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More on the insane licensing scheme here. As long as Amiga, Inc. refuse to let AmigaOS be sold for hardware that people already own or would actually consider buying, the whole AmigaOS4 project is a complete waste of time, money and enthusiasm.

(Yeah, yeah, I can hear the "it'd be pointless no matter how it's sold" comments already...)

Whilst we're on the subject of cable, whats cat6?

http://ceb.8bit.co.uk/

You could target the "Scam The Amiga Zealots" market and get wads of cash for those old [S|D]IMMS that everybody else gives or throws away.

You're comparing apples (sorry) and oranges.

Linux is an OS. The Mac is a computer.
Linux is an OS that runs, with varying degrees of success as noted, on a gazillion types of hardware (including Macs). MacOS is an OS that runs on one (line of) computer(s).

These differences you mention has nothing to do with any imagined inherent quality of the respective hardware/OSs. It's a market decision. Mac+MacOS problems are more predictable because Apple sell their own hardware. The downside is a hardware monopoly, with more expensive hardware, more slowly developed hardware, smaller market size, et c.

As a side note, it might be of interest that the company calling itself Amiga, Inc. (or KMOS, or whoever the hell is raping the Amiga name this week) are screwing AmigaOS by trying to pretend to be a company like Apple, only without any hardware of their own and with an OS that's entirely dependent on 3rd party hardware.

There is no "800MHz Amiga". There will be no more Amiga hardware. You're probably referring to the $500 Mai Logic Teron PX motherboard, which is also sold for $800 using the licensed trademark "AmigaOne".

Neither is there a beta version of AmigaOS 4. To most people in the industry, "beta" means software in it's final (or "release candidate") stage, when everything is implemented and only needs this "beta" testing before going gold. Not everything on the current AmigaOS 4.0 "feature list" (roadmap) has been implemented, not even fundamental stuff like JIT 68k emulation or the "let's-call-it-partial-memory-protection", and the list is constantly being changed and updated. Remember when all of a sudden the graphics driver subsystem was thrown out the window to be replaced by SNAP? This was, what, almost 2 years ago? Still it was being referred to as "beta" (alternatively "90% done", 3 years ago) by the more insidious marketroids and clueless fanbois already back then.

Everything in the GUI (except file listings in load/save requesters) of the latest "developer pre-release" (heh) version of AmigaOS 4 on a Teron PX (aka "AmigaOne XE") 800MHz PPC750FX is not only noticably but considerably more sluggish than AmigaOS 3.9 on a 25MHz MC68040 Amiga 4000 from 1993. It's nothing but embarrassing.

Eyetech is the only one who applied for a license.

Which, if it were true, would serve as yet another excellent illustration of how retarded the compulsory licensing idea is. But it's not true. There's been one more (w00t!) interested distributor. Bigger, better, cheaper, more competent than Eyetech. They suddenly stopped getting replies from AInc. Ask "T_Bone" if you don't know what I'm talking about.

It's a support and anti-piracy measure ...

Both AInc's illogical and transparent "anti piracy" and "support" excuses for a compulsory hardware licensing/bundling/dongling scheme are pure nonsense.

The AmigaOne SE is no longer available from eyetech.

Yes, it's discontinued, as I said. Did you have an objection to something here?

"AmigaOne PX"

Sorry, that was a typo. Not a lie. Yes OF COURSE I meant "XE".

An AmigaOne is 80% cheaper than a Teron CX evaluation board!!!

No. Perpetuating that ridiculous claim used to be the job of Eyetech, but not even they are trying to make people believe this any longer. I suggest you don't start doing it instead.

A Teron motherboard sold as an "AmigaOne" is 80% cheaper than a complete evaluation/developer's kit with participation in Mai's developer program, and that includes a Teron motherboard, which is what you linked to.

If you don't plan on designing hardware applications using Mai Logic chips, then a Teron motherboard sold as an "AmigaOne" ($800) is 60% more expensive than a Teron motherboard sold normally ($500).

4. "Micro AmigaOne", respectively.
Show me where these are available to the public... these are targeted at embedded markets? and are not available to the public

Yes, the Teron Mini/"Micro A1" (which is not targeted exclusively at any embedded market more than any other mini-ITX motherboard) is not available to the public. Duh - It's not yet in production, and I haven't heard from Mai that the design is even finalised yet.

5. No need to confirm my arguments with more examples, it's already been done. :) Yes, one hardware vendor would like to see Amiga Inc dead and they already have an OS of their own. Most hardware vendors don't give a $h1t about Amiga Inc (if anybody would know who they are), and AInc's licence "offer" would only be laughed at.

