At the end
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At the end
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From now on we try to get engaged Amiga users as guest authors for the end of AMIGA aktuell International. This month Martin Baute, the English translator of amiga-news.de does this job - and hopefully not for the last time, because he has made a good job - in my opinion:
»"Would you like to write a comment for the Amiga Aktuell International?" - that´s what Carsten Schröder asked me. Of course I would, but about what? The Amiga2K, of course: The largest Amiga show in North America, where announcements would decide Amigas future...
But... what has been announced?
On previous shows, Internet Cafés provided those at home with information, by means of IRC channels and Saturday-night-e-mails. This time, information was passed to the information channels sparsely and slowly.
Perhaps the UGN (User Group Network) did its part in this misery by confusing priorities - their booth had systems connected to the Internet, but these were busy with providing WebCam pictures and live audio streams. They wouldn´t put these streams on hold for one e-mail or another.
So there are only two sources of information at the time of this writing (Tuesday evening, April 4th): Roger Wyatt at Czech Amiga News, and Corinna Cohn at MooBunny. The Amiga website shrouds itself in silence, all other news services (including Amiga Aktuell and amiga-news.de) copied their articles from Czech Amiga News.
Even if you ignore Amigas Executive Update ("...if it is not on this website, it is not true!"), two sources aren´t much. A single source is too easily influenced by misunderstandings, misinterpretations and wishful thinking, even more so since the content of the announcements leads the Amigian to unexplored territories. I don´t even want to think of an April Fool´s joke - even while Bill McEwen probably is too much concerned about his well-being to pull off such a prank in the presence of over two hundred rabid Amigians (after all, they say we tend to be a bit fanatic at times), who knows what kind of joker had his hands on the information?
This is a point for harsh criticism on Amiga - whoever claims the monopoly for truth about company strategy should announce this strategy to the public (not only those present at location) at least on the day after the show.
On this background, the kind reader should take the following informations as "beta". No guarantee given. Use at your own risk. :-)
What should have been clear to the casual observer well before, was made official in St. Louis: The developer systems are based on a x86 CPU (AMD K6, 500 MHz, with GeForce 256 graphics card and 64 MB RAM). The Elate system of the Tao Group will be running based on a Linux installation, to enable development of pioneering software products.
Almost naturally, several visitors of discussion groups considered this treason on the spirit of Amiga. For the technologically oriented developer, however, this descission is completely understandable; I would even daresay, it´s the only way that makes sense, and I will tell you why.
For developing software, you need software. This starts with a text editor and a compiler, continues with debugger and "make", and does not end with tools for project and workflow management, documentation etc. If an operating system offers all those tools itself, it is called "self-contained" - but Elate is not yet on this level. So you have to offer a "basic system", and costs are not the last matter to be considered. The choice for Linux comes naturally.
This is no catastophy: The development of AmigaOS in the eighties was also based on quite different platforms, and we were happy with the results for many years. Programmers in general don´t care which platform they work on, as long as the needed tools are available.
Using the POP boards by IBM (based on PPC) would be considered more "political correct" by many. However, those boards are much harder to get (if you get them at all), probably much more expensive, and if there are comparable Linux installations (including drivers) available for them, I don´t know.
With development continuing, there will be more and more drivers available. The restrictive requirements for a developer system (a given Linux installation on a given processor on a given motherboard with a given graphics card) will be loosened; with the large presence of Linux systems especially among hobbyist developers, this openes up a large market for potential Elate-Amiga programmers.
Even if the high-flying plans of Amiga should fail, you could still use the developer system hardware for Linux, BeOS, Windows or whatever - which would be impossible with a "home-made" developer box. Smallest risk possible for the interested developer - for me, this is the point that counts.
An impressive number of Amiga users still confuses developer boxes with end user products. This is wrong, and not only due to the fact that Amiga WILL distribute developer boxes, but will not provide end user systems of their own - only the operating system.
Hardware manufacturers will be offered several options: You could build standard systems (read: x86 PCs), POP PPC systems, or completely unrelated hardware creations, shipping all those with the new operating system.
This explicitly includes stuff like PDAs, organiser, car navigation systems or the dreaded intelligent toaster; because, aside from the classic desktop, tool of the "digital adventurer" (citing Fleecy Moss), the "Digital Domestic Habitat" is a declared target market. DDH stands for those parts of live where a computer device would make live easier, while the user doesn´t want to be confronted with computers.
("Computer, Light. Radio, station xy." - Greetings from Star Trek.)
If you didn´t realize yet from studying the available information about the Elate architecture, you should realize now: The end user systems CANNOT be limited to x86 CPUs. Those are target markets where even a Transmeta Crusue would make little sense: Embedded Systems are powered by CPUs from the MIPS or StrongARM family.
It will take some time before the first manufacturer will dare to ship desktop hardware exclusively with Elate-Amiga-OS. Until then, the new system will run as "add-on" on host operating systems, quite alike to a special application e.g. on Linux. This way, other users can try the new capabilities without having to pay considerable amounts up front - an option Linux itself utilized on its skyrocketing way to the top. Even today, most home Linux systems will probably have a parallel Windows installation.
