Hello everyone in the praised World of the Amiga

After the AmiWest 2021 presentation, I just want to throw a few questions into the room.

I don't know if anyone other than Ben Hermans can answer these questions, but it would be interesting for the community to know:


- Since a lot of development for OS4 is done by A-EON: why is OS4 not completely in the hands of A-EON?

- And if the reason is a certain amount of money: How much is needed to transfer OS4 from Hyperion to A-EON?


Thanks for great answers and anecdotes worth reading

Birbo

_________________
Sometimes we give people a lot of credit just because they're writing nice sentences even if it isn't adding up to much.

@Birbo

Given that hyperion got caught red handed stealing money from the joint venture they had with aeon/trevor, you'd think trevor could have sued Ben out of existence but instead they settled for a license to OS4 or something, removing any incentive for Ben to actually deliver new versions of OS4 at his cost. As for buying it, apparently they want $20M for it. lolz. Keeping in mind that $20M for the bits they own, which is stuff like the C ports of DOS, shell, intuition. But not ExecSG, Reaction etc.

Last edited by Mobileconnect on 20-Oct-2021 at 08:39 AM.

_________________

@Birbo

Quote:

Since a lot of development for OS4 is done by A-EON: why is OS4 not completely in the hands of A-EON?

Because its owned by Hyperion

Quote:

And if the reason is a certain amount of money: How much is needed to transfer OS4 from Hyperion to A-EON?

My guess is Hyperion wants to much for it. But also there maybe be legal reasons why OS4 cant be sold, specially at the current moment of Cloanto vs Hyperion.

Also anyone know the reason why ExecSG is owned by Trevor personally, and this has always been made very clear, and not just owned by A-EON?

Last edited by amigang on 20-Oct-2021 at 08:44 AM.

_________________
AmigaNG, YouTube, LeaveReality Studio

@amigang

Speculation: owning Exec SG personally does two things - makes sure no one tries to force AEON into insolvency to get their hands on the IPR, and allows Trevor to charge AEON a license fee which makes it easy for him to extract money (whether his own shareholder capital, or any income received) from AEON tax efficiently (i.e. without taking an income taxed salary) and without requiring it to be profitable (so he can receive a dividend). Also makes it more easy to sell it to someone down the road independently of other AEON assets so if he did, say, want to sell it to Ben or Michael, they can't claim to have bought more than they really did.

_________________

@Mobileconnect @amigang

Thanks a lot for the information.

To me this situation starts to become non-transparent - because there is a mixed communication about the product now. This will certainly not help the community:

Products: -> ExecSG / System 54 / OS4 / etc. ?
Owners: -> Hyperion / A-EON / Trevor Dickinson / (Amiga Corporation) / etc. ?

It starts to become a mess. Right? At least for the customers.

If the situation does not get better in the near future, I do not see any future here.

I think we need 1 product, 1 company. Anything else leads to a big loss of confidence.

What do you think?

_________________
Sometimes we give people a lot of credit just because they're writing nice sentences even if it isn't adding up to much.

@Birbo

Quote:

why is OS4 not completely in the hands of A-EON?

Because Ben's idea of doing business was that he would stay in full control while A-EON would pay for the party.

_________________
The Rear Window blog

AmigaOne X5000/020 @ 2GHz / 4GB RAM / Radeon RX 560 / ESI Juli@ / AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition
SAM440ep-flex @ 667MHz / 1GB RAM / Radeon 9250 / AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition

@Trixie

Thanks for the information.

But is he really making some money with OS4 nowadays? I have my doubts.

He should sell as fast as he can, before A-EON releases OS5 (or whatever the whole replacement is called). I think that the path goes in that direction. The OS4 assets of Ben Hermans will be replaced bit by bit... right?

That is the plan of A-EON - or do I understand something wrong?

_________________
Sometimes we give people a lot of credit just because they're writing nice sentences even if it isn't adding up to much.

@Birbo

Quote:

I don't know if anyone other than Ben Hermans can answer these questions, but it would be interesting for the community to know: - Since a lot of development for OS4 is done by A-EON: why is OS4 not completely in the hands of A-EON? - And if the reason is a certain amount of money: How much is needed to transfer OS4 from Hyperion to A-EON?

Short answer: it's complicated. Yes, you knew that already, but it's more complicated than you may have expected it might be, even assuming that you already expected the situation to be much more complicated than it may appear to be.

This is not necessarily an issue of money alone. The project been has been in the works for almost 20 years and went through so many hickups, unexpected consequences, challenges, victories and defeats that untangling the current state of affairs would take an enormous amount of hope, goodwill and kindness which, sad to say, has already been copiously spent during the past decades.

My personal opinion on this matter is that if you want to see change happening, you need to participate in the project and see where it takes you. From the sidelines, watching and wondering what is happening will only accomplish so much.

