@herewegoagain

I _TOTALLY_ agree with your analogy & logic which is right-on clever. However there is one very important perspective missing and that is the Amiga consumer. In the court perhaps AInc has an edge between the two and the prospective consumer has no voice either way.

I voted Hyperion because of their measurable contribution to the Amiga consumer towards the product.

Paperwork aside, I'd drive a Hyperion car any day VS an AInc car. Heck, they don't even know they need a transmission... clueless and not very forgivable from a consumer standpoint. AInc is supposed to be building this for the Amiga consumer. If they are Granny at the car shop being taken advantage of, maybe they shouldn't be in 'charge' of 'designing' the new Amiga? Don't get me wrong- Your analogy is so good, I had to really think why I voted the way I did.

Bottom Line for Me:

It AInc are simply clueless head nodders that own rights then they are unwanted fat to be trimmed to a speedy Amiga recovery.

In other words: Between the two, besides owning the rights, who needs Amiga Inc?

Juuuust pushing out another perspective here.

_________________
If you're going through hell, keep going. -Winston Churchill

@fairlanefastback

Quote:

Lets start with #3. Interest in it for what the community wants is quite possibly a different reason than why Amiga wants it. Them fighting for the code does not mean they are fighting in our interests to produce product that we can buy. Again, applying logic to what Amiga does is probably a mistake. If anything their history proves that we should not try to explain their actions with logic.

It doesn't matter what the community thinks Amiga's motives would have been to buy the code back. Point is that we do not know that Amiga wouldn't have moved foward with the platform because Hyperion has held onto the code even after Amiga paid them for it. Period. Logic has nothing to do with it. There was a contract and it wasn't adhered to. There is nothing to apply logic toward.


Quote:

As for #2, if they really want to sell the desktop OS they should license somebody. Problem is its not necessarily obvious they want to sell OS4 to anyone. And how hard can it really be to negotiate for a product for a userbase of max, a couple of thousand users worldwide. We aren't talking big money here.

You just don't get it. There was a dispute over the code not being turned back over to Amiga after they paid the buy back. Of course they were not going to license hardware. Basically what you and others want is for Amiga to just "suck it up" and take it on Hyperions terms what ever they decide. That's not the way BUSINESS works, and that's not why contracts are drawn up before hand.


Quote:

With not all the evidence in why side with anyone then?

I've not sided with anyone. But right now, Amiga have presented the evidence we have, and until I read what Hyperion presents, I cannot make a final judgement. But people here are damning Amiga to Hell and siding with Hyperion. I just don't understand that with the evidence given so far.

Quote:

That aside even if Hyperion looks like they are not totally in the right (which I am not sure on) there are going to be people who still will like them more since they actually made a product we care about. People spout about Microsoft sucking, they can say the same about Amiga if they like. Loyalty is going to be based at least in part on the perception of what either party has done for the community.

Yeah, well that's what Amiga contracted them to do. Make a product. Hyperion appears to have had different ideas of where they wanted to take it. And if Hyperion win this, I would think long about purchasing anything from them. All Amiga Inc have to do is declare the OS4 line dead and not grant any continuances to it. You'll really feel smug using a truly dead end OS then.

@firbodi

Quote:

firbodi wrote: @herewegoagain If I had given away my car thinking it was impossible to get it running anyways, and after a while saw how good it looked with upgrades and repairs, would have I been right to pay a dime and want my car back? Firbodi

If the mechanic signed a contract that he would fix it for a dime, then yes, it would be right. What you and everyone else are glassing over is the fact that the OS conversion was suppose to be a quick and dirty port of the essentials to get it up and running (according to the filed docs). Not the extent that Hyperion took it.

@debrun

Quote:

Bottom Line for Me: It AInc are simply clueless head nodders that own rights then they are unwanted fat to be trimmed to a speedy Amiga recovery.

Okay... So Amiga Inc are basically head nodders... This may or may not be the full picture, but we will assume for the moment that they are.

Why are they just head nodders? Because of the communities perception that they haven't done anything for the platform, or is it because of the legal quagmire they have been held up in with Hyperion for the past several years?

If it turns out to be the first one, then Amiga deserve what they get. But if it turns out to be the latter, then all the written code in the world wouldn't make Hyperion the "better" one. IMO.

#### poll

_________________
2017 Camaro 2SS

@herewegoagain

Quote:

Why are they just head nodders? Because of the communities perception that they haven't done anything for the platform, or is it because of the legal quagmire they have been held up in with Hyperion for the past several years?

