Sure, in mid-2004 Hyperion stated that things should be completed by year's end. They made essentially the same statements in mid-2002, mid-2003, mid-2005 and mid-2006.And even deep in 2007, we have Hans-Joerg talking about things he will look at once the official release has been finished.
[...]
The "we completed it in 2004" line of defense is ludicrous; Using it smacks of desperation.
While I agree that the attempt to back-date completion of OS4 does seem a little desperate, the actual date that OS4 was completed owed as much to external factors as it did to development.
OS4 was more or less considered ready to release to the public at the end of 2005, but lack of hardware delayed this. The "final" release at the end of 2006 was obviously a response to Amiga Inc's cancellation of the contract. Despite having said that OS4 could be released at the end of '05, the Friedens continued to use the "When it's done" slogan, so I guess there is a difference between "done" and "completed".
2004 seems a bit of a stretch but I guess they've decided to go for the point at which they feel OS4 fulfilled it's contractual requirements, but then the questions is why did not do a final release at that point? (I think that OS4 not being "finished" prevented a lot of people getting an A1 - I was originally going to wait myself, but gave in and luckily snapped up a micro A1 from one of the last batches)
How about "AI were in no position to negotiate a deal, because they did not have what Acube wanted;
yes they did, unless you are conceding that ainc didn't have authority to issue os4 licenses.
_________________ Win•dows: n. A thirty-two bit extension and graphical shell to a sixteen-bit patch to an eight-bit operating system originally coded for a four-bit microprocessor which was written by a two-bit company that can't stand one bit of competition.
Come on --- would you really like to explain the difference between "Done" and "Completed" to a judge? Because it was "Done" (and announced with a big "It's Done" news item) on December 24th, 2006. Pretty much up to that day, the main OS4 developers themselves were posting "When it's done".
Actually, I believe Hyperion's line of defense could work, what they say about the features needed (and apparently completed at OS4 update2 time) as specified by the contract seems reasonable, and I don't think a judge is unable to understand the difference between a program that is complete feature-wise, but maybe not so user-friendly (so the need to refine it even if that's beyond the scope of the contract, that's Hyperion's fault IMHO).
If we have a problem here (for Hyperion), is the fact the judge dismissed the annexes of the contract, where the features were carefully specified...
Quote:
And if you still don't feel too embarrassed to make such a Clintonesque argument regarding "Done" and "Completed" [...] then you still need to explain away why Hyperion failed to pay the 3rd party contributors who had "pay at completion" or "pay at release" clauses in their contracts.
Again IANAL, and I've been reading this argument for a while. What I wonder is: how that could possibly have influence on the lawsuit, unless those 3rd parties sue Hyperion for not having being paid?
Quote:
And even if you are willing to do all that (and you'd be a braver lawyer than I'd ever be to try that), it would still be worthless, because the only benefit of the earlier "completion date" is the "must release a new version, or else" clause --- and AI can simply point at the lack of any code delivered to them and say "so how were we supposed to do this?". And as even Hyperion's lawyers are fond of pointing out, you don't get to use penalty clauses in your favour if the penalty situation arose because of your own wrong-doing.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand Hyperion still claim they have not received the famous 25k for the buy back/in, but besides that, I guess the whole 3.x source code mess alone could well be enough for invoking a breach of contract on AInc's side.
So I'm not so sure the penalty situation arose from Hyperion's behaviour.
(and let's not forget the various A (W) --> Itec --> KMOS (A (D)) property changes which still need to be investigated)
Last edited by Turrican3 on 21-Jun-2007 at 09:15 AM.
Joined: 10-Apr-2003 Posts: 1161
From: Norrköping, Sweden
@umisef
I can't say wether all of your claims are true but atleast I can tell you that this was about the most plausible and well reasoned description I've seen for the circumstances related to this court case so far. Most of it is inline with my own suspicions but I wouldn't dare just putting it all out there like that. People are way too fond of trashing just about anything I say.
I guess you must be a software developer to get any respect in this community. A "simple" content managment systems developer, company owner and employed by one of Sweden's largest universities like me just doesn't get any respect. An oh, that's right, I don't happen to own AmigaOS4 nor MorphOS either. To "just" own a PPC equipped A1200 with all the trimmings doesn't cut it anymore and screw me for prepaying $150 for an A1 and AmigaOS4 with that "I am Amiga"-club thing and the AmigaDE PartyPack. Perhaps I should see a psychologist like fairlanefastback said, after all.
Sorry, didn't mean to make this about me. Again, thank you for a very well reasoned post.