19.Feb.2003
Christoph Gutjahr (ANF)



Interview with Ben Hermans
In the light of some rumours currently circulating (regarding the status of AmigaOS 4) and the recent announcement of the partnership with SciTech, we contacted Ben Hermans (Managing partner of Hyperion Entertainment, AmigaOS 4 project manager) and did a short interview.





Amiga-News:

There's a rumor that OS4 is further delayed because Amiga Inc. are unable to contribute money to the project. Does your business plan rely on financial contributions from Amiga Inc.?

Ben Hermans:

No, it doesn't. It has to be recognized however that software development costs money and that more money means more development resources and hence a shorter development cycle.

AN:

You have to pay three senior developers, and the only known source of income for Hyperion during the last 15 months was the work on the Teron/AmigaOne BIOS (and Quake 2 of course, but that probably made just enough money to buy Steffen a Pizza). What/who pays the wages of your developers?

BH:

Contract work as you pointed out. Our work for Mai is ongoing and has been quite extensive.

There always will be new chipsets to support, new CPU's to support, Linux related work to be done etc.

We just delivered a substantially upgraded firmware for the AmigaOne/Teron hardware. More news on this will follow.

During the OS4 development cycle we also ported two Mac games (Nobody Lives Forever and Gorky 17), which brought in revenue.

AN:

Still, the idea that you'll have to acquire additional funds if OS4 gets delayed some more makes sense. Your only option to acquire more funds would be to assign senior developers to other projects. In other words, if you don't match your current dead-line, OS4 will get even further delayed because the Friedens and/or Steffen Häuser would have to work on some Mac-Ports or contract work not related to OS4. right?

BH:

Absolutely. In fact, I dare say that if we had been in a position to concentrate solely on OS 4 during the past 15 months, OS 4 might already have been finished.

AN:

Could you explain the legal status of AmigaOS4 to us? You said you "own" it,and Amiga Inc. are entitled to buy it back at a (quote) "very reasonable price". Is Amiga Inc.'s right to buy the OS back transferable, i.e. could they sell it to a third party? What happens if Amiga go bankrupt, would you still be able to sell the OS as *Amiga*OS? Would the party that acquires Amiga Inc.'s assets also acquire the right to buy AmigaOS4?

BH:

Our contract with Amiga does indeed contain an IP buy-back clause, which means that Amiga can acquire the work done by us on OS 4.

Once Amiga has acquired the rights to OS 4, theoretically a third party might buy it from them but certainly not with a view to burry it and halt development. If no new version of OS 4 is released within 6 months after release of OS 4, our right to develop the OS further and indefinitely relives.

If Amiga goes bankrupt, our license is commuted to an exclusive license to develop AmigaOS further, for any platform, not just PPC. This legally excludes a potential new owner from exploiting the source-code himself.

There is therefore nothing to be gained from buying Amiga's assets in the event of bankruptcy unless the new owner is willing to work with the OS 4 development team in good faith.

AN:

Could you try to describe the current status of OS4 without using phrases like "everything's right on track" and "99% finished"? Is the integration of the 68k emulator finished? Are there external beta testers running ExecSG on their system?

BH:

We are now down to 8 outstanding items of the feature-list we released some time ago.

Only one of these issues is a show-stopper in the sense that it could introduce further delays (the emulation integration), the remaining issues are minor, several of which will be taken care of still this month.

By way of example: InstallerNG, one of those 8 items I mentioned. It is not finished yet. This won't hold up release of OS 4 as we can always switch back to the old Commodore installer. Another example: one Reaction class still needs to be taken care of. We are confident this will happen still this month. There are more of these minor issues, 8 in all like I said.

We are still working on the emulation integration. Unfortunately the external developer working on it had several pressing personal and professional issues to take care of which resulted in some delay. This is one of those instances where a bigger budget would certainly have helped. We nonetheless hope to wrap this up very soon as the work is now in such a state that full-time Hyperion developers can step in and take over.

