War?

[michaelz]

Originally Posted by DrBong

TBH, if AInc. did sell the C= IP to Cloanto.....I have to wonder if it was theirs to sell. I'd love to see the original paperwork for transfer of ownership from Gateway, such was the dishonesty of McEwen and his crooked cronies at AInc.

Yeah, but even after that it's quite fuzzy. They made Amiga Inc go bankrupt, sold the rights to another company under their control and renamed that to Amiga Inc.

In the lawsuit between Amiga Inc and Hyperion, that was one reason they settled. Apparently (just heard it, I haven't seen proof) Amiga Inc had to produce false documents to try to win the case.

This might also make it tough on Cloanto, because indeed, if Hyperion knows something they don't; Cloanto will loose any case against them.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by DrBong

Anyway, seen all this Amiga company melodrama many times before.

exactly. nothing essential will come of this dragging the dead cadaver there and back for months and years yet to come. if you enjoy popcorn watching such a stop and go slow drama, then good for you. if you are in for some action, you must have already realized, this isnt place to get it.

[Korodny]

Originally Posted by DrBong

EDIT: This paragraph is interesting, though. Why would Hyperion need AInc.'s approval if Hyperion wants to transfer their AmigaOS 3.1 license to a 3rd party, if Cloanto actually owns it?? Hmmm.....it doesn't really add up.

Because Cloanto bought the rights from AInc. after AInc made a deal with Hyperion. AInc's deal with Cloanto can not retroactively invalidate older contracts with other parties - these contracts, like the AInc-Hyperion settlement, are still valid and the parties who signed them are still bound by the terms defined within.

Depending on the exact deal between AInc and Cloanto, AInc might very well have to ask Cloanto before giving Hyperion a thumbs up/down on transfering their license - but we don't know that, because we don't know the details of the AInc-Cloanto contract.

Originally Posted by michaelz

In the lawsuit between Amiga Inc and Hyperion, that was one reason they settled. Apparently (just heard it, I haven't seen proof) Amiga Inc had to produce false documents to try to win the case.

The judge dismissed one of the contracts they supplied during the court case, because he noticed the date it was allegedly signed didn't match the story they had previously told - it was about a week older than it could have been.

Since most of their backstory was completely made up and all the parties involved in that story were run by the exact same people, it's a safe bet most of their paperwork was made up on the spot. But the only time they got caught was the incident above.

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by wawa

exactly. nothing essential will come of this dragging the dead cadaver there and back for months and years yet to come. if you enjoy popcorn watching such a stop and go slow drama, then good for you. if you are in for some action, you must have already realized, this isnt place to get it.

Precisely. This is the sort of stuff some pundits in other Amiga forums have lived for, for many years now tragically enough, but thankfully not so much on EAB. Plenty of popcorn elsewhere for voyeurs of this slow, drawn out melodramatic rubbish.

Originally Posted by Korodny

Because Cloanto bought the rights from AInc. after AInc made a deal with Hyperion. AInc's deal with Cloanto can not retroactively invalidate older contracts with other parties - these contracts, like the AInc-Hyperion settlement, are still valid and the parties who signed them are still bound by the terms defined within.

That is obvious - no explanation is needed for this one.

Originally Posted by Korodny

Depending on the exact deal between AInc and Cloanto, AInc might very well have to ask Cloanto before giving Hyperion a thumbs up/down on transfering their license - but we don't know that, because we don't know the details of the AInc-Cloanto contract.

This is the part that I found "interesting".....and perplexing, to say the least, if I'm being completely honest. If Cloanto submitted to such conditions from AInc. just to get the sale done instead of negotiating better terms (even if it meant paying more money), then this just casts further doubt for mine over Cloanto being a professional and reputable company to do business with. Maybe Cloanto really did just get plain lucky with PPaint, and really are nothing but an Amiga one-hit wonder after all.