Thus, to get an increasing hardware base for AmigaOS, the compulsory nature of the licencing scheme must be taken out behind the barn and shot.

AmigaOS must be made for and SOLD for the hardware that people want or already own, regardless of whether the vendors of that hardware are interested in playing "Amiga". If someone would like to sell AmigaOS bundled with hardware, sure, sell licences for that, but don't make this the only way AmigaOS can be sold, and the only way there could be more hardware for AmigaOS.

As it is today, only a subset of the pathetic and decreasing current AmigaOS userbase would become AmigaOS4 users/customers. If this indeed is the plan, the whole project would be pointless.

- Is this a standalone OS, or a modified Linux / BSD system?

Standalone. It's a direct update to AmigaOS 3.x.

- Does it run on Amiga hardware, PowerPC, x86, or something else?

It's for PowerPC. It's initial target are the current Teron series by Mai Logic (a.k.a. "AmigaOnes" when sold with a new trademark licence by the only distributor that AmigaOS4 users are allowed to buy their hardware from).

See this post and this introduction for more info (and opinion).

It will also be available for old Amiga 3000/4000 computers if they've got Cyberstorm PPC accelerator boards.

- It is compatible with the old Amiga software, API's, etc?

Yes. It will have a JIT 68k-emulator integrated too (think of when the Macs and MacOS went 68k to PPC). Most system friendly software is said to run fine. If your old software bangs the metal (depends on Amiga hardware) it's not likely to run, however.

- What is the compelling reason for this to exist? What does it do better than all the other options available?

What's the compelling reason for any OS besides Windows to exist? ;)
Sadly Amiga Inc/Eyetech have killed any chances for AmigaOS4 by throwing a definitive and unnecessary stumbling block as their "Amiga hardware market" invention on the race track, but that's just a business decision that's easily revoked with a stroke of a pen. It has to be.

Nope. Amiga, Inc. sells trademark licences. Well, they were trying at least, until it was announced during a lawsuit that they had transferrred the AmigaOS + "Amiga"(TM) rights to something they call "KMOS, Inc."

Since there won't be any more Amigas, AmigaOS will run on old Amigas (with old PPC expansion boards) and third party hardware. The first hardware to be supported are the Teron CX (discontinued), Teron PX and Teron Mini motherboards designed by Mai Logic.

Amiga, Inc. got "consultation" from the UK computer shop Eyetech to decide that we should still have to pretend that there is "Amiga hardware". I.e. in order for AmigaOS to run on (be ported to) a piece of hardware, that hardware must be sold on a separated "Amiga market" by a distributor with a licence from Amiga, Inc. AmigaOS will not be available for sale, except as in a bundle with licensed hardware (and later on for those ancient PPC-equipped Amigas).

Only Eyetech have been granted such a license, and are now (well, since two(?) years) selling the Teron boards mentioned above with an extra 60% on the price as "AmigaOne SE", "AmigaOne PX", and "Micro AmigaOne", respectively.

Thereby suitable Macs (otherwise a pretty damn obvious target for a PPC "consumer" OS), Terons sold by anybody else regardless of trademarks, Pegasoses, and whatever you could possibly think of in the future, are all out of the question by default. No licence/licencee, no new hardware base for AmigaOS.

That's incorrect.

The latest "target date" is for "a pre-release version" for Teron motherboard owners, and this was announced to be "early next year" (i.e. 2004).

Anyway, this was the 2003 Vaporware awards. AmigaOS 4.0 was not for sale in 2003, and the first announced releasedates go back to 2001. Ergo, it's still vapourware, even if it really is coming RSN(TM) this time.

What's sad is that it won't be allowed to actually be for sale, ever, unless "Amiga, Inc." get a clue.

Yes, the Amiga is dead and buried. The story is a bit misleading.

"Port Mozilla to AmigaOS and similar/compatible OSes" would probably have been more accurate.

AmigaOS might get a chance to live on in version 4, on off the shelf 3rd party hardware, if the company that whimsically calls itself "Amiga Inc." would only give it a chance instead of actively doing all they can to kill it in its cradle. Then there's things like the API compatible MorphOS and the open source AROS.

And no, Lionel Ritchie and skinny ties have never been great.

"Micro AmigaOne" = Mai Logic's upcoming Teron Mini (mini-ITX).

The $800 "AmigaOne XE" is a Teron PX. Terra Soft was going to sell these boards at Mai Logic's normal RRP of $500, but TSS found out that it was a buggy piece of junk, so they dropped it like a hot potato (in contrast to moneygrubbing cowboy outfits like Eyetech, who are happy with only selling to slightly retarded "Amiga" trademark fanatics).