Exec SG unsurprisingly sports all the functionality listed in the feature-list as already implemented. Several developers have access to it and are running it on their Cyberstorm PPC and AmigaOne hardware in order to develop device drivers. Meanwhile a team of 77 beta-testers and translators have been testing and localizing OS 4 components since many months now.

AN:

The Alt-WOA scheduled for the 26th of April has been cancelled recently, because of the fact that "OS4 may not be ready by then". Were you involved in that decision? What does "not ready" mean in this context: "not ready for sale" or "not ready for demonstration"?

BH:

The organizers demanded ironclad guarantees that OS 4-A1 combo would be on sale at that time.

As a matter of principle, I informed them that the only way we could guarantee that now, would be for OS 4 to be ready NOW. It is not and I therefore declined to give them this guarantee as a matter of principle.

Huge corporations like Microsoft (Windows 95 released in 96 and Windows XP ring a bell?) and Intel (Merced/Itanium anyone?) with budgets larger than the gross product of most third world countries have missed their deadlines as a matter of course. It is simply unrealistic to expect a 100% guarantee. Life doesn't work that way. Not for Microsoft, not for Intel or Sun and certainly not for a small company like Hyperion. Do I expect that OS 4 will be ready by that time? I most certainly do, based on the information available to me at this point. But it would be intellectually dishonest to claim that I can guarantee that 100%, I have been in the business too long now.

AN:

What kind of development tools can we expect for OS 4?

BH:

Development for OS 4 will initially need to take place with a barebones GCC. We already have Linux based cross-compilers as well as an OS 3.x based cross-compiler.

Moreover, Olaf Barthel has been working hard on a completely AmigaOS native GCC implementation which does not require ixemul and instead uses his own C runtime library.

We also hope to convince the VBCC maintainers to produce an AmigaOS 4.x version.

AN:

Your partnership with SciTech was a positive surprise to most users. But supporting 180 different graphics chipsets definitely sounds like overkill if you would be only targeting desktop users. Is this partnership a first step to make AmigaOS more interesting for "embedded" appliances, like kiosk systems or Infochannel services?

BH:

The partnership with SciTech has several very important advantages.

First of all, we are assured that we will always have access to 2D drivers for the latest graphics cards. SciTech's expertise in this area is unrivalled and the manpower they can bring to bear is unmatched. SciTech has built up close relations with many graphics card manufacturers over the years. They can get hold of the required chipset documentation much easier than anyone else. This partnership essentially frees us from the job of ever having to write 2D drivers again and instead allows us to redirect resources elsewhere.

Secondly, Hyperion and SciTech will work together on 3D drivers. SciTech recognizes our expertise in this area and combined with their know-how, chipset documentation and development resources we can be similarly cut down on development time for 3D drivers.

Thirdly, your point about embedded systems is very valid. You don't need well over 170 chipsets to be supported for a desktop OS although choice is always a good thing. In the embedded space however choice may well be crucial when it comes to deciding which embedded OS to choose. There are a number of chipset producers competing in this space which won't win any prices for performance but certainly for cost-effectiveness and low power-consumption. When you are dealing with embedded devices, you are dealing with high volume productions. It's not hard to understand that saving say 10 USD per unit on the graphics chipset translates into massive savings when you are dealing with a production run of several thousand devices. Likewise, some devices may well demand low power-consumption for various reasons (cramped housing, hot environment or simply energy conservation). For such devices too a wide choice of chipsets may well tilt the balance in favor of a specific embedded OS. Let me give o ne final example: kiosk and information systems. We know of well upwards of a thousand Amiga based systems still in use for this type of technology all over the world. These people are looking for a way to upgrade their aging systems but they are not satisfied with the TV Out quality produced by most current graphics cards except Matrox. By adopting SNAP, we are giving them that option.

AN:

Some people were concerned about the way SciTech's SNAP technology gets integrated into AmigaOS. Will programmers have to deal with a completely new API, or even two independent APIs?

BH:

No, the idea is that SNAP operates solely as a display driver, a monitor driver for Picasso 96.

AN:

Will SNAP display drivers be any slower than "native" AmigaOS drivers? SciTech seem to be using an OS independent binary format.

