@T_Bone

Quote:

T_Bone wrote: @billt Quote: billt wrote: @yoodoo2 [quote]The negative side of this is that A Inc may well get what they want: the death of AOS so that they can focus on DE nonsense. How has the existence of OS4 ever been a significant distraction to AI? They've been quite irrelevant to the AmigaOS (as we know it) product line for a long time. All they had to do was collect their royalty payments ($25/unit from Eyetech OEM or $20/unit from Hyperion for standalone version) And other than depositing payments spend the rest of their time on their precious DE/Anywhere thing.

You're probably right, they may be indifferent towards OS4 at worst, but they don't benefit in any way from killing it.[/quote]

Killing it means that AmigaDE/Anywhere is the only prouct with the Amiga name and logo on it. IIRC, they don't want people confusing Amiga OS with AmigaDE. I don't want people to confuse the two either; Amiga OS4 is much better than AmigaDE.

Hans

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@Seer

Quote:

Seer wrote: @Mikey_C here's some nice PR for all I'm suprised it wasn't posted here yet.

That was interesting!

1) The leaked contract can now be considered officially confirmed as the real one. That's no surprise for most of us, but there were some people that dismissed it as some kind of blue troll propaganda. Besides all key contents that has been confirmed on several different occasions earlier by key people in the AmigaInc/OS4-partners sphere, we now have visual confirmation of the copied parts in that document.

2) What OS4 was supposed to be is clearly spelled out in the contract. Step by step, who shall do the work, etc, as well as a time estimate for most of the jobs to be done. It's a fairly simple thing really, and the time estimation for the whole project was about 5 months. This specification was written by the Friedens, and agreed upon by Hyperion and Amiga Inc.

3) The contract has a buy-back clause, defining how and when Amiga Inc can bring Hyperion's OS4 work in-house. The payment for this was *agreed* to be $25.000, not a lot of money perhaps, but it must have been considered fair by both parties for the limited amount of work that was needed to do the OS4 specified in the contract.

4) At some point in time, Hyperion single-handed decides to *ignore* the OS4 specifications in the contract and decides to go for something *way* more ambitious and complex, something that *simply can't* be completed within the scope of the agreed 5 months (it finally turns out to take *years* longer than that to complete).

5) After some time with no OS4 release, Amiga Inc decides to execute the buy-back clause. This is agreed upon by Ben Hermans, and money is transfered. But Hyperion does not hand over OS4. Not even after more money is transfered. They keep OS4, and somehow McEwens words "keeping OS4 hostage" does not seem too far off.

All in all, I can't believe HOW STUPID HYPERION HAS BEEN in this case! The case Amiga Inc has against them seems to be very strong. Hyperion has done all this with their eyes wide open, and nothing of this should come as a surprise to them. They knew perfectly well the terms in the contract, but they deliberately broke it time after time. I cannot think of any way Hyperion could have handled this situation in poorer way. What happens now is simply the result of their own actions during several years, actions they have done in a sober and fully consious way, despite they *must* have known that their past actions would come back to haunt them in some way some day.

IMHO, it is very clear that Hyperion has known that this day would come. How could it not? They knew the whole time what they had agreed to, and they knew when they broke the agreements. They did it anyway. I have *no* sympathy for Hyperion here; they have had this coming to them for a long time, they have had plenty of time to put things right but they didn't, and now they will get what they deserve. As simple as that. I don't like Amiga Inc for a number of reasons, but this is not one of them.

No one is to blame for this, but Hyperion, and Hyperion alone...

Wow.
I go to work for eight hours and what happens?

I have not yetr reviewed all the documents, but there was a statement that caught my eye.:

If there is no such thing as Amigaone hardware then Amiga Inc. can't claim that they've been working hard to make a business out of Amiga OS4. Seven years and no licensed hardware?