So, whenever Mai Logic releases the Teron Mini, it seems like you'll get it 60% cheaper if you buy it normally, without Eyetech's/AmigaInc's 60% "let's pretend there are still Amigas" tax.

Only AmigaOS users have to worry about that tax on their hardware (and then paying for AmigaOS as well). You'll still be able to buy the same hardware normally.

www.amiga.com is the corporate site of the dotcom failure misleadingly known as "Amiga, Inc."

It has nothing to do with Amigas. The company was formed in 2000, and the only business plan they have seems to be to mismanage licensing of the "Amiga" trademarks. The Amiga died in 1994.

If only Amiga, Inc. would either get a clue (yeah right) or hurry up and go bankrupt already (a question of days/weeks), then AmigaOS might have a chance for revivial and survival though. The Amiga ain't coming back though.

Irrelevant little pissant companies can come up with DRM schemes too, you know.
(Of course, that's an example of full-fledged insanity and the killing off of their own commercial software product, but they seriously believe e.g. the Open Hardware community will buy into it)

Digital Restrictions Management has recently found new amazing uses.

It can be a means to prevent sales of the software product that's allegedly supposed to be protected, in favour of protecting an artificially created monopoly market for hardware which the software producer has nothing to do with. Get on the "overpriced hardware treadmill" instead.

Witness what's being done to AmigaOS.

If only Microsoft and the [RI|MP]AA could try to be that kind of mah-brain-huuuurts stupid! ;)

OTOH, the Apple Mac is called an Apple PowerMac G5 because Apple designed it, built it and decided to sell it as their product "PowerMac G5". Apple has control over all stages of the making of their own hardware, as well as control over the future of that hardware.

Luckily, there are not and will not be any new Amigas. There is (or will be) a new AmigaOS, and AmigaOS 4 and beyond will run on third party hardware, like this mini-ITX Teron motherboard.

Nobody develops hardware with AmigaOS in mind. The company that licenses out the "Amiga" trademark has no control or influence on the market and products of third parties on which they depend.
AmigaOS is no longer technically dependent on or locked to special Amiga hardware. AmigaOS 4+ is made with portability and hardware abstraction through a HAL in mind.

The "AmigaOne" label is just that. A label, licensed from the Amiga, Inc. company, used by one distributor for third party hardware, when the distributor sells that hardware much more expensively to AmigaOS users.

That AmigaOS is not allowed to actually take advantage of an open third party hardware market is just an artificial marketing construction. Of course this added restriction can and must be removed.

> Eyetech is building the hardware ...

Eyetech designs, decides and builds nothing.

Eyetech is a distributor, and has chosen to market this upcoming (maybe) board, which looks like it's Mai Logic's successor to their Teron CX and PX boards, under the "AmigaOne" trademark which is licensed from Amiga, Inc. With regards to AmigaOS and the hardware it'll run on, AInc does nothing but license IP.

> ... and Hyperion the software (PPCBoot ...

PPCBoot is dead, long live U-Boot. And it's not made by Hyperion. Hyperion is a rather new contributor to this open source project by making it support the Teron boards.

> Certain Amiga clone vendors ...

There are no more Amigas, and thus there are no Amiga clones. The Amiga is dead, thank $DEITY, and if it weren't for artificially added market restrictions AmigaOS could finally take advantage of a third party hardware market. Well, it can, but it's not allowed to.

OTOH, there are AmigaOS "clones", or rather new OSes providing AmigaOS API compatibility.
MorphOS and the open source AROS. Maybe that's what you were thinking about.

Yay for DRM crap implemented at the hardware level on PPC boards!

Apple could take a leaf out of Amiga, Inc's book. There won't be any new Amiga hardware, instead future versions of AmigaOS are meant to run on "off the shelf" hardware. The Mai Logic Teron PX PPC mobo to begin with. But AmigaOS will only be sold bundled together with Teron boards that have gotten some dongle code added to it's firmware, so users can only buy their hardware via a "licensed" distributor, so there's a cosy little artificially created monopoly on other people's products, with having to make any hardware of your own.

