From: | Matt Sealey |
Date: | 22 Jun 2001 at 17:25:37 |
Subject: | Stop!!!! |
Okay, I'm sick and tired of fighting with Alan Buxey over every
tiny nit-picking detail he finds. Let's explain my views, tell a little
story, then you can all decide whether I'm "whinging for no reason"
like someone thinks I probably shouldn't.
A little over a year and a half ago, Gateway decided that we'd
all like a Linux-based settop box to toy with, something which
would eventually turn into something rather nifty for AOL to
ship around the USA. We didn't like it. We'd rather they'd have
stayed with what they planned in the previous two product
incarnations: a QNX-based (previously BeOS-based) microkernel
OS with Amiga-like solutions on top, or in fact a reworking of
the original AmigaOS for modern CPUs.
Given that we'd all gotten used to, and quite fond of, QNX (and
the idea of using it on our existing PPC Amigas), that was a
route we'd decided to accept as the route we'd like Amiga to
have taken. Stuff like Phoenix was born (although you'll never
find out the true reason why, but it was meant to be something
substantially more than using QNX to spite Amiga's new plans)
- and products such as the RealityStation have popped up out
of it.
Late December: two sacked employees turn up and "buy" Amiga
from Gateway with the intention of using an as-yet-unheard-of
and also as-yet-unproven microkernel operating system as the
basis of their new product.
Fine, I guess, but it would entail another 18 month development
cycle, an 18 month development cycle we'd had enough of twice
already waiting for the LAST plans an Amiga came up with.
I for one was ready to accept Tao as being an okay little system,
although I still cannot see the point of any of it's so called
revolutionary features: why I should learn to code in VP when
I could just recompile some C code (which is perfectly possible
on QNX) and why I should be excited by this wonderful graphics
system that let me tint my terminal windows in sepia and bounce
a boingball around, double-buffered and vertical-synced, on
my display.
Then, in something which could only be described as predictable,
he decided to mouth off at Dan Dodge (head guy, QNX) on the
Team Amiga mailing list. If anyone could discount the audacity
it was Team Amiga, the bunch of brown-nosing twits that I now
consider most of them to be. So-called "working together" was
decided on although this was to be as much of a farce as Fleecy's
attitude, which was to basically take ideas on the operation of
a developer community, and instead of utilising infrastructure
in place or helping to install such infrastructure, to go it alone
on things like www.amigadev.net - asking for specific NDAs on
development for Amiga stuff (which meant that basically Amiga
were listening in on everything that went on in Phoenix, when
it wasn't squabbling over direction, but we never got to listen
in on Amiga's plans in return).
Not acceptable. I didn't much like Fleecy, Bill or Gary anyway,
but these "tactics" are plain underhanded. Suffice to say they
were unceremoniously (as in, nobody noticed) kicked out. Not
that they cared.
AmigaDE 1.0 was released sometime nearer the middle of the year:
we were told that this is what the "new Amiga" was to be based
on. No mention at all of any "desktop Amiga" was mentioned,
but the Community thought that it was a done deal, it didn't
NEED to be mentioned. We all know that Amiga never had it
planned: the world of PDAs, Tablets, Phones and Settops was
their goal (a goal which was no different to the one Fleecy
and Bill were working on at Gateway, just with a different OS)
We were told that we'd need a PC running Linux to run the
kit, and a Windows version would be along later. Sure, we all
have PCs anyway, and anyone "in the know" would realise
that the PC route is there because there's no such thing as a
self-hosted development environment for a PDA.
It lacked 3D graphics support, and audio support, and some
other things we might well have liked (after all, without that
all it's good for is a silent 240x360 version of Pacman, right?
With the Gameboy Advance looming on the horizon, PDAs
are certainly capable of something more advanced). KOAN
and Mesa were announced to fill this gap, to be implemented
for the next release...
It lacked (and still does lack) almost essential development features
like memory protection and real resource tracking - and also
virtual memory. But this is discountable because it's for a PDA
or a Settop - systems which don't require these kinds of things.
I can accept that. I work on these things for a living NOW, I
don't really mind that at all that the settop doesn't have an MMU
or FPU - because I have a debugger on my PC to trap stuff that
goes wrong, and I can trace stuff and catch exceptions with
great ease (when it works :).
MorphOS is released to the public at around the same time (or
maybe it was just before..). It's good: it's PPC, it runs your old
Amiga apps, it's pretty damned fast, and has decent support
from the start! Wow.. this is what Amiga would have been
doing if they hadn't have gone through the QNX ->Linux->Tao
route through all those changes and buyouts.
Some people (i.e. me) really are beginning to wonder whether
this is the solution people really want for an Amiga - because
certainly some people wanted a desktop environment, but
we all knew deep down that we'd have a Handspring Visor
or an Internet Fridge instead.
An affiliation with http://www.devicetop.com pretty much
confirmed this. This isn't a site for desktop computers.
But.. then almost precisely at the same time, Amiga decided
that there WAS going to be some desktop environment - an
entire computer designed to run this AmigaDE. I'm sorry,
but you cannot have a modern multi-user desktop solution
without those essential features that it lacked.