@olsen

Thanks for the reply.

In fact I see a lot of things happening: New Software releases, new Amiga Magazines, etc. - there is really a lot going on right now (just take a look at: https://amiga-news.de/en/).

But it would be a pity if there is a further dispersal of the Amiga landscape within OS4. We already have more than enough construction sites open.

Breaking OS4 down into individual building blocks now will only lead to a mess. And also to many frustrated users.

_________________
Sometimes we give people a lot of credit just because they're writing nice sentences even if it isn't adding up to much.

@olsen

many amiga-related projects were a legal mess. I assume that it is the same here...

Additional right now there is the lawsuit nobody knows how it will be decided. Before the lawsuit is not over nobody will do anything because nobody knows what Hyperion can sell then... f.e. Reaction is Hyperion, other important components not.

@Birbo

more frustrated than currently?

i assume that most users are no longer seriously expecting anything. Enjoy what you have and expect the worst so you can only be surprised positively

@OlafS25

+1 watching the soap opera plot while using my 68K and PPC machines which both have had quite a bit of updates recently makes the popcorn taste extra good

_________________
____________________________
c64-2sids, A1000, A1200T-060@50(finally working!),A4000-CSMKIII
! My Master Miggies- Amiga 1000 & AmigaOne X1000 !
mancave-ramblings
X1000 I BELIEVE

@olsen

Quote:

My personal opinion on this matter is that if you want to see change happening, you need to participate in the project

People still doing what you're suggesting is the reason nothing ever really changes in this community.

A few years ago, Hyperion finally had reached the end of the road: Ben was out of money, allies, developers, and forum guerilla fighters. Suddenly, a bunch of people willing to "participate" showed up and provided him with a ton of credibility and money in the form of OS 3.1.4/3.2 - for free. The result is an ongoing lawsuit, more disgruntled developers and Reaction now being owned by Ben, which is really, really bad news.

In other words: it's business as usual.

@Olsen,
As I already told ML in this forum IIRC, they should use Aros to build their own OS.
They do already own a lot with ExecSG etc between AEON and Trevor. They could even bought critical parts to their authors directly.
But as you said Ben being caught in stealing money imply that Trevor had an agreement that suit him well I guess so this won’t happen anytime soon.
The problem is that we have no ideas what the AmigaOS 4 team is doing as they didn’t provide anything significant updates in ages. Are they even doing anything? If work is done why not deliver an update? is the lawsuit preventing them to do so? If yes why did they deliver AmigaOS 3.1.4 and 3.2?
At least we know that the new filesystem is still in the work by Tony.

@cgutjahr

You make it sound as if I'm instigating and enabling bad behaviour and getting away with it (probably barely, for the time being). As I mentioned before about the Amiga business in general: it's complicated. It never gets any less complicated from where I'm standing, no matter whether I can be rightly accused of rolling the dice, or not rolling the dice.

My reason for sticking around is that the Amiga and its operating system should not be left to rot, that it should not be forgotten and designated to the pile of legacy computer systems which failed "because they totally sucked". I'm not pining for the days when things were so very different (yes, those 2-3 years in the late 1980'ies/early 1990'es) because they are never going to come back. I still think the Amiga as a platform, with its culture and how both evolved over the decades, is intrinsically interesting and will keep being so until the last of its participants and supporters has joined the choir invisible.

Not doing anything at all to sustain and develop the Amiga platform seems like a sad option to me to begin with. If that option of not doing anything maybe enables a change in how business is conducted in the Amiga domain, I'd say use a different approach, please. You can't save the village by destroying it, to obliquely quote a sad phrase.

@kamelito

The problem we faced some years ago: if A-EON invests in OS4 software, it is based on Commodore source code so any resultant development would be a derivative work. This leaves A-EON without any financial return on the development investment or any commercial rights on the work A-EON would have paid for.

Therefore the independent software that exists in the Enhancer Software has been written from scratch or complete rights have been acquired by A-EON (e.g. MediaToolbox, ATIRadeon, Ringhio, RadeonHD etc)

Our sub-group of developers have so far implemented 24 new DOS commands from scratch. These developers are selected because they have not worked on AmigaOS source code and they have not been under any NDA by another company.

The accumulative result is a body of work that is not subject to the third party legal wranglings which never seem to end. This is important for A-EON to continue developing and upgrading the software regardless of the limbo that OS4 is in.

It gives our customers confidence in whatever happens, A-EON will continue to support them into the future with more advanced software. The latest Enhancer Software Release 2.1 is another reinforcement to that commitment.

_________________
Amiga Kit Amiga Store
Links: www.amigakit.com | New Products | A600GS

@kamelito

Quote:

kamelito wrote: @Olsen, As I already told ML in this forum IIRC, they should use Aros to build their own OS.

