Submitted by Amiga, Inc. has terminated the contract with Hyperion and Eyetech on 20th December, and has sued Hyperion for copyright infringement on 26th April. Discussion about this trademark suit can be read on AmigaWorld; maybe the community can clear up what is going on here, because I lost track long ago. Update: A detailed description [.pdf] of the suit has appeared. Amiga Inc. is accusing Hyperion of trademark infringement, but also of breach of the agreement the companies signed among one another. According to Amiga Inc., the agreement said that Hyperion would exercise its ‘best efforts’ to release AmigaOS 4 by March 1st, 2002. They obviously failed that date (AOS4 was released 24th December 2006), and hence Amiga Inc. says the contract was broken. Exhibits included.
All these people that have “followed the name” since 2001 face a real dilemma now.
Do they continue to follow the name of Amiga Inc, or do they show themselves up to be hypocrites (after slagging off MorphOS for not having the name) and support HyperionOS (If it ever gets released)?
Another evidence that it is clever to avoid “working” with Amiga Inc.
“Party on”
What name followers Nicholas? The pure facts: AmigaOS4 is based on the original AmigaOS3.1 sources, while MorphOS is a wannabe AmigaOS, a clone, which has similar functionalities.
This is not following the name, this is following the original AmigaOS codebase instead of using some OS which has only a mere compatibility layer. (Or what is Quark kernel and ABox is about?)
Regarding the original topic: the result of this legal action is rather questionable. After Eyetech stopped producing AmigaOne motherboards Amiga INC refused to grant the license to any hardware platform to run AmigaOS4 on for years.
I find it interesting what the judge is going to say after getting familiar with the original contract. (Which was leaked some time ago, so we all know what it was about.)
Amiga is cursed with utterly incompetent management since the Commodore days. It seems the name demands.
Actually it’s not. Hyperion has confirmed that it is not on a number of occaisions.
>Actually it’s not. Hyperion has confirmed that it is not on a number of occaisions.
That’s not entirely entirely the case either, I believe. Hyperion had access to the 3.1 sources, although it’s true that a large amount was rewritten (notably the kernel, ExecSG, and AmigaDOS, which was previously written in legacy BCPL.) What Hyperion didn’t have access to were the sources for OS3.5, OS3.9, and (as far as I recollect) ARexx.
Exactly. Some parts needed to be rewritten from scratch, such as Exec (the heart of the OS), which needed to be adapted to the PowerPC processor and more flexible hardware handling. Numerous parts were added to handle new hardware and software environment such as USB, IDE/SATA devices, etc. And many parts are bugfixed and/or developed further from the 3.1 sources such as DOS.library, Graphics.library, etc.
With the manufacturing and final price information along with product launch schedules that is supposed to be announced this week, which AmigaOS is Amiga Inc gonna included?
Bill McEwen had told that Amiga Inc has been working on OS5 for almost 2 years with a team of 5 persons.
Windows Mobile 6.0 + Tao Intent/Elate + UAE, or AROS + UAE. 😉
If it was MorphOS re-branded I’d wet myself. LOL
LOL I’ve already been modded down by the self-appointed OSNews overlords.
Windows Mobile 6.0 + Tao Intent/Elate + UAE, or AROS + UAE.
No QNX? QNX + UAE + ROMs.
“No QNX? QNX + UAE + ROMs.”
Old Story/Product: AmigaOS XL *lol*
This is like Andorre declaring war on Monaco.
Where’s Grace Kelly?
Maybe now there will be AmigaOS4 for some sane x86 hardware!! Go Hyperion!
Let me know when this becomes relevant to the real world.
@griffinme
Let me know when this becomes relevant to the real world.
Amiga OS4 is more relevant to me than Windows Vista, or any other version of Windows for that matter.
Amiga OS4 is more relevant to me than Windows Vista, or any other version of Windows for that matter.
For what, and how?
Why why why… Amiga Inc.
You’d prefered something from Atari Corp. ?
Kochise
Do not take my Lord’s name in vain.
I really don’t know anything at this moment…
At latest Pianeta Amiga in Italy, september 2006, Bill Mc Ewen CEO of Amiga Inc. attended by sending a vocal MP3 message to the community.
In this message it seemed happy for the new Sam 440 EP “Samantha Motherboard” hardware from ACube Italy and he was aware of the incoming partnership between Hyperion and ACube.
