Is anyone else aware of the fact that AmigaKit acts as a moderator on both Amiga.org AND AmigaWorld?
In addition to being the System administrator on the former?
That's kind of creepy.

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Both sites are AeonKit's property, so...

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Well isn't that a little creepy.

> Is anyone else aware of the fact that AmigaKit acts as a moderator on both Amiga.org
> AND AmigaWorld? In addition to being the System administrator on the former?

From October 2014:

http://www.a-eon.com/PDF/News_Release_AmigaWorld.pdf

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I have tried to point this out.

They are both A-Eonkit corporate owned sites, so the moderation has naturally shifted to extreme bias.

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Yeah, and there were some counterreactions, like establishment of http://www.amigaforum.de/ which was advertised as a manufacturer independent Amiga forum, but it's hard to get any new forums popular these days, because long history and fame of the old sites.

[ Edited by jPV 11.09.2016 - 11:55 ]

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They've run Amiga.org into the ground, but to be fair to them that process started when DiscreetFX was running the place. They've just continued the process.

EAB is the only decent English speaking forum, but it doesn't have the same feel as Amiga.org had 10-15 years ago. Or perhaps I'm looking through rose tinted glasses somewhat.

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"Actually we acquired Amigaworld.net several months ago."

Now that is a bit creepy IMHO. Taking over the site, thus also the "God mode" that comes with site ownership, but keeping silent about it for months so nobody will know...

Of course it had been better with independent ownership. Now they pose as old time community sites with all the shine of legacy independence, but in reality being corporate sites, probably bought for a reason. So yes, maybe it is a little bit creepy...

But everyone is free to stop going there. When it comes to amiga.org, it seems they mostly did already...

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I'm not sure that isn't a little unfair to DiscreetFX.
During that period we were trying to resurrect work on Aladdin4D as well as some other projects.

Now that is in Aeon's hands as well.

BUT, from the point of competition between MorphOS and OS4, this situation doesn't bode well.
The vendor we are waiting on for the release of the X5000 has a stated preference for OS4, and while they have worked with our developers on that project, that will affect our relationship to future Aeon product releases.
Availability of the X5000 is being delayed so our primary competitor can complete its port to the platform.
And Genesi isn't interested in building us new hardware.

So, availability of new hardware continues to be a problem.

While the move to X64 makes some sense to me, a Power8 port would be the easier route, and in either case, commodity hardware rather than proprietary hardware is probably the best course for our future.



[ Edited by Jim 11.09.2016 - 16:28 ]

While Trevor has stated that he prefers using AmigaOS4 instead of MorphOS, or AROS, he does own and use all variants of NG Amiga inspired platforms. I don't know of any actions by either Trevor or Matthew that I would consider to be anti-MorphOS.

I would also be surprised if either person has become active as a moderator for either website, except in rare instances. They are both too busy with other business decisions, and have stated in the past their intentions to allow the community to do the daily tasks of running the sites. I would be surprised if that viewpoint has changed.

I'm also surprised at the apparent recent change of Jim's opinion toward these men, or their companies. Is there some recent action by either man that has prompted your seemingly changed opinion of them?

No Dave, I LIKE both Matt and Trevor.
And Matt and I were just exchanging messages that related to my recent crappy attitude.
BTW - He DOES moderate sometimes, but he seems to be pretty even handed.

But, we are waiting on X5000 systems that were put in production quite a while ago, waiting for Hyperion to finish a port of OS4 that is long overdue.

If they were completely unbiased, they would have offered us boards a while ago.

I'm glad to have Aeon's support in the community (since I trust the firm they've contracted their design work to), and AmigaKit is the best remaining supplier in the Amiga community.

But there is a lot of financing being put up for development of the primary OS they are supporting.
And software packages for us?
We are on our own.

We already seem to be losing ground in some areas, so I'm concerned about our future.

> And software packages for us? We are on our own.

Some of their software may also come for MorphOS:

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:a-eon.com+morphos

There may be preconditions that would have to be met, though.

http://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=9&topic_id=4136&start=22

Hmm,
They want a guarantee that we will buy a specific number of copies?
For some packages I'd be willing to do that.

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Which is why I stated that I was surprised to see you start this thread, questioning, or calling "creepy", the ownership and rare moderation by Matthew of AmigaKit.

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I can't argue this point, but if you look at it from A-Eon's point of view, they have invested an enormous amount of money trying to support AmigaOS4.x, and at one time were even tied together with the owner of Hyperion as a partner in the A-Eon company. I think it will take a huge mistake, or lack of completion of the X5000 port of AmigaOS4.1FE, to get Trevor to give up on AmigaOS4.x and switch to MorphOS (that might not even be something he would consider, as he could get fed up and walk away from the Amiga community, like others have done in the past).

