*shakes head*

I dunno even know what to say...

_________________
...wait... what?

Cough, if these legal issues have gone from just negotiation to actual court action, I hope Hyperion wins. Also, I'm hoping these matters will be resolved before December so there will be no holdup when os4 final and new hardware are both ready. :)

Thank you for making this statement Hyperion. It's good to hear that development hasnt ceased.

EDIT: It seems that because Hyperion were the ones that pushed hard for the dispute to be settled by the lawyers, that they believe strongly that they're right and their case is legally sound.

Last edited by jahc on 20-Sep-2006 at 12:36 AM.

Hi,

I'm sorry to hear that there are any disputes! Why does it have to be this way eveytime something Amiga related starts to go forward? I don't know what the argument is about, however, considering the fact that Amiga Inc have had problems with almost anybody who worked with them (or for them), I may easily assume that the problems are Amiga Inc's fault. They are just being greedy!

In this situation, in which Hyperion really have delivered and Amiga Inc. really did nothing, I hope Hyperion win and make good profit out of the OS4 project. I alreay have 2 AmigaOnes and will buy a third just to support Hyperion.

Firbodi

PS: Oh! And to me an OS5 that is being written by Amiga Inc without any relation to OS4 is not an AmigaOS, no matter what Amiga Inc want to call it!

Last edited by firbodi on 20-Sep-2006 at 01:31 AM.
Last edited by firbodi on 20-Sep-2006 at 01:29 AM.

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Hey folks, get a grip.

Any agreement of any importance at all BETTER be going through lawyers if either party to this agreement has a clue. Just because there are lawyers involved does not imply there is any large dispute, nor does it imply anyone will be heading off to court.

Both parties are just being very careful to protect their own interests. It sounds like they have differing opinions and this is exactly how to sort them out *on paper*.

Last edited by gregthecanuck on 20-Sep-2006 at 05:59 AM.

Quote:

In this situation, in which Hyperion really have delivered and Amiga Inc. really did nothing, I hope Hyperion win and make good profit out of the OS4 project. I alreay have 2 AmigaOnes and will buy a third just to support Hyperion.

Well, Bill McEwen says they have paid the buyback money and also tens of thousands of dollars to have OS4 ported to the IBM PDA reference platform, which is also still in legal holdup. So why don't they have the sources? Hyperion has produced something, yes. They have produced an OS which has 40 different owners. Each with their own little bit of code that they claim Amiga cannot have in the buyback, including ExecSG. Do you see the irony in this all?

Quote:

Judging from some of the e-mails we received, the recent comments by the Amiga Inc. management seem to have created confusion with respect to the development and availability of Amiga OS 4.0.

Well, when the coders themself are saying "I own my part of the code and Amiga cannot purchase it back" I don't think that is confusing. Nor do I believe that Hyperion has development completely in it's hands as the individual developers are still claiming their part of the code, so unless a settlement has been agreed upon, Hyperion have no more control than Amiga Inc do, from what I see. We've even seen today a statement that says you can no longer get hardware licensing from Amiga, because they don't have the right to ExecSG, and you must ask the coders of that bit directly.

Last edited by Herewegoagain on 20-Sep-2006 at 02:42 AM.

@Rogue & Hyperion

Firstly, many thanks to Hyperion (and yourself Rogue) for noting the concerns of the community and taking the time to give us an official update on the current situation and AInc.'s recent statements.

If you would be so kind as to indulge us a little further, I do have some comments/questions concerning this statement though. For instance...

Quote:

As managing partner of Hyperion Entertainment VOF, I would like to take this opportunity to assure our customers that development of Amiga OS 4.0 is entirely in Hyperion's hand alone...