Something had gone wrong because then Amiga Inc. announced some days ago their partnership with ACK, in order to sell new Amiga Hardware (but no sure mention about the OS)…
It seems that agreements between Amiga INc and Hyperion+ACube was not satisfactory for Amiga Inc.
Strange they have an OS (4.0) which is already finished by Hyperion.
Also they found a firm which could produce, merchandise OS 4.0 bundled with Samantha motherboard (good new hardware) (ACube)…
All they needed was was to sign a contract and benefit from royalties…
But seems they are dumba**es at commerce!
Refusing free rich royalties without making any REAL products (ACube and Hyperion are doing the big efforts) or without performing any fatigue to obatin money SOUNDS VERY STRAAAANGE!
Also I start thinking that they have no need of money (I think some silent investor is funding Amiga Inc.), so they prefer to piss on any royalty from any people merchandising AmigaOS facilities.
At Amiga Inc. prefer to invest in futile [AmigaAnywhere development that is a commercial (Sic!) alternative to Java (which is open source and wolrdwide famous) instead than focusing on productive AmigaOS.
http://www.amiga.com/about/history/?t=anywhere
I wonder if someone is paying Amiga Inc. to let Amiga brand die miserably of starvation and by fading it away, because an OS so simple and lightweight it is a dangerous competitor on the market of embedded devices, automotive car TV-Stereo devices, and cellular phones.
Infacts Amiga Inc. sells only tiiiiny amounts of Amiga Anywhere licenses, so it is impossible for them to afford to buy an indian software firm (Ruksun, which is now becoming Amiga Development India), and sponsoring a multi million stadium in Kent Country (WA) – USA –
http://www.amigadevindia.com/
http://www.amiga.com/news/index.php?art=25
From us who were outside, it seemed that Amiga Inc. had no money at all, so we got astonished when we saw Amiga Inc. buying a oversea indian firm, and then sponsorizing a brand new stadium/conference center…
They revealed they have a big cash, while they are selling almost no any serious product..
So I tink they are only scarcecrows of a misterious shadow firm, which is paying them to destroy sloowly the Amiga brand and Amiga name.
It is just only a suspicion I have random, no certain proofs about it…
Edited 2007-04-30 14:53
I didn’t know Amiga OS4 had actually been released. I thought it was vaporware.
The copyright infringement and breach of contract cases seem watertight. I guess we know now how Amiga Inc. is going to fund making thousands of $500 PCs…
It was released for the AmigaOne series computers but the other versions weren’t released yet. There is an advertisment on http://www.acube-systems.com/eng/images/advertOS4Classic.jpg regarding the release of the A3000/4000 version of AmigaOS 4.0 .
http://www.merlancia.us/amiga-hyperion/decmcewenshow_case_doc.pdf
Read and weep.
Damien
If you love Amiga then use AROS.
http://aros.sourceforge.net/
No offence guys, but reading through the legal document presented by Ainc, these guys don’t have a weak case at all. Of course this is just one side of the story, but it makes an awful lot of sense. If you have an agreement with someone to do job X by date Y, and this someone violates that date by well over 4 years, well, then that’s a pretty big breach of contract.
The same goes for the hardware case. The Hyperion website indeed advertises with AOS4 for various pieces of hardware, which is not allowed by the agreement. Again, a fairly strong point. On top of this, they use the ‘Amiga’ trademark as well as the Boing logo for this, which is indeed appears to be a copyright infringement.
It might very well be that Ainc are a buch of swindlers, but judging by this court document, they have a darn strong case, I’d say. It’s going to be interesting to see what Hyperion has to say.
The case does indeed seem fairly watertight – one can only hope that it proceeds as quickly as possible. The terrible irony is that most of the points A Inc are complaining about, while they do violate the license, were done by Hyperion in order to further the platform in the way A Inc seemed uninterested in doing – promotional websites, hardware deals etc. Amiga Inc’s handling of this situation has been abysmal, and has certainly done far more than anything Hyperion has done to hurt them. Compare to the way in which the Castle/ROL disagreement was solved. Even if a lawsuit was the only way ahead, they’ve made no attempt to communicate the reasons for this to the community (which they emphasise so much in the documents).
Amiga Inc recently appears to have come by a lot of capital from some source or another. Perhaps they’re now able to inject cash into Ack (the announcement a few days ago about new hardware) in order to get something out by the Summer to replace what the Acube system would have been (assuming the dispute means they cannot get a license).