Even when the first bundle systems are shipped exclusively with Elate-Amiga-OS (and we speak of years!), these systems will most probably be based on x86 standard hardware. Some of the reasons were already mentioned with the developer systems:
And: Almsot every "veteran" Amigian (those who thought about it) is calling for standard parts usage, to ensure low costs and availability. Standard parts need standard interfaces, and those are readily available on standard boards. The costs for individual designs wouldn´t pay off.
If someone senses an opportunity for an own hardware creation is free to develop one. The nature of the Elate technology makes it possible to support different plattforms independantly from the hardware. Just because Amiga will not produce such systems themselves does not mean that such systems won´t be available.
But you should remember that I am summarizing official statements as well as inofficial ones, and add a lot of speculation on myself, describing a distant goal. It is a rough road ahead, and perhaps we will never reach our goal - or it might take us many, many years. However, a first step has been taken, and that´s more than what has been achieved in many years ago.
The two sources (see introduction) both quote the names Corel, Red Hat, Sun, and Sony as "strategic partners" of Amiga. Two questions come to mind:
Who has a partnership with whom? There have been confusions in the past between Tao Group and Amiga. Sony is an investor of Tao Group; this doesn´t mean (by a long shot!) that Sony also supports Amigas plans. Additionally, there is a large discrepancy in wording: Bill McEwen claimed that Red Hat and Corel cooperate with Amiga. The presentation on the wall behind him, however, cited major executives of these companies that they are happy that Amiga is cooperating with _them_. It is a huge difference between Amiga cooperating with (and working for!) Red Hat and Corel, or them cooperating with (and working for!) Amiga!
And: How far do those partnerships go? If Amiga uses a Red Hat Linux installation for the developer boxes (and pays Red Hat for it), Red Hat is already a "strategic partner". But how much is Red Hat interested in Amiga succeeding? Do they invest money and/or manpower to support Amiga?
You see, we still have to read between the lines. There are some things to be read between the lines of "my" two sources which I am not happy about at all. Massive criticism of the Amiga leadership on the one hand, and the "degradation" to a simple Linux add-on on the other... Amiga would be well adviced to speak clarifying words on this, and soon.
To the Amiga community as whole, this time. Not only to 200+ attending a show, and not only to the paying customers of Amiga Zone. You already know that the IRC chats with Fleecy Moss will be closed for the public from now on, do you?
Towards the end, I want to address a point that keeps appearing in discussion threads again and again: The abandoning of 68k and AmigaOS 3.x.
Even before the show started, it has been made absolutely clear: There won´t be a continued development of AmigaOS 3.5 as an independant operating system under Amiga Inc.
As great as the AmigaOS has once been, as much it is limping behind the state of the art today. A complete "rejuvenation" of this desktop OS would result in just such a thing as criticized by many: Another OS for standard hardware. BeOS, second try, if you want to put it this way.
But Amiga Inc. does not simply abandoned the old OS. In an IRC chat (read: inofficial!), Fleecy Moss stated that the new OS will provide a "Classic" emulation, written with access to all the original source codes. Haage & Partner commited to provide a transition path from the old to the new OS.
Additionally, a new version of WarpOS is under development, allowing the new OS to run on PPC-Amigas, too.
Bill and Fleecy could have saved a lot of money by leaving the Amiga rights at Gateway. But they purchased them, and they offer a transition to new technology. That is much more than Gateway would have done. And I don´t think we can demand any more.
"If they don´t continue development, they should at least release the sources..."
In fact, Amiga is checking if this is possible. But a quick look at the OS 3.1 installation disks should be enough to realize: Not all rights on the AmigaOS are belonging to Amiga. Wishful Thinking, Adobe and some others would probably not be amused if their intelectual property would be declared Open Source just like that.
And, as much as I am sorry for COSA (Case for Open Source AmigaOS): What would happen to an Open Source AmigaOS? People would be unable to decide on directions, everyone would code his own changes, and the OS would fragment in many different versions. And the handful developers that would in fact stick with the old OS wouldn´t stand a chance to bring the OS anywhere.
Licenzing the OS sources to organizations (e.g. AROS, COSA, ...) is much more likely. But it remains a fact: Bringing the old AmigaOS to state-of-the-art level would result in having to rewrite it from scratch. This is not (only) my own opinion, but the opinion of Carl Sassenrath, who should know - since he wrote major parts of the OS core himself.
And this is exactly what Amiga Inc. is doing at the moment, more so than any other company known to me: Creating an operating system as slim, efficient, advanced and versatile as the AmigaOS has been 1985.
And that´s not understood in its complexity by most people. This does include myself.
| With kindest regards, | |
| Martin Baute | |
| mb@amiga-news.de« | |
So, I just have to say goodbye and to wish you happy Easter.
See you next month,
yours
Carsten Schroeder
