AmigaOS 3.1.4 withdrawn from market after Amiga

[utri007]

This thread shows every possible way what is problem with amiga scene.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by Gorf

Mainly because we can not really use modern hardware - except for AROS.

its rather scalable. i have got it booting on an almost vannilla a1200 just with 4mb ram card.

And AROS was and is suffering big time from excluding everyone, who has had contact with the original source-code..

we, if i dare say so, have not been exluding anyone who has not simply exclude themselves on their own part. actually there are still some os4 and morphos members who contribute parts they may.

Just imagine how far AROS could be now with all the people and experts, that instead worked for OS4 or MOS (or now classic again...)

actually there are still some os4 and morphos members who contribute parts they may. people need to know what they do.

AROS was clearly hindered by many factors as mentioned above.
And they also did choose a non-standard license but also relying on many GPL-parts ... sadly it is quite a mess in this regard.

is it? so far i know its practically a modzilla license. whats wrong with it?

[wawa]

Originally Posted by gulliver

I see your point, but I kind of disagree in that everyone is not a developer and each of us have different tastes that we should persue in our own way.

im not a developer. and im fine with different tastes. thats why im with aros in fact.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Gorf

(And the only chance to get there is actually open source and copy-left, as this new legal war now proves)

To be fair, this sounds a lot more like wishful thinking on your part rather than 'fact'. Open source is not a panacea, nor always the best development model. For an open source model to really work requires a certain 'critical mass' of developers and users. Which is why you see most smaller open source projects really struggle to progress at any speed, or at all (unless the developers involved are really motivated).

I'd go so far as saying that most open source projects fail to get any traction whatsoever (just check github and look at how many % of projects on there have any contributions other than by the original author(s) - it's a pretty dismal sight). More crucially, this seems to doubly go for open source based on previously closed source stuff: unless the market is huge these 'open source converts' tend to die a quick death (as far as I've seen anyway).

As just one example: Blitz Max (the last version of Blitz Basic for Windows/Mac/Linux). Was a rather popular product and has been open source for a few years now. Though some small progress has been made, it's clearly not been a success and it has since been abandoned by the original author.

If you want to go open source, IMHO it's much better to start from scratch, as the AROS team did. You avoid both legacy problems, legal problems and have full control over where the project goes. Which I think is why AROS, for all it's apparent faults, is actually doing fairly well.

[Gorf]

its rather scalable. i have got it booting on an almost vannilla a1200 just with 4mb ram card.

yes - that is what I was saying: AROS is tho only implementation, the can (also) run on modern hardware - the others can't.

is it? so far i know its practically a modzilla license. whats wrong with it?

It is a non standard license - there is nothing really wrong with it, except that it in unknown and not proven in court and so on ... many developers prefer a license they know and trust.

the second problem is the mix of licenses you always end up if you put together a working AROS environment or distribution and it in not entirely clear what license-files and what source code must be in what place to do everything right...
(yes the problem has every linux-distri as well... just saying things could be easier)

[gulliver]

@Gorf

Again Linux for Amigas has not succeeded at all. But then, as said before, it can be revived if enough people care and put the work on it.

There are people who enjoy OS4, there are people who love MorphOS and others who fell in love with AROS, and the list goes on and on.

They all offer something different that is worthwhile to apreciate. There is not a single answer for what users want. That is why we have choices. There is nothing good in forcing everyone to commit to my choice or yours.

The unified front ship sailed long ago (probably back in the 90´s). The amiga community has diversified and that is a fact, wether we like it or not.

No one can unfortunately turn the time machine on.

[kolla]

In what way has Linux not succeded on Amiga? It compiles, it boots, it supports hardware, apart from graphical it is often faster on i/o and network... so what is the problem?

[roondar]

Originally Posted by kolla

In what way has Linux not succeded on Amiga? It compiles, it boots, it supports hardware, apart from graphical it is often faster on i/o and network... so what is the problem?

I'd say the problem is (almost) no one uses it, even when seen as a percentage of Amiga users.

[kolla]

For Linux that is not at all a problem, rather the contrary.

[roondar]

Never mind, this is pointless. We're not going to agree and I don't feel like having the discussion.