Thom_Holwerda said “
Unfortunately I have to agree with you on this one. Especially seeming that Amiga did allegedly pay them as per contract. Well, actually, they paid more than contract required when they really had no need to. Obviously this “extra” payment was in good faith, and while I am not trying to defend Amiga about all of their conducts, I don’t understand why everyone damn Amiga for everything and always see the other guys as the victims. While I have had good respect for Hyperion up to this point, and without hearing their side of the story, in this case it seems like they aren’t the victim.
Think about this. We have all been bagging Amiga for years now that they have taken so long to get a new OS sorted and we are now praising Hyperion for actually getting something done. However, according to these claims Amiga tried to, in their best attempts, insure a short and timely delivery of an somewhat updated Amiga OS. Allegedly, Hyperion have been the ones to stuff this up, out of the apparent control of Amiga.
Edited 2007-04-30 23:23
Amiga Inc only filed an APPLICATION for the Boing Ball logo in 2006, the document doesn’t say they were granted this trademark. In fact, I recall Microsoft using a very similar-looking boing ball in a demo of WPF I saw about a year back.
My guess is they knew what they were doing. 
Sorry, but this is not copyright infringement. It is trademark violation. Not all intellectual property is protected by copyright.
I just thought I’d point out that Amiga means “friend”. It seems a nice irony considering the littered battlefied that is the OS4 experience.
Actually, it means ‘female friend’
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That just killed off what little left there was of Amiga.
Going after the guys that’ve made “your” OS is about as dumb a move one can make. Security patches anyone? Oh, bummer – we killed off the main developers and alienated EVERYONE that has contributed to AmigaOS 4.
Hate to tell it to you Amiga Inc., but the hyperion guys are the real heros as they did something when you did absolutely nothing. If it took them some time to relase OS 4 – fine, but at least they did something.
A few hours ago I was seriously considering buying one of those recently announced “Amigas” if they ever materalised. Now I’m quite certain I won’t.
Good move Amiga Inc.!
I’d give you about a million mod points if I could. Amiga Inc have just affirmed that they are completely out of touch with the Amiga community…
Hyperion are the heroes, no question. While Amiga Inc was following pipe dreams and subsidizing Tao to help them create “new” entertainment platform (which in reality is less portable and inferior to capabilities Java already has), Hyperion were actually doing what everyone wanted them to do, which is to finish OS4–with just two people doing the majority of the work! Maybe if McEwan and Co. had invested a bit in helping the Frieden brothers out instead of sinking all their money into AmigaDE, they’d actually have been able to have their precious product on time.
On another note, Bill McEwan announcing that he’s opening a new “Amiga Center” or whatnot in his home town of Kent, before even a single product has been released in any quantity to see how it fares in the market, just smacks of hubris and seems to definitively prove once and for all that he is a bumbling idiot. It’s a shame that that town had to get taken advantage of like this; I hate to think where that project will end up a few years from now.
I sure wish Hyperion could just release its OS as HyperionOS or what have you and solve the whole thing… that would be the best of scenarios, actually… But somehow I have a feeling it will never be that easy….
McEwan may have been the man to get Amiga out of Gateway’s grip, but beyond that point I can’t remember the last good thing he did for the Amiga community. This just cements that status.
I hate to tell you DevL, but it seems quite the opposite now!! After reading these accusations.
“
I dont know about you, but 4 years longer than the contracted time IMO is totally unexceptable! I wouldn’t have call it just “some time”.
As I stated in a previous post, it seems to me reading the court documents that Amiga tried in their best abilities to insure the Amiga OS was moving a(4 year)lot sooner. Who knows where the Amiga OS would be now if Hyperion had released on time and then Amiga might have continued on with a number of other good versions after that.
Amiga stated that they had been working on AmigaOS 5 for two years now. Imagine what could have been if the AmigaOS 4.0 resources and the Amiga OS 5 resources were able to be combined. Where might the Amiga OS be now? Who knows!!! Hyperion stopped any chance of this from happening didn’t they.
I doubt it’s quite as simple as they make it out to be. For one, I seem to recall the Frieden brothers (aka Hyperion) mentioning that they still hadn’t been payed for their work, years after this contract expired. Basically it seems like they were finishing OS4 out of good faith and passion for the Amiga, while Amiga Inc was just floundering around with their AmigaDE project and creating all sorts of licensing issues in attempts to get more royalties.
At least one good thing will hopefully come of this court case: we’ll finally get to hear the complete and honest truth, from both sides of the fence.
