Is Jens Schoenfeld (iComp) leaving the Amiga Scene?

[number6]

@Marlon

iComp just happens to side with Hyperion for some reason

this does not serve to explain somewhat?

#6

[RoC]

Originally Posted by number6

@Marlon







this does not serve to explain somewhat?



#6

Yeah that bit is clear.

The question is, why Hyperion sub-licenced in 2013 those 1.3-3.0 rights. Did they own the rights to sub-licence them?

The episode somehow repeated itself (although more subtitle) in “exclusively” licensing P96 to Hyperion and icomp.
The problem here is the exclusive part.
It is clear to me that since 2001 another actor has been distributing P96 with UAE (this is not disputed) and difficult to believe the others didn’t know when buying the rights.

Nevertheless, I respect Jens work and sad if he would decide to leave the Amiga, because he greatly contributed to the community.

[Korodny]

Originally Posted by RoC

The question is, why Hyperion sub-licenced in 2013 those 1.3-3.0 rights that to the best of my knowledge were never in Hyperion possession.

Given that AInc seemed to be completely dead, Hermans was testing how far he could go. There are several more examples for that kind of behaviour.

It's safe to assume that Hermans is involved with this P96 issue as well: Remember that Hyperion and Schönfeld initially wanted to buy the rights together, not to mention that Hermans just happens to be involved in a massive legal battle with the very same party Jens is attacking now.

[number6]

Originally Posted by RoC

Yeah that bit is clear.

The question is, why Hyperion sub-licenced in 2013 those 1.3-3.0 rights that to the best of my knowledge were never in Hyperion possession.

The episode somehow repeated itself (although more subtitle) in “exclusively” licensing P96 to Hyperion and icomp.
The problem here is the exclusive part.
It is clear to me that since 2001 another actor has been distributing P96 with UAE (this is not disputed) and difficult to believe the others didn’t know when buying the rights.

Nevertheless, I respect Jens work and sad if he would decide to leave the Amiga, because he greatly contributed to the community.

I don't think we have to resort to "best of my knowledge" to understand this.

click the vid link, then read the text

followup with a bit more info

Please understand these posts are not about assigning blame. They are an attempt to understand where and how it started, which I believe is important in gaining a rational understanding of following events that you now discuss.

#6

[ptyerman]

At last, useful and thoughtful discussion after 8 pages of the usual schoolgirl hysteria on here.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Ehem. Of course they are. Everybody is, including Jens, Hyperion, AEON or whomever I forgot. You shouldn't forget that these are all commercial vendors, and they certainly need to make a living. That is all fine with me. If you don't like their products, don't buy them.

Yup.
If they were in it only for the profit they would be busy speculating on the Bitcoin hysteria rather than the minuscule Amiga market.

Those who think this market is so milk-able should by all means create their own company and products, everyone will be better for it.

Originally Posted by Korodny

It's safe to assume that Hermans is involved with this P96 issue as well: Remember that Hyperion and Schönfeld initially wanted to buy the rights together, not to mention that Hermans just happens to be involved in a massive legal battle with the very same party Jens is attacking now.

Actually, it is not safe to assume anything when we do not have hard facts.
And currently, the only facts we have do not allow any reasonable conclusion.

The reason this kind of news transforms into irrational, emotional arguments is precisely because we assume stuff and come to conclusions based on thin air.

The only thing this does is raising everyone's blood pressure and correspondingly reducing everyone's life expectancy, and that's it.

Wait and see.
And in the meantime let's have fun with our Amigas.

[Dynamic_Computi]

Doug from 10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast here. I have spent a few days researching this topic, including communicating with Mike from Cloanto. If you have seen my past videos on my channel, you will know I have had some harsh words for Cloanto. But I did some homework and found some interesting facts. Please take a look if you have a chance.
[ Show youtube player ]

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by Dynamic_Computi

Doug from 10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast here. I have spent a few days researching this topic, including communicating with Mike from Cloanto. If you have seen my past videos on my channel, you will know I have had some harsh words for Cloanto. But I did some homework and found some interesting facts. Please take a look if you have a chance.
[ Show youtube player ]

interesting podcast... thanx

only one thing is not true

perhaps 80% of users posting were pro Jens S. but that is not representing the whole community. Also not everywhere. At least on german forums there was a divide between supporters and others and by far not 80% pro because Jens S. might be a good developer but not a nice guy. I have seen him several times attacking people doing hardware, in my view he is not a "white knight" like people looked at him but a small developer serving a limited but profitable market and doing everything to get rid of possible competition, even by making other projects looking bad. Now with heavy competition like vampire/standalone and other projects his own potentential market (f.e. for A1200 reloaded) considerably shrunk.

[roondar]

I'm not going to get into whether or not Jens is a nice guy. I only met him once and he seemed nice enough at that time, but I do not have enough info to know how he treats others outside of an Amiga convention.

Furthermore, I don't really think it's all that relevant - the people behind several other well known Amiga projects are hardly known as 'nice' either and I wouldn't bring that up when talking about their ability or lack of ability to make and sell stuff that the community wants. I wouldn't consider any of the people involved in Amiga projects 'white knights' (including Jens).