It would be nice if A-Eon would release the X5000 boards and/or systems for sale now, to MorphOS users (and AROS PPC users, if there are still any of those around), but A-Eon may have a contract with Hyperion which states that they must not release AmigaOne hardware, unless it is offered with AmigaOS4.x. That license to use the AmigaOne name probably has some kind of strings attached.

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I'm glad to see that we still agree on this much.

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This may change, if both Trevor and Matthew see that they can make some profit from our market segment. Any money they can recoup should be welcome, as the "RED" ink on the AmigaOS4.x investment side of their ledger has to be huge. It is not unusual in the post Commodore days to have minimum order requirements, or prepayment plans, to get some software and/or hardware produced.

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That really isn't A-Eon's, or AmigaKit's fault, it is just their choice on which projects to support with financial investments. With their sights set on further PPC custom hardware, and MorphOS moving to, or at least expanding to x64 hardware, it is hard to say what effect this may have on future support for MorphOS from A-Eon.

> A-Eon may have a contract with Hyperion which states that they must not
> release AmigaOne hardware, unless it is offered with AmigaOS4.x. That
> license to use the AmigaOne name probably has some kind of strings attached.

Yes, certainly. But A-Eon could release it under the "Cyrus (Plus)" moniker for now to circumvent this restriction as long as OS4 is not ready for it.

> This may change, if both Trevor and Matthew see that they can make some
> profit from our market segment.

Yes, there were signs of this 10 months ago:

http://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=9932&start=29

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Indeed, such wasted effort by the MorphOS Team. It has been over 1/2 year since I called the X5000 a boat anchor. That wasn't a terribly popular statement, but here we are 6+ months later dead in the water.

[ Edited by redrumloa 12.09.2016 - 11:17 ]

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Eh..I dont really see a problem with them owning both. I still go to AO, I may not log in, but every morning I go and look to see what the latest threads are and read them if they interest me. As far as them not saying anything, can you blame them? Amiga users are quick to start flame wars & complain about any change. There's always a conspiracy theory etc.

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Probably because there HAS been so much skulduggery and subterfuge in the Amiga community up to this point.
AND if it was anyone else besides Aeon, I'd would be really worried.

As to the long delayed X5000, its not quite the "boat anchor" that red suggest, upon release it will be the most powerful AmigaOne made to date.
BUT, if I was designing this stuff, I'd already be examining Power8 (because Freescale's PPC are at the end of their life).

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It's not a boat anchor based on the merits of the hardware, it is a boat anchor based on the fact it's released is tied to OS4.1 being ported.

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Good point, this is dragging the whole project down.
The only real hope the OS4.1 community has is if Hyperion gives up and transfers the rights to AmigaOS to another entity.
Aeon has already proven they can get people outside of Hyperion to write useful additions to the OS that function better.
Hyperion's pace has always been ludicrously slow.

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I can't imagine A-Eonkit's relationship with HYPErion at this point is anything other than acrimonious. They certainly don't want to have a pallet of unsold motherboards just sitting collecting dust, with no finish line in sight.

On a side note, at this point the motherboards probably shouldn't be sold as "new". At some point, probably already now, they should be seen as NOS (New Old Stock).

> if I was designing this stuff, I'd already be examining Power8

POWER8 came too late for X5000/Cyrus. It could be an alternative to e6500-based chips for the X5000 successor, though :-) And instead of contracting a board design firm, A-Eon could simply license the Talos from Raptor Engineering.

> because Freescale's PPC are at the end of their life

It should be more than a decade for PPC at NXP before EOL.

http://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=3&topic_id=7675&start=811

> it is a boat anchor based on the fact it's released is tied to OS4.1 being ported.

You mean the X5000 is the anchor which decelerates the OS4 boat it is tied to? I'd say it's the other way round: OS4 is the anchor for the X5000 boat.

> Aeon has already proven they can get people outside of Hyperion
> to write useful additions to the OS that function better.

There are no developers inside of Hyperion. And there's a significant overlap between people who (have) developed for Hyperion and people who are developing for A-Eon now. So it's not so much the people who changed as the kind and amount of compensation they get.

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Ironically, while AmigaKit's ownership of both sites is a massive conflict of interest and undermines the independence or trustworthiness of them (not that they had any in the first place), they are still much, much, much less biased than the days of Bouma, Mikey_C and Wayne "Roll a dice to see who I fanatically support and fanatically hate this week" Hunt.

The reason is mainly that it's hard to have a circlejerk without enough people left in the circle. ...or so I heard.