Edited 2007-05-01 07:26 UTC
the frieden brothers isnt hyperion- they are contracted by hyperion. they did have to work on several side projects though, to finance the damn thing and keep development going.
another thing that seems a bit strange, is that ben hermans who own hyperion supposedly is a lawyer and therefor should be well aware of contracts and legal issues.
/stone
stone said “
”
Yes your right the frieden brothers are employed by Hyperion, which means that Hyperion didn’t pay their employees.
Also there was some talk on amigaworld recently that the frieden brothers might join Amiga Inc. Not sure how official this talk is.
Edited 2007-05-01 08:33
Hmm, I think I’m beginning to understand… After finding and reading the original contract I see it’s all true: All parties signed a most stupid contract that on the one hand allowed Amiga, Inc to buy back the OS from Hyperion for a one-time fee of $25,000, but on the other hand allowed Hyperion to keep it if Amiga, Inc happened to go under. This just encouraged Hyperion to take their precious time on it, just waiting for Amiga to go under. Which in retrospect was stupid because of course Amiga Inc were able to scrounge up $25,000 when it really mattered.
The whole contract originally set forth was a terrible idea, of course, that no parties–most especially not Hyperion–should have agreed to. However, it’s amazing what can happen when people are in need of money and think they’ve found the magic source.
If the Frieden brothers really do end up joining AInc, then I may take back everything I said about McEwan and Co, because at that point it will seem evident that Hyperion are the fools. I was really under the impression that Hyperion was the Friedens’ company, but apparently from what I’m reading, I was mistaken.
Let’s see what transpires.
Edited 2007-05-01 14:00 UTC
As the papers point out a lot of the work was done by external contractors. If Amiga inc. ever manage to get their hands on OS4 they will not be able to sell it as it isn’t theirs to sell.
However if Hyperion change the name from Amiga OS4 and attempt to sell it as say, Hyperion OS4 it will still contain substantial chunks which are either from the original AmigaOS or are based on it.
So, while Amiga inc. may be able to stop Hyperion using their trademark, neither side will be able to sell anything without the distinct possibility of another legal case.
However irrespective of the outcome of this or any other case they have the bigger problem that the income that AmigaOS could bring in will not pay for the cases.
OS4 is now in legal limbo and will probably remain there forever more.
The irony is if they’d just agreed to share royalties and drop the licensed hardware idea they could have both been making money for years.
The end result will be that some lawyers will get some money, the community as per usual, will get nothing.
OS4 is now in legal limbo and will probably remain there forever more.
Unfortunately, there’s no product so good that it can’t be managed into the ground.
“As the papers point out a lot of the work was done by external contractors. If Amiga inc. ever manage to get their hands on OS4 they will not be able to sell it as it isn’t theirs to sell…OS4 is now in legal limbo and will probably remain there forever more.”
Agreed. I don’t see Amiga Inc. being able to put together a working OS distribution from whatever unecumbered parts they *might* “liberate* from the clutches of Hyperion. Unless thay are completely retarded, they must realize that’ve made fools of themselves for announcing hardware a few days ago that legally won’t be capable of running anything else than Linux PPC.
Hyperion on the other hand can’t distribute AmigaOS legally so all those manyears have been wasted for absolutely nothing. If only people had rallied behind AROS 10 or so years ago we would have had an open source alternative surpassing both OS4 and MorphOS.
Of course, nothing would’ve stopped Amiga Inc in its varios incarnations from going after AROS…
Strong case or not, why wait so long. Now that the OS is finish, apparently a hardware was found, then affect the sales with this.
This should have been done a long time ago.
No of course not, if they had done it a long time ago they would never have had the chance to have the OS finished for them! That is of course, assuming they can actually get their hands on said OS.
That’s right everyone. The Amiga community is the biggest soap opera the computer industry has ever seen. There’s little sanity left here. For those of you, such as pretty much anyone at slashdot for example, who wonders why anyone bothers because it’s dead, you may soon finally be correct about the deadness of the Amiga platform. It hasn’t been well for quite some time for sure, being in a rather delicate state of being as either a product or community, but these last few sledgehammer bashes to the iron lung equipment may finally be enough to end it all.
I really hope to see OS4 survive whatever comes of this lawsuit. If not, then Amiga Inc. will likely have finally disbanded this unusual community of diehard crackpots. Who then will they have to support them other than people visiting the Amiga Center at Kent in Kent, Washington state USA who want to buy hot dogs and beer over their Amiga-equipped cell phones?
