Something for Everyone
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- Greg98
- DOJ
- MetalJoe
This archived discussion is "read only".
» DOJ - Nauseating
Wow, that was an uninteresting piece of marketing. The sycophantic, zealous, astroturfing clap trap usually posted by Mike Bouma on OSNews and /. bears remarkable similarities to this.Well, it wasn't totally uninteresting. There were some remarkable statements sprinkled in the soup:
"The Amiga continues on its slow but steady revival, with developments racking up nicely in both the mobile and desktop environments."
No, the Amiga is dead and not about to be revived. AmigaOS OTOH will be updated, and it will run on third-party hardware, and the "mobile environments" have nothing to do with anything "Amiga". I expected John Chandler of all people to be aware of this, even though I see articles in the uninitiated "main stream" media talking about "new Amigas" and such nonsense.
"Sendo, a UK mobile phone manufacturer, and O2 have inked deals with Amiga Inc which will help establish the AmigaAnywhere platform as a core technology for the future of mobile applications and content."
If this were a corporate marketing announcement, instead of an article on Suite 101 ("Real People helping Real People"), I suppose the prediction about AA being established as a core technology for anything could have its place. Now it doesn't.
"I've also learnt that Olivetti-subsidiary Royal will be making use of AmigaAnywhere in the near future."
You and everybody else who were at AmiWest or read/heard the reports from there... Oh well.
"For those who thought AmigaAnywhere had faltered, time to think again."
For those who already have come to any conclusion regarding this "Yet Another Content Delivery Layer", time to wait and see. At least until some time after the products have been shipping with it pre-installed, which they haven't. Is this advertisement payed for? I hope it is. Whoring for free sucks.
"Development of AmigaOS 4.0 continues at a brisk pace, with new screenshots released of the UI and assorted components such as AmiDock."
Releasing screenshots of GUI components running on OS 3.x does not constitute development in any pace.
"The guys at Hyperion have pulled off a fantastic job since taking on the project, with many aspects scheduled for later 4.x releases being folded into the initial release."
Since according to the initial plans and feature lists, AmigaOS 4.2 and 4.5 would already have been out for quite some time by now, this is quite a meaningless observation. So the version number to be used is still 4.0? Yay. What a fantastic job. Why not just rename the initial release to "3.9.5" and say "look, they worked so hard that they got all this stuff included already in 3.9!"
"As previously mentioned, a greater proportion of the OS will be fully PowerPC-native than had been first planned, which is excellent news - offering a considerably shorter and smoother transition period."
Ummm, hello? Logic paging John Chandler, please report to the information desk! If OS4 had been released with these "new" features at the first planned date, then yes your observation would've been correct. Now OS4 is released LATER than the initially planned date, which is why your observation is, if not nonsensical, totally irrelevant.
"Several other Linux distributions have been made available for the new hardware and the MorphOS team announced recently that MorphOS has also been successfully ported. This is all good news, ensuring that the hardware will receive a suitably broad user base essential for future development and funding. In fact, the partnership between MAI Logic (who provide key technology for the AmigaOne motherboard) and Eyetech has blossomed, with a long-term commitment announced by both parties."
I don't know what to say. This is just PATHETIC!
Linux running on a mobo that ALWAYS has been running Linux (yes, even since before Eyetech and Mai had heard of eachother) is not "news". And are you really reducing Mai's TeronCX to a "key technology" of the "AmigaOne"? It IS the "AmigaOne" damnit! Also, the "partnership" (LOL) between Mai and Eyetech has not yet started to blossom, since the "partnership" constitutes Eyetech being a distributor of Mai's products, and that distribution has not yet begun.
"The BIOS has been upgraded to deal with the increased demands, leading to a joint Eyetech-Hyperion development that has ported the PPCboot firmware to the new hardware."
Sigh. What "increased" demands? AmigaOS may have "other" demands than all other OSes that can use Open Firmware, but surely not "increased" compared to e.g. Linux. After switching to PPCBoot, there are however increased demands on the firmware, since this firmware was originally designed for low-end embedded devices. I also have a hard time seeing Eyetech of all people and companies having the competence to do any firmware development. What they have "developed" so far are some hobby solder-iron jobs like KVM switches. This is a PPCBoot-community/Mai/Hyperion project.
"Looking good."
Looking astroturfed.
-- posted by DOJ
» MetalJoe - Re: Nauseating
In response to message posted by DOJ:DOJ, your views are noted.
Do be aware that articles are intended for broader consumption than the Amiga community and that, yes, I do have a somewhat zealous enthusiasm for the Amiga. I have contact with Amiga Inc. amongst others and have a genuine respect for what they are doing, not all of which is publicly known.
Is the Amiga dead? Well, that depends by what you mean by "Amiga". I've mentioned many times before that defining what exactly is an "Amiga" is difficult, if not impossible to do. I tend to regard it nowadays as a cluster of related aspects: the OS, the community, the "spirit".
AmigaAnywhere is a part of that, for me at least and others like Wayne Hunt of Amiga.org. Okay, it's not AmigaOS, at least not yet, but it's an important part of the Amiga future now, like it or not. As such, I will continue to support it and provide it with coverage. And yep, I am whoring for free ;-)
OS 4.0 development is going well considering - the original estimates weren't realistic and Hyperion have the major problem of needing to work on other projects periodically to pay the bills. Okay, yes, you are correct in saying that the new features would've been scheduled for this period of time. However, there are other factors at work and, like any good project management, priorities are changed and revised as work progresses. Delays have affected the schedule.
When the AmigaOne boards first shipped, there was one port of LinuxPPC. Since then, other developers have ported various Linux distros to the platform. Sure it's not a major undertaking once one has been ported, but it's a very important contribution for recognition beyond the Amiga community. MorphOS is also a useful addition and shows that it isn't just about Linux ports.
You forget that the Mai board *is* different and also more expensive than the AmigaOne. They share a fair chunk of commonality, but they are not the same thing - both Eyetech and Mai have stated this. It should also be noted that this is a similar situation with the Pegasos, bplan also using Mai components for their project.
The information on the BIOS and partnership comes from Eyetech, Hyperion and Mai sources. I do have confidence in Eyetech and I know that I am not alone in this respect, because they have worked on projects bigger than the occasional hobby job.
As ever, your comments have been noted for future reference and I will endeavour to take them on board.
Love the phrase "astroturfed" by the way - it's not something I've heard before in the UK :-)
-- posted by MetalJoe
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