BH:

As some benchmarks on SciTech's site show, SNAP is fully accelerated and quite frequently outperforms the "official" drivers. We have no concerns whatsoever in this area.

AN:

Given your tight resources, SNAP will certainly not be included with OS4.0, will it? When can we expect SciTech's technology to be available for AmigaOS4? What kind of display drivers will be included with AmigaOS4.0?

BH:

SNAP relies on the SciTech x86 Bios emulator. This is embedded in the AmigaOne firmware but not present in the Cyberstorm PPC for instance. We are still examining whether it makes sense to have the x86 Bios emulator present also for the BlizzardPPC or Cyberstorm PPC. This may well not be the case as it is very CPU intensive. Moreover, due to the very limited bandwidth on the Amiga classic, operating state of the art graphics cards (to the extent that they even exist in PCI form) can be considered overkill. Having said that, Forefront Technologies is still working on "native" P96 drivers for the Radeon range and they are making good progress.

We don't see any overriding reason why SNAP cannot be included with the AmigaOne version of AmigaOS 4.0. SciTech will migrate the codebase to Linux PPC (thus ridding us of any potential endian conflicts) and we will take it from there. This should be a fairly trivial job for a company which specializes in porting software from one architecture to another and from one CPU family to another.

AN:

Is there anything you want to say in closing?

BH:

Yes, I want to thank everyone for their patience. I realize that it has been a long wait and that the wait is still not entirely over yet. On the other hand, I want to emphasize again the massive amount of work that was accomplished over these past 15 months. For the first time since the demise of Commodore, the entire AmigaOS source-code has been consolidated in one central CVS repository. A maintainer has been assigned for nearly every OS module. The old Commodore "bug and improvement suggestion" database is available to the OS developers. We have replacements for all still relevant Kickstart 3.1 modules and have implemented nearly all of the functionality outlined in the features document. No-one but Commodore has ever undertaken development on the AmigaOS on this scale. The result will be well worth the wait.

AN:

Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions, Mr. Hermans.

_________________
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@Tigger

For your time line

The buyback Agreement was dated 24th April 2003.
then comes this release from Hyperion dated 16th April 2004

http://www.hyperion-entertainment.biz:8080/news/2004-04-16

Seems as if the OS 4.0 specifications have been met a year after the buyback

Last edited by Spectre660 on 13-May-2007 at 03:11 PM.
Last edited by Spectre660 on 13-May-2007 at 03:11 PM.

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Quote:

jiyong wrote: @stew Actually I haven't read this whole thread (and some others with the same sort of theme), but in another thread I pointed out that payments regarding the buyback of OS4 were always supposed to be done after making up the balance between AI and Hyperion. Has anyone seen this balance?

There is no mechanism in the contract (except for the buyback) that has to do with money coming from AI to Hyperion, everything is about money coming from the AmigaOne partners (Hyperion and Eyetech) to AI. Thus there can be no debt between the two via the 2001 contract mechanism. This comment was put in so if Hyperion got 25K behind in paying AI, AI would automatically be able to exercise the buyout.

Quote:

In my book this means that any payment done by AI, would not automatically be considered a payment for the buyback.

At this point we dont know how AI could owe Hyperion money, the contract lists no way that can be true, so implying that they needed to pay a debt the contract doesnt even tell us is possible for them to acquire may be making your book more fictional then you really want it to be.

Quote:

And IMO this is one of the reasons why AI agreed so "easily" to pay more. At least in the AI documentation I couldn't find any reason why they paid more.

AI agreed to pay more money to end the issue in the second case at least, there lawyer says so in the letter discussing it, I'm guessing in both cases the extra money was for items Hyperion believes were not covered by the original contract. Of course AI still hasnt received any of it at this point.

Quote:

And I also pointed out AI hasn't delivered the proof of all the payments. Doesn't mean they didn't happen, but missing proof looks very bad when you prepare a case in court.

