Shall we still spend time on AmigaOS or just give up?

Hi there,

I would like to know what's your feeling today about the future of AmigaOS.

Let's face it. AmigaOS is left behind by all mainstream operating systems. Right now we use it because it's fun but what do we want for the next decade?

1. Play with the OS
Should we just use it and don't care about the rest? Let's not spend time to push it forward anymore because it's just too late to improve this situation (gain more users, adding more features, fill in the gap with other systems...) ?
It's better to spend our time having fun with the OS and that's all.

2. Action
Or should we still try to move it forward finding solutions to expand the OS and improve it? Maybe there is still room for improvement in today's computing world. Maybe we can add features that will make AmigaOS a good alternative to other systems. Doing that we may attract new users (like old Amigans) and increase the user base again.

So what? Play or Action?

Fun
3D acceleration
SMP of some flavour.
Stable UAE and JIT

AmigaOS4.2

@Elwood
The question looks like a non-problem to me. Why does it have to be an either/or? Why not both?

i.e. Why is it not possible to have fun AND help move AmigaOS4 forward? And actually (to me) that seems like the best way of moving forward, while maintaining the motivation to do so in the long term.

Now it's true I've personally had very little free time in the past 12 months or so, but I still hope to continue developing useful OS4 stuff as & when I have time. And have fun doing so. And I assume other people are the same.


If there is a problem, it is us not having enough people with the spare time to work on AmigaOS4 stuff. The solution is not to make more spare time (kinda impossible) nor force them to do it, but rather try to attract more people to OS4, some of whom will hopefully become interested in helping move things forward. As I assume everyone is already doing their best already (thus making OS4 more attractive to more people) then there is nothing more we can do, but cross our fingers & have patience. Well, you can try to organise things that you think will help, but I wouldn't get too hung-up about it.

IMHO, what will attract most people to OS4 is a good web browser, and to a lesser extent a decent word processor. Odyssey seems to be very close to the former, while some people work on the latter (but it is a very big job).

It can also help to improve the tools we have for making AmigaOS4 programs. And again people already work on many such things.

So just do what you're good at, have fun, hope it'll work out ok, and don't worry too much

@All

Ok rephrased the alternative names.
The question is "should all Amigans spend a lot of time and money developping AmigaOS?"

Of course, trying to move the OS forward must be still fun in some way or we would stop soon.

@Elwood
Who is "we"?

@ChrisH
all of us Amigans. Of course everyone can choose if he should better spend his time on AmigaOS or on other real life stuff.
I wonder what is the general opinion in Amigan heads.

Let's take an example. I am an Amigan and if I had 1M$ (which I don't) should I spend it on development of AmigaOS because it can help filling the gap feature wise and thus it can make sure we can still use AmigaOS in the future, or should I just move on and spend that money of something else. Then I would just use AmigaOS and don't care if all developments would stop in the future because of lack or resources, people working on it, software released...etc.

What a strange thread and why such question now ?
During all that years our community (and developers) spent and they still spend many many time, energy and money into it, that means we want it and yes we want to see it progressing too

- So, should we spend a lot of time ?

- YES !

@samo79
Why now?
Better late than never

More seriously, I feel it's important we all know what future we want, either together on AmigaOS, or everyone in other directions, on other operating systems maybe.

@Elwood Quote:
Then I still don't understand your question. It seems like a false dilemma. As Samo79 says, many developers already spent huge amounts of time on AmigaOS4 stuff.

Quote:
That doesn't make sense to me. I think people already spend all the time they are able to on AmigaOS stuff. You can't exactly force people to not spend as much time at their paying job. Nor stop doing boring must-do things like take car for MOT, fix the house, pay the bills, etc. Nor spend less time with their girlfriend/wife/child/etc, or other essential things.

So I am really not sure what you are imagining. That people should stop any other hobbies they may have (if any...), and make Amiga their only hobby?? I don't see that happening either. If you try to make someone do something more than they want, then it's stops being fun & stops being a hobby, and so they will probably stop doing it at all after a while (possibly from burn-out if nothing else).

In short: To improve the Amiga situation you are asking people to spend more time on Amiga development... But people already spend as much time as they can on Amiga stuff (while still enjoying themselves). So you must either make the Amiga more fun, or attract more people. Both require improving Amiga situation. Which brings us back to the start! So really you just have to hope that everyone's current efforts are enough to improve the situation (and do the best you can yourself).

@ChrisH
Quote:
You're damn right. We have to hope or in other words to take the risk that working on AmigaOS just doesn't sustain its development enough and that the whole story reaches an end at some point.
It looks like gambling

@Elwood

Isn't improving the OS, porting/writing applications, etc., all part of the fun?

Hans

@Elwood: AmigaOS in any flavour gets scheduled like anything else with personal priorities,

I more consider the question to be "What is the current priorities of everyone?" in order to gauge how much interest there is "now", and would be more considering what is the next step after that.

If the userbase is declining, it is up to the individuals as to when they leave.

It IS a form of gambling (in as much the same way as the stocks/bonds/forex and other markets).

@All: I'm personally open-source developing a project as time permits,
My own interests are served by this and I am just trying to make it easier for others in the process,

If anyone wants to respectfully use my work, all the better, if not then ignore it.

@Elwood

is this a late (& very bad) April fools joke??

we survived the darkest days of our favourite platform, have quite a few choices of buying NEW hardware, have active developmnet on the OS front and also from our third party developers AND you say give up, GIVE UP !!!!!???????

My two great friends below say N-E-V-E-R

@ElwoodQuote:
That's simple.. three words...

PLAY AND ACTION

On a more serious side and IMHO, I go for alternative 2.

@Elwood

1)Having fun is good. There must be fun in one's life. It makes life worth living. AmigaOS makes life worth living???

>Let's not spend time to push it forward

If Edison had thought like that, we would not have a light bulb. (Edison failed some 11000 times before he succeeded, Amiga has failed once with CBM, let's try some more...)

Henry Ford did three bankruptcy before becoming a millionaire, etc...

2) The way to future. Every little helps. The more you fail the more you learn. The faster you fail the faster you find success. Negativity grows negativity. Positive thinking grows positivity. Give constructive feedback, make suggestions, do not put anyone down because it then fires back on you (your own life becomes more miserable).
Etc.

The power is in the community. Only Amiga community can make Amiga succeed & prosper & live forever.

I want my kids to be able to see the Amiga alternative as the current mainstream is like "the devil" on the top of earth, killing innovation, forcing you to do things in their way (not your way), limiting creative spirit, etc...

@KimmoK

That is something I want to teach my own son, but the pwoer of the crowd within Japan is extremely powerful

And to make sure he can comprehend things properly I will just have to make sure AmigaOS has Japanese support at least.

Olaf "Olsen" Barthel: It's not over yet.

I have spent quite a lot of money, making donation for the Amiga developers so my simply answer is that we could not give up!!!
This is too fun to go end, it's something different than any other platform that's why I will go on!

I really don't understand point of this discussion?

Those options are not a comparable, nor opposite options.