[Gorf]

As I tried to explain before:
Linux and BSD were actively supported, even long after the Amiga hardware fell behind.
But of course it made less and less sense to run these systems on outdated hardware.

There is just not a single reason left to run Linux on a real or emulated Amiga - there is nothing such a system could do better than a cheap RasPi-clone.
It just makes no sense. But this has nothing to do with "failing"
It is just the other way round: AmigaOS fails to run on modern hardware (exception Aros)

[wawa]

Originally Posted by gulliver

The unified front ship sailed long ago (probably back in the 90´s). The amiga community has diversified and that is a fact, wether we like it or not.

thats only for those that need jealously guard their yard against that diversity and therefore need to declare it inconvenient, especially to convince themselves. sorry if it comes over as blunt, but im virtually sitting at the moment at one table with people who have completely different preferences and interests and partly a bias against what they are helping with.

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by wawa

thats only for those that need jealously guard their yard against that diversity and therefore need to declare it inconvenient, especially to convince themselves. sorry if it comes over as blunt, but im virtually sitting at the moment at one table with people who have completely different preferences and interests and partly a bias against what they are helping with.

Having a preference is something good, and that means leaving other options somewhat behind. But that does not undermine the inherent value other options do have.

It is just again, a personal choice, nothing more:

Like when a kid who loves vanilla ice cream over chocolate goes to buy some. And choses to have the ice cream cone with vanilla on top so that he can have more of that flavor, and that means less of chocolate.

Bottomline: there is no better flavor, just different ones, and you are free to choose your own according to your liking.

Diversity is what I believe can push the Amiga forward in these times.
Not putting all eggs in one basket is a good strategy for long term survival.

Regarding jealousy, I might add that if someone is jealous of your choice, then be proud of it, because it means that he/she finds a lot of value in the choice you made.

[E-Penguin]

Originally Posted by gulliver

Bottomline: there is no better flavor, just different ones, and you are free to choose your own according to your liking.

I think we can all agree that lemon sorbet is the king of frozen desserts though.

[malko]

Originally Posted by Gorf

[...] the missing FailAt functionality is acknowledged as bug by all parties.
It should not be required to change a singe line in your shell-scripts.

And nobody involved in the development of the 3.1.4 said, so far, that changing a single "failat" line will be needed. Your speculations help nobody.
(sorry to name you so often ).

Originally Posted by gulliver

[...] But trying to see the good side of it: at least at the end we will have a single entity that without any doubt will hold all legal rights (whatever they are worth). [...]

It doesn't even look so simple regarding some of the linked documents on this thread. For example, see all "indefinite terms" signed by Amiga/Itec/Amino in attachment...
(for the rest, I let you browse this thread to find the linked documents, to much uninteresting posts in-between).

Originally Posted by SpeedGeek

WTF, if Hyperion only released what they owned then there would be no court case.

Again, in regards of some of the previously linked document in this volatile thread, it's not so simple...
As a non-lawyer who is also not a native UK speaker I understand the following : Hyperion is allowed to release the OS they develop (knowing that it is based on 3.1) but owner of the original 3.1 OS is Amiga/Itec/Amino.
So Hyperion can release the OS they develop but they cannot release the 3.1 "as is" without modification. Again, help yourself and read the linked documents as I may have misunderstood terms that are formulated in a legal language.

Originally Posted by gulliver

[...] Diversity is what I believe can push the Amiga forward in these times.
Not putting all eggs in one basket is a good strategy for long term survival.
Regarding jealousy, I might add that if someone is jealous of your choice, then be proud of it, because it means that he/she finds a lot of value in the choice you made.

+1

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by malko

And nobody involved in the development of the 3.1.4 said, so far, that changing a single "failat" line will be needed. Your speculations help nobody.

It is purely speculative to think I would speculate something!

[kolla]

@malko
What do you think counts most, intention of a ruling, or wording of a ruling? Hyperion's own lawyer has openly admitted, even bragged, that he tricked in last minute changes in the ruling that could give them extended rights. He believes wording of a ruling beats intention of a ruling. That doesn't exactly help. Chances are now high that the 2009 ruling will be all void, meaning that Hyperion no longer will have rights to even OS4, and OS4FE will actually be the final edition. Mission accomplished.