You keep saying that as do others, but its not really true. AI doesnt need to prove that they paid the rest of the money they claimed they did, unless Hyperion disagrees that they paid the 40K+ that they claimed they did and makes it an issue in the case. Lets be honest, if Hyperions case is that AI still owes them $2500, McEwen can hand them a check and this is all over, AI wins. Ben had apparently wrote a letter in October that AI still owed them 8850, AIs lawyer disagreed but sent them that entire sum as part of the cancellation of the contract, unless there is wiggle room in Hyperions letter, that solves the money issue.
-Tig

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We played the first thing that came to our heads, it just happened to be the best song in the world.

@Spectre660

Quote:

Spectre660 wrote: @Tigger The pdf showing the details of the serving of the Legal Documents on Hyperion in Belgium indicates tha Ben Hermans resigned from the company before signing the buyback agreement.

Where on earth does it show that Ben Hermans resigned from the company before April 23, 2003? Ben was at Amiwest in July of 2003 arguing with me as managing partner of Hyperion. Which is interesting because all the stuff he told us there didnt make alot of sense since he had already sold the OS.

-Tig

_________________
We played the first thing that came to our heads, it just happened to be the best song in the world.

@Spectre660

Quote:

Spectre660 wrote: @Tigger For your time line The buyback Agreement was dated 24th April 2003. then comes this release from Hyperion dated 16th April 2004 http://www.hyperion-entertainment.biz:8080/news/2004-04-16 Seems as if the OS 4.0 specifications have been met a year after the buyback

I'd disagree with that, but even if that were true, what does that matter to this case.

1) Did AI buy back the OS. Yes
2) Did Hyperion provide the code, executables, etc. No

And you keep saying my timeline for the buyback, thats whats in the court documents. Are you implying its a fake bill of sale?
-Tig

_________________
We played the first thing that came to our heads, it just happened to be the best song in the world.

@Tigger

Quote:

1) Did AI buy back the OS. Yes2) Did Hyperion provide the code, executables, etc. No

I see you love to speculate....do you have bills of sale etc concerning the buyback money paid by AInc? So far it is based entirely on Bill McEwens word with zero evidence. Looking at the huge number of outright lies from AInc over the years...and the fact that the MCEwen testimony to the courts inclded a contract that has no bearing whatsoever on this case (hiring the Friedens in a side agreement to port Os4 to the Arctic device) shows his intent to lie to the courts as well. Very blatent of him I think.
Obviously, its up to the courts...but they would have to be incredibly stupid to make a decision based on emotionalism and here-say. I guess we'll need to wait and see if McEwen produces any relevant documents or information or continues to try to deceive the courts with his BS tactics....


Scott

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Quote:

Where on earth does it show that Ben Hermans resigned from the company before April 23, 2003? Ben was at Amiwest in July of 2003 arguing with me as managing partner of Hyperion. Which is interesting because all the stuff he told us there didnt make alot of sense since he had already sold the OS.

http://www.merlancia.us/amiga-hyperion/proofofservicetransshow_case_doc.pdf

Pdf page 7. seems to show he resigned (as Manager)1st October 2003. Also seems to show that the Hyperion partnership was dissolved 18th November 2005.

_________________
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@Tigger

Ah my error US date format confusion. he resigned oct 2003. the buyback was April 2003.

What I am looking at is the timing of the buyback in relationship to the feature list of OS4. The one problem up to Feb 2003 was the integration of the 68k emulator.Is it possible that once this was sorted out the buyback was done ? . In other words Itec was not going to buyback OS4.0 until they knew that it would work.

Also the contract does not give a set time for handing over of the source code....

Last edited by Spectre660 on 13-May-2007 at 09:34 PM.

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@scabit
Quote:

I see you love to speculate....do you have bills of sale etc concerning the buyback money paid by AInc? So far it is based entirely on Bill McEwens word with zero evidence.

I take it you haven't seen the receipt from Hyperion in Exhibit J yet.