No, because they are completely incompetent in doing business. Haage and Partner will tell you that, the MorphOS team will tell you that, anyone on the OS4 team that was in it before Hyperion took over will tell you that, and now the current team as well will. However, the first three can be landed directly on Fleecy's lap, it could be that they weren't McEwen's fault at all and we already know Fleecy's 1337 project management 5k!11z already.

_________________

@herewegoagain

Quote:

There is nothing to apply logic toward.

You aren't reading very carefully. I said exactly that you can NOT apply logic to this situation. Its not clear if Amiga wants to do anything with OS 4.0 or if they want to kill it. What they want to do and their motivations in this matter are entirely UNCLEAR.

Quote:

That's not the way BUSINESS works, and that's not why contracts are drawn up before hand.

If you have a market to speak of surely. But there is hardly any market which changes how one navigates what little business there is. In a extremely ,extremely small market you earn what you can and you make sure not to #### off the market you serve, because word travels fast and you don't have many consumers in the first place. They have a 5 year old desktop OS with nearly no user base and it dosen't even have a modern browser, its not coded for any modern hardware. Any users they lose in disgust over this is not worth it.

Quote:

Basically what you and others want is for Amiga to just "suck it up" and take it on Hyperions terms what ever they decide.

You can say that to try to bolster your arguement but thats not what I or many others are saying. We are saying BOTH parties should go back to the negotiating table and they should both suck up some pride and both sacrifice something to get it done.

Quote:

And if Hyperion win this, I would think long about purchasing anything from them.

Why say this right after you say you don't have what Hyperion has to say yet and that you don't have enough to make a final judgement? Yet you in the next breathe you are talking about not wanting to see Hyperion win and if they do you will "think long about purchasing anything from them"?

Quote:

All Amiga Inc have to do is declare the OS4 line dead and not grant any continuances to it. You'll really feel smug using a truly dead end OS then.

Nope, of course not. Give me a break. All I want is a machine I can buy to run the OS. Being someone who got the bug for it after all AmigaOnes were sold out kind of puts me s**** out of luck.

_________________
Pegasos2 G3 running AOS 4.1 and MorphOS 2.0
Amikit user, tinkering with Icaros VM (AROS)
EFIKA owner
Amiga 1200

Without Amiga there would be no OS4.

Amiga planned OS4 as an intermediate step to OS5 and beyond and demonstrated proof of concept with a hardware agnostic OS.

Amiga wrote the contracts so that even if they failed financially the Amiga community would be left with an OS (that was very altruistic of them... and atypical of most Amiga companies).

Amiga paid Hyperion what was owed... and then some.

Hyperion seems to have taken the money when it was broke and failed to deliver on their obligations (not clear what their beef is). They're still not selling the OS despite finishing it. They haven't successfully negotiated hardware production.

Why would anyone support a company (Hyperion) that has bugger all assets and is apparently not negotiating in good faith?

Amiga is demonstrating that it has deeper pockets than most people give them credit for by the Kent stadium sponsorship. It has also delivered on the T-shirt's, is in the process of delivering more hardware... and even looks like it will finally deliver on teh promised discount coupons. OK... so they had some hard times... but they haven't given up... or reneged on their promises when it all became too hard. Bill has always said he's in this for the long term... and certainly his actions bear this out.

That's the kind of committed business leadership we need more of.

Hyperion lacks the Amiga vision and the funding to make things happen. Plus it is currently stalling further development (and probably has been for a while) by failing to deliver on time and after being paid.

There may be another side to the story (tell us what it is Hyperion?)... and it's likely to be played out in court... so it would be better not to make rash assumptions without all the facts.

In 2000 (at ACE 2000 http://snap.to/ace) Bill showed us many of Amigas plans for the future... when he demonstrated the hardware agnostic nature of future Amiga OS's. Most people have never seen these concepts demonstrated only read about them. That makes it a bit hard to understand and believe in them.

That vision continues to be demonstrated when Amiga releases software for platforms other than Amiga.

We've still got video of some of Bill's demo's. Ought to U-tube it some time.

My take on this:

Imagine a company commissioned someone to build them a castle, and they want it placed on an artificial island that that someone is supposed to erect off the coast of, say, Texas. They've given them the parameters of the island they want built, and they've given them a rough design for the castle.

The company constructs the island, and then constructs the castle.... but somewhere along the line, they discover that constructing the castle is going to take a lot more trouble than they'd originally known, because it turns out there were serious shortcomings in the intended structure, so they've had to rework the engineering specs on the structure of the castle to make it structurally sound. This slows things way down.

In the meantime, they've now extended the island well beyond the original parameters, and have added all sorts of other structures to the island, built a nice lagoon to dock ships in, and whatnot.