I'm not sure that it was ever in question as to who's hands the development of OS4 was in, however, what's really in question (and worrisome) is the ownership of the various pieces of the OS, like for instance ExecSG, the key component of the OS, which belongs to the yourself and your brother and not Hyperion OR AInc. I find it perplexing that a company would contract someone to code a critical component of their OS and yet leave the ownership of it in the hands of the contractor. You seem to have pulled yourself a Microsoft-IBM MS-DOS style contract if this is in fact the case, where you in essence license guaranteed access to and use of the code to Hyperion and AInc. in OS4, but retain full rights and ownership to the code and source. Brilliant for you, but quite a messy and convoluted licensing setup, IMHO!

Quote:

There are no development hold-ups of any kind...

I don't think anyone ever doubted any holdups in the development. What was in question was the legal holdups that we just found about this past week.

Quote:

...and we are in fact anticipating an initial "final release candidate" by the end of 2006 provided suitable hardware is available for sale at that time.

So if I may ask, can we assume that by "final release candidate" you mean that the actual final release won't come until after this date, so probably not until Spring or Summer of 2007 at earliest?!?!

Thanks again!

Last edited by elatour on 20-Sep-2006 at 03:00 AM.
Last edited by elatour on 20-Sep-2006 at 02:56 AM.

_________________
When swimming with sharks, make sure to bring lots of band-aids...

I am not trying to take sides in any debate here, but I think it is important to view the
developers of OS4 and Hyperion as two seperate entities. Previous comments by Rogue
and EntilZha would seem to support this (just a general observation). Lets be careful with
who we throw are praise too. The developers certainly deserve all the praise, but I don't
have enough facts to say that Hyperion as a whole deserves the same credit. I will reserve
that decision for a later date as more information allows.

C Snyder

_________________
"Space Mountain might be the oldest ride in the park, but it still has one of the longest lines!" - Ric Flair

I think Hyperion's angle on this is that they expect Amiga Inc to not get OS4. If you look at it this way, then here is no problem because all the contractors are OK with Hyperion releasing their work as part OS4, and all of Hyperion's and the Frieden's statements suddenly make sense.

Now here's something to think about : If you look at the statements that Amiga Inc has made, it really sounds like they want to buy OS4 so they can bury it (all the comments about OS4 soon going to be irrelevant, announcing their own competing OS, etc). If Genesi are smart, they'll step in at this moment and help Hyperion with their legal troubles (lawyers are expensive!). Hyperion and the contractors will then see Genesi as their ally against those trying to bury their work, and the bad vibes from a few years ago will be forgotten (remember, Genesi sued amiga, inc, not Hyperion - all that happened between Genesi and Hyperion was some sabre rattling). Result: If Hyperion wins, everyone benefits.

Last edited by CodeSmith on 20-Sep-2006 at 03:41 AM.

And unfortunately, unless someone decides to actually inform us of whats happening behind the scenes, everyones going to come up with conspiracy theories like post #8. And I dont think Amiga Inc and Hyperion will tell us, even after the legal dispute is settled. We'll have to wait and see.

Note: I'm not requesting more info. I can understand why they would not want to discuss details.

@jahc

Hey!

oh crap... i mostly look positive on things, but this thread is getting to me... :(
and no mesa in aos4 final, that could be interpreted as the finaal version will be out
very soon, and mesa soon after, but it looks like the final version is taking it's time.
update #5 would be sweet, i need something to be happy about. all positive things
seems to have a bitter after taste around here lately.
aincs os5? yea right. ainc get a new name for your os, don't try to force it down
my throat, i ain't interested. i am an amiga user, not a sheep that wants your
amiga branded crap products that sorely lacks amiga spirit.
!!eid !cnia eid

_________________
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http://www.asciiarena.com
http://www.uprough.net

spotup: nah, keep calm.

If there is available hw there will be OS4 also.

So keep smiling and keep dooing what you did before you saw this thread if it indeed was something cool

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@Herewegoagain

Quote:

Well, Bill McEwen says they have paid the buyback money and also tens of thousands of dollars to have OS4 ported to the IBM PDA reference platform, which is also still in legal holdup. So why don't they have the sources? Hyperion has produced something, yes. They have produced an OS which has 40 different owners. Each with their own little bit of code that they claim Amiga cannot have in the buyback, including ExecSG. Do you see the irony in this all?