Originally Posted by OlafSch

Now with heavy competition like vampire/standalone and other projects his own potentential market (f.e. for A1200 reloaded) considerably shrunk.

I have to ask this: what heavy competition?

I mean this with all respect to the people making hardware for the Amiga, but the only real competition I've personally seen is the Vampire and that seems to be near permanently unavailable for purchase (meaning I wouldn't be able to buy one even if I wanted one*). Now, please don't take this to mean I feel this is necessarily a good thing, I'd say that proper competition would be useful for all involved.

*) Which I don't, but not because I think it's a bad product or not cool, it's just not what I'm looking for from an Amiga upgrade.

[512k]

roondar says:

I have to ask this: what heavy competition


Finally someone said it sorry but i have to agree here.The Amiga 1200 here is the one that losses out processer upgrade wise.

The 600 has the furia usually in stock

The 500 and + has the wicher 500i done in batches so sometime in stock.While there was also the HC533 this is never in stock

Also there is the mist fpga cores but i heard of issues with sound and others things i know of the fpga arcade never avalible 99 percent of the time

[Amon_RA]

Are projects like the Vampire and others actually legal? Do they have a license agreement with the only true holder of the "rights"?

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Amon_RA

Are projects like the Vampire and others actually legal?

What "others" do you mean?
Minimig? FPGA-Arcade?
WinUAE?

All these are perfectly legal as all relevant hardware patents have expired by now.
These reimplementations are not touching any copyrights.

But things like "Coffin" are of course not legal. They copy non-free stuff.

Do they have a license agreement with the only true holder of the "rights"?

It is obvious, what you are trying to imply here, but that is not helpful.
In the end the court will decide who holds what rights.

[hth313]

I should not go into this toxic place but here goes.

Software is not entirely like hardware. With hardware you sell a "thing" and with software (games may be the exception) you really sell a service. While you technically "sell a license", what you really are selling is the right to use the software and an expectation that you can get support and updates (improvements) to it.

If you buy the rights to an old software product and react like this, I can only assume that you either do not entirely understand this concept, or you bought it with intention to "milk the market" while not maintaining or improving the software (I assume the first in this case).

It matters little if Cloanto has the right to bundle an old version of the software with no rights of getting upgrades. If you improve the software, people will want your improved and maintained version. The old Cloanto version can be seen as a Demo version and many software companies provide demo/limited versions for free or low cost, with the intention to get people to try it. The users that like it and benefit from it are sooner or later likely to become customers, to get the latest and greatest version. In fact, these "lesser" versions can be viewed as marketing.

Software companies are normally happy that people try their software, it does not cost anything and it can only be good in the long run.

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by hth313

It matters little if Cloanto has the right to bundle an old version of the software with no rights of getting upgrades. If you improve the software, people will want your improved and maintained version.

P96 is old - very old. And any bugs and cumbersome behavior has become legend by now ... everybody knows what it does and how it does things and all software using P96 is already adapted to that.

So Jens would need to offer far more than just a bugfix release to convince more customers....

and there is more:
In the emails Cloanto provided Apt&Kneer stated clearly that "minor updates and bugfixes are free for everyone".
Since Jens only provides a bugfix-release, Cloanto could argue they have the right to use this new release, as the original license giver promised it....

[Amon_RA]

Originally Posted by Gorf

What "others" do you mean?

Just take the example of the Vampire.
Isn't there some P96 stuff used in their cores?

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Amon_RA

Just take the example of the Vampire.
Isn't there some P96 stuff used in their cores?

No.
(and it would make absolutely no sense.)

[grelbfarlk]

I assumed that Jens had some product that was coming out someday that would need P96, and being the stickler that he was he figured the best way of getting the source to support it properly was to buy the whole thing. And then he gets to release little bugfixes and charge a reasonable price for them. I'm kind of ok with that whole thing.

It would have been ideal for the P96 guys to say ok we'll sell this to the community first to be open sourced for $<insert five figure sum>, and if you all could not pool that money together we'll sell it to a private party for the same price.

But if it stifles innovation then I would have preferred having the legacy crusty version as the standard.

So instead what do we get, crusty version for some, still closed source, and one of the few decent hardware developers saying they'll ragequit. Then what happens?

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by Amon_RA

Just take the example of the Vampire.
Isn't there some P96 stuff used in their cores?

why and how should stuff from P96 be integrated in FPGA based hardware?

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by OlafSch

why and how should stuff from P96 be integrated in FPGA based hardware?

Maybe he meant "Isn't P96 used by the RTG on the Vampire"? Which the answer is yes. Ostensibly he was originally asking, do the FPGA solutions which use RTG graphics use P96 and are they licensed?

[dalek]

I think Jens has missed a trick here:

"Hey Cloanto, since you are really nice guys and it turns out you actually _do_ have a license to the old version (sorry for trying to call out out - I was unaware of your license because the developers did not disclose it to me - so I will be taking them to court to recover some of the purchase costs), would you like to license from me the new version of P96 for future Amiga Forever compilations? It would help me fund development and give a consistent user experience across real hardware and emulation."