Alienated Amiga Users Tempted by QNX/phase 5 Alternative.

By Rachel Chalmers In an intriguing development in the dynamic game that is Amiga development, QNX Software Systems Ltd has licensed its Neutrino operating system to phase 5 Digital Products to be ported to phase 5's PowerUP accelerators for Amiga computers. When the port is completed, the companies plan to donate a runtime version of Neutrino free of charge to the Amiga community. The version will run on all current 603/604-based PowerUP boards. "Amiga developers will benefit in two ways," explained QNX Software Systems chief technology officer Dan Dodge. "First, they can use their existing Amiga computers to develop next-generation multimedia applications based on the QNX Neutrino OS. QNX application development will be completely self-hosted; no PCs required. Second, they can run their legacy Amiga applications and new QNX applications simultaneously, thanks to a powerful 68K emulator from phase 5."

Last November Amiga struck a deal with QNX to use Neutrino as the next generation of its operating system. But on July 16, 1999, Amiga published a technology brief, in which president Jim Collas wrote: "We had been working for some months with QNX Software Systems to try to adapt the QNX RTOS to the needs of a next- generation multimedia convergence computer. At the same time, we had also been working with key members of the Linux community to evaluate the pros and cons of Linux... It became apparent to us that more and more of our technology partners and software vendors were encouraging us to focus on Linux as our underlying OS kernel," Collas explained. "While we were impressed with some of the technology elements in QNX (and BeOS and Chorus, for that matter), we felt that it will be difficult for a proprietary operating system to attract the broad industry support required to be successful over the coming years."

Not everyone was delighted by this announcement. Collas and his team were apparently inundated with email from shocked Amiga users, who complained that while Linux is stable, it is large and inefficient. Some were concerned that their beloved platform would no longer be "unique". Others were annoyed that Collas did not announce the Linux decision until several weeks after it had been made. "I can understand the caution that many of you have on this announcement and will work aggressively to alleviate your concerns," Collas wrote in an executive update. "I want to emphasize that it was not my intention to mislead the Amiga community in any way... I believe that the Linux decision is consistent with this objective." For those who don't agree, QNX and phase 5 now have an alternative to offer.