This thread has been going on for many pages, yet only a few posts talk about the direct implications of the lawsuit _for us_.

I could give a damn about who wins, who is right or wrong, when it in fact means that there is no chance anymore to get our hands on OS4/HW within this decade.

Shouldn't we, as potential buyers of OS4/HW, better discuss in what possible case there is still a chance for OS4/HW or OS4 for BPPC/CPPC to be released in the near future (1 year)?

This whole lawsuit-stuff really doesn't get me excited about anything, since I can only see that OS4 will be in a legal vacuum for another few years, with the ones that were still waiting (me) quitting and the existing OS4-userbase further shrinking due to broken hardware.

Maybe it's finally time to forget about OS4 and to set my sails for new horizons... Saint Morphosia or Arostigua?

_________________
This signature is in the middle of a much needed facelift!

@Tigger

Quote:

They didnt pay that money, they owe people that money Rob. If for example they had paid the Friedens, then Hyperion would own the code, etc for Exec-SG and the buyback clause would include it.

So you say that the Friedens, who work full time on OS4 and other contracts for Hyperion haven't been paid. They must have very understanding bank managers for them to be able to feed, clothe and house themselves for the past six years without having any income from the work they've been doing during that time.

@Rob
Quote:

So you say that the Friedens, who work full time on OS4 and other contracts for Hyperion haven't been paid. They must have very understanding bank managers for them to be able to feed, clothe and house themselves for the past six years without having any income from the work they've been doing during that time.

If you read the court documents from Hyperion, you'll find one where it mentions they haven't been paid in full yet. Aside from that, from their posts over the years it's clear that the Friedens don't exactly have an extravagant lifestyle. I imagine they live much the same as I did in my early 20's before I woke up and realized that people are willing to shovel money at good developers, it's just a matter of finding the right jobs.

Personally, given the choice between the "glory" of working on OS4 and my house near the beach, I'll take the house.

_________________
Here for the whimpering end

@jorkany

I understand that Hyperion haven't paid the additional undisclosed amount for the full rights to ExegSG, but some people are taking that to mean the Friedens haven't been paid at all.

It's like between tigger reading the court paper and posting here, Hyperion have gone from spending ¤800,000+ on OS4 development to owing ¤800,000+ to OS4 developers.

I'm saying that the Friedens drive around in expensive cars throwing money out the window, but they do need to pay the bills and If they work full time for Hyperion then the money has to be reasonable or they'd have surely walked long ago.

@Rob

Unless of course they really are poor coders and can't get any other work...

Hey it had to be said. Doesn't mean it's true. Don't shoot the messenger. Yadda yadda.

_________________
"Anyone with a modicum of reasonableness may realize that it is like comparing the ride in the world to descend the stairs to catch the milk in the house."

Google Translate

Quote:

Rob wrote: @jorkany I understand that Hyperion haven't paid the additional undisclosed amount for the full rights to ExegSG, but some people are taking that to mean the Friedens haven't been paid at all.

I didnt say they havent been paid at all, but they havent paid alot at least according to there comments over the years. Several of the developers have basically told me or others that they havent been paid. Most of the contracts say they would be paid after the final OS was completed (look at the contracts included in the documentation), thats why the OS was done in 2004 claim is a little silly, they never acted that way and they surely didnt pay the developers as if that were true. The money owed to the brothers is basically 75 Euro an hour for every hour they worked on the OS. What exactly do you think Hyperion did that paid them that kind of money?

Quote:

It's like between tigger reading the court paper and posting here, Hyperion have gone from spending ¤800,000+ on OS4 development to owing ¤800,000+ to OS4 developers.

What exactly do you think they did that made them over a million dollars so they could pay these people. What they had done is made Exec-SG into a million dollar acquisition to prevent it from being taken by AI, the Frieden boys arent going to see that money.

And take this seriously to heart, which OS4 developer do you know has been paid? Olaf got his money for the 3.1 cleanup, thats the only one we know about.

Quote:

I'm saying that the Friedens drive around in expensive cars throwing money out the window, but they do need to pay the bills and If they work full time for Hyperion then the money has to be reasonable or they'd have surely walked long ago.

Most of these people do this as a hobby they hope the money will come, but lets be honest, Hyperion has to sell 10s of 1000s of copies just to pay the Friedens the money they promised them.
-Tig

Last edited by Tigger on 26-May-2007 at 07:14 PM.

