| Myth and Reality | Amiga goes Linux | Interview |

Myth and Reality - commentary by Stephan Bischoff

QNX is history, at least for the Amiga. Perhaps QNX will build a proprietary operating system in competition to the Amiga. This second shock wave rocks the already precarious Amiga community further. What remains of the Great Dream? No proprietary hardware, no proprietary OS. The choice of processor for the Developer Box was really a hard kick in the head, and now we have a slap in the face with Linux.

A Linux box based on crummy PC hardware? Perhaps in a cute and therefore unpractical designer case as well? An iAmiga? Or better said, an iLinux? No thank you. What next?

Our undiminished president, Jim Collas, tries to placate: everything has been well considered, and after such a long time we shouldn't go and forever bury the keyboard behind the house. He also promises to elucidate on these decisions specifically as well as bringing the still greatly undefined concept "Operating Environment" somewhat closer to the community.

Looked at technically, everything sounds quite plausible: one takes the Linux kernel, strikes the hopelessly old trimmings away and replaces them with modernized code, and so one has a really good basis in order to further work with it. Why that can't work with QNX still remains for the time being incomprehensible. The wealth of drivers can't be the reason, as these must in any case be newly adapted, when not completely re-written; also that naturally limits the next AmigaOS to an expanded Window manager - where the project would be regarded as a failure.

We are more likely to find the real explanation at a marketing strategy level, and there the genius of this strategic move is revealed: we buy into the Linux community, which, as is well known, is not only very well organized, but also capable and willing. Should something be sold sometime, better yesterday than today, and the Amiga community is clearly too small to be able to produce sufficient number of units for. That pushes the price upwards. With the simultaneously sinking prices for Wintel computers, this is the exactly the wrong signal for the public. With Linux - under the circumstances - a new market (an engaging market with high intellectual user potential in its growth) is opened. Linux is known and therefore advertises itself, and will probably also be sold, regardless how much of it will be found in the next Amiga.

For us well established users, that naturally doesn't taste especially good. X86 and Linux don't look particularly good in comparison to a MegaMightyMagicMysteryProcessor and a spectacular Operating Environment, but they are incomparably realer to bring to market and therefore also earlier producible, and finally something tangible should be available already by the end of the year. How it continues from there is yet to be shown. Our upper echelon, before all, Jim Collas, promote themselves closer to the community, showing an extremely positive sign. So, let's make waves and enjoy the summer.

Stephan Bischoff
Steve Bowman