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

11.May.2003
x (ANF) Weekly Q&A's with Fleecy Moss - episode 9
The English online magazine AmigaWorld has published episode 9 of the regular questions and answers session with Fleecy Moss, CTO at AMIGA, Inc. (Update 2012-03-17, cg: as the original document is no longer available, the following content was moved into our database):

1) ssolie: How does Amiga Inc. plan to limit and control the myriad hardware options. More specifically, if I purchase a "supported" graphics card for AmigaOS 4.0, what will that mean exactly? And what of "unsupported" hardware?

Fleecy: As has already started with the AmigaOne, we will select and certify hardware. This will allow us to drive the AmigaOS in certain directions whilst also ensuring that there are official solutions that dealers, integrators and customers can purchase safe in the knowledge that there will be official drivers for them. The problem with supporting hardware subsystems and peripherals is that the manufacturers only create control software

for the larger markets (Windows, Apple etc) and most are loath to even release their internal datasheets for fear of revealing and losing IP. We thus have to negotiate with these companies and prove to them a market exists (and then usually pay to create the control software).

A good workaround solution can be seen in the SciTech solution that has been licenced. A very broad set of graphics-cards will be usuable with OS 4.0 in 2D thanks to their SNAP technology (over 182 chipsets are now supported and the list keeps growing). 3D support however is quite a different matter. Currently we will support the Voodoo 3/4/5 and the Radeon 8500/9000. We believe this will change when we are able to demonstrate the AG2 3D system however as the OEMs will see that we are deadly serious in being a graphics platform of excellence.

The existing AmigaOne users have created various web resources where they are sharing their experiences of both setting up their machines and the results they are having with various components. I would urge anyone considering the purchase of a board to peruse these sites for the valuable information they contain.

In summary, I would advise customers either to buy from integrators to ensure certified components are used or else wait for the new Amiga Power Platform website to go live and consider the certified hardware list when it is made available. Be made the mistake of trying to support too many different solutions and ended up wasting valuable resources expanding the platform horizontally instead of vertically; we will not make the same mistake.

2) rayt: Will the coupons be delivered before OS4/csppc is finished so that we can get $50 rebate immediately after it is released?

Fleecy: We have had a lot of issues with creating a valid solution for the 'vouchers', mainly in terms of validation and acceptance by dealers. Given that an AmigaOne is a certified piece of hardware that comes with an AmigaOS4.0 OEM CD bundle and that the CSPPC AmigaOS4.0 product is a shrinkwrap, AmigaOS4.0 is the common factor and so we are considering either placing the voucher within the AmigaOS product package itself (perhaps as part of the registration card) or using the unique serial number of each AmigaOS4.0 instance via a web interface. This would also work with those who have purchased multiple rebate products because they have to have an AmiPASS and so we can apply their multiple rebates against a single purchase. The entire scheme will be published before AmigaOS4.0 is released and we will validate the rebate database by emailing everyone to make sure all the details are correct. I urge anyone who believes they have a rebate to check out their AmiPASS account and ensure the details are correct.

3) jono: Do you know if there is any intention to provide/supply any SQL based server or SQL clients that can access existing SQL Servers such as MySQL, Oracle, (dare I say it) M$ SQL Server?

Fleecy: There is at least one third party company already working hard on a full network capable relational database for the AmigaOS4.0. A standard SQL client is a good idea and I will consider that either for AmigaOS4.0 or for a future release.

4) IonMane: From my research, many developers do not seem to understand the potential power of Amiga Anywhere\DE.How do you plan to raise awareness and educate this segment of the industry to DE's REAL potential?

Fleecy: Early on we heavily evangelised the potential of the AmigaDE, got a lot of interest going and had developers signing up in droves. However, the potential failed to turn into reality, largely because the market was not ready for the product. Our mistake was to fail to realise that the OEMs themselves were not ready to take advantage of what we had, either because they had not entered the appropriate markets yet or because the products were too expensive (as in the case of Smartphones) or too underpowered (as in the case of the Palm PDA). The market was still in the first stage of technology, where innovators co-exist with early adopters. It is only in the last six months that the market has become a second stage market, where maturation brings in the big OEMs whose economies of scale can bring the price down and performance up.