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

Quote:

COBRA wrote: Have you actually seen the sources, so that you can claim this? Everyone who has seen the 3.x sources so far told me he was shocked at how chaotic and unmanagable it was.

Actually chunks of the code used to circulate on the closed BIX forums back in the CATS days plus to get the Riverboat Queen through gaming certification years ago, we had to get more of the OS to the Gaming Lab in New Jersey, so I've seen alot of it.

Quote:

We also know that much of it was hardcoded to use the Amiga chipsets and those dependencies needed a lot of work to be removed (something which should not have been needed if Escena delivered the originally proposed hw).

As I commented earlier, the Draco is just one of the non chipset amigas that ran 68K Amiga OS, as of 3.0, there had been a concerted effort to get away from chipset dependency, dont believe me, read Dave and Mikes notes from Devcon 91 or 93.

Quote:

We're talking about much, much more than a mere "port some C code to PPC" as you stated. Developing an OS is hardly comparable to coding some modules and functions for a graphics program as you stated you have done.

Cobra, I've done alot more then some functions and modules for ImageFX. The issue is that most people have played with ImageFX, so its easier to say I worked on some of it then list the Riverboat Queen, RenderFX, Promix Tools, Millenium, Audio Black Box, Cinematte or Video Toaster Open Source Project. Or I can list what I do during my day job, the Apache, V22, C130, C27J, Space Shuttle and Black Hawk all which fly with software I wrote. The port shouldnt have been taken as long as it did, 40K hours is a huge project, OS 3.1 to OS 4.0 isnt anywhere near a big enough step for that amount of hours, Hyperion doesnt even argue that, they signed up in there contract they could do it in 4 months, they arent arguing that they really needed 15X that, though thats what they took to write it, and in reality though it has more features then Annex I, its also missing some.
-Tig

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

@tigger

MOS was in development well before 3.9. I demoed a beta copy of MOS sometime around the OS3.5 era it's been a number of years so my memory is hazy but I know that early versions of MOS were available well before 3.9. I will have to root around in my old CD's maybe floppies for copies. The MOS team has some really talented programmers including the Firmware and library writer from Phase 5, The CGX team. Also Allot of the ground work was started or planned during the B-box era. It still took years for MOS 1.4 to come to fruition.

So you are saying they too did not know what they were doing?

Doing a PPC port like OS4 is hard work. not to mention how much was added in functionality over 3.9

Oh I pulled out my old copy of the C programming language by K&R copyright 1978
god I am getting old.

And I quote

" many of the most important ideas of C stem from the considerably older, but still vital, language of BCPL, developed by martin richards. The influence of BCPL on C proceeded indirectly through language B which was written by Ken thompson in 1970 for the first UNIX system on PDP-7. Although it shares several characteristics features with BCPL, C is in no sense a dialect of it. BCPL and B are " typeless" languages: the only data type is the machine word, and access to other kinds of objects is by special operators or function calls. In C, the fundamental data objects are characters, intergers of several sizes, and floating point numbers. In addition, there is a hierarchy of derived data types created pionters,arrays,structurs,unions, and functions"

Its like saying because I speak Spanish which is based on Latin I can translate Italo-Celtic languages. Yea right!!

The Amiga clones were Hardware clones so of course they ran AmigaOS's. The Hard
ware was designed to emulate the Amiga. Where the Amigaone has none of that not
even the same CPU.

Again you are trying to obfuscate the facts.

Kgrach

Last edited by kgrach on 26-May-2007 at 08:09 PM.

@Tigger

Trying to mislead the truth again.
Quote:

can list what I do during my day job, the Apache, V22, C130, C27J, Space Shuttle and Black Hawk all which fly with software I wrote

Tigger writing a module on a team comprisings of hundreds is not controlling the bird. Your software doesn't run the shuttle.

There are thousands of pieces on the shuttle and many microcontrollers and assorted gear all running code of various levels. Your code total on the bird is what?
.000005% of total running code.

Also your software is not the core of any of those craft.

Its like a page in the Capital claiming that they make Government policy.

Kgrach

@Tigger

Quote:

What exactly do you think they did that made them over a million dollars so they could pay these people. What they had done is made Exec-SG into a million dollar acquisition to prevent it from being taken by AI, the Frieden boys arent going to see that money.