Now that Amiga, Inc. has found a new hardware supplier they can stuff in their pocket, they want their OS back, without having to give anything to Hyperion for all the work they did on it.
It’s “bait-n-switch”. Bait Hyperion, then turn on them when it becomes “advantageous” to do so.
Amiga Inc. (otherwise known as Bill McEwan) for AmigaOS is no better than YellowTab (otherwise known as Bernd Korz) was for BeOS.
Scams and conspiracies run amok. The only one who “wins” is Bill McEwan. And we wait endlessly for a piece of hardware and an OS that will NEVER come. When will Amigans learn…
Amiga is *DEAD!*
We can hope forever and hold the candle til our hand is covered in burning melted wax (many times over, by now)… but the days of Amiga are forever cursed! We only doom ourselves to eternal torment by hoping even one more day for Amiga’s “revival”. It ain’t happened yet and it ain’t ever GONNA happen!
You’re better off trying to win the lottery or waiting for Jesus to come back, as a better use of your time and money.
Seriously!
What he doesn’t realise is that most people would boycott it if that happened, I dont think Bill McEwen realises how loyal people are to Hyperion, they were the ones that stuck it out through thick and thin while Amiga Inc titted about with AmigaDE.
If that really does happen then McEwen can expect his allready small market share to halve… Which in the long run probably wont amount to much…
He’s just asking too much, I really hope AInc gets a big slap in the face and realises that its destroying the little faith that people have in them, let hyperion do what they want with OS4 as at the end of the day it was there OWN WORK that wen’t into it.
After skimming through the actual file, I have come to the revised conclusion that Amiga, Inc. is 100% LEGALLY in the right, to do what they are doing (and according to the doc, they also sent Hyperion whatever monies were required to satisfy the original agreement), but that the end result will probably not bode well for Amiga users… not that anything has ever turned out well for Amiga users since Commodore went “B.U.D” (Belly Up Dead).
If Hyperion is doing what Amiga, Inc. says they’re doing (breaking agreement, in several ways) then Hyperion doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
Sure, they made AmigaOS4 what (and where) it is today, but that doesn’t give them the right to break contract left and right, with abandon.
A contract is a contract, and unless there is an “escape clause” that says if Amiga, Inc. doesn’t do X, Y or Z… by whatever time, then everything to do with AmigaOS4 belongs to them, then… Hyperion is definitely skating on some hair-thin ice, to be sure.
Yes, Amiga users may think Hyperion is walking on water (miracle-working and utterly beyond reproach), but when that ice cracks… Hyperion is going down into the cold cruel depths of the lake below.
I only hope Amiga users get something out of this… more than a loss of $50 and a T-shirt worth, maybe, $5. 😀
Yeah… wasn’t *THAT* a scam to remember! But… the law is the law (and a contract is a contract), even if Amiga, Inc. is a bunch of conniving cretins.
Hey, maybe Bill McEwan will still apply that $50 towards the new $500 Amiga that we’ll probably never see! YEAH!!! Anyone wanna hold their breath for that? Hehehehehe!
Yup! Blue looks good on you. Now, if only we could transfer some of it from your face (“Must you really puff your cheeks out so much? You’re not a hamster, for crying out loud!”) to the rest of you! 🙂
Edited 2007-04-30 19:59
Now, here’s a question I have to ask the Amiga diehards here: if OS4 is finished, why isn’t anyone selling it? Why can’t we just grab random parts from TigerDirect (or anywhere else), buy a copy of OS4, get a PowerPC and motherboard, and go on from there? Is there a techincal limitation in OS4 that prevents this from happening, or is this a beaureaucratic reason?
I think it’s because you can get the OS for free (?) as long as you have the hardware atm, but since you can’t buy any new hardware you’re sort of stuck.
Sadly, yes, there is a reason. OS4 is protected: it will only run on hardware with Amiga-authorized firmware. So although, technically, Genesi’s shipping Pegasos hardware would do fine, it won’t run because Amiga Inc didn’t authorize Pegasos so it doesn’t have the magic firmware.
I am an Amiga owner, but not some obsessed fanboy – I got one cheap about 10y ago, out of nostalgia for how cool I though they were when they were new and I was a teenager. But the story of the various factions in AmigaLand and how they all hate & distrust each other and how so many of them take any chance to stab one another in the back… It’s amazing. Human nature and free-market economics at its very worst.
