P96 Licensing Status

[Overflow]

Just for the hypotetical scenario where P96 or Cgx becomes unavailable for Vampire.

I would STILL want and pay the same amount for the Vampire, and I suspect most of the people in queue feels the same. Both for my A600 and A1200.

So obstuctionism wont work.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by dirkies

For those who speak German, things are getting rather ugly in the a1k thread. To me is clear everyone knows the vampire could become a huge success, thus the vultures already start circling around to cash in on it. What a sad situation, hopefully common sense may prevail and not that the vampire team walks away as it's getting really political ugly wise so that it may start to discourage the team to carry on....

Maybe drop the whole p96 thing and do it another way, as this crap ain't worth it.

there are other options but all need work. Using existing software would be easiest of course. CGFX would be another option, we will see even if I am not too optimistic there. Finally when situation becomes clear decisions have to be done.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by Heiroglyph

Not to derail the thread, I think this is related.

You can't develop Cybergraphx drivers either, can you? I looked for that info years go and was told no.

Even though they charged for the software and charge for MorphOS, they don't want drivers written?

How did we end up the only OS family that I'm aware of who can't develop drivers to support the OS?

CGFX has the same problems as P96 in legal sense. It is used in and for MorphOS and can be certainly be called integral part of it. So the situation there is the same as P96. The only (in my view) realistic option is backporting of Aros RTG or create something completely new.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by idrougge

You mean just like Motorola monopolises the 68k CPU market?

it is very simple... assume you have a hardware developer who sells expensive exotic hardware, then competition is there that offers vastly superior hardware at lower prices but you lack all skills to compete. Normally simply game over for you (except some people who buy from you for nostalgic reasons). Then you have only one chance if you control the software that your competition needs to gain full power. You can then even destroy competing products by giving no licenses or make them very expensive. RTG is obvious basic for a graphic card and it is also needed for Vampire. Of course Vampire without RTG still works but it limits current features. They are also planning SAGA so that might offer the chance to get a useable system even without RTG but current it would mean a loss of functionality. In my view that all is shortsighted and will not work.

[dirkies]

Or it is vampire life-threatening some reloading project...?

[grond]

Originally Posted by SMF

I am getting drunk now so excuse for my silly proposal.

Drinking is bad for your health but your question is not silly.

But why dont the hw producers who wants to opensource other peoples work opensourcee their own work? I think it would be a good beginning if they opened up cgfx and then they open up the vampire secreeets.

There is hope that the Apollo-Core some day will be produced as an ASIC. Then we suddenly wouldn't have 100 MHz with more than twice 68060-speed but rather something like 1.5 GHz. The problem is that this would require an investor and no investor will invest into an open-sourced project for at least two reasons: a) because any competitor could do the same ruining the profit margin b) because any competitor could use the source code of the core for pointing out alleged patent infringements Let me add to that that the Vampire v1 PCB is open-sourced and that there are in fact clones of it.

[grond]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

NO-ONE unless they are monumentally stupid, sends an email telling competition of their intentions to buy the rights to something they are using, they just don't let that information get out.

They stealthily secure the rights, THEN send emails.

So I repeat, this email is bollocks, it is speculative and simply there to scare off the competition

My theory is different: some individual sees an opportunity to buy picasso96 for some money but this individual hasn't got a gfxcard on offer. The investment can only pay off, if the individual gets a gfxcard to sell which will cost both time and money for development. Now there is somebody who does a hobbyist project and will produce a gfxcard without having (large) profits in mind. The ideal victim, er, business partner for the individual. What if this hobbyist could be convinced to sell the card through the individual's computer company? The hobbyist might be convinced more easily using some pressure via picasso96. But if the plan doesn't work out, the money for picasso96 is more or less lost. How to get out of this deadlock? Try taking over the gfxcard FIRST as this in the best possible case only requires some ugly emails. Only with this product in the individual's product portfolio, picasso96 will be worth the money. That's why the individual prematurely spoke about acquiring the rights to picasso96. Since the plan apparently didn't work out and due to all the recent revelations and happenings around Amiga RTG software, I'd be very much surprised if the picasso96-deal was really going to happen.