Of course, this could only ever attract braindead zealots with too much money for their own good, who would buy anything with the Apple logo anyway, but the geniuses at Amiga, Inc seem to think that this is a commercially viable market segment! :-D

You've been out of the loop for quite some time it seems. :)
The Teron is an "AmigaOne". The "AmigaOne" is a Teron. "AmigaOne" is one distributor's chosen trademark for the Teron boards. A Teron is not "the primary competitor" to a Teron. :)

FYI, Eyetech's price for a Teron PX (a.k.a. "AmigaOne XE") is /$ 800, without any OS but a CD-R with Debian. TSS' announced price for the same board, including the retail version of YDL, was /$ 500.

The original "AmigaOne", that was going to connect to a real Amiga, was to be made for Eyetech by Escena, but that project failed something like three years ago! Plans for a new Amiga were scrapped, and instead AmigaOS 4+ will run on generic hardware like these Terons. But only when they're separated from the rest of the third party hardware market and sold dongled and bundled with AmigaOS via an "Amiga hardware" monopoly.

Of course AmigaOS could run on your PowerBook. Macs, especially those without the juice to run MacOS X at a useful speed, would be an obvious hardware platform to target. Common/business sense is unfortunately not allowed to rule in this case though. Have a look at the URL in my .sig.

That's simply incorrect/uninformed. The so-called "AmigaOne" is simply another name for the Teron motherboard, but the distributor of those renamed Terons, Eyetech, has invented/acquired a license from Amiga, Inc. to sell it to AmigaOS users under the trademark "AmigaOne".

There are no differences, not even in firmware. No "more or less the same thing". All Teron distributors (will) sell the exact same boards, Mai's design made by the same manufacturer. If you're really Hyperion, as you seem to claim that you are, you really ought to know this, as you have submitted code contributions to the U-Boot (ex PPC-Boot) project. The only thing differing the ones marketed as "AmigaOnes" from the others is the added dongle-code stored in the same physical *PROM chip as the firmware resides in, to invent a restricted "Amiga hardware" market for this third party hardware.

Furthermore, the Terons to be distributed via Eyetech are not shipping any more than the ones sold by Terra Soft. Then again, in stark contrast to Terra Soft, so far Eyetech hasn't shown any signs of giving a damn about even checking that the boards work as promised (like the scandal with their sales of the predecessor of the Teron PX, i.e. the unfinished and buggy Teron CX evaluation boards (or "AmigaOne G3-SE" as Eyetech liked to call them)).

It's not mentioned in the story, but this board is the Teron CX, which is also distributed under the licensed trademark "AmigaOne G3-SE".

There's also a model with the CPU on an exchangeable module, called Teron PX (or "AmigaOne XE" when it's marketed to AmigaOS users). Hopefully we'll see Terrasoft and others selling Teron PX as well, which offers G4 and 750FX (a newer, faster G3 design) CPUs.

Due to a seriously fscked up compulsory licensing policy for AmigaOS, that OS will however not be sold separate from licensed hardware and be allowed to be installed on Teron boards from vendors who are not licensed by Amiga, Inc., like Terrasoft.

P.S. Why is this story under "Apple"? MOL runs fine on these, but come on!

• Get a license from Amiga Inc., both for himself and his hardware.
  
• Become an AmigaOS vendor, distribute AmigaOS together with his hardware and provide software support.
  
• Apply some form of hardware-license verification mechanism, a dongle, to his hardware.
  

AmigaOS would run like a dream on a 500$ laptop. Too fucking bad that the same 500$ laptop will have to cost 5000$ if it's to be allowed to run AmigaOS. Those Boingball stickers don't come for free...

"New Amiga One"? Is there a NEW Amiga?

No, there isn't. There will be no more Amigas, instead future versions of AmigaOS will run on third party hardware (and on Amigas with PPC accelerators). Mai Logic's Teron CX POP motherboard is one such piece of hardware, although AmigaOS will only be allowed to run on this board when it's renamed "AmigaOne G3SE" and distributed by Eyetech Ltd.. Hardware must be licensed, provide a hardware-license verification mechanism (known as "anti-piracy measures" in the marketing waffle) and be sold by a licensed distributor in order to be allowed to run AmigaOS, and AmigaOS will only be available bundled with such hardware.

This hardware licensing scheme was designed by Amiga Inc. with "consultation" from Eyetech, and it's hardly surprising that Eyetech is the only hardware distributor that has acquired such a license.

There was once upon a time going to be newly designed, proprietary Amiga hardware, back when Eyetech was a "hardware partner" of Amiga Inc. These "AmigaOne 1200/4000" boards never appeared, and instead third party hardware is to be used (although the advantages of getting rid of "Amiga" hardware are negated with this compulsory licensing madness).

Read more about it here.

None. No XINE...