Now, here’s a question I have to ask the Amiga diehards here: if OS4 is finished, why isn’t anyone selling it? Why can’t we just grab random parts from TigerDirect (or anywhere else), buy a copy of OS4, get a PowerPC and motherboard, and go on from there? Is there a techincal limitation in OS4 that prevents this from happening, or is this a beaureaucratic reason?
It’s all bureaucratic. A number of other parties tried to get licenses allowing OS4 to be ported to their hardware of interest, inclusing Macs, iBooks, Pegasos and Efika boards from Genesi, and attempts at completely new designs such as Troika’s Amy05 and Panda boards, previous proposals by Amiga’s new friends at ACK, and Amiga Inc. were actually who announced ACube’s SAM440 board to the public, as well as another company working on a TV set-top platform.
There have also been numerous requests to have OS4 ported to x86.
Hyperion have insisted that such porting requests must already have obtained a license from Amiga Inc. allowing OS4 porting to the proposed platform before Hyperion would do anything. Hyperion wasn’t interested in accepting their defined 20000Euro porting fee without Amiga Inc’s licensing already in place. Amiga Inc. does claim to have paid Hyperion to port OS4 to IBM’s Arctic PDA reference, but that was never made commercially available with any OS. And in terms of Macs, Hyperion and/or its contractors have refused porting to that due to lack of chipset documentation. See http://amigamac.wikispaces.com/ for a futile attempt to change that.
Ironically, Amiga Inc. set up an email address specifically to accept inquiries for licensing Amiga’s IP, such as for AmigaOS4 licensing. Long ago the set-top company who’s name I never remember managed to get to the bargaining table, but was unable to come to agreement with Amiga Inc. Then there were 2 or 3 years where Amiga Inc. was said to have completely ignored any and all contact attempts to their defined technology licensing email. Then in fall of 2006 Bill McEwen himself talked about the ACube SAM440 board, not only the first we’d heard of a successful OS4 license contact response in years, but also the first the Amiga community heard from Amiga Inc. about anything for a very very very long time. So long that most of the community had long since written off Amiga Inc. as irrelevant to the Amiga platform. I tried for a long time myself to get a response from Amiga Inc. as I wanted to discuss how to get OS4 into a laptop, at first by just porting to iBook and later by new design proposals. I never got one single inkling of anyting that might even just be confused as a response from Amiga Inc. I sent a number of emails. But nothing at all. Bill McEwen stated a few months ago that they replied to “every” inquiry. His quotes around the word every, no idea what they mean. I call him a liar in that statement, unless the quotes around every are somehow intended to exclude me and a few others who also accuse Amiga Inc. of no response at all. I never got the questionairre he claims to have sent to all inquirers.
Anyway… Basically, you cannot buy OS4. It was only ever available for Eyetech’s AmigaOne motherboards, which ceased production a couple years ago. It’s never been sold for “classic” Amigas (Commodore designs) with PowerPC upgrade cards, though it is available to a few betatesters for these things. Amiga Inc. has never allowed Hyperion to port it to any other platform, not even any other PowerPC platform. Amiga Inc. has never allowed porting to x86. It’s never been sold for Kiosks or any other platform as Amiga Inc. claim in their court filings. AmigaOne from Eyetech and nothing else. Ever. And some people who bought AmigaOnes never got their OS4 CDs or registration codes to access downloads from Hyperion. I’m one of them. So even with an AmigaOne, which was to have included OS4 in the purchase price to be shipped when available, you still might not have got OS4.
“maybe the community can clear up what is going on here”
What community? There are none longer, even ann.lu is dead, sure cats have nine lives, but amiga doesn’t have 20, they have killed it to many times already.
Let me get this right…
* Amiga Finally gets hardware (A1) Runs Linux
* Amiga Gets OS (OS4) A1 not around long ..
* Amiga Gets New hardware
* Amiga Sues Hyperion and there is now no OS
What will be left
An underpowered System running an OS that is tied to this underpowered system.
Hmmmm, Gees. If I understand correctly AInc are a pack of fools. Sure hope they have been developing AOS5 in their spare time 😉
Hopefully Aros gets their in the end .
Edited 2007-04-30 23:35
Some more perspectives on the case: OS4 could be finished and released for at lest 2 years. Why it didn’t happen? Because Amiga INC rejected ANY hardware that could be used to run OS4 on.