Regarding development and officially open sourcing the OS, I don't see why not large parts of it could be open sourced while still keeping other parts, that have license issues, closed source. Also I believe it would benefit everyone if each component in the OS could be developed and released as the individual developer sees fit. A year ago or so, I asked Olsen about Roadshow for OS4, as the built in variant that ships with the OS is now way behind 68k Roadshow, and his answer was that he must wait for Hyperion to organize an official update. This is kind if thing is what apparently is now also happening with OS3, no more updates of OS components on aminet, one has to register and sit and wait for someone, who already are too busy and has too little resouces, to organize official "boing bags". Gulliver used to do this in the past, with the unofficial BB3, right? I do find it a little odd that someone who earlier was involved in "distributing copyrighted material" is now part of the OS 3.1.4 team, lead by the one who most strongly have been waving the copyright banner. Maybe copyrights aren't that important after all, huh.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by kolla

Woop woop, so LoadModule is redundant?

Nope.

Originally Posted by kolla

How do I tell SetPatch to load shell-seg 45.39 from disk?

You don't. It will do automatically.

Originally Posted by kolla

Will it be boot resident,

It won't. That's what SetPatch is good for. Fix problems. If you want it reset resident, there is LoadModule. That works, too, but with a reset.

Originally Posted by kolla

Why can't SetPatch also not just replace intuition.library v45 as well?

Because this would require a reboot. Then setpatch could. This is what we had with 3.9 and the ROM Updates.

The question is "can I replace one module with another module from disk why the first module is already active and running". This is a very tricky one. The answer is: For the shell, yes, I can. For intuition, no I cannot. This depends very much on the internal workings of the module. Nobody is critizing you because you do not know. But making such a rumble about a rather harmless update process you already complain about without actually having seen it is really a bit much.

Frankly, I believe in long run we should rather remove as many modules from ROM as we possibly can as to enable simpler updates. As you see here, it would be entirely sufficient to have a shell that is simple enough to load SetPatch, and leave everything else to this command.

Originally Posted by kolla

And where is all this documented?

There is nothing to document. LoadModule is documented in its README. SetPatch does not change in its usage. It will do whatever it did before. Replace, update or patch components.

[malko]

Originally Posted by kolla

@malko
What do you think counts most, intention of a ruling, or wording of a ruling? [...]

I'm sure you already know the answer.

Put yourself in the shoes of a judge who has to make a decision. All this judge has in his hands are the documents that were given to him.
From these documents, the judge will have to extract the idea of the agreement based solely on the words present in these documents.
So, the more precise the words are, the more precise the idea of the agreement itself is.

No party is obliged to sign the agreement, especially not the party in possession of the "thing" that is subject to the agreement. The parties sign the agreement because they all agree with what is written in it (and not with what they "think" is written in the agreement).

Also the judge cannot judge based on what he is thinking, because in this case, he would be lacking impartiality. And if he is lacking impartiality, he cannot judge the case and he must recuse himself.

Lawyers, on the other hand, try to "guide" the interpretation of certain words/phrases in order to try to tip the balance of the decision in the wanted direction.
So, the more precise the words present on the documents composing an agreement are, the more difficult/easy it will be for a lawyer (according to who he is working for) to try to tip the balance to the wanted side.

Originally Posted by Robert Evans

"There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each differently."

So let's wait and see what the judge is going to decide here, because until a judgment has been made....

PS: slightly OT (as nothing to do with the present case), but did you see the movie "The Founder" (2016) ?

[kolla]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

You don't. It will do automatically.

Will?

Originally Posted by gulliver

SetPatch in 3.1.4 already has the ability to load Shell-Seg from disk.

Certainly not the OS 3.1.4 SetPatch I have.

So, make up your mind, "team", is it "already has" or "will"?

Frankly, I believe in long run we should rather remove as many modules from ROM as we possibly can as to enable simpler updates. As you see here, it would be entirely sufficient to have a shell that is simple enough to load SetPatch, and leave everything else to this command.

Why not just have SetPatch written to the bootblock of the disk drive.