At some point during all this, they receive additional funds from the commissioning company to help pay for the beefing up of the castle and whatnot, and to pay for some of the extra work they had to do to work around the flaws of the original castle design.

Somewhere along the line, the commissioning company suddenly takes them to court, and demands they now turn over the entire island to them, not just the castle and the section of the island containing the castle.

My hunch is... the way this court battle will eventually turn out, or the way the out-of-court settlement will eventually turn out, is that Amiga Inc will wind up only owning the part of the OS they originally payed for, analogous to the part of the OS the original contract specified, but NOT including all the rest of the stuff that was built on around it or on top of it. I,e, if the contract specified a rudimentary and basic port of the lowermost foundational parts of the OS, then that is all they SHOULD and WILL get. They SHOULD then pay Hyperion whatever the REST of the OS is worth. If that winds up being, say, $5 million, or even $10 million, then so be it. It's an equitable trade.

That would be equivalent to the commissioning company gaining the small section of the island containing the castle, and of course gaining the castle itself, but not gaining the rest of the island. If the commissioning company thinks they're going to get the entire island, and everything on it, just because the original contract specified an artificial island of X by Y, with a castle on it, for the cost of building an island of X by Y with a castle on it, then they have another think coming. They're only entitled to the section that is X by Y with the castle on it.

If they want the rest of the island, they should buy it.

edit: Fixed a bit of messed-up grammar, and added that last sentence.

Last edited by NomadOfNorad on 12-May-2007 at 04:53 AM.

_________________
"I love peacenicks, they're so easy to conquer." --Ivan J Ironfist, the Dictator

@NomadOfNorad

Well, actually, I think that makes a lot a sense. It doesn't make a lot of sense that Hyperion would have done that in the first place (add on to the island and build more buildings than the original castle), but in the end I think what you propose may be correct.

Interesting.

_________________
A3000D (16mhz, 2MB Chip, 4MB Fast, SCSI (300+MB), SuperGen Genlock, Kick 3.1)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back in my day, we didn't have water. We only had Oxygen & Hydrogen, & we'd just shove 'em together

@Slick

Quote:

There may be another side to the story (tell us what it is Hyperion?)... and it's likely to be played out in court... so it would be better not to make rash assumptions without all the facts.

Since you don't know the other side of the story why say all you did above this line, you don't take your own advice.

_________________
Pegasos2 G3 running AOS 4.1 and MorphOS 2.0
Amikit user, tinkering with Icaros VM (AROS)
EFIKA owner
Amiga 1200

@NomadOfNorad

Quote:

If that winds up being, say, $5 million, or even $10 million, then so be it. It's an equitable trade.

I'm starting to wonder. It seems some of us wonder why all the drama over so little money at stake and then there are others who seem to think that there are vast amounts of money at stake.

I'm really curious for anyone thinking there are very large amounts of money at stake why they think this?

_________________
Pegasos2 G3 running AOS 4.1 and MorphOS 2.0
Amikit user, tinkering with Icaros VM (AROS)
EFIKA owner
Amiga 1200

@fairlanefastback

Quote:

I'm really curious for anyone thinking there are very large amounts of money at stake why they think this?

There are a few reason... but hey let's look at Bill Buck & Raquel Velasco. They are a couple of smart and powerful business people. They have run many large companies in France, correct?

They have met with many famouse people, I believe there are pictures floating around of them at the white house, etc.

They want AmigaOS4., badly. (If not the OS the name for sure) They have spent much time and much money on lawyers etc. This alone leads one to believe that the OS (or the name) is worth much money than we may think....

_________________
A3000D (16mhz, 2MB Chip, 4MB Fast, SCSI (300+MB), SuperGen Genlock, Kick 3.1)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back in my day, we didn't have water. We only had Oxygen & Hydrogen, & we'd just shove 'em together

@AmigaHeretic

Quote:

AmigaHeretic wrote: @fairlanefastback Quote: I'm really curious for anyone thinking there are very large amounts of money at stake why they think this? There are a few reason... but hey let's look at Bill Buck & Raquel Velasco. They are a couple of smart and powerful business people. They have run many large companies in France, correct?

Define many and "large"....

I suspect if they were so large I would not have gotten a personal email from Bill when my EFIKA order accidently went out late, or a personal email from him on an update now, months later after the cases became available on when my case order is going out. And if they were so, so big, the $500,000 they feel they need for next steps on a Peg III would not be the obstacle that it is. So, not to dimish their operation in anyway, but I don't think the level of large you are thinking is what they are. Of course they may be larger than I suspect and its just him doing good business but I think you are off here.