Eyetech’s AmigaOnes are out of business for a long time, therefore Hyperion delayed the release. The contract with Amiga INC was about selling the OS and sharing the profit, there was no point of releasing it for no profit at all.
So, basically Amiga INC managed Hyperion to delay the release of the OS indefinitely. And now stand up and claim for the breach because the OS wasn’t finished.
I am no lawyer at all, I don’t know how much this would change the standpoint on court.
racs said “
”
Honestly, I dont think this will change the standpoint in court for the following reasons:
1) 2 years ago Hyperion had already been denying them the source code for 2 years. So which company in there right mind would continue supporting any work with a company that has mayorly breached contract and holding you ransom?!
2) Secondly, Amiga had organised and had hardware, from Eyetech, selling around the time the contract said that Hyperion had to have the OS finished. There was hardware but NO OS. I owned an AmigaOne system for ages before any beta AmigaOS was released.
Hyperion were the ones that missed the boat, not Amiga Inc. Amiga Inc had everything ready and was just waiting for Hyperion.
Also, some could even argue that Eyetech went down because Hyperion hadn’t delivered the OS. Amiga was responsible to Eyetech for the OS and Hyperion let it down.
Furthurmore, all you people seem to dislike Amiga so much because fo there missed promises etc. I think the real problem parties are being put on public display now. If anything, this whole thing is making me gain a little more respect for Amiga Inc now.
Edited 2007-05-01 08:43
It is very strange that Amiga Inc. now wants back any source and any products related to Amiga OS, while in all these years on their site THEY HAVE NO REFERENCE EVEN TO THIS PRODUCT…
AFAIK of all old conversation about Amiga in Fourms, seems that Amiga Inc. just sub-contracted hardware to Eyetech and sub-contracted the OS 4.0 to Hyperion.
They also leave Eyetech and Hyperion a certain degree of freedom because they have lesser interest in AmigaOS.
They want only to develop Amiga Anywhere/AmigaDE which is a multi-purpose language/OS like Java.
Amiga Inc. just want money from AmigaOS world ONLY to develop Amiga Anywhere.
—–
@ ALL:
Eyetech went down not due to the lack of AmigaOS to run on their machine.
Eyetech build Amiga ONE motherboards based on northbridge ARTICIA which were manufactured from MAI Technology which went bankrupt and CEASED to produce Articia Chips.
No chips -> No Motherboards.
Also Eyetech motherboards suffered problems of DMA just due to this Articia chip which has some major faults in its architecture.
These problems raised up when realizing Linux for AmigaONE motherboards.
AmigaOS has no DMA problems.
Hyperion couldn’t even be blamed for problems in hardware by Eyetech and Mai tech.
Again Eyetech did a messy job when realizing AmigaONEs.
They were UNCAPABLE to activate the on-board sound chip so they realized it was faulty.
They removed the audio chip from new AmigaONE motherboards (the Micro AmigaONE if I remembere well).
Later a party of young developers discovered that the audio chip on board of A1 just need to be properly initialized, and released a program to activate it.
This fact was good for those who have amigaONE XE and SE but unfortunately persons who have Micro AmigaONE could only BLAME Eyetech for being so stupid and LAMERISH to remove a functioning chip they was even uncapable to set up.
This fact gave Eyetech a bad reputation into Amiga Community of being not good in realize hardware.
They went so upset to leave the Amiga market.
—-
Regarding Amiga Inc.
Strange to know, but now they even refuse to consider Micro AmigaONE as VALID product tied to AmigaOS…
They claim it is an illegal hardware and there is no licence for it…
I wonder why they rised up all this three stages circus, they spreaded all these rumors and finally issued this court trial, if upto april of this year they even REFUSED to consider AmigaOS 4.0 on their site (try google cache to proof it)…
They refused to contact the community.
In offcial communications they claimed that only future for Amiga was not AmigaOS but AmigaAnywhere.
They stated that NEXT incoming AmigaOS (AmigaOS 5) will be compatible with previous Amiga Software, due to AmigaOS 4.0 API, but that AmigaOS 5 wuill be based on TAO/Elate Intent and a mix of Linux…
(Remember the fact that TAO/Elate Intent is COOPERATIVE MULTITASKING, and Amiga Inc. desired badly to use AmigaOS PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING just ONLY to acquire this feature in TAO/Elate OS…)
Now that AmigaINc. saw that Amiga market it is STILL tied to AmigaOS, and have NO INTEREST in Amiga Anywhere, that is a dead horse, this is why they claim back all copyrights and menace of trademark infringment those who worked tirelessly all these years.
