Amiga, Inc: Close That Open Hardware!

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.

[Madgun68]

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.

No.. But you DO make sure that those rims/hubcaps fit the vehicle you want them for. You don't just buy ANYTHING and expect it to work.

I doubt if anyone's considered support. They'd just expect it to work, and demand Hyperion to fix it if it didn't. Considering the risk they've already taken just on OS 4 itself, I wouldn't spend additional effort (a.k.a. money) doing so unless I was sure that I'd make that up in additional sales. (ESPECIALLY if that product wasn't marketed to my consumer audience and could care less if they sold anything to them or not.)

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.

So instead you buy generic PPC motherboard X. You expect it to "just work" and it doesn't. You don't call Amiga Inc. They didn't make the hardware. You don't call Hyperion, because they don't make hardware at all. You don't call Eyetech, because it isn't their hardware either. The motherboard manufacturer is NOT going to help you get AmigaOS running on it because they've (most likely) never heard of it or used it. What then? Spend money returning it and HOPE that the next product you purchase does work?

It's not about superior quality. It's about knowing that the hardware you just bought works exactly as you expect it to with the operating system you intend to use.

You don't care if what you buy has any support options? Fine for you. There are plenty of people out there that do.

I'm not in any way saying this is why the license is in place. All I'm pointing out is that there are valid reasons for its existence. (Not to mention that this is ALL speculation. The only people who know exactly why they chose this method aren't talking.)

Madgun lets get real...there are basically 3 boards OS4 "COULD" run on... the barbie the pegasos and the A1... all of them very similer.... minimal differances.... this rom license isnt about support...its about eyetech getting your money and not someone else...
whatever 'support' or other arguments you can make it's not about that... their not just OEM licenseing it... their 'roming' it...if they where so worried about support and 'quality' they could have sold a 'certified' bundle...and let retail be for people who dont want the A1....this is all my opinon of course...but its how I feel on the subject...

You don't care if what you buy has any support options? Fine for you. There are plenty of people out there that do.

to that I respond

I'd rather have superior quality and freedom...'support' is bogus... I dont believe its about support...the differance between Pegasos and A1 is minimal...

[AmiGR]

No, my dear Alkemyst. The petition is not boycotting
anything.
I singed it and I plan to buy OS4. I will not buy the
AmigaONE for my own reasons (it's not a platform I
like).
It doesn't state ANYWHERE in the petition that we
should boycott anything. The petition is collecting
signatures to send to Amiga Inc.

[AmiGR]

They said that they plan to port it to Macs if they can.
They also said that they will port it to anything if they
can find the resources.

[AmiGR]

There are *MANY* shops here in Greece selling PCs
and parts, that assemple systems themselves and
sometimes ship them with an illegal version of
windows. The support is excellent in all of them,
regardless not having an OEM licence with Microsoft.

[Madgun68]

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

Correct. Microsoft can AFFORD to certify drivers for free, yet they don't. Hyperion doesn't have a large enough market to justify the cost.

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

OEM licenses to SOME? Microsoft makes more money from OEMs than it does retail sales of Windows. A LOT MORE.

Less restrictive? They used to require that every computer an OEM sold came with Windows. Don't feel with complying? Fine. They'll just refuse you ANY licenses.

All that's being said here is that any board you sell to our market needs a license.

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.

You're right. They don't care if your their customer or not. Personally, I'd prefer to do business with a company that wants me as a customer.

Not to be rude, but I still cannot fathom why ANYONE would want a barbie board. The only pictures I've seen of this board show a whopping two pci slots, no agp slot and onboard Rage LX chip. (And onboard sound hardware usually always sucks.)

[Alkemyst]

by AmiGR on 2003/1/11 11:43:09

No, my dear Alkemyst. The petition is not boycotting
anything.
I singed it and I plan to buy OS4. I will not buy the
AmigaONE for my own reasons (it's not a platform I
like).
It doesn't state ANYWHERE in the petition that we
should boycott anything. The petition is collecting
signatures to send to Amiga Inc.

Please read my post again & you will see that i do not state ANYWHERE that the petition says boycott or that the petition is boycott.

[Jupp3]

I think, I read somewhere, that MorphOS already runs on A1... Not 100% sure though...

And about piracy, there's always some "gray area" between legal and illegal.

Like using pirated version of game/program instead of original one owned, becouse of damaged original, irritating copy protection, added cheats etc.

In same way, some people could buy AOS4 but use cracked version, without dongle protection (Maybe on "unofficial" hardware too)

(I'm not saying anything, like someone should crack AOS4, so don't blame me for that...)

[Rogue]

I wonder, what makes people think that AmigaOS *would* run on POP-Hardware? The only POP-Board that *I* have has a CPC700 chipset on it, and that is something that AmigaOS 4 doesn't use.

So why should this run on "any POP hardware", as people always claim, and "only the dongle prohibits it running on anything else". It just shows that people bringing up that claim should check their facts.

For the final time, AMIGAOS 4 DOES NOT RUN ON POP HARDWARE WITHOUT ADAPTING TO THIS HARDWARE. Sorry for shouting, but apparently some people have a very hard time understanding this.