Why this hasn't happened yet may be because it's too hard to make it work: find the right people (and presumably pay them for the time they spend on it) and solve the tricky technical issues of how and how far you want backwards compatibility to play a part in this venture. The Amiga operating systems are deep and by now even surprisingly complex technical accomplishments which require a deep understanding of how their parts interact, and how all of this still stays functional and compatible. That's the "luck" of the legacy systems: their value and impact will suffer if you attempt to improve them by stripping out the legacy.

Quote:

They do already own a lot with ExecSG etc between AEON and Trevor. They could even bought critical parts to their authors directly. But as you said Ben being caught in stealing money imply that Trevor had an agreement that suit him well I guess so this won’t happen anytime soon.

Who are you quoting there? I never wrote or said that.

My point was that the situation is, as always, much more complicated than anybody would like to admit. You are invariably getting your fingers singed, and it's safer to speculate about what was, what is and what could be. The notion that the Amiga saga is a soap opera has its root in this potent mix of missed opportunities, business practices which proved hard to sustain, own goals (always popular) and the kind of heroic efforts which seem tragically ill-advised (but still heroic, although likely in a charmingly naïve way).

Quote:

The problem is that we have no ideas what the AmigaOS 4 team is doing as they didn’t provide anything significant updates in ages. Are they even doing anything?

I could tell you that they there are doing something, but who would believe me

Seriously, I already mentioned that this more complicated than you might expect, even if you expected it to be more complicated than you expected it to be.

Quote:

If work is done why not deliver an update? is the lawsuit preventing them to do so? If yes why did they deliver AmigaOS 3.1.4 and 3.2? At least we know that the new filesystem is still in the work by Tony.

One reason why AmigaOS 3.1.4 and 3.2 were made was because the developers who made them cared about and for these projects, and also because there are more Amiga developers around who know pretty well how to develop software and hardware for the legacy operating system and the hardware it was designed for. Also, legal claims being as tangled as they are right now there was still a window for making the results available.

Why is AmigaOS 4 not on the menu and receives irritating updates like the AmigaOS 3.x line? Because there are more obstacles in the way of making these happen than for the 68k AmigaOS.

@olsen

Quote:

You make it sound as if I'm instigating and enabling bad behaviour and getting away with it

Yes, you are enabling bad behaviour - there's no question about that, as far as I'm concerned.

Not sure what you mean re "getting away with it"? I wasn't demanding you should be punished or anything. But seeing you encouraging others to join your merry band of developers that is owed tens of thousands of Euros by Ben Hermans and still works for him for free so he can dump the profits into a stupid and frivolous lawsuit was a bit more than I could take

I get why you're doing it - partly because I've been doing it myself for a while, partly because a lot of other people in this community do the exact same thing, over and over again. But "change" doesn't happen that way, unless you apply a very narrow definition of "change".

Quote:

Not doing anything at all to sustain and develop the Amiga platform seems like a sad option to me to begin with.

Nobody's arguing for "not doing anything". Github has tons of very interesting hardware and software projects from people trying to "sustain and develop" the Amiga platform.

You just love working on AmigaOS. And you feel like you need Ben to be able to do that, so you put up with him. But that's just your personal preference, not an emergency situation where we had to get 3.1.4/3.2 out the door right now or the Amiga would have never recovered.

Quote:

This is not necessarily an issue of money alone. The project been has been in the works for almost 20 years and went through so many hickups, unexpected consequences, challenges, victories and defeats that untangling the current state of affairs would take an enormous amount of hope, goodwill and kindness

So the answer is to not untangle it and add new layers of bullshit on top of the wholemess? What if somebody actively tried to stop Hyperion from distributing his code - do we just ignore that?

@amigakit

Thanks for the information.

But are you sure by saying: "It gives our customers confidence in whatever happens" ?


Don't get me wrong: I think the advancements you made are great.

But the confidence will not increase, because consumers are afraid that now OS 4.3 (or whatever number) will be released by Hyperion, which will somehow become a new "branch". Then we will have like 2 OS4 developement in parallel?

The fragmentation of the components definitely does not bring trust.

Or am I wrong?

Last edited by Birbo on 20-Oct-2021 at 02:08 PM.
Last edited by Birbo on 20-Oct-2021 at 02:07 PM.

_________________
Sometimes we give people a lot of credit just because they're writing nice sentences even if it isn't adding up to much.

@Birbo

Quote:

Don't get me wrong: I think the advancements you made are great.

Thank you, the whole team will be pleased to know their efforts are fondly regarded.

Quote:

But the confidence will not increase

As a few commentators have correctly stated: look at what amazing new software we have right now and what is actually being developed by the team. Lets enjoy the new software updates and build on that. I am sure everyone can take some measure of confidence out of that..

_________________
Amiga Kit Amiga Store
Links: www.amigakit.com | New Products | A600GS