Clearly this is in error, and I have proof.
There _IS_ an AmigaOne, and it _IS_ licensed.
I've been driving it on the streets of North Carolina for a couple years now.
Just check my avatar.

I wonder if I'll have to defend myself from the AInc lawyers over this?

Getting back to reality..??
Can we PLEASE stop trying to kill off my favorite computer platform?
I don't care what you name it, I don't care who is selling it. the
OS I'm running ROCKS, and it deserves a wider audience!

Just my two cents.
LyleHaze

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@takemehomegrandma

BINGO! Right On! I simply left all this out of my post to get straight to the point.

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Amiga (and their investors) only want one Amiga-Badged product.

Imagine you're looking for directions to the Amiga Center in Kent and you end up reading these fora...

Right from the start, Amiga Inc have wanted nothing to do with the Classic community, unless it was attempting to get money from us and even then the cash was aimed more at DE than anything we're bothered about. We've been a perpetual pain the #### to them for 6 years - now is their real chance to get rid of us, either by drowning us out in lawsuits and more costly prevarication or by launching still-born products with no realistic chance of hitting the market.

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@takemehomegrandma

Quote:

No one is to blame for this, but Hyperion, and Hyperion alone...

Yeah it's a bit a mess isn't it?

I suppose we should really read their version of events first as this document is clearly very pro AInc. for obvious reasons.

But...

But it does look like Hyperion have got themselves into a total mess with this one.

Not quite sure how AInc. (should they win the case - and from the evidence it appears pretty much open and shut for them) are going to utilise OS4 thoough. - An OS with lots of ownership claims from other contractors and the main company that knows how it all works not in any position to want to help them.

How will AInc. support and work with an OS with no support at all from those that created it?

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Sam

@Amiga4000

But let's not equate Hyperion with either the Friedens or the other OS4 developers. They are ultimately the real losers in all of this. Imagine spending 6 years on a product that has been so spoilt by idiotic, greedy, selfish and out of touch companies.

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@lylehaze

Quote:

lylehaze wrote: If there is no such thing as Amigaone hardware then Amiga Inc. can't claim that they've been working hard to make a business out of Amiga OS4. Seven years and no licensed hardware? Clearly this is in error, and I have proof. There _IS_ an AmigaOne, and it _IS_ licensed. I've been driving it on the streets of North Carolina for a couple years now. Just check my avatar. I wonder if I'll have to defend myself from the AInc lawyers over this?

You might have to.

Seriously, the court documents list the MicroA1, SE and XE as not being Amigaones. As those were the only "Amigaones" sold, there never was a real Amigaone, according to Amiga Inc.

Quote:

Getting back to reality..?? Can we PLEASE stop trying to kill off my favorite computer platform? I don't care what you name it, I don't care who is selling it. the OS I'm running ROCKS, and it deserves a wider audience!

It would be great if the killing were stopped.

Hans

Last edited by Hans on 30-Apr-2007 at 10:07 PM.

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@takemehomegrandma

Codesmiths post in #123 as someone pointed out though has some merit....

I was thinking along the same lines as you were after reading the PDF, but after reading Codesmiths post about Amiga Inc, they did screw Hyperion around a lot too...

Quote:

1. Amiga Inc keeps on denying manufacturers licenses so that Hyperion can't sell OS4 2. Miraculously, someone decides to go ahead and make a board anyway, and partners with Hyperion to market their OS. Soon after, Hyperion announces the availability of OS4 for classics, and this appears in the "news" section of the hardware partner. The partner doesn't make classic addons, so it sounds like this may be a loophole that will allow OS4 to be sold in spite of Amiga Inc. 3. Amiga Inc partners with a hardware person who can best be described as a wet-behind-the-ears idealist, who also has a history of not being able to deliver. 4. Amiga Inc sues Hyperion so that they can no longer use the name Amiga in their OS (thereby consigning them to the same heap as atheos, brix, centos, menuetos, nachos, newos, syllable, etc...) 5. The idealist does his thing and fails to deliver yet again 6. Amiga Inc, expecting this to happen, cuts him loose for breach of contract. 7. Amiga Inc declares the classic line dead once and for all, puts a nice eulogy in their website.