There must have been some amount of money coming in from the game ports, probably not a lot though. The Frieden brothers did some work on Uboot for Mai logic and the contract with Smiths Aerospace. Those were what were publicly known about until now.

Evert Carton's declaration shed a little more light on the subject.

Quote:

I have worked as an independant IT-consultant through Hyperion, in the steel (business intelligence) and telecom-industry (business intelligence and Web-technologies). Hyperion has currently secured a position for me as an independant contractor working as a system/architect at the largest belgian mobile telecomunications operator.

I guess you a qualified to make educated guesses at how much money may be involved in this type of work, although we don't currently who else has done other work through Hyperion.

To reach the quoted figure of ¤830,000 Hyperion would have had to have been able to skim off an average of just of ¤150,000 a year over the last 5½ years minus whatever starting capital they had assigned for OS4 development.
According to financial analysis firm Dun & Bradstreet Amiga Inc's total revenue last year was $1.6 million. If Amiga can make that kind of money retailing puzzle games, does that mean that Hyperion can make 20% of that doing consultancy work for big business.

Quote:

And take this seriously to heart, which OS4 developer do you know has been paid? Olaf got his money for the 3.1 cleanup, thats the only one we know about.

I have only seen comments from one developer with regard to their agreements with Hyperion. I'm not in a position to know who has been paid and for what work on OS4 and have not made any comments in this respect apart from saying that the Frieden's as full time developers must have received enough money to at least survive.

@umisef
Quote:

I reckon it depends on what he meant by "and he told me that". If anyone volunteers that kind of information during an interview, apropos of nothing at all, that's a bit odd(1). If someone says it in a context where it makes sense ("Name some of the defining influences on the C language" :), it's a sign of broad knowledge.

Well, of course! :)

Sometimes I have to put on a suit and go do interviews. I've always wanted to wire up a mannequin to control from behind a desk to do the interview for me. Highlights include pinning a lit cigarette into the hand, and telling the interviewee things like "We will not tolerate any tomfoolery in this company!" while slamming the hand down on the desk.

_________________
Here for the whimpering end

@polka.

Quote:

Shouldn't we, as potential buyers of OS4/HW, better discuss in what possible case there is still a chance for OS4/HW or OS4 for BPPC/CPPC to be released in the near future (1 year)?

That may be a topic for a new thread...."Where do we go from here." Hyperion may be prevented from releasing OS4 while this is all tied up in court for the foreseeable future. A suprise release of OS5 by AmiInc is the only other option I can guess of in the near term.

If there is no OS5 and there is no peaceful agreement between Amiga Inc and Hyperion, I begin to see the deathly end of any future 'official' AmigaOS. I'll be pleased to be proven wrong though.

Plaz
(rather gloomy today)

@Thread

Anybody see the latest offerings from AInc. esp. the emails from Ben Hermans. Looks like Hyperion accepted the change of ownership after all. Is that a new receipt for 2500$ or that the same one already listed. Man I getting confused. May have to start at the beggining of this show all over again. Link to the docs can be found on the moo.

@stew
I just love fleecy on Amiga Inc not handing over the 3.1,3.5 and 3.9 sources.

Last edited by Spectre660 on 27-May-2007 at 12:47 AM.

_________________
Sam460ex : Radeon Rx550 Single slot Video Card : SIL3112 SATA card

@kgrach

Quote:

kgrach wrote: @Tigger Trying to mislead the truth again.

No

Quote:

Tigger writing a module on a team comprisings of hundreds is not controlling the bird. Your software doesn't run the shuttle.

Its not a team of hundreds, in fact we have less then a 100 programmers working on all our DAS activiites. Typical team is 4-6 programmers, I've been the lead on all those I listed, I didnt say my software ran the shuttle, I said it flys on the shuttle, it does.

Quote:

Also your software is not the core of any of those craft.

In the business we think of the communication system or the system processor as a core part of the aircraft, what would you list them as?
-Tig

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

@SpaceDruid & Rob

Please lift that capitalist curtain from your eyes for a moment and think; maybe they are not in it for the money to begin with? Sure, they need to put food on the table like the rest of us. However, in addition to food on the table, most of us likes to get something to improve our quality of life that reflects the value of our expertise and what we do with it. But, an improved quality of life, even if it helps in most cases, isn't always obtained with money.