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@Tigger

Quote:

Tigger wrote: @Spectre660 Quote: Spectre660 wrote: @Tigger For your time line The buyback Agreement was dated 24th April 2003. then comes this release from Hyperion dated 16th April 2004 http://www.hyperion-entertainment.biz:8080/news/2004-04-16 Seems as if the OS 4.0 specifications have been met a year after the buyback I'd disagree with that, but even if that were true, what does that matter to this case. 1) Did AI buy back the OS. Yes 2) Did Hyperion provide the code, executables, etc. No And you keep saying my timeline for the buyback, thats whats in the court documents. Are you implying its a fake bill of sale? -Tig

It's interesting that one of the scuttlebutts I'd heard at one point recently was that:

A> Amiga Inc claimed to have invoked the buyback clause, and
B> Hyperion claimed that the buyback clause had not, to their knowledge, been invoked.

It sounds like you're assuming that, because Amiga Inc sent X-number of dollars to Hyperion at some point, and it was an amount that happened to match the amount that was specified in the buyback clause, that that in an of itself constituted invoking the buyback clause.

I would tend to figure, though, that there'd have to be some sort of form to sign that amounted to "We, the undersigned at Hyperion, acknowledge the receipt of X-number of dollars, and we acknowledge that receipt of this money constitutes invoking the buyback clause," otherwise it'd make it too easy for merely transferring to them, from Amiga to Hyperion, a sum of so many dollars accidentally (or "accidentally on-purpose" for that matter) constituting "invoking the buyback clause" simply because it "happened" to match the amount specified in the buyback clause.

In other words, it could literally be possible for Hyperion to not be aware that Amiga had allegedly invoked the buyback clause merely by Hyperion having accepting some money from Amiga Inc, and that Hyperion had not at all intended or expected that this arrival of money from Amiga Inc would have constituted performing the buyback clause.

Is there a document somewhere that explicitly has Hyperion signing in acknowledgment that the buyback clause had been invoked and completed? Or is this purely based on the fact that X-number of dollars changed hands?

This reminds me too much of a scene in an episode of the original Battlestar Galactica in which Starbuck unknowingly made himself sheriff of a small town on a backwater planet merely by accepting a pile of gold coins and trinkets that he'd won in a poker game (a game which, in fact, the "losers" of the game had rigged so he'd win), in which one of the gold pieces was an obscure-looking piece that, just by his taking it into his possession, made him sheriff.

In other words, they'd snookered him -- a man just passing through -- because they desperately needed a new sheriff.

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@Spectre660

Quote:

Pdf page 7. seems to show he resigned (as Manager)1st October 2003. Also seems to show that the Hyperion partnership was dissolved 18th November 2005.

It just shows that the entity 'Legend Consulting Partnership Firm' was dissolved, not Hyperion.

rgds,
Stefan

@jorkany

Okay, I'll bite... Which one of the documents at http://www.merlancia.us/amiga-hyperion/ constitutes Exhibit J?

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

The contract uses the term 'best efforts" to complete before March 2002.
There is no time frame for handover of Sources after the buyback.Also does not say if the code is to be turned over as is (finished OS4.0 or unfinished os4.0)
Amiga declare in the contract that there are no liens or other security interests on their OS IP

No one is "legally" unhappy up to 15th November 2002 even though things are 8 months overdue . not McEwan,Moss,Hermans or ,Redhouse.
target hardware the AMigaOne SE and XE are due before December 2002.
68k emulation is not integrated up to Feb 2003.
Hermans up to feb 2003 believes that only Amiga can buyback OS 4.0 from Hyperion and Amiga cant sell the rights to buy OS4.0 back to another entity.

Added: also MeEwan declares in his declaration that "AMigA" paid the Money for the buyback. it was ITEC not "AMIGA"
i

Last edited by Spectre660 on 13-May-2007 at 11:04 PM.
Last edited by Spectre660 on 13-May-2007 at 10:09 PM.

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Quote:

I see you love to speculate....do you have bills of sale etc concerning the buyback money paid by AInc?

Yes, its exhibit F as part of the McEwen testimony. Its a signed document between Ben Hermans as Managing Partner of Hyperion and Pentti Kouri, and says that Hyperion is selling the OS for $25K to Itec on that day per the requirements of the 2001 contract. Thats why I don't understand anyone arguing the point, we have a bill of sale signed by Ben Hermans and Pentti Kouri, it happened.