Amiga decided to deny that this was true. Tao decided to
enforce the fact that Tao wasn't EVER going to get this
kind of thing into their miniature-devices operating system.
And then, out of the blue, they decided that they WERE going
to have memory protection, virtual memory and all kinds of
neat desktop-class (nearing server-class) features.
How do they manage to to do this? Well, apparently they've
had a change of heart: the Tao-based solution just wouldn't
cut it for their new desktop-nay-server class product line.
We get AmigaOS 3.9 - an OS which they say "if it gets 50,000
sales, we'll create an AmigaOS 4.x". Ha! This is merely a clever
ploy to a) get sales and b) never have to make AmigaOS 4.x.
I kinda commended them on that announcement ;)
The AmigaOne comes into play, as does the Pegasos PPC
motherboard (which incidentally runs MorphOS as a
sideline). These are the machines that will run the magical
Amiga Digital Environment. hey - we get the best of both
worlds: our old Amiga is still attached for the AmigaOne
so we can run either OS. As for the Pegasos, it runs the
AmigaDE or MorphOS - also the best of both worlds..
But here's the surprise:
They're going to resurrect the Classic AmigaOS! They're
going to port to PPC, and then add memory protection,
virtual memory, and all kinds of cool new features and
then integrate the AmigaDE to create some kind of fantastic
new thing. Now if this isn't a huge change in direction,
then I don't know what is. But it's probably a welcome one:
we all want a PPC Native AmigaOS 4.x.
.... but isn't this what MorphOS was anyway? Hell, it's
already doing that, with most of the important parts of
the OS running on PPC, a 68k emulator, support for
decent graphics boards in the pipe, a PPC version of AHI
to run on it.. surely this cannot be a coincidence that
Amiga are producing the exact same thing.
But apparently it is: instead of leveraging what they
have already available, they must choose another
solution that ultimately boils down to CONTROL - they
would rather go it from scratch and have full say over
the tiniest details, than use something which is (and Fleecy
has said this) superior and has a shorter time-to-release
than anything Amiga itself or any of it's contractors
would produce.
I just don't see where they are trying to go: they've
pretty much hidden their entire agenda from us from the
word Go! And that they did tell us has all changed. We
are now expected to purchase a large amount of specialised
hardware to get anything developed for the desktop Amiga
we always wanted - when some people were convinced
that they would just need a standard PC. Processor
independance is a moot point now that we're guaranteed
to be running on a PowerPC, too.. so what's the point
of VP code?
And this brings us back to the AmigaDE Party Pack. Ask
yourself how long it's been since Amiga announced anything
substantial that wasn't "Amiga pledges to work with xyz
to do zyx". A *long* time.
So what happens? They decide that it would be a better idea
to release a pre-release version of their development kit
to generate a little interest again: I dare say they saw how
bare Amiga.org and MooBunny were becoming of Amiga
specific news items.
Ask yourself this: what is *in* the AmigaDE 1.1 Party
Pack? Oh, you get the newest version of the SDK. And
some vouchers of purpose unclear (verily).
How many people here actually bought the AmigaDE 1.1?
How many of you has the AmigaDE 1.0 (or 1.01) too? Did
you not resent the fact that you didn't get an upgrade
deal, because I certainly would have. I'm not sure I'd be
too happy of paying $100 every 9 months just for the
privilege of development.
How many of you actually knew what was DIFFERENT from
the AmigaDE 1.0 in the new AmigaDE pre-release? It was
news to me a few days ago that it actually had the KOAN
audio system in.
How many of you bothered to find out before you bought it
what the features in the kit were? I seriously doubt *any*
developer who would buy his tools out of loyality rather
than usefulness. Trying to repair your car? Why, when I
was a kid I had a Fisher Price toolkit. I'm so loyal to them
that my red plastic hammer and green foam chisel will fix
the fact that my brake fluid is leaking!!
I just don't see that Amiga have anything to offer any serious
developer (which is what I am) over other (more lucrative :)
solutions. Be that WindowsCE, BeIA, PalmOS or QNX (which
incidentally is now becoming quite an industry slut, appearing
on many devices.. IBM seem to like it, and got Opera to port
their browser to it. This is also a sly dig at Mozilla: the most
unportable portable, unembeddable embedded browser
available, so free that you have to pay a commercial company
to write a better browser lest you spend any money on it :)
I don't see why the USERS are getting so excited either: what
exactly are they offering you? A new computer? A new OS?
Have you seen either? How can you get that excited about
something SO new and SO unproven?
Tell me if I'm whinging - but to tell you the truth I couldn't
give a flying shit if I was. I'm tired of the constant switching
and changing, trying to keep up with what Amiga are doing,
wondering whether I should or shouldn't follow them in
whatever, wondering why they keep making (and then admitting
that they are making) these bad decisions.
Wouldn't you be tired too? This mail took me 45 minutes to
write! God I'm STARVING.. where's me can-opener..?
Regards
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