amiga-news.de - Fortnightly Q&A's with Fleecy Moss

03.Dec.2003
AmigaWorld (Website) Fortnightly Q&A's with Fleecy Moss - episode 24
The English online magazine AmigaWorld has published episode 24 of the regular questions and answers session with Fleecy Moss, CTO at AMIGA, Inc. (Update 2012-03-15, cg: as the original document is no longer available, the following content was moved into our database):

1) BobC: Can you tell us what third party software companies or individuals are interested in writing or actually are writing software for OS4 on the A1? If you can't say who they are, perhaps, what types of third party software is being developed?

Fleecy: I can only tell you of those that have publicly committed to writing for AmigaOS4.0 since the others are either still looking into it or are developing but do not wish to make an announcement yet.

Those that are publicly committed are

Ibrowse
Pagestream
AudioEvolution
CandyFactory 2
Tales of Tamar
VBCC
WordMeUp

Hyperion have also committed to creating AmigaOS4.0 versions of their games and have a licence to develop DirectoryOpus for AmigaOS4.0.

Several other companies have said that when a more complete developer SDK is available and/or when the market size becomes clearer, then they will take another look.

There are likely to be quite a few surprise products turning up as well but as I said, for a number of reasons the companies involved are not willing to announce publicly at this time.

2) Uncharted: Will the new "AG2 services" change the way AmigaOS works from a user's perspective? Will things like devices, system structure (C: DEVS: LIBS: ENVARC: etc.), and UI paradigms be changed?

Fleecy: Initially no but with the introduction of a resources and services architecture, it will change. This architecture internalises the implementation and publicly presents a semantic abstraction. AmigaOS4.0 presents a half way house with its use of interfaces called against libraries. However, because the access is via a semantic abstraction, it will be possible for a user to create a relationship that makes it look like the old organisation model, if they so desire.

As for the interactive environment, we have looked at all that is good in the existing interface as well as all is bad. We are bringing a workflow analysis to this area and, whilst you will be able to recognise elements from previous implementations, there will be a lot that is new and (we hope) better. The whole solution will allow the user to eventually build their own interface so if you want to go back to AmigaOS3.9 Workbench, it should be possible.

3) Shep: A while ago on here I suggested that Amiga could use affiliate marketing, similar to amazon, for marketing the new Amiga. I would gladly join such a scheme when I have my new website sorted out (which will be appropriate because of its theme), what do you think Fleecy?

Fleecy: I think it is a very good idea. We have a lot of ideas ourselves which are partly a reaction to the situation we find ourselves in at the moment. Getting the good news about Amiga's rebirth out into the world is going to be top priority and, as we found at the Micromart show and, as has been proved over the past six months, our user groups are going to be crucial in that process.

4) DaveP: Hi there Fleecy, would you rather do this monthly? ;-)

Fleecy: At least it wouldn't be late all the time ;-)

5) GregS: Are there any plans with including in OS4-4.2 a XML Signature generator?

Fleecy: XML will play a big part in AG2, so yes.

6) Asemoon: There is much concern within the industry about monopoly OS companies abusing their position to make it hard or near impossible to replace components with alternatives. This has never been the case with AmigaOS' design. Will this modularity and freedom continue with future releases?

Fleecy: Very much so. With a resource and services architecture it would be hard to do otherwise.

7) prmetime: 1. When the A1/zico spec was first announced, a partnership with Matrox was announced fairly soon thereafter. I have yet to see any Matrox drivers or chips on hardware to this point. Is Matrox still a partner and will their graphics chipsets be supported?

Fleecy: Matrox are still a partner and, with SNAP coming on board, we will have an excellent set of drivers for Matrox boards. Given that 3D is not currently the forte of Matrox, then we will be concentrating on other, more appropriate products.

8) GregS: Are there any plans (beyond OS4.0) to add to the Amiga some simple and easy to maintain and control Multi-User-Profile system for the AmigaOS?

Fleecy: Yes but it will require the foundations to change first for the data storage and organisation services. That is something that will appear early in AG2.

9) The_Editor: We recently had, what seemed to be a high profile visitor to AW.net expressing his frustration at not being able to find anyone "high enough" to talk to about developing for DE. Due to a lack of information, he is taking his idea elsewhere. Who do we direct such enquiries to in future and what steps would Amiga Inc take to see this calamity is not repeated ?

Fleecy: This is clearly very worrying. I did not receive any information about him and there is supposed to be a requests process on the Amiga Anywhere website. I shall look into this as a matter of urgency.

10) jurassiccamper: Alan has mentioned that earlybird owners may get an installable OS4 beta by christmas. How will this be distributed?

Fleecy: It won't be a beta per se but a pre-release that will not be supported directly. Amigaworld have already expressed an interest in becoming a forum for support and feedback of information generated from the pre-release. As for the format for distribution I believe we are currently considering a downloadable ISO image to be burnt to a CD via Debian.

(Copyright © 2003 Amigaworld.net. All rights reserved.
Originally available at http://amigaworld.net/modules/fleecymoss/index.php?cat_id=25
You may freely redistribute this article, providing that a URL is provided to the original source,
and the copyright notices remain intact) (nba) (Translation: ub)

[News message: 03. Dec. 2003, 04:15] [Comments: 0]
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