Quote:

They have met with many famouse people, I believe there are pictures floating around of them at the white house, etc.

There is a picture of the owner of the local Chinese food take-out restaurant with Bill Clinton near my house. So what?

Quote:

They want AmigaOS4., badly. (If not the OS the name for sure) They have spent much time and much money on lawyers etc. This alone leads one to believe that the OS (or the name) is worth much money than we may think....

So you are assuming that the parties involved are rational, shrewd business people, and therefore if they are fighting over something it must be worth a lot? What great secret do you think OS4 holds that whoever has it or the Amiga name has so much to gain and the other to lose? You can't even run Firefox on the bloody thing.

_________________
Pegasos2 G3 running AOS 4.1 and MorphOS 2.0
Amikit user, tinkering with Icaros VM (AROS)
EFIKA owner
Amiga 1200

I tried to stay away from rash assumptions and listed as many facts as I could.

...but yes... I was thinking "what don't we know?" when I posted it.

I posted to add a bit of balance to what seems to be a feeling going against Amiga... even thought the facts seem to be with them.

Explain the disjoin?

We had similar FUD in the Genesi case.

Often people on one side or the other are waging a publicity war in newsgroups... so a lot of what we read here should be considered with a grain of salt.



by fairlanefastback on 12-May-2007 15:24:30

@Slick

Quote:
There may be another side to the story (tell us what it is Hyperion?)... and it's likely to be played out in court... so it would be better not to make rash assumptions without all the facts.


Since you don't know the other side of the story why say all you did above this line, you don't take your own advice.

@AmigaHeretic

Full disclouse: I'm partner and friend of BBRV.

Quote:

They want AmigaOS4., badly. (If not the OS the name for sure)

Well, I think thier urge to support Amiga is less business more emotional. From what I know they value Amiga community and Amiga developers. I think thier ultimate dream is having a platform that is supported by all "fun" and "hackers friendly" OSes. It's vital for all platforms to have dedicated and skilled developers. The Amiga that BBRV wants is a "Amiga" of people.

_________________
OpenWindows Initiative. Port PS3 hardware to bananas. For free. Join today and receive expired $50 cupon from AI!

@fairlanefastback

Quote:

I suspect if they were so large I would not have gotten a personal email from Bill when my EFIKA order accidently went out late, or a personal email from him on an update now, months later after the cases became available on when my case order is going out.

I think that's BBRV style. They like to deal with most of events by themself. It may seems crazy but I a sure you that this is very positive thing for developers involved. I can do stuff with other Genesi people but BBRV is always e-mail/call/SMS away if I'd like to ask a question.

Blog, Newsletter, forums activity: they just want to be as open as they can, as a company. Sometimes this may annoy you, but I'll take so called "BBRV spam" over no information from other Amiga-related companies.

Quote:

There is a picture of the owner of the local Chinese food take-out restaurant with Bill Clinton near my house. So what?

Nothing, I guess. I wouldn't buy cigar there. :P (Sorry, I'm debugging something and went into bad bad humour zone)

_________________
OpenWindows Initiative. Port PS3 hardware to bananas. For free. Join today and receive expired $50 cupon from AI!

@AmigaHeretic

Quote:

AOS4 is 100% PPC now correct? So, is it at least a fact that there are no binaries from previous versions of AmigaOS in it correct?

It depends. If you e.g. think that PRINTERS:File is a part of OS4, then the
answer is no. The binary on the OS4 CD is a patched version (fixed some bugs)
of the 68k binary which was distributed by H&P with OS3.9 or some of its BoingBags.
With the source code available it would now probably be a PPC binary.
Another example of (also patched because of bugs) 68k code is IconEdit.

There exist more 68k parts, but IIRC the number was below a dozend in the A1
version, and there always existed some reason for staying 68k.

@Slick

Soory to say those with negative views posting about "what we don't know" have been right more than the positive posters. I am not too optomistic at the moment.

@Slick

Quote:

I tried to stay away from rash assumptions and listed as many facts as I could.

Facts is a bit of an overstatement. We don't know if the contract was re-negotiated at some point. We simply lack one side of things and hence your "facts" are merely assumptions. Maybe it will turn out that they all are facts, but that is unknown to all of us.

The point is this is a lot of work on these people's parts based on illusions of granduer. There is no pot of gold to be made here and even if there was the over and over again bad publicity can not be worth the damage being done here to the reputations involved.

_________________
Pegasos2 G3 running AOS 4.1 and MorphOS 2.0
Amikit user, tinkering with Icaros VM (AROS)
EFIKA owner
Amiga 1200