I made a few screenshots of the last RedHat 8.0 Beta installation that I did over the weekend and just to show that it DOES come with XINE:
Screenshot3.png

Well, they may have taken it out in the final version.

> Yet again, to be able to run AmigaOS4 it will need
> the modified Bios Dongle. The sort of thing I've
> come to call a "pissmark" like a dog marking it
> territory (Dog Released Marking).

True. For more info on the AmigaOS distribution policies and locking of third party hardware vendors' products by Amiga Inc, check out this site (with links, FAQs, users' and developers' comments and more). Please read this petition to Amiga Inc. and consider signing it! It's for the good of competition, pricing and development in the non-Apple PPC hardware market as well as of the future of AmigaOS.

"Amiga" (the hardware platform) is NOT coming back, contrary to what this very badly researched article says.

Amiga Inc. is a software-only company these days and AmigaOS4 will run on PPC hardware by third parties, like this TeronCX-based POP board, a.k.a. "AmigaOne G3SE". The "AmigaOne" name is merely a trademark which one distributor, Eyetech, has licensed from Amiga Inc.

Read more here.

No, "The Amiga" is not coming back. There will not be any more Amiga hardware, nobody is designing, making, selling or planning any Amiga hardware. Amiga-the-hardware-platform is dead. I don't blame you cbr372 though, this article is really whacked out.

This is not "New Amiga hardware", it's a "generic" POP board cloned from the Mai TeronCX, only its new distributor Eyetech has licensed the "AmigaOne" trademark from Amiga Inc.

Forthcoming versions of AmigaOS running on hardware from third parties like this would be fantastic news if only Amiga Inc. hadn't decided to f*ck things up as usual with some seriously demented distribution policies for new versions of AmigaOS: Any hardware, in order to be allowed to run AmigaOS, must be licensed by Amiga Inc. The hardware vendor must also get a license for himself and his support/financial organisation, he must equip his hardware with a hardware license verification mechanism (although Amiga Inc. affectionally calls it "anti-piracy measures") and he must sell AmigaOS bundled with his hardware. AmigaOS will not be available for sale separated from hardware to us users who wish to choose our hardware and hardware vendors ourselves.

Of course this is unacceptable for independent hardware vendors, especially those who design Open Hardware like POP which is what AmigaOS will run on, and thus Amiga Inc. are killing AmigaOS in a very effective way. If it's intentional it's probably to redirect resources to their "AmigaDE" project. Unfortunately they're at the same time splitting the "potentially AmigaOS compatible" hardware market into "hardware for AmigaOS" and "the exact same hardware but for everyone else".

Please consider signing this petition to Amiga Inc. if you wouldn't like this to happen. There's more info about all this available here.

WOW! This is one seriously misleading article! It must be pointed out that this is NOT any "New Amiga Hardware". It's a clone of the Mai TeronCX POP motherboard. Nobody is designing, making or selling any "new Amigas", least of all the software company Amiga Inc. The forthcoming AmigaOS4 will run on generic POP/PPC hardware from third party distributors and on old Amigas with PPC accelerators. Eyetech, the distributor of this motherboard has simply licensed the "Amiga" trademark.

Unfortunately AmigaOS4 is being killed by Amiga Inc. themselves before it has a chance to take off. They have come up with an insane distribution policy for all future versions of AmigaOS. In order to be allowed to run AmigaOS, any third party hardware vendor is supposed to buy a license from Amiga Inc for both himself and his hardware, he must modify his hardware with license verification measures (Amiga Inc. uses a nonsensical "anti-piracy" argument for this), and he must sell AmigaOS bundled with his hardware. AmigaOS will not be available for sale separately to users who wish to choose their own hardware and hardware vendors.

Please consider signing this petition to Amiga Inc. to make them at least give AmigaOS a fair chance and to wake them upo from their megalomanic dilusions of trying to control an independent hardware market! There's more info about this dirty business here.

And of course it runs MOL/MacOS - it's a POP board with OpenFirmware and it's running Linux. Is this news?

I wonder if Google is responding to AllTheWeb's claim to have the largest nuber of indexed pages by refreshing/rebuilding their index?
I'm wondering because the site in my .sig and all pages mentioning or linking to it are no longer to be found by Google. Gone. Vapourised. The cache is empty as well. This and this site used to be the first results listed when you searched for "amigaos petition distribution policies". Now see for yourselves what turns up (it's just 3 hits).

If there's room in the BIOS, fill it up with goodies I say!
It's not as if they're doing something idiotic and harmful as tying an OS to certain hardware and vendors with the BIOS, making lame excuses about "anti-piracy measures".