Quote:

Don't forget, they were posting here, fishing for $20K for a 'port' of OS/4 - while scamming Amiga Inc for '$8k here and $2K there' ...

Yea. It's hard to believe that so many people let themselves get scammed out of that 20000Euro...

Did anyone actually have opportunity to pay that? I tried talking to hyperion about different hardware possibilities, but was told I needed a license from AI before any porting could begin. Sorry, I don't buy into any speculation that they were taking advantage of ANYONE with their porting fee.

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All glory to the Hypnotoad!

Quote:

Following over 18 months of unproductive negotiations with Amiga Inc. through our management and attorneys, we welcome the opportunity to finally present our case in a court of law which was regrettably the only remaining avenue after Amiga Inc. repeatedly and consistently stonewalled any attempt to resolve the outstanding issues (including the “Party Pack” and “I am Amiga Club” voucher schemes and the failure to acknowledge the intellectual property rights of third party developers) through mediation and binding arbitration.

While I don't really follow the legal profession (put standard IANAL clause here), this statement seems to indicate that Hyperion is somewhat unaware of the stance US courts tend to take on the concept of "work for hire" - i.e. if you add something of yours to a contracted project, you lose your rights to your work included in that project.

I don't know who's going to win this trademark disagreement, but I believe that if Hyperion had contracts with third parties that added third-party code to the for-contract AOS4, and the contract was written in the US (Snoqualmie, WA, IIRC), then Hyperion, not AInc, is going to have to answer to those third parties. However, I think it still leaves the fate of AOS4 up in the air.

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Tony T.

People who generalize are always wrong.


1989 - 500 / 1991 - 3000 / 1997 - Genesis Flyer 1200T / 2003 - A1XE

@Swoop

Quote:

@NomadOfNorad Quote: So, is there a way for the OS to be shipped to end users while the court battle is ongoing? From reading the AInc thread, it would appear the court case is about the use of trademarks, and not ownership of OS4, so probably not. I think AInc are trying to bite off the hand that (could) feed(s) them.

Well, then the significance of this rather depends upon how long this matter is likely to drag out. If this is something that will be over fairly quickly (say, two months till the verdict) then it probably won't make an enormous amount of difference to the viability of the Amiga platform.

On the other hand, if this matter drags out over a period of years, then by the time OS4 was able to be marketed again... it would be utterly worthless to anyone!!!

If this court matter winds up being so utterly complicated and convoluted that it takes "forever," then it would be beyond reckless for Amiga Inc to demand that no one be able to sell any more copies of OS4 until the court case completes itself. The only way AmigaOS 4 would have any value at all at the end of all this is for it to be made available to all that are appropriate (the end-users of new AmigaOne-equivalent machines), so that the market for it can be preserved and maintained for the duration, and so that the OS, and the suite of programs that will develop within it, can flower into the thing it was meant to be before the fast-dwindling period of viability slips from our grasps.

It would be like, if the ownership of a major shipping company was in dispute, and the courts decided to totally shut down the shipping company from making any more shipping until the whole dispute could be put to rest... even if it took twenty years. I guarantee you, that company would be worthless within the first few months, if not the first few days if they were forced to shut down pending the outcome of the court case.

The only way to preserve the value of the property, and the platform, is for OS4 to be allowed to ship, but do so by some sort of trusteeship, collecting the money into an independent account that can't be touched by either party until the dispute is settled.

I simply refuse to believe that Amiga Inc would be that gawdawful stupid.

Ergo, they have no choice but to let OS4 ship in some form or another while this dispute winds its way through the court system, unless there is not even a remote chance in Hell that the court battle will last longer than two or three months!

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

Hi Everyone!

Go Hyperion is all I have to say. I am sure they have plenty of evidence to back up there claim in court. We just haven't seen it yet. They are absolutely right about the scam Amiga Inc ran with that club thing. And I do not doubt in anyway that Amiga Inc. had no access to 3.5, 3.9 and some 3.1 code. We were told from the beginning that they had no access to 3.5 and 3.9 because of H&P.

I bet the court is going to rule that Os 4 is to be sold with hyperion's permission and that the royalty of $20 per copy (I believe that was it) is to be paid to Amiga, Inc. End of case. But we'll see. I also think that Amiga Inc. requesting a jury trial is insane. All hyperion has to do is keep the never ending flow of witnesses about how Amiga Inc. does not do business in good faith, nor sign contracts in good faith. They can start with the club t-shirt/coupon scam.

Oh, and let me add, those court documents from Amiga Inc are laughable. Since when did OS 4 (us) become part of the cornerstone of their plans. Be serious. They have never given a care about us. Hyperion has done more to add value to their IPs then they have. I was going to say I am typing this on an AmigaOne running OS 4 by hyperion. Oh wait, this isn't an AmigaOne according to Amiga Inc. Are they for real? Bottom line, hyperion produced. What has Amiga Inc ever done for us? Let me answer that for you, NOTHING!


Yogi

Last edited by Yogi27 on 02-May-2007 at 03:23 AM.

Good luck Hyperion.

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Hate tends to make you look stupid...

Quote:

All hyperion has to do is keep the never ending flow of witnesses about how Amiga Inc. does not do business in good faith, nor sign contracts in good faith.

Uhm... no.

Whether or not one party has more friends than the other means nada.

Unless I've read a different motion, the issue here is infringement of registered trademarks. Amiga is maintaining that Hyperion is making unauthorized use of its namesake, logo etc. to promote and sell a product.

The response by Hyperion claims that they have entitlement to sell OS4. Regardless of who owns the IP, you can't simply associate another trademarked property with a product as that action implies endorsement. This round may simply conclude that Hyperion cannot use the Amiga trademarks. That's it.