[Samurai_Crow]

Cloanto sold the rights to PPaint to AEon a year or so ago.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by michaelz

I have more sympathy for Cloanto. They appear to be more on our hand, than trying to get cash from our pockets

Really?
Shutting down Youtube videos of moments of Amiga history benefits us how?

Other than that, this is ridiculous and funny and sad at the same time. It's like a pack of shitty, all broken up city pigeons fighting over crumbles of soggy, dirty bread. What is the point of this, and what do the participating parties expect to get out of these actions?

It is still VERY unclear to me who OWNS this shit and who has a LICENSE for this shit. I never had teh feeling Cloanto OWNED anything, especially not trademarks, visual likeness and stuff unrelated to Amiga.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by ferrellsl

A dead-end operating system on dead-end PPC hardware. Hyperion has been sniffing around for months to find a way to make money from the renewed interest in classic Amigas spurred on by the Vampire. Why else would they start releasing their own classic ROMs?

For the same reason that Cloanto are doing it — money.

You may like or dislike Hyperion, like or dislike AmigaOS 4 or the PowerPC architecture, but fact is, the number of man years invested by Hyperion on AmigaOS 4 dwarfs Cloanto's ROM burning activities by some orders of magnitude.

Originally Posted by michaelz

Cloanto also has an operating system. They appear to be the copyright owners of everything Commodore wrote until their demise (and came with Kickstart and Workbench 3.X).

There's a different between "owning" and "doing". Cloanto owns AmigaOS 3, but they haven't made AmigaOS 3. They just copy it like anyone with an EPROM burner and two functioning disk drives can do. Hyperion (and its subcontractors) has actually done something more than re-releasing twenty-five year old binaries, although they nowadays do that as well.

Originally Posted by Overflow

I dont see packaging free emulators like a problem. They make the process/userfriendlyness higher, which some might enjoy.

That's not a problem in itself. It's just not innovative in the slightest, but just a matter of use of immaterial rights.
What makes installing WinUAE or FS-UAE less user friendly than Amiga Forever is the very fact that Cloanto own the rights to Kickstart and Workbench, which prevents anyone else from making a one-file distribution of a fully functioning emulator environment. Which puts Cloanto in a "patent troll" position rather than that of an innovator.

Note that my comment was in response to this comment:

Originally Posted by ferrellsl

Typical of Hyperion....unable to innovate so they litigate.....

Calling one party unable to innovate when the other party simply repackages twenty year old code and freeware is just frivolous.

[Retro1234]

I thought Cloanto contributed to the Aros 68k bounty and donated hardware to developers.

The cost of OS4 classic is a joke.

[kolla]

What are colors of the sides in this war then?

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by kolla

What are colors of the sides in this war then?

Money on both sides. The shittiest color.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

The cost of OS4 classic is a joke.

21 GBP is a joke? http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...oducts_id=1222

[ferrellsl]

Originally Posted by idrougge

For the same reason that Cloanto are doing it — money.

Calling one party unable to innovate when the other party simply repackages twenty year old code and freeware is just frivolous.

Exactly! My question as to why Hyperion would start selling their own classic ROMs was rhetorical but apparently you missed it.

As for Hyperion being unable to innovate, I was referring to OS4 which still has rough feature parity with an OS that's 19 years old called Windows 98. The current state of OS4 is a mess. The only "updates" that have come out over the past 13 years have been Band-Aid fixes to get it to run on even more scarce and expensive PPC processors and some patches for its still buggy USB support. There have been advances as far as 3D support but those can't be attributed to Hyperion. Still waiting for multi-user support, SMP, and memory protection.....all things that were promised years ago but Hyperion is obviously unable to deliver.....nothing frivolous there.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Calling one party unable to innovate when the other party simply repackages twenty year old code and freeware is just frivolous.

except you constantly defend a party repackaging and selling stuff upon some trademark loyality. well, we all know by now, there is one or two associated developers there dedicated to the geunine amiga to a certain historical extent, so they can force though some minor updates, especially the code they are and feel likely responsible for and are copyright owners of anyway. so far it is still repackaging old software in comparison to just any community efforts so far. just to mention icon.library replacement and a number of other isolated library substitute efforts. the ancient afa os.. the whole boing bag 4 package choice.. aros 68k.. just anything looks in comparison with the above community driven initiatives, rather bleak..

