@gregthecanuck

Hyperion will likely keep the sources but no longer have the licenses to the IP / trademarks in order to use it. At that point they'll sell it to A-EON who are on good terms with Cloanto and AmigaOS 4.x will limp on with new licenses. OS3.1.4 is another story however.

At the end of the day whoever the owners the same contractors will be involved. If A-EON get OS3.1.4 as well with permission and license from Cloanto the developers might even get paid

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@gregthecanuck

That was done earlier. Cloanto owns the copyright of AmigaOS 3.1 (see page 3 line 15 and page 11 line 7 of the document below).

source

It sounds like Cloanto was responsible for paying off Amiga's outstanding debt and is effectively cleaning house.

@hth313

After reading the settlement agreement, it was clear that Hyperion had access to the 3.1 source code for development/whatever, but it occurred to me (maybe I'm late to the party) that perhaps the contention was that Hyperion had no right to sell such (distinct) work/product as Amiga OS (anything) - that license extended only to "The OS developed by Hyperion" (i.e. what is called Amiga OS 4).

Honestly, I can't be bothered to read the settlement document again right now, so I'm asking a question, not even stating an opinion.

EDIT:

After perusing the link (thanks), I see that is, essentially, the case.

I for one would still like to see a gentleman's agreement, but it would be shortsighted to anticipate one - (way) too much water under the bridge...

Last edited by Snorg on 06-Feb-2019 at 03:23 AM.
Last edited by Snorg on 06-Feb-2019 at 02:53 AM.

@BigD

The source code is not the most valuable thing, it is perhaps not even worth much in itself. The valuable things are the people, their interest and what they can and want to do with the Amiga, and the trademarks as they make it possible to brand a product.

Even if AmigaOS is open source, the trademarks would not be. What you can do is sell properly branded products, even with open source. If you want to make a Vampire standalone computer, you can brand it an Amiga with logo and everything. It could even run AmigaOS and Cloanto would earn royalties on it. Yes, you can make your own home made anonymous system without breaking any laws (if you do not call it or label it an Amiga). But given the choice of buying a properly branded ready to use computer for some more, what would you pick? Many would pay a little more to get the genuine product.

You can even sell software upgrades, it contains a ROM, floppies with branded stickers, perhaps even in a box with a manual. Some will just build it from source. But not everyone can burn a ROMs and duplicating the stickers with trademarks is illegal. Just see Worthy, people pay to get the box!

Open source would bring interest and increased interest means larger volumes of sales. Even though you do not earn a lot on each single sale, growing volumes mean increased total revenue and the extra cost for doing that is small.

We have seen what this closed mentality has taken us so far. Do you think more of that is going to suddenly change things into success?

I have already moved to AROS because of the situation, as it is open source. Much more fun for me and it is largely CPU agnostic as well. I do not need AmigaOS in open source, but I would welcome such move. If it stays closed, so be it, it will not change anything for me.

I believe Cloanto is smart enough to realize the possibilities here and that the most important thing is to grow the eco-system long term, not maximize or milk short term revenue. You just have to find a model to get enough revenue now, then fine-tune the machinery to spin faster and smother.

@hth313

Quote:

The source code is not the most valuable thing, it is perhaps not even worth much in itself. The valuable things are the people, their interest and what they can and want to do with the Amiga, and the trademarks as they make it possible to brand a product.

Yes, you are correct. The source code for OS3 was leaked years ago and can still be found on the net if you look hard enough for it. It's essentially worthless from a technical standpoint. I have a copy of it myself and out of curiosity took several hours to look it over. It was something of a mess and is so out of date/obsolete compared to other operating systems that is certainly isn't worth the storage space it's taking up on my hard drive. The real value is in the branding. There are quite a few folks here who will blindly buy anything, hardware or software, that has an "Official Amiga" logo stamped on it, no matter how it was developed or by whom it was developed. This was evident from all those who bought "official" copies of OS 3.1.4 from Hyperion, despite who really owns the IP and the brand.

@hth313

Everyone should have known that 3.1.4 broke the agreement and was illegal. Hyperion had no right under the Settlement Agreement to develop that. They had rights to 3.1 source code in order to have a base on which to start development on OS 4 only. Hyperion's part of the agreement was only for development of OS4 and carried no rights to develop Amiga OS 3

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@Argo

on 68k you can still earn money (in opposite to 4.X)

Hyperion even got the chance to sell a update without paying developers, so profit almost is 100%. They could not resist on that of course. We will see what is happening in future and how it sorts out. I personally do not care much.

@Argo

Quote:

Everyone should have known that 3.1.4 broke the agreement and was illegal.

Everyone should read the agreement before write about it.
3.1.4 is legal. Hyperion had right under the Settlement Agreement to develop and sell that.

@ppcamiga1

I read the settlement. To me it's clear that 3.1.4 was not legal.

I don't know which settlement you have in mind?

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxlY9g_OfLqDZTQyNGFkYzEtZDI5Zi00YzcxLThhODYtODcyZTg0M2I4MzQ1/edit

Last edited by Birbo on 06-Feb-2019 at 04:30 PM.

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@Birbo

Quote:

I read the settlement. To me it's clear that 3.1.4 was not legal.

I read it otherwise. 3.1.4 is perfectly legal, selling 1.x Kickstart (either stand-alone, or as part of OS4) probably not. However, it is not up to us to judge here.

Alas! The end is nigh.

Last edited by Lou on 06-Feb-2019 at 06:38 PM.

@Lou

Quote:

Alas! The end is nigh.

So they said in 2009.

Quote:

pavlor wrote: I read it otherwise. 3.1.4 is perfectly legal, selling 1.x Kickstart (either stand-alone, or as part of OS4) probably not. However, it is not up to us to judge here.

Hyperion selling AmigaOS 3.1.4 may be legal. It may need to be sold for use with AmigaOS 4 in some way though. Hyperion could try to make the argument that they were upgrading 68k customers to AmigaOS 4 but didn't want to cause confusion with earlier versions of AmigaOS 4. The big problem may be the lack of new AmigaOS 4 upgrades in AmigaOS 3.1.4.

@pavlor

I thought you are a Amiga Inc. buddy... ;)

Cloanto bought Amiga Inc. so now you should be a Cloanto supporter ;)

regarding 3.1.4 I would say selling it is legal until a court decides different

@Lou

finally ;)

@Lou

I hope so, 25 years of this corporate circus has been enough

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@Argo

I think it's time to stay the hell away from any trademarks, it's not worth it.

Last edited by NutsAboutAmiga on 07-Feb-2019 at 06:32 AM.

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@matthey

Quote:

lack of new AmigaOS 4 upgrades in AmigaOS 3.1.4

Did anyone really expect the 20+ years of OS4 development to miraculously appear in an OS3 upgrade done basically by two people? That would be really naive.

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@Trixie

Thomas explained it yet that 3.1.4 was a bugfix mainly and they had sources ready they wanted to integrate. Because of that it was never planned to be updated to 4.X (if that would be permitted at all)