I suppose they paid Hyperion to get the clause in place, not activate it. According to Rogue
it still isn't.
Amiga Inc. simply paid (licenced so to speak) Hyperion for a port. Doesn't mean they own
any code.
Again once a release has been made I would think no author can remove his binary part.
But you are correct in assuming they could withdraw their sources from further updates.
This have already happend once I think, with the powerpc.library. The coder has stopped
updating it. I guess WarpUp/PowerUp support won't be included in OS4 final.
We simply do not know how their contracts are set up so all this is speculation anyway.

Irony? Could it have been done in any other way? To own all code they would first have to
buy the existing sources for all the modules and then pay all the coders (around 40 people)
salory for 4 years. This with 1000-1500 sold copies. 100$ per copy of OS4 wouldn't have
been enough in a long shot. Try 1500$ per copy just to cover the development.


Quote:

Bill McEwen: "With regard to the “buyback” that everyone seems to know about, that money was paid and a contract signed by Ben Hermans on April 24th, 2003. Hyperion contacted us in desperate need of the funds immediately and we made the arrangements and sent them the money, which they received and they then signed the contract."

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[SOLD] µA1-C - 750GX 800MHz - 512MB - Antec Aria case

Avatar by HNL_DK!

@Samwel

Quote:

To own all code they would first have to buy the existing sources for all the modules and then pay all the coders (around 40 people) salory for 4 years. This with 1000-1500 sold copies. 100$ per copy of OS4 wouldn't have been enough in a long shot. Try 1500$ per copy just to cover the development.

It's amazing to me that suddenly everbody's an expert regarding the contract between Amiga, Inc and Hyperion and the contracts between Hyperion and the developers that have contributed to AmigaOS 4.0.

Cheers,
Rich

meh, I'll just wait to see how things how play out. Personally, I'm just looking forward to what the Italians produce at Pianeta. They won the World Cup may be they'll win the race to bring new hardware out first too .

Thanks for this clarification. Good work.

_________________
ikir

Looks like Amiga User may again be screwed.

_________________

Quote:

tens of thousands of dollars to have OS4 ported to the IBM PDA reference platform,which is also still in legal holdup.

Amiga paid for the port to the Artic, yes, based on an hourly rate. What is the point?

Quote:

So why don't they have the sources?

Sorry to be blunt, but do you have the sources to Windows XP? I don't, and I paid hundreds of Euros for it.

Quote:

Well, when the coders themself are saying "I own my part of the code and Amiga cannot purchase it back" I don't think that is confusing.

For the sake of goodness, can you *please* *finally* stop making assumptions? Why do you think that Hyperion hasn't got development completely in its hand when it says in their official statement that there is no issue with Development?

I just don't get it, really. Why DO you have to read things into statements that are SIMPLE NOT THERE?

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Quote:

So why don't they have the sources?

Simple: The source code was not included in the deal... Surprised at this rather logical explanation ?

I also don't understand what's the big fuss about me and Hans-Jörg owning ExecSG. Hyperion has a license to include it in OS4, so it is in OS4. What's the deal ?

Last edited by EntilZha on 20-Sep-2006 at 07:15 AM.

_________________
Thomas, the kernel guy

"I don't have a frigging clue. I'm norwegian" -- Ole-Egil

All opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily represent those of Hyperion Entertainment

Quote:

what's really in question (and worrisome) is the ownership of the various pieces of the OS,

What exactly is worrisome about that? There are contracts in place that regulate what can be done and what not, there is absolutely nothing to worry about.

Quote:

So if I may ask, can we assume that by "final release candidate" you mean that the actual final release won't come until after this date, so probably not until Spring or Summer of 2007 at earliest?!?!

As I said on the IRC conference, the release date we're going for is end of the year, that's what Evert means here. You are jumping to conclusions again, even if we're talking about a release candidate it wouldn't need to take until even February of 2007 - I distinctively said before that I estimate two months between finalization and release.

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