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Honestly, its about time. I'm excited. Amiga is actually taking steps by themselves to ensure we get new hardware and OS4. They will win this lawsuit. The agreement is clear cut. They executed the buyout that was in the contract, and Hyperion did not comply.

I can't blame Hyperion for feeling the way they do, 25,000 is a low sum, but then they shouldn't have agreed to it. Now they need to pony up.

Amiga Inc. is not suing the programmers, they're suing the company they licensed to make OS4 who outsourced the programming to the individual programmers. I'm sure Amiga is not planning on alienating them or preventing them from further work on the OS.

Knowing that Hyperion is basically run by a lawyer, I can only assume they negotiated the low buyback clause thinking Amiga Inc was doomed and would not be able to pay up. Surprise, they got more funding!

I appreciate what Hyperion did by rescuing a real Amiga and making OS4, but they should've been more careful with the contract.

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@yoodoo2

Yes, I agree there too, big time!

Although I really think the Amiga community at large is the ultimate loser. Especially if there is really no new HW or OS coming this week.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back to your regularly scheduled Amiga news broadcast... Ted?

In other related news.... It was announced today that the New Orleans Superdome was being renamed the "Atari STX Super Duper Underwater Complex" Officials and citizens are ecstatic!

Last edited by Amiga4000 on 30-Apr-2007 at 10:19 PM.

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@dirigent who said Quote:

AI say they were begging for years for OS4 to get finished, and Hyperion never really kept any of their promised deadlines.

Umm, like that's a surprise?!? It's only true from a very distorted point of view. My take is that:

Hyperion did slightly (?) underestimate the time to do OS4, but you have to remember that (IIRC) the original vision for OS4 was a new PPC kernel running most of the rest of OS3.x code under (probably interpreted) 68k emulation. This would have been a highly unsatisfactory solution, but it was the best they could imagine given the available budgets & time constraints. Surely Hyperion achieved that goal a loooong time ago? But once they saw the (complete lack of) performance, they obviously realised no one would buy it.

Also, at some point their chosen hardware designer (Escena) failed to produce a mobo, so Eyetech had a long lead time on a new PPC mobo. This of course meant that Hyperion had longer to work on OS4, and presumably at some point they got more ambitious regarding OS4 (especially once they saw the performance problems).

Also, at a later date, I believe Amiga Inc changed their mind about OS4, and wanted it back so that they could sell their IP, and thus started stone-walling both Hyperion & Eyetech. Since they already had a contract, AI couldn't do much - until Eyetech quit. At that point AI has Hyperion by the gizzard, as they can prevent any further h/w licenses.

I guess at that point Hyperion hoped that AI would go bankrupt, while they continued trying to work on OS4, but that obviously did not happen. So Hyperion has to call AI's bluff, and since Amiga Inc presumably has very little to loose, Bill decided to take a chance on the courts deciding in his favour.

It's worth emphasising that AI's contract was based on the original assumptions, and never got updated when the situation changed (such as Escena failing to deliver). I speculate that originally this was because the 3 Amiga One partners were friendly, but lacking in cash. Of course this mistake has come back to haunt Hyperion, once AI changed their minds.

Most of that is speculation of course, but it seems to fit known events & facts fairly well IMHO. And most of that is off the top of my head, so no doubt I got something slightly wrong, but you get the general idea.

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@ChrisH

Surely Hyperion achieved that goal a loooong time ago? But once they saw the (complete lack of) performance, they obviously realised no one would buy it.

Wouldn't that rather be because of the "escena debacle" ?

