AmigaOS: how must it be in the future ?
When a builder is looking for a site to erect a building, he must search
for solid ground.
People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening.
People writing songs that Amigans never share.
Amiga World Issue 1
Simon and Garfunkel - The boing of Silence
These days the Amiga community focuses on the OS they want into their next
Amiga whatever it is (Amiga Classic + Amijoe or Boxer or ???). The question
is: does AmigaOS have to be made open source or stay like it is now ?
I won't speak about the Antigravity announcement because speaking about
politics was really stupid. But the important thing is that they react about
something they don't believe in. Why ? Why don't they agree with
COSA?
The best way to know it is to examine an example: Linux.
Linux and Unix-like OSes are at least 20 years old (probably more) and thousands and thousands of coders (probably more) did work on part of it. After all these years and all this work, Linux should be the ULTIMATE operating system today. An OS that is stable at 200%, an OS that can do everything and that can be used by everybody on Earth (even people that don't know what a hard disk is).
What does Linux look like today ?
Even the last Linux distribution need a LOT of experience to be installed
on a system. The installation procedure is far from being easy to be used
by a non specialist.
Whatever you want to install on your system, you'll have to know thousands of
things: get files/drivers on some web sites, unarchive those files, compile sources that
never compil even with makefiles, re-compil the kernel and ... STOP ... are
you mad ? It seems that you're on a Winblows system !
No it's wrong because I know a lot of people that don't know what SDRAM is
but they manage to use their Winblows. So it seems to be easier than Linux !
And I won't talk about how many MBytes are needed for a Linux system. It's like
a huge mess inside there just like in the System directory of Winblows.
Yes still the same. I'm sorry I prefer my AmigaOS (or Elate or Qnx...) !
And yes a lot of Linux-like exist: (Red Hat, Debian, Corel, BSD...).
It shows that all people go in different directions, instead of working together
to do the best OS.
COSA says:
If the Amiga Operating System (or a clone) is Open Source, it can be developed for a variety of
platforms; The Amiga Operating System can be made available to those running under the Intel x86
architecture which runs probably over 90% of the worlds computers and has a total market share of
over 100 million units.
Exactly. But it already exists. AROS already runs on x86 computers. The most important fact is that it is done by
intelligent people. And those people didn't need the help of the coders
worldwide. They did it for the community. And they could do it for Amiga
Inc instead it would be the same. No need for Open source to make a good
job...
Open source is a method of development that allows the end result to be RELEASED AT ZERO
COST.
From a certain point of view only. Coders that work on the open sourced OS spend a lot of
time. Perhaps what they write won't be included in the final release of the OS
if their piece of code is not accepted by other coders. Or if it is accepted,
it will be removed when the kernel has to go on another direction. This is
due to lack of organisation and analysis of what the future must be.
I would prefer if they could work on softwares. Those apps that lack to any
new OS on the market. Open source can lead to effort wasting...
We must start to think of ways we can FREE the OS so that it will proliferate and spread
Right, let's free the OS. Let's all work for the OS. Not in an Open source
environment but in an Open minded one. Let's start to listen to the
community. They know what they want and Amiga Inc has engineers that know
how to do it the right way.
If you give to the people the product they
want, don't you think it will proliferate fast ?
Going Elate AND Classic ??????
MorphOS, AROS projects are BEAUTIFUL but it seems that the Amiverse will throw them to the trashcan as soon as it is released.
The main reason for this is that software houses will adopt Amie for the reason above. I really can't see how other OS will live with no softwares.
Amiga Inc, you are moving into the Elate/Java direction. This is a good move. The problem is that
the Amiverse will be ready to expand not before the end of the year. What can we do before this ? We can't wait all this long (you know Amigans are fed up waiting).
So you could move into a direction for Classic Amigas too. In order to achieve this very fast all Amiga projects should
merge into one: the Classic Amiga.
This is a decision to be taken NOW. All Amigans will follow your decision. You don't believe me, ask them. Let AAC and UGN engage the turbo !
Amiga community it's time to go one direction. Aros, MorphOS, OS3.x, Dolphin teams think about it. If I'm not completely right, I am sure I'm not completely wrong !!!
A lot of comments were posted on the Amiga website Amiga Network News, unfortunately they were removed 2 years after that.
Philippe 'Elwood' Ferrucci
Software and Technical Engineer
Jay Miner Society - Let the dream become reality
Phoenix Platform Consortium - Union will make it