[wawa]

Originally Posted by idrougge

21 GBP is a joke? http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/...oducts_id=1222

you can have all this functionality for free, plus extras. especially under uae, where it still makes most sense. you want be restricted by flaky installation, altogether two or thre steps to achieve it in comparison to three or four pages of a strictly to be followed guide.. guess where..

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by Akira

I never had teh feeling Cloanto OWNED anything, especially not trademarks, visual likeness and stuff unrelated to Amiga.

And they don't. That's why they never joined any public discussion (like this one here) and answered questions honestly.

They do, however, have plenty of time to harass people (myself included) through PMs.

I hope this fight ends with a double KO!

[wawa]

Originally Posted by Lord Aga

I hope this fight ends with a double KO!

why to hope for that? however it ends it will have literally zero consequences. its for the community to get their act together, and cooperate with each other, if there is something people think to be worth to cooperate towards, that is. anything else is irrelevant, except for some popcorn drama.

[edd_jedi]

What a pathetic waste of money and energy this all is. The Amiga IP hasn't had any value for two decades.

While Hyperion are certainly involved, it may be wise to take a "wait and see" attitude on this while more probing is done on the origin of these applications.
Hyperion don't have the money to risk on lawsuits. A-Eon however do, and they have quite a say in Hyperion's running after the bailout. My bet is a lot of this is coming from behind Hyperion.

[Korodny]

Originally Posted by DrBong

If Cloanto submitted to such conditions from AInc. just to get the sale done instead of negotiating better terms

What conditions? Hyperion being able to transfer their license (with AInc's consent) was not negotiable, and we don't know if Cloanto's deal with AInc gives them a say in such a transfer - it may very well do. I don't care either way, I'm just saying you don't have enough information to make a judgement on Cloanto's professionalism or reputation.

Also keep in mind that Cloanto is basically a one-man effort, just like Hyperion. He seems to follow a more sane, low-key approach when doing business - like not spending hundreds of thousands of dollars he doesn't have on a lawsuit on the other side of the Atlantic - but it's probably safe to assume his pockets aren't all that deep. If the choice was between 'don't buy' and 'buy at a sane price, but let the Belgium lawyer keep some rights', I know what I'd choose.

Maybe Cloanto really did just get plain lucky with PPaint, and really are nothing but an Amiga one-hit wonder after all.

Again: I'm not trying to defend Cloanto. But they've been doing business in this market since the late eighties. And in contrast to Hyperion, the never went bankrupt, don't have a long history of legal disputes with most of their former business partners and didn't scare away 90% of the developers who used to work for them. Btw., parts of the Commodore's 3.0/3.1 distribution are (c) Cloanto - some printer driver code, IIRC.

This situation is simply what you end up with once the big names loose interest in your IP. It's already a mess and it keeps getting worse - because nobody has (a) enough money (b) enough hindsight (c) not too much ego to actually solve this. But they all think somehow getting their hands on the IP or at least parts of it is going to make them fucking rich.

[drHirudo]

Originally Posted by wawa

you can have all this functionality for free, plus extras. especially under uae, where it still makes most sense. you want be restricted by flaky installation, altogether two or thre steps to achieve it in comparison to three or four pages of a strictly to be followed guide.. guess where..

I guess you've never touched AmigaOS 4 and just come here to troll. I used AmigaOS 3 for years and roughly the same time AmigaOS 4 and the difference is pretty obvious. You never can get the AmigaOS 4 functionality on AmigaOS 3 with any Aminet patches or any patches that exist. AmigaOS 4 is a generation ahead of AmigaOS 3.