[kolla]

Originally Posted by OlafSch

in this case (it seems) that someone wants to monopolise the market through buying a specific software.

You are, of course, talking about the Apollo core?

[kolla]

Originally Posted by gulliver

You are severely lacking memory, or you weren there in the 90´s.

Thank you!

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by kolla

You are, of course, talking about the Apollo core?

not just vampire (the most obvious one of course). All sorts of new graphics hardware (based on FPGA) needs or will need RTG support. FPGA Arcade and Vampire f.e., new graphic cards (hobby projects) and so on. There was basically only CGFX and P96 so if there is no permission for CGFX P96 would have a kind of monopoly except someone creates something different.

[Overflow]

@OlafSch

At this point I really wished I had paid attention in my german classes at highschool. The P96 thread in a1k is superactive, but its all chinese to me

[kolla]

Originally Posted by grond

The problem is that this would require an investor and no investor will invest into an open-sourced project for at least two reasons: a) because any competitor could do the same ruining the profit margin b) because any competitor could use the source code of the core for pointing out alleged patent infringements

Yes, this is why we have things like the Open Compute Project, no investors there

Let me add to that that the Vampire v1 PCB is open-sourced and that there are in fact clones of it.

Really, where?

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by Overflow

@OlafSch

At this point I really wished I had paid attention in my german classes at highschool. The P96 thread in a1k is superactive, but its all chinese to me

the short version is there was a message to the developer of a open-source FPGA based graphic card that the person sending the message is about to acquire the P96 rights, has kept amiga market alive for 10 years (very arrogant tone) and that he (the developer of the graphic card) will get in legal problems because of that if he has no agreement with the messenger, clearly threatening. The developer published the message without showing the messenger but if you look at both content, rude and arrogant tone and good german it was obvious who propably is behind it. There the discussion started, people became angry, Thor defended the P96 owners he knows from past, me and Wawa mentioning Aros components as option but being bashed for it because most people prefer original 3.X and P96. It seems that there will be more news in june (not before because both copyright owners and Thor are busy before).

[ShK]

Originally Posted by kolla

Really, where?

http://retro.68k.pl/2015/07/05/amiga-vampire-600-v1/

[Overflow]

@OlafSch

Thanks for the summary.

While developers that has provided the community with options while it was at its most dead level deserves credit for that, there is a limit to what hurbis people will tolerate before customer attitudes goes from very positive to very negative.

[cmsj]

Originally Posted by kolla

Yes, this is why we have things like the Open Compute Project, no investors there

The Open Compute Project has investors, but no profit. It doesn't exist to make profit, it's not a product.

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by OlafSch

...and Thor are busy before).

What's he busy with exactly ?
That guy spends day and night writing sheets of text, replying to each and every post, called or uncalled.

And once Gunnar posted what really happened, explaining that Thor actually told only 50% of the story, the text sheet output doubled.

So I'm having difficulty imagining he has something else to do except halt down progress and spread FUD.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

What's he busy with exactly ?
That guy spends day and night writing sheets of text, replying to each and every post, called or uncalled.

And once Gunnar posted what really happened, explaining that Thor actually told only 50% of the story, the text sheet output doubled.

So I'm having difficulty imagining he has something else to do except halt down progress and spread FUD.

I only wrote what was there... that Thor is not at home for business reasons and the same for copyright owners so nothing will happen before june. We will see.

[alexh]

The solution if deadlock occurs is to open source the hardware design API's with a low level library and let P96 drivers for that FPGA gfx card appear out of the ether that is the internet?

[wawa]

thor finally seems to have realized that rtg standard being open and in the hands of community may not be ultimate evil. and since then the thread went silent. instead there ia another one going off on a-news. however my assumption is that transaction may be underway already or at lest appointed, so there is nothing much, what we can do at this point.