\chapter{FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions}

Ok, AROS is a rewrite of AmigaOS 3.1 (Kickstart 40.68 and up).

These are the main goals:

\begin{itemize}
\item Be binary compatible on Amiga (so it can plug&play replace the
original OS)

\item Be source compatible on any other hardware (so Amiga software can be
ported to other hardwares with no effort)

\item Provide every hardware with Amiga apps with native look and feel or,
as the user chooses, foreign hardware with Amiga look and feel.

\item AROS will come in three flavours: 1) A standalone OS like Linux, Win,
etc. 2) An Amiga Emulation (ie. a window in which you have a Workbench.
Every new screen will open a new window) 3) A link-library with which you
can port Amiga apps to other OSs (eg. Windows). 1) will have Amiga l&f,
2) will have a mixture and 3) will have native l&f.

\end{itemize}

\section{Why do you implement the current OS ?}

There has been some talks about writing something which is something like
an advanced OS with the features of the AmigaOS. This has been dropped
and for good reason. First, everyone agrees that the current AmigaOS
should be enhances but no one knows how to do that or even agrees on what
has to be enhanced or what is important. Some want memory protection but
don't want to pay the price (major rewrite of the available software and
speed cut-offs).

In the end, the discussions ended in either flame wars or "do it this
way ! - Won't work because !". So we just said: First we do something we
know to handle. Then we have the experience to decide what is possible
and how. And then we decide.

\section{Please implement this feature !}

No. a) If it was that important, it would be in the OS already :-) b) Why
don't you do it yourself and send it to us ?

See, there are plenty of people around who think that their feature is the
most important and that "the AmigaOS has no future if this feature is not
built in right now". We say: The AmigaOS' demise has nothing to do with
missing features. The AmigaOS can do everything a modern OS should do. We
see that there are possibilities to enhance the AmigaOS but if we do it,
who would write the rest of the OS ? In the end, we would have lots of
nice improvements to the original AmigaOS which would break most of the
available software and worth nothing, because the OS itself would be
missing. So we decided to block every attempt to implement major new
features in the OS until it's more or less done.

\section{What is the legal status of AROS ?}

AROS is Mailware as defined in the AFD-COPYRIGHT. This means that you
have to write a postcard or email to us if you use AROS. The use of AROS
is free.

If you want to use AROS' code in your project, you have to pay for this
code if you earn money with the result. For PD developers, the code is
still free.

\section{How compatible is AROS ?}

Most compatible. We expect that AROS will run existing software on the
Amiga without problems. On other hardware (like PCs), the existing
software must be recompiled. We will offer a preprocessor which you can
use on your code which will change any code that might break with AROS
and/or warn you about such code.

\section{For what kinds of hardware is AROS available ?}

Currently AROS is only available for Intel PCs with Linux (Linux/i386).
We are working on versions for Linux/m68k (ie. Amiga, Mac and Atari with
Linux) and of course on the Amiga version.

\section{How about UAE ?}

UAE is an A500 emulator. It's goals differ somewhat from that of AROS: UAE
wants to be able to be binary compatible even for games and hardware
banging code while AROS wants to have native applications. Therefore AROS
is much fast than UAE but UAE has more software.

We are in loose contact with the author of UAE and there is a good chance
that code for UAE will appear in AROS and vice versa. For example, UAE is
interested in the source for the OS because it could run some apps much
faster if it could replace the OS calls by native code. On the other hand,
AROS needs hardware drivers (eg. audio.device).