Quote:

So far it is based entirely on Bill McEwens word with zero evidence. Looking at the huge number of outright lies from AInc over the years...and the fact that the MCEwen testimony to the courts inclded a contract that has no bearing whatsoever on this case (hiring the Friedens in a side agreement to port Os4 to the Arctic device) shows his intent to lie to the courts as well. Very blatent of him I think.

No its based on Exhibit F, which is an actual document, and the Arctic PDA thing is one of those big sticks thats going to hit the Belgians very hard, once all the ramifications of it are understood.

Quote:

Obviously, its up to the courts...but they would have to be incredibly stupid to make a decision based on emotionalism and here-say. I guess we'll need to wait and see if McEwen produces any relevant documents or information or continues to try to deceive the courts with his BS tactics....

He produced a Bill of Sale with Ben Hermans signature on it, tahts pretty compelling evidence.
-Tig

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We played the first thing that came to our heads, it just happened to be the best song in the world.

@Tigger

Quote:

No its based on Exhibit F, which is an actual document, and the Arctic PDA thing is one of those big sticks thats going to hit the Belgians very hard, once all the ramifications of it are understood.

It sets a time frame for the os4.0 source handover.
And ties the Friedens into the handover agreement.
And asserts ownership to OS 4.0

(Money upfront for Hyperion and the Freidens would have been the incentive to sign up)

Last edited by Spectre660 on 13-May-2007 at 11:57 PM.
Last edited by Spectre660 on 13-May-2007 at 11:54 PM.
Last edited by Spectre660 on 13-May-2007 at 11:49 PM.

_________________
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@Tigger

Quote:

Yes, its exhibit F as part of the McEwen testimony. Its a signed document between Ben Hermans as Managing Partner of Hyperion and Pentti Kouri, and says that Hyperion is selling the OS for $25K to Itec on that day per the requirements of the 2001 contract. Thats why I don't understand anyone arguing the point, we have a bill of sale signed by Ben Hermans and Pentti Kouri, it happened.

Ignoring all of Amiga Inc's made up crap they've come up with, this factual event alone should be enough to win the court case, you would think. I am VERY curious as to what Hyperions defense will be. I just cant see how they can get around this. I think their side of the story might differ, and even shock some people. At least, I think it will shock me. :)

@NomadOfNorad
Quote:

Okay, I'll bite... Which one of the documents at http://www.merlancia.us/amiga-hyperion/ constitutes Exhibit J?

decmcewenshow_case_doc.pdf

Exhibit J starts on page 54 (by PDF viewer pages), receipt is on page 61.

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@NomadOfNorad

Quote:

NomadOfNorad wrote: @jorkany Okay, I'll bite... Which one of the documents at http://www.merlancia.us/amiga-hyperion/ constitutes Exhibit J?

You want to be looking at Exhibit F (which is the bill of sale) not Exhibit J which is the Acube/Hyperion issue we've also been talking about. Its in the declaration of McEwen (decmcewenshow_cas... etc), click through it until you get to Exhibit F.
-Tig

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@Spectre660

Quote:

Hermans up to feb 2003 believes that only Amiga can buyback OS 4.0 from Hyperion and Amiga cant sell the rights to buy OS4.0 back to another entity.

Ben signs the bill of sale with Itec, all your arguements are silly given that Hyperion signed a bill of sale and took 25K.

Quote:

Added: also MeEwan declares in his declaration that "AMigA" paid the Money for the buyback. it was ITEC not "AMIGA"

Itec was bought out by what is now AI, so thats a correct statement.
-Tig

_________________
We played the first thing that came to our heads, it just happened to be the best song in the world.

@Tigger

Quote:

Itec was bought out by what is now AI, so thats a correct statement.

He should have ITEC and given ref to the path of name and ownership changes.
Makes it look as if the ownership of the Agreement never changed hands.Itec was never Amiga INC.

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