really worth the extra hassle you might be putting yourself through should something go wrong you can't solve yourself? Think about it. Be honest.

[Damion]

>In effect, the Pegasos and G-REXX are hardware
dongles and thus provide copy protection.

That's not even close to the same thing as a
specific ROM and OS coded to work together for
vague corpo reasons...besides, the intended
purpose of the G-REXX and Pegasos have nothing
to do with copy protection, unlike the A1/OS4
scenario. It's not an accurate comparison.

I havent considerd 'support' at all... license schemes like this that claim 'superior quality' or better 'support' are (in my opinon) crock's of sh*t... and should be avoided...I think of A.inc/Amiga the same way I do auto-dealers... if I go shopping for rims/hubcaps... I dont expect to have to buy a whole car to get the ones I want....same equation works here.

I also severely doubt that A.inc will have phone lines setup to call when your hardware messes up... why dont the current A1 owners see?... or try calling eyetech or hyperion... unless they have good 1-800 plans your going to have to pay international rates if your not in those countrys anyway...so its a crock... in my opinon.

[Madgun68]

amen....the petition is where I first heard about the license scheme...thats when I decided I wouldnt buy an A1/OS4...

The license includes certification.

I can guarantee you that if you call Microsoft having issues and they notice that you're running hardware with non-certified drivers that you're call is going to end quicker than it would have if they were certified. And they don't certify out of kindness..

[Damion]

@Madgun68

I agree, so let them have a supported board or two,
the people that desire an 'out of the box' solution
can get one, and those that want to doctor up their
own rig can do that, too. It would be like the
OS3.9 scenario, but less hacky.  

Although hotlines are very helpful to some, I've
never needed one, but it could be there
anyway for those who bought the Teron or whichever
other board.

Plus...we're not talking about the dude who just
bought his first Dell here, 90+% of those interested
in OS4 are more than capable of setting up their
own system. I didn't need A - Inc to protect me
when I upgraded my old Amigas, and I really can't
see this being any more difficult. Using it as
a reason to force people into buying Eyetechs's
board is a bit ridiculous, IMO.

Besides...I can buy XP and install it on whatever
the heck I want to build, so why is this different?
Are Amiga users too dumb to do the same?
 

I can guarantee you that if you call Microsoft having issues and they notice that you're running hardware with non-certified drivers that you're call is going to end quicker than it would have if they were certified. And they don't certify out of kindness..

so what?... microsoft a gigantic real company... their not in the same boat 'AT ALL" as A1/OS4...

MS produces an OS and dosent 'ROM" it to anything it OEM licenses it to some...but it sells 'retail'... I'm not going to even debate this... MS's license is far less restrictive (in my opinon)... they dont use rom's they dont restrict who can sell PC's with windows... they sell retail...etc etc etc

I also dont think many companys that make PPC boards will care enough about the handful of Amiga sales they could make to modify their boards to make AOS run on them. I would prefer to have bought Barbie or Pegasos....with AOS4...instead I'll use MOS.