We must thanks italian hardware producers from ACube because they realized SAM 440 EP motherboard.
Now that they asked Amiga Inc for licence permissions, sure they revealed all the greed of Amiga Inc.
And sure they revelaed that Amiga Inc. seems to AVOID any legal license and prefer to AmigaOS to die in misery.
[A strange beahviour from a firm who should live of its best-selling products.
I wonder if there are owners of Amiga Inc. bonds, or shareholders or if there are banks financing Amiga Inc.
They could be interested in this SELF_DESTRUCTIVE behaviour from Amiga Inc. and claim back the money they gave to Amiga Inc. to finance it.]
Unfortunately at Amiga Inc. they have legal PERMISSION to use all Amiga Intellectual Properties.
They acquire it from ESCOM (or just from GATEWAY, if I remember well…)…
They have exclusive permission to use Commodore/Amiga IP from ESCOM (Gateway?) only UNTIL the contract they signed will end…
When the contract come to expiration date, then the owners of Commodore/Amiga IP which will be again ESCOM (Gateway?), then they could sell again the Amiga IP to whatever they want, WITH NO FURTER OPTION ONLY TO Amiga INc.
Then Amiga Inc. will be no anymore single optionist, and we could have a certain number of Amiga IP licences worldwide…
AFAIK there is still just ESCOM (Gateway?) which are the real owners of ALL Commodore/Amiga IP.
Amiga Inc. has only legal permission to use it as EXCLUSIVE trader.
(Hope I explained it well with my porr english).
Edited 2007-05-01 10:10
Later a party of young developers discovered that the audio chip on board of A1 just need to be properly initialized, and released a program to activate it.
This fact was good for those who have amigaONE XE
Wasn’t good for all XE owners. Mine didn’t have the sound chip. I’ve since added it, but was a freakin pain. I bought extras to add to other boards but business partner never did a web page for his store to sell the service, and I only have a few chips anyway. Still a number of people this doesn’t help.
AFAIK there is still just ESCOM (Gateway?) which are the real owners of ALL Commodore/Amiga IP.
Escom is gone. Gateway bought Amiga from Escom remains. I don’t know exactly the situation of Amiga buying stuff from Gateway. Seems Gateway still owns patents and hardware stuff, but I don’t know if the software and trademarks were truely purchased or as you said only kindof rented for a certain period of time.
In the brief*, in paragraph 19 (and in section 3.01 of Exhibit A), it lists the price of OS4 as $25,000.
Just $25K to commission your own OS? I better start saving up!
The OS4 Schedule and Feature List is also interesting to read. Especially this quote:
“It might be possible to recycle some source code from Linux for [a USB stack], or alternatively from a BSD clone because of the more liberal license (Microsoft do [sic, bolding not mine] have a point about the GPL’s viral properties).”
* http://www.merlancia.us/amiga-hyperion/decmossshow_case_doc.pdf
Hyperion was contracted to “port” AmigaOS 3.1 source code to PowerPC and call it AmigaOS 4.0 .
Perhaps, but the brief shows they had to rewrite significant parts. It seems like about half of the OS was done anew.
I dont trust that Bill Mcewen and the way microsoft runs Computer business. I wouldnt be surprised if amiga.inc are bought by them , business today looks more and more like maffia-methods.
If they were true to the community Amigaos4 would have been open and used more widely than linux. Period
Edited 2007-05-02 03:43
…if we could somehow run Amiga OS4 on G4 iBooks or PowerBooks? I don’t think there’s even been a portable Amiga. Fast boot, instant off would be fantastic for laptops.
Unfortunately, using PPC-based hardware (laptops, towers, PS3, Wii) that already exists (as opposed to trying to create new hardware) would make too much sense to do, which means it’s unlikely to happen.
…if we could somehow run Amiga OS4 on G4 iBooks or PowerBooks? I don’t think there’s even been a portable Amiga. Fast boot, instant off would be fantastic for laptops.
Indeed. I don’t need or want yet another desktop. I’d vastly prefer to have AmigaOS on a laptop. For anyone interested in AmigaOS in an iBook, Powerbook (or any other PPC Mac for that matter) please consider contributing to the documentation effort at http://amigamac.wikispaces.com/ so we can invalidate the “no chipset documentation” reason not to go there.