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Like someone else said - MorphOS is on the same track today as it was two days ago. Or half a year ago, actually. This situation was presented yesterday as news, but it's only news to the public. The rest of the MorphOS team seems to have known about this situation for quite some time, and development actions has probably been taken with this in mind. For instance, towards the end of May this year there were a series of shows where the current snapshot of MorphOS was presented, as well as a development roadmap etc. Some of this information was asked by MorphOS developers to be removed from show reports, and when discussed why on IRC, they gave reasons like "we don't want to present to the public features that perhaps even won't be there in the final release". I thought that sounded a little strange at the time, I mean, if you spend a lot of time to implement a feature you usually do it for a reason. But now I think that approach makes sense. The uncertain state of affairs made it impossible to present a final shape of MorphOS 1.5 to the public, since there would be no way of telling if even these basic components like MUI or Ambient would be there in its current form. So this is not a new situation for the other MorphOS developers, only to us, the public.

MUI is very advanced, especially the later versions that has been developed for MorphOS exclusively. Ambient is better than Workbench in a few areas, but many people are using replacements like DOpus or the "real" Amiga workbench on their MorphOS systems, and they do it for a reason. Anyway, both those components are of course important, but they are not the guts of the OS, more part of the visual experience.

The MorphOS developers has a record of using and contributing to the AROS project. Perhaps this will continue on new areas now? I don't know the state at which Zune and Wanderer (AROS MUI-replacement and Workbench replacement) is in, but with a little work they could perhaps offer pretty much the same visual experience to the end user as MorphOS 1.4 does now, and then improve even further so there won't be any need to use Workbench or Dopus as "Ambient-replacements"?

pngicons+wandererprefs.jpegfonts.pngzuneprefs1.png

More AROS screenshots:
http://www.aros.org/pictures/screenshots/

Perhaps components like these are best developed as open source anyway? It's "only" the visual parts, of course very important to the overall user experience, but it's not the guts of the OS, it's not what makes MorphOS so special so there is no real need for it to keep it proprietary? If these parts are open, more developers may also contribute and help both AROS and MorphOS moving forward in these areas, who knows?

The Frieden guys has said that they will develop a completely new version of Workbench for OS4 from scratch, to get rid of old legacies that limits things. I think it would be really cool if all three OS-distros would use the same workbench, at least as a base. I think that would be really nice; a common uniting denominator! It would sure as hell be possible, but of course I don't think it would ever happen!



Anyway. David, Stefan, Treveur and Oliver, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your work. I have followed MorphOS since the 1.0 release with my own eyes, and I have enjoyed your work very much. I am very sorry that the situation has come to this. When the well has dried, there is no water. When there is no money, there is no money. I still hope that you will accept some kind of re-negotiation or settlement, and that you agree to continue your development. If you feel this is impossible, then I am very sorry about this, but I wish you the best of luck with your future endeavours. Your work has been appreciated by many of us, remember that!

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank any MorphOS developers that continue to push forward, for no or very little money at all. This is how things are done with the OS4 development, as far as I understand. Obviously there are not very much financial means in Genesi to reward you now, but may the OS develop to something real good in the future, and may there be some great reward for you when the product reaches a real commercial level.

Also, thank you all application developers that continue to push forward. You all rule, and we are many who are very grateful for your efforts. We love you all!



I don't see a reason for MorphOS to stop here. It has been assured it won't. But if it will, then I will bury the Amiga for good, but it has nevertheless been a good and interesting time, with an extremely interesting technology created (hardware, OS and applications). I am glad I have been here to see it all with my own eyes!