The World of Amiga show in London is more than just a safe haven for Amiga fanatics searching for elusive software or clues to Gateway's hidden strategy; a large number of the visitors are key developers of Amiga products. With so much talent in one place, the opportunity of a gathering could not be missed and that is exactly what the AmigaSoc boys did.
A meeting room at the hotel was booked at considerable expense and a developer conference was scheduled for the Saturday evening after the show. The AmigaSoc team is made up of Glenn Clarke, Andrew Elia, Julian Sadotti, Chris Livermore and Ash Thomas alias DrAsh on IRC. "Only AmigaSoc made it possible".
Kermit Woodall of Nova Design (the team behind ImageFX and Aladdin 4D) chaired the conference. Armed with an agenda on the overhead projector and DrAsh on an Amiga 4000 hooked up to lRC, Kermit outlined the purpose of the conference as well as giving the history behind the Arise mailing list. Arise is a mailing list on the Internet made up of Amiga veterans, major developers and industry experts.
This private community has spent the last year discussing the possible resurrection strategies that the Amiga can take to make it a dominant platform again. The Industry Council/Open Amiga (IC/OA) strategy has been born out of Arise to put the findings into action. Ben Hutchings was the lC/OA representative and, as he was due to speak at the end of the conference, Kermit focused on the areas where developers could help themselves.
The Internet represents an ideal tool for the Amiga developers and there was a large emphasis on how it could be used to speed up communications. A developer Web site (http://www.amiga.org/developer/) has been started to try and centralise all Amiga information. Archiving everything Amiga is the goal; all documentation, source code examples and programming help will be there.
The developer community will also be brought closer using passworded areas of the site, forums and resource pooling. It is clear that a large amount of development on new Amiga programs goes into writing code that could easily be shared to save time.
At the moment, companies find themselves having to write drivers for new bits of hardware just to add features to their applications. TWAIN is something that the Amiga could definitely do with and is a prime candidate for co-operative development This common goal approach can only happen with communication via the Internet or developers conferences such as this one. Ben Vost, of Amiga Format, pointed out that he had started a regular section in the magazine designed to make people aware of new hardware products on the market needing Amiga drivers and software. For example, the new Hewlett Packard all in one printer and scanner. Ben could print with it, but not use the scanner. I have since noticed a new site on the Internet which is doing something similar, check out http://thunderstorms.org/NATW/.
The IFF standard was discussed and the importance of Datatypes were cited as an example of one way in which the Amiga has managed to keep up with emerging file types and formats. Some of the developers were worried that the Amiga IFF was being left out of the latest Adobe Photoshop, apparently it is now in the goodies section! The Amiga needs to use open standards if it wants to have a role in the current marketplace, making people aware of IFF is surely a secondary goal.
A suggestion to change Amiga Guide into some sort of HTML format was not met with open arms, but distributing documentation as HTML means that it can be read on any platform. This was actually a great idea and it was a shame to see some developers so out of touch with the market and the opportunities of the Internet.
Sadly, some of the developers lost the plot halfway and started harping on about wanting more information from Petro Tyschtschenko and the Gateway folk, who just happened to be at the back of the room. Now we would all like to know Gateway's intentions but it was clear it had nothing concrete to say, especially as it had bought the Amiga only 48 hours before. The whole point of this conference was for developers to co-operate with each other and discuss ways to work towards common goals, not to blitz Amiga International with demands. The floor became rather heated and both Amiga International and Gateway left the room as an old can of worms was opened.
AmigaSoc managed to regain control of the conference; you couldn't help but feel sorry for both them and Kermit who were asked questions well outside the scope of the meeting. Kermit looked relieved as he handed over to Ben Hutchings of the lC/OA.
It is understandable that people may be frustrated by the lack of any development on Amiga hardware over the last few years, but you cannot expect Gateway to buy the Amiga one day and announce a whole string of brand new hardware developments the next. Dr Kittel's statement of "Would you rather they tell you lies just to keep you happy?" received a resounding round of applause and reflected the majority view that Gateway and Amiga International are telling us all they can at this point. The IC/OA is an independent pool of developers that will use the Internet to try and focus Amiga development towards a common goal. Ben talked about trying to produce standards such as for plug-ins for Web browsers and define new open protocols. The first phase has been completed, made up from the Arise mailing list findings, and sent to Gateway to keep them up to date. The next phase has been started and will involve the building of the Web site (http://www.amiga.org/developer/).
I think the developers meeting was a
success, despite the disruptions, because it served as a starting point
for co-operation and gave everyone lots of ideas to go home with.
Remember, it wouldn't have been possible without Kermit and the guys
from AmigaSoc.