And in the end, do people really believe that supporting either side makes any sense? This is all pure folly. The only thing that can come of this is entertainment.

It appears that Hyperion engaged in a contract, overextended themselves and refused to relinquish source code. Regardless of the codebase, it sounds like the contracted work was never remitted.

On the other side, Amiga waited an inordinate amount of time before terminating the agreement.

And better still... both parties couldn't come to a resolution for 18 months but neither took action?

Quote:

The only way to preserve the value of the property, and the platform, is for OS4 to be allowed to ship, but do so by some sort of trusteeship, collecting the money into an independent account that can't be touched by either party until the dispute is settled.

I like this idea very much. But I doubt it will happen.

@Colin_Camper
Quote:

couldn't get 3.5 ot 3.9 from H&P ???

Amiga Inc never bought back 3.5 and 3.9, according to H&P IIRC

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"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." - Oscar Wilde

Agree.. Should have an independent "Amiga Foundation" for all the patents and sources.. But i guess thats impossible..

Btw i feel that neither Amiga Inc or Hyperion really cares about the Amiga / Community. If they did they would make sure that this stuff didnt slow down the Amiga platform reappearance.

Last edited by Mr_DBUG on 02-May-2007 at 05:53 AM.

Thanks for this clarification Hyperion, i'm with you.

Quote:

Amiga Inc. repeatedly and consistently stonewalled any attempt to resolve the outstanding issues (including the ?Party Pack? and ?I am Amiga Club? voucher schemes and the failure to acknowledge the intellectual property rights of third party developers)

I really hope Hyperion wins and these coupons can be used.

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ikir

I won't cheer on either party. It's just too sad.

One thing is certain... average Joe won't be able to
get his hands on OS4 this year either.

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AmigaOS or MorphOS on x86 would sell orders of magnitude more than the current,
hardware-intensive solutions. And they'd go faster.-- D.Haynie

It's good of you to keep us as informed as you can. I'm with you 100% Hyperion & I hope things work out good for you all after all the hard graft you've put in for AmigaOS.

FuZion.

It looks like Amiga Inc. never gave the OS code that was required for Hyperion to deliver the product as contracted. Hyperion went ahead and worked on it while Amiga Inc. paid them to continue. Amiga Inc. still did not provide their part required for the Amiga 3.x conversion and associated completion date. In the mean time, Hyperion seems to have actually created their own separate and better product.

Now Amiga Inc. wants all Hyperion's hard work. In similar fashion, Amiga Inc. also faulted on Party Pack and Amiga Club. So Amiga Inc. never needs to keep it's word and expects to walk away with everyone else's money and product? The money paid to Hyperion may as well have come from our Club payments, and not from Amiga Inc.

Hyperion have always referred other parties to negotiate with Amiga Inc. instead of acting as an authorized representative. They have provided us support and communication as much as they could. What did Amiga Inc. do the whole time besides insinuating legal action against many people who were offering them potential products?

I think the most Amiga Inc. should get is an "Amiga" license payment from Hyperion, and $25,000 refund for an undelivered 3.x code rewrite. Also, according to Amiga Inc., this was a minor product compared to their primary Amiga Anywhere product. Now they act like it's their main product. I support Hyperion all the way.

Separately and personally, I hope Amiga Inc. drops dead. Who knows how much money investors and others paid them with no results.

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Thanks for the statement Hyperion, you have my full support!!!!

Shame on you Amiga Inc!

@Colin_Camper

That doesn't tally with the quotes as you said, but I suspect we're talking at cross purposes so I'm going to drop it.

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"Miracles we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer" - AJS on Hyperion
Avatar is Tabitha by Eric W Schwartz

@stew

Quote:

That only Eyetech (Teron) boards sold with AOS4 were truly AmigaOnes.

According to the contract, only the Escena boards were AmigaOnes. Because they never went on sale and the replacement did not have a A1200/A4000 connection for custom chips compatibility, Hyperion were required to do more work than envisaged when the contract was signed.

@Hyperion
Thanks for your hard work on OS4, I hope you win this case and can continue to develop it.

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"Miracles we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer" - AJS on Hyperion
Avatar is Tabitha by Eric W Schwartz

@Manu

I suspect you're probably right... even if Amiga Inc's letter to the suppliers is correct and they expect to have the computers ready by summer (meaning less than 4-5 months from now), I very much doubt they will be running OS4. Even if this current case is settled in just a month or two (and if it was that simple it probably wouldn't have gone to court), the losing party will probably appeal anyway. Assuming that what's called "AmigaOS" after this is all over would be recognizable as such, I doubt it will appear on the market this year.

@NomadOfNorad who said Quote:

I simply refuse to believe that Amiga Inc would be that gawdawful stupid.

My personal belief is that Amiga Inc would be quite happy to see AmigaOS die, and their past behavior (since 2003) seems to strongly indicate this. The AmigaOne partnership contract was the only thing stopping them, and now Hyperion is gearing-up to sell OS4, they can use that contract against them.

Why would AI want AmigaOS to die? Some have suggested that they don't want it confused with AmigaDE, but I think it much more probably that they are only interested in the IP resale value. Of course, they can't publically say so, or they'd likely loose the current legal dispute - hence their suddenly coming to life after a long period of inactivity.

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Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

According to the contract, if AmigaOne SE/XE and microA1 boards are not considered to be "AmigaOne's", if Amiga Inc wins, it could mean that on all of these boards it will be illegal to use OS4. (anyway, it's quite interesting that microA1 boards were never called "AmigaOne"..)

The only thing i have to say about this is:

Can't we all just get allong ?

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Amiga is additive coz it is fun to use