| June/July 1999 |

Jubilee Surfing

Well, the waves are once again breaking high in this treacherous ocean. You think nothing of it, the winter storms have passed, and now these waves appear.

The sun shines on a lovely beach, high breakers and surfboard under the arm. Holiday atmosphere. So it should be. Complemented with a cool drink, girlfriend on arm (pity there aren't any Amiga laptops) and a big smile on your face. Finally we have something to celebrate: edition 0x10 of the AmigaScene. One and a half years have already passed since a couple of enthusiasts meant to enrich the Media Landscape.

The waves come just right; on these one surfs real good. Where these waves come from is another question however. The recent decision of our president, the gentleman Jim, to use a Linux core was really not exactly received with unanimous enthusiasm, and so the waves break high.

What does QNX say about this? They remain with the Amiga, they declare solemnly, but what does that mean? What can they contribute? G3 cards with PhotonGUI? That's fine, but what's that got to do with the Amiga? That is comparable to NetBSD or Linux on Amiga hardware: it's not an Amiga. What is Amiga Inc. doing then? They're making something completely new, supposedly absolutely revolutionary when it ends up being what they have in mind, they take a small Linux core and on top of this a system, that should be completely newly developed (by November?? At the Cologne expo AmigaOE aka V5.0 is supposed to be introduced) and call it Amiga. Is it then really an Amiga?

Ah, those lovely new waves are coming again. People, I throw myself now into the deep and hope the waves won't so quickly abate. From this raised standpoint it's easier to observe the mob on the beach, tossing the beach ball to and fro. Here I'm reminded of a certain red & white round logo. Did they know back then, what is going on here now?

It doesn't really matter anyway - after all it's summer, it's bucketing down and the pools are going bankrupt, but who is still here to get all this at all? This South Pacific drama I don't want to escape from. :-))

The best waves of their time crash over any announcements; one side wants to do something new, the other takes announcements back, old acquaintances surface once again, the ants nest is as busy as the good old days, one would like to think. The curio at upcoming expos won't be out of place, where at the WOA in London OS3.5 will be ready to sell, maybe a small introduction to OS5, all in order to present it in Cologne in November. And also "the Others" are not resting, developing new things and letting new ideas develop considerably.

So, nothing like getting to the keyboard, where our mailbox only overflows with sandy holiday mail - err, expo reports.

Much fun to you all.

Oliver Gerler
Steve Bowman