These are the main goals:
In the end, the discussions ended in either flame wars or "do it this way ! - Won't work because !". So we just said: First we do something we know to handle. Then we have the experience to decide what is possible and how. And then we decide.
Also we want to be binary compatible to the old AmigaOS on Amiga. The reason for this is just that a new OS without any programs which run on it has no chance to survive. Therefore we try to make the shift from the old OS to our new one as painless as possible (but not to the extent that we can't improve AROS afterwards). As usual, everything has its price and we try to decide carefully what that price might be and if we and everyone else will be willing to pay it.
See, there are plenty of people around who think that their feature is the most important and that "the AmigaOS has no future if this feature is not built in right now". We say: The AmigaOS' demise has nothing to do with missing features. The AmigaOS can do everything a modern OS should do. We see that there are possibilities to enhance the AmigaOS, but if we do it, who would write the rest of the OS ? In the end, we would have lots of nice improvements to the original AmigaOS which would break most of the available software and worth nothing, because the OS itself would be missing. So we decided to block every attempt to implement major new features in the OS until it's more or less done.
If you want to use AROS' code in your project, you have to pay for this code if you earn money with the result. For PD developers, the code is still free.
Now there are of course limitations: You are not allowed to disassemble a software if the information you would gain by this process can be obtained by other means and it can be expected that one would use this is other means. And you must not tell others what you learned. A book like "Windows inside" is therefore illegal or at least dubious.
Since we avoid disassembling techniques (hey, we want the spirit and not the bugs) but use common available knowledge (including programming manuals) which don't fall below the NDA, this doesn't apply directly to AROS, but what counts here is the intention of the law: It's ok to write a software which is compatible to some other software. Therefore we believe that AROS is protected by the law.
Patents and header files are a different issue, though. We can use patented algorithms (eg. screen dragging or getting a menu when you press the right mousebutton) in Europe but this must not be imported into the US. Header files on the other hand must be compatible but "as different as possible" from the orignal.
Therefore to avoid any trouble we applied for an official Ok by Amiga Int.
We are in loose contact with the author of UAE and there is a good chance that code for UAE will appear in AROS and vice versa. For example, UAE is interested in the source for the OS because it could run some apps much faster if it could replace the OS calls by native code. On the other hand, AROS needs hardware drivers (eg. audio.device).
Fact is that there is only few new software for the Amiga (although Aminet has never seen better times) and that hardware is also developed at a lower speed (but the most amazing gadgets appear right now). I say, the Amiga community (which is still there) just sits and waits. And if someone releases something which is a bit like the Amiga back in 1984, then that machine will boom again. And who knows, maybe you will get a CD along with the machine labeled "AROS" :-)
There will also be an archive with all tools we have installed to develop for AROS for the Amiga any time now (Linux and other Unixes find their developer packages pre-installed or at least much more easy to install from the Internet, eg. from www.suse.com (Germany) or www.redhat.com (USA)).
Several hundred Amiga experts (or at least what they thought of themselves) tried for three years to find a way to implement MP (memory protection) into the AmigaOS. They failed. You should take it as a fact that the normal AmigaOS will never have something like Unix or WindowsNT.
But not all is lost. There are plans to integrate MP into AROS which will allow to protect at least new programs which know about MP. Some efforts in this area look really promising and in the end: Is it really a problem if your machine crashes ? Let me explain, before you nail me to a tree :-) The problem is not that the machine crashes, the problems are: 1. If that happens, you have no good idea why it did, so you have to poke with a 100ft pole into a swamp with a thick fog. 2. You loose your work. Rebooting the machine is really no issue.
So what we try to establish is a system which will at least alert if something dubious is happening and which can tell you in great detail what was happening when the machine crashed and which will save your work and *then* crash. There will also be a means to check what has been saved so you can be sure that you don't continue with corrupted data.
The same with VMM, RT, SMP and RTG. We are currently planning how to implement them and we make sure that adding these features will be painless, but they are no #1 priorities right now. A very basic RT has been added recently, though.
To understand the full complexity of the situation better, here are some explanations: First of all, we'd like to say that we fully understand and agree to AI's point. They are treating us fair from what we can tell. The talks were in a kind and friendly atmosphere and the AROS team agreed before this that we would stop the project without any fuss if AI asked for it but we also agreed that our project could help the Amiga so much that it would be worth to try to continue it.
Secondly, we must have a license if we want to continue the project. This is necessary in order to protect us from any legal hassle (eg. illegal use of trademarked names, patents and header files; it might be arguable if we make illegal use of any of them but you can get that some lawyer will find a way to sue us). Since we don't have any actual money, we can't pay for a license and Amiga Int. can't give it away for nothing (if they did, then all the firms who pay for their license would be very upset).
But all is not lost even if we can't get a license. As of yet, we have developed some extensions to the AmigaOS (HIDDs, RT and Purify) which we can develop further. It would just be a pity if several man years of work would be lost in a situation where the Amiga needs every support it can get.
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If you have comments or suggestions, email me at digulla@aros.fh-konstanz.de. 24. Jul 1999