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Everything you say will be misquoted and used against you..
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@billt

Quote:

billt wrote: @yoodoo2 Quote: The negative side of this is that A Inc may well get what they want: the death of AOS so that they can focus on DE nonsense. How has the existence of OS4 ever been a significant distraction to AI? They've been quite irrelevant to the AmigaOS (as we know it) product line for a long time. All they had to do was collect their royalty payments ($25/unit from Eyetech OEM or $20/unit from Hyperion for standalone version) And other than depositing payments spend the rest of their time on their precious DE/Anywhere thing.

I believe they dont want it confused with AA which is their main product. They even called AA for AmigaOS during some of their later partner announcements.

My belief is that they do indeed want the classic AmigaOS dead, so that they can rename whatever OS they are working on to AmigaOS.

@Hans

Quote:

Killing it means that AmigaDE/Anywhere is the only prouct with the Amiga name and logo on it. IIRC, they don't want people confusing Amiga OS with AmigaDE.

I don't think it's possible, or that they would care anyway. They didn't seem to care that people were buying "just a motherboard" 's thinking they were AmigaOne's all this time without saying a word to anyone, and Amiga Forever is a much more popular product by far, with a much higher chance of that happening, and that was allowed.

If they wanted to kill it, they could just announce "we're killing it" and probably have to put up with less flack than they're taking now for the coupons, lawsuits, lack of licenses, etc, etc...

I think they didn't think it would make any money, but would tolerate it so long as it's not costing them anything to do so, and then did some incredibly stupid and wrong things along the way that makes their actions almost identical to how one would go about killing an OS.

Quote:

I don't want people to confuse the two either; Amiga OS4 is much better than AmigaDE.

_________________
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OK, I just got to the end of the PDF document (page 65), and come to some interesting things:

Quote:

In the even that each and every one of Hyperion's breaches are not cured by December 21, 2006, the Agreement will be terminated as of that date. ... a. Failure to use best efforts to ensure that Amiga OS 4.0 was ready for release before March 1, 2002. It is now November 2006, and Amiga OS 4.0 has still not been released ... b.Failure to release Amiga OS 4.0. As above.

Of course, we know that Hyperion released "OS4.0 Final Update" on December 24th, missing the deadline by just 3 days. It's now not so surprising that this "Final Update" was missing many key (but slightly buggy) components, because Hyperion had only one month to try to finish OS4.0. It's also not surprising that they simultaneously tried to back-date the release of OS4.0 to 2004. Two mysteries solved!

Quote:

d. Marketing OS 4.0 beyond the market for the Target Hardware .... for everything from kiosks, STBs and cellphones to servers and un-named OEM devices

Of course, it is well documented that ACube were reticent to even mention OS4.0 as a possible OS for Sam, especially when they announced it was ready at the end of March 2007 (long after the above letter was sent).

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Oh my god!!!

No one stands to gain anything from this.

No one can blaim Hyperion for anything, other than delivering..

I really really really hope that Hyperion will win this.

My only suggestion right now is a total and complete boycut of A. inc, those f.....s are not getting any of my money.. Grrrr...

if you did not notice, this really ####es me off.

_________________

@ChrisH
Quote:

Of course, we know that Hyperion released "OS4.0 Final Update" on December 24th, missing the deadline by just 3 days. It's now not so surprising that this "Final Update" was missing many key (but slightly buggy) components, because Hyperion had only one month to try to finish OS4.0.

One month + five years you mean.

Quote:

It's also not surprising that they simultaneously tried to back-date the release of OS4.0 to 2004.

You're on the money with this one though. It will be interesting to see if the judge can be fooled.

_________________
Here for the whimpering end

@Yssing

Quote:

My only suggestion right now is a total and complete boycut of A. inc,

Why? for claiming ownership of what is their intellectual property.
Amiga inc can be blamed for a lot of things, but this time, sorry, but Ainc has all the right, And all that (this time) blame Ainc not

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@nicholas

Quote:

Where oh where is the Aussie Communist?

Where oh where is the Bandito

Plaz