AmigaActive (321/1947)

From:Andy Hall
Date:4 Apr 2001 at 23:08:31
Subject:And so it begins......

Hi There,

What a weird few days eh? I've been busy finishing a phase of a project I'm
working on while trying to keep up with whats going on, wasting
goodness-knows-how-many hours on ANN instead of working.

I've read everything I can and I'm pretty much up to date with everything
and now have drawn to these conclusions:-

- Amiga have re-evaluated thier DE stratagy and have realised that Microsoft
is untouchable, the market for a stand alone DE is too small to really make
it worthwhile. Instead they want to push DE as only a digital content
system, and provide existing users with future updates of the classic OS.

- The Classic OS will merge with the DE, so there will be a transition stage

- People who moaned about buying a brand new PC for the DE can still run the
DE as a hosted environment, just not as an independant OS, as it appeared
that doing so would be a waste or resources.

- Amiga have done what they should have done, a LONG time ago, and taking
control of the community and the OS, they (and not H&P as before) will work
on the OS with many partners (don't forget they have some of the best amiga
programmers going working for them)

- Anyone can make AmigaOS hardware to the zirco spec, but only Eyetech (at
the moment) can call it an AmigaOne.

- There has been a split in the community AmigaOS vs. MorphOS. Vapor,
MorphOS, BPlan, and DCE, all sticking to MorphOS rather than OS4. This is
sad, but there is so much bad blood in the community that it was bound to
happen.

- Amiga did try to sort out some of the problems, and wanted MorphOS
onboard, but they refused due to differences between them and H&P and some
of the terms of agreement, they refused.

- A lot of the amiga market are very childish. Ralph Schmidt and David
Gerber for example. Some of the comments I have seen are pure sour grapes,
which is a shame becuse the two gentlemen above are extremly talented
programmers, and I am a great fan of Voyager. It means that not only will
these gentlemen NOT bring thier expertise in amiga programming to the new
OS, many people will be without PPC versions of some great apps (like the
Vapor Internet tools).

- A lot of users are unrealistic, tightfisted ****s who won't pay for new
hardware, even though what they own is VERY out of date. There are people
out there who think that you should only ever buy one computer in your
lifetime. Grow up guys.

- Reading Moobunny is punishment to murder in some countries

So for me I will go with Amiga Inc. on this one. OS4/Amigaone gets my vote,
not without a lot of thought. For the first time since I've been using
amigas I actually feel the owning company is going to get somewhere
worthwhile. I didn't like the AOne when it first was announced, or was I
terribly excited at running the DE as a standalone OS. This is a very
sensible step, and they should be commended in taking it istead of trying
something beyond what is realistic.

As for MorphOS, it looks like a great system, but it is the people behind it
that I can't stand. Ralph Schmidt has proved himself many a time to be a
thoughly unlikable human being, and I'm not likely to take my business to
someone of his attitude (a cross between Matt Sealy and David Connolly!).
I really hope that something could be worked out, if Ralph isn't too
pig-headed to work WITH other people, as I said before he is obviously a
great talent even if he does act like a tit in public.

Phew! OK back to work!

See Ya,



Andy "Hammer Time" Hall

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