I do NOT believe the Frieden brothers are so ignorant that they are not aware of the fact that they could get more money working for other employers than the ones in the Amiga market, much less that they wouldn't be competent enough for jobs with a higher salary. They are programmers of an operating system, for crying out loud! You don't think that requires atleast some form of intelligence and know-how? I know webdevelopers that probably makes more money than the Friedens put together and I'm quite sure that the Friedens was well aware of this even when they signed up for the work they are doing for Hyperion.

So what is giving them an improved quality of life then? Well, aren't they living the dream of so many Amiga enthusiasts, ie working with Amiga computers for a living? Hell yeah they are! As programmers of AmigaOS4, they've even been given a chance to shape the future of the Amiga. Few other still active Amiga developers has more respect in the Amiga community today, they are close to god's in the eyes of many Amiga enthusiats. You really can't put a prize tag on that!

Yes Rob, most of us would choose that house by the beach, that's what makes me respect them even more. To make that kind of sacrifice for something you believe in cannot be treated any other way.

Last edited by samface on 27-May-2007 at 01:07 AM.

_________________
Sammy Nordström, A.K.A. "Samface"

MINDRELEASE.net - The Non-Commercial Network of Digital Arts.

Samworks D & C - Professional Web Development (in Swedish)

Quote:

kgrach wrote: @tigger MOS was in development well before 3.9. I demoed a beta copy of MOS sometime around the OS3.5 era it's been a number of years so my memory is hazy but I know that early versions of MOS were available well before 3.9. I will have to root around in my old CD's maybe floppies for copies. The MOS team has some really talented programmers including the Firmware and library writer from Phase 5, The CGX team. Also Allot of the ground work was started or planned during the B-box era. It still took years for MOS 1.4 to come to fruition.

Ralph was one of the 3 teams who bid on making 3.5. Also MOS had a much bigger issue, they didnt have all the source code to play with.

Quote:

So you are saying they too did not know what they were doing?

No Ralph and I have had some great conversations on Moobunny, I think he and several on his team are very talented. Ask Ralph if he thinks 40K hours is a reasonable amount of time to spend moving OS 3.1 to OS 4.0.

Quote:

Doing a PPC port like OS4 is hard work. not to mention how much was added in functionality over 3.9

I didnt say it wasnt hard work, I said they took way too long.

Quote:

" many of the most important ideas of C stem from the considerably older, but still vital, language of BCPL, developed by martin richards. The influence of BCPL on C proceeded indirectly through language B which was written by Ken thompson in 1970 for the first UNIX system on PDP-7.

Which is what we all said above.

Quote:

Its like saying because I speak Spanish which is based on Latin I can translate Italo-Celtic languages. Yea right!!

Not at all, one of us has been paid to move BCPL to C, one of us hasn't we both know which one you are.

Quote:

The Amiga clones were Hardware clones so of course they ran AmigaOS's. The Hard ware was designed to emulate the Amiga. Where the Amigaone has none of that not even the same CPU.

No they weren't, the DRACO didnt have Agnus, Paula, Denise (or the AGA equivalents), it was a 68K processor the only custom chip it had was the CIAs for the timers. The rest of the chipset wasnt there, yes we have the change from 68K to PPC, but this belief that OS 3.x doesnt run unless you have the custom chips is incorrect.
-Tig

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

@Spectre660

There are alot of twisting the truth by both parties. It looks like someone is more than bending.. shall we say out right lieing to the court. Now which side is it? Probably both in some way.
Interesting read about the negotiations between ACube and Hyperion, and the fact that ACube went with Hyperion even after knowing alot of the struggles between Hyperion and AInc.

@stew

We begin to see the real $$$$ values that they are fighting over. not $25,000.

Also that 3.1,3.5 and 3.9 Source thingie is indeed a problem for Amiga Inc as they seek to plug real holes.

Lucrative deal with Microsoft and still no payment to Peck ? guys?....

Last edited by Spectre660 on 27-May-2007 at 01:21 AM.
Last edited by Spectre660 on 27-May-2007 at 01:18 AM.

_________________
Sam460ex : Radeon Rx550 Single slot Video Card : SIL3112 SATA card

@Spectre660

True and a long ago released OS4 and no payments to the developers? Olaf should have had his long spent by now.