Microsoft, as one of the key drivers of these markets realised the potential of the AmigaDE over a year ago but even working with them and their huge marketing muscle, it has taken this long to get AmigaDE derivatives such as Amiga Anywhere to market. Thankfully, the momentum that has built up is now accelerating customer enquiries and we hope to finally be able to deliver to developers on the potental we evangelised. This in itself will raise awareness of both the product and the opportunity but we are also working with these customers to do cross and joint marketing in several arenas, in both trade and consumer channels.

5) ssolie: Since you are not keen on Samba, what kinds of Samba-like solutions (e.g. file & printer sharing) are you proposing?

Fleecy: It's not that I'm not keen on Samba as a concept, just as an implementation, especially as it is difficult to implement well within the Amiga system architecture. There is a SAMBA solution supported by such Amiga notables as Olaf Barthel and Chris Hertel (amongst others) and it will most likely be included in the AmigaOS4.0 contributions drawer.

What AmigaOS4 users obviously want is the ability to network their Amiga to a heterogenous network, most likely one heavily featuring Windows or Linux PCs and then be able to share resources, mostly files, peripherals such as printers and network connections. The more they can use their Amiga, the more it will be used - for example accessing an MP3 collection on their Windows PC; they obviously don't want to copy it to their Amiga and have two copies of it.

Be assured that this is a high priority and that despite our misgivings, we may integrate SAMBA. All I was stating was that it does not currently seem to be a solution that we are happy with.

6) ssolie: AmigaDE and AmigaOS seem completely different yet you say they will slowly be merged together into a hardware agnostic system. What does that mean for the user? Hypothetically, how will I be able to take my copy of PageStream and run it on my cell phone via Bluetooth?

Fleecy: The AmigaDE is a set of technologies for creating content centric derivative products. In particular it is focused on the individual piece of content, specifically in making that piece of content both high performance/low resource and portable across device classes. The AmigaOS is a complete computing platform. In merging them, the AmigaOS will immediately gain from access to that content which can scale to the desktop. However that is at a product level. There will also be a more profound development of the AmigaOS through the AG2 project that will see a conceptual merging of the ideas behind both. I can't say much more at this time.

7) GregS: I have heard mentioned the A2 project but have not seen any details would you be so kind to make a summary of the main differences between A1 and A2.

Fleecy: AG1 refers to all hardware and software upto the AmigaOS3 family (the last revision being AmigaOS3.9). Some of this will continue into AmigaOS4. AG1 is technology that has its roots in the excellent system architecture and implementation that can be traced all the way back to 1984. However that was written in the context of a specific set of requirements and within a wider domain of current technologies.

Twenty years on the world has changed dramatically in many areas whilst remaining the same in others. The AG2 project is about reviewing the AmigaOS in all its domains, both internally and in its external relationships. There are new customers, new roles, new technologies, new requirements, new scopes, new products, new opportunities and new restrictions. AG2 will see the development of a technology set that can be used in derivative products, whether AmigaOS for the desktop, AmigaOS for the server, AmigaOS for the STB or whatever. Don't expect to see AG2 technology in AmigaOS4.0 but from AmigaOS4.1 onwards, you will start to see the AmigaOS transformed into something that we hope will once again set the marker for all others.

8) IonMane: As I understand it OS5 will be 64 bit, Is Amiga Inc considering the IBM 970, with its 32bit and 64 bit support,for this role in current or future AmigaOne systems?

Fleecy: 64 bit is the natural development path and given its necessity for a decent implementation of orthogonal persistence, one of our targets, I would expect to see 64 bit implementations sooner rather than later.

9) DaveP: I have a question ( everyone groans ). How long after the release of AOS4 will we have to wait for a version of Intent that works with it?

Fleecy: We have always targeted it for AmigaOS4.2. Given that we want to have a release gap of between 6-12 months once AmigaOS4.0 has shipped, that should be around about Christmas 2004. However, we may move it forwards to AmigaOS4.1. It depends on quite a few issues that I can't go into right now.

10) IonMane: There has been a lot of questions around from those that have coupons and other Amiga Inc promoted discounts.Could you please tell these people how to claim these discounts and Coupons...and even if they need a coupon to claim the discount.

Fleecy: I have answered this in question 2

(Copyright © 2003 Amigaworld.net. All rights reserved.
Originally available at http://amigaworld.net/modules/fleecymoss/index.php?cat_id=10
You may freely redistribute this article, providing that a URL is provided to the original source,
and the copyright notices remain intact) (nba)

[News message: 11. May. 2003, 17:58] [Comments: 0]
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