Rogue what we mean is this... AOS4 could run on Pegasos/Barbie... do you (as a programmer of AOS4) think that if management had decided to make AOS4 retail you would have gotten it running on Barbie/pegasos without issue? ... assumeing there was no rom/dongle..etc..

[Madgun68]

Personally, I don't see how either solution (Mos/Pos and A1/AOS) is any better than the other. Sure, we know the stance on A1/AOS, but Genesi has said almost nothing about what hardware they definately are going to support or what methods they'll require for a PPC board to get support.  At this moment, however, if you want to run Mos, you're buying a Pos.. rom or no rom.

It's really hard to argue anything about the Amiga licensing conditions, because the only people who know for certain what the conditions are aren't talking.

The rom vs. piracy issue is highly debatable too. Sure, pirates can crack it and modify the OS so it doesn't need the rom. Does that mean that I can say WITHOUT A DOUBT that because of this piracy wasn't at least a factor in the rom being chosen? Not honestly. I haven't seen a method of protecting software that hasn't been cracked yet. Does that stop companies from trying? Not in a heart beat.

On some of these issues, everyone involved seems to be running in circles like a dog chasing its tail. I guess we'll keep going that way until we have all the facts.

[samface]

Madgun lets get real...there are basically 3 boards OS4 "COULD" run on... the barbie the pegasos and the A1... all of them very similer.... minimal differances.... this rom license isnt about support...its about eyetech getting your money and not someone else...

No, there is not just those three ArticiaS based designs out there, there is also the PPC cards from Phase5, Elbox and DCE. Should we exclude 50% of the available options through making the AmigaOS ArticiaS chipset based or should we have a licensing scheme which makes it possible to cooperate with basicly any PPC hardware manufacturer and therefore not exclude any option at all? Yes, that is what this licensing scheme is about, cooperating with hardware manufacturers that doesn't comply to this MAI dominated chipset standard. Why do you want them to create a software market dependant on MAI Technologies? Wouldn't you prefer if they remain open for alternative hardware creations?

You see, setting up a standard like the ArticiaS chipset would leave all other hardware out in the cold, it simply wouldn't be worth the extra effort. All kinds of hardware innovation would be discouraged and controlled by MAI technologies. How do I know this? Well, look at the so-called IBM compatibles, a standard embraced by Microsoft and therefore the only standard. There has been close to none hardware innovations since Win95 and VIA + Intel are basicly the ones running the show. Despite high clock speeds, it's the very same crappy architecture behind it. Is this what you want, Seehund and all? Well, I don't. That's the Microsoft approach and far from the Amiga ideals, don't you think?

This licensing scheme on the other hand, will put any licensee at the same level as the other regardless of the hardware architecture. It will remove this kind of worries from their customers as both will have the officially supported Amiga hardware label. This will encourage hardware innovation, stimulate competition and improve the quality of the hardware support in general. It's a win-win situation and it's just too bad so many of you seem to have problems with seeing this.

The argments that the licensing scheme would be restricting our hardware options is just so short sighted and utterly wrong. The only hardware options the license is prohibiting is:

a) Those who for some reason don't want to support the AmigaOS and probably would even restrict their hardware from running on it if the AmigaOS could.

b) Those who don't care about the AmigaOS and would not even if they could give any support to it's users.

For me, that's not such a big loss. The gain from it is so much bigger in the long run.

[Rogue]

There are no more Amigas, I don't want a new Amiga (unless it's cheaper and better than what everyone else on the consumer hardware market can come up with, although this won't/can't happen, but even then I'd like options). I want to buy AmigaOS. Who sells me what hardware is none of the software producers' concern.

Now we are at the heart of the matter, right?

Sorry, but that doesn't work that way. The prerequisite for starting the project was an officially branded Amiga hardware, not the vague hope that sometime somewhere an affordable PowerPC hardware could have been found.

You are right, Hyperion/Eyetech/Amiga cannot be compared to Apple.

For a small company like Amiga or Hyperion, it is *impossible* to support a wide range, so you have to restrict this to a set of hardware where you actually can guarantee support. If something goes wrong, you aren't likely to get support from your hypothetical hardware vendor, because they will say "What's an Omega?". You will turn to Hyperion/AmigaInc. You will expect us to fix your problem. You have paid money, so you won't accept a "sorry we can't help you" or "we told you so".

With officially branded hardware, part of the support (the hardware specific support) can be handled by the hardware manufacturer, while other issues will be handled by AmigaInc/Hyperion.

This can only be achived with a licencing scheme with officially branded hardware. If you think that this will work any other way, you should spend one week in the support department and see for yourself.

[mikeymike]

Not the old "MacOS only runs on Macs" again, please!

I wasn't raising it.  Just like I don't know all the factors in the equation of whether it would make more business sense to keep the hardware open or to keep it closed, neither do you.  Don't pretend you do.

[Madgun68]

This can only be achived with a licencing scheme with officially branded hardware. If you think that this will work any other way, you should spend one week in the support department and see for yourself.

Do I get a free plane ticket to your corner of the world if I do?  :-P