P96 Licensing Status

[Cylon]

There will be an official announcement soon, i am sure. hold on to your panties. ;-)

[Overflow]

Originally Posted by dirkies

To Jens' defense: thanks to him the Amiga market survived all those last years while 90s accelerators were resold for silly prices, his hardware has always been top notch build quality, his after sales support aswell, and frankly i do not regret buying any stuff from him. I also have no problem he makes money out of it, it's his full time job! It's not that one out of context mail suddenly makes him an enemy of Amiga. He's not perfect and neither is any of us.

+1

I have several pieces of IC hardware, and are very happy with them.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by Interceptor

so after 9 pages of this crap, did Jens write that original 'threat message' or not?

Yes/No/We Don't know yet?

simple answer: yes.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by Overflow

+1

I have several pieces of IC hardware, and are very happy with them.

i for my part only own an older x-suff model which i bought second hand to discover that it was simply an isa card hacked atop another board with some zorro glue logic. it worked flawlessly, nevertheless. however everybody will probably tell a different story, and since the 90ies there never was any hardware that could compete with those silly priced higher end accelerators. not till vampire project.

[dirkies]

Don't forget that back in the 90s accelerators and gfx cards were very expensive. Adjust those prices to inflation today and it will make Icomp products look cheap!

[daxb]

Originally Posted by OlafSch

<br />
<br />

now what? The person behind now officially is the suspected

Yes, now what? I think the whole amiga market/"community" ends. Ok, joking. Of course I don`t think so. For me all was and is still fine, except the strange discussion. And by the way, I never said that the mail wasn`t written by Jens. For me it was all the same who wrote it. In the case you don`t belive me, ask ground. I answered to a pm from him yesterday where I wrote it already.

[ExiE]

Originally Posted by dirkies

Don't forget that back in the 90s accelerators and gfx cards were very expensive. Adjust those prices to inflation today and it will make Icomp products look cheap!

It is not possible campare prices of hardware like that. The usability of hardware was totally different.

[dirkies]

The law of Moore does not count here. Amiga died in 1994, all the rest was just keeping the platform on life support. Respect to those who kept it alive...

[ExiE]

Originally Posted by dirkies

To Jens' defense: thanks to him the Amiga market survived all those last years while 90s accelerators were resold for silly prices, his hardware has always been top notch build quality, his after sales support aswell,

Seems to me like nice example of selective memory Just few cases: Indivision MK2 config tool, RapidRoad...

[McTrinsic]

The complete context is not available. Jens did not publish any direct communication between him and the other guy. He listed a series of communications which was confirmed and showed that there was IMHO a huge potential that the message we saw was torn out of context as it is one of the middle mails.
Bottom line, however, is that Jens seems to have the plan to buy the P96 DDK *in order to release it for free*.

Thanks,
McT

[gulliver]

Some of you have memroy issues:

In the early 90´s and up to when CBM went bust, prices were high, but were reasonably high as the hardware sold was matching the technology of that era. On the other hand you bought things brand new and had customer support and valid warranties. Furthermore, hardware was pretty abundant.

Back in the late 90´s beginning 2000, second hand high end accelerators and Amiga stuff was abundant and extremely cheap. This was due to the massive wave of users that were finally leaving the Amiga.

For example, I remember getting a BlizzardPPC in Amibench was about 150 USD.
Ebay pages with Amiga stuff listed were more than I could bare search.

Then, like about five/ten years ago, this retro computing culture hit top spot. Many hardware retro collectors appeared and prices went up, and still go up, to reach incredible heights. You can even witness hardware priced much higher than when it was brand new, state of the art, more than two decades ago.

So, saying that Amiga stuff in the 90´s was extremely expensive doesnt accurately depict the real happennings. Today prices are very high with second hand pretty outdated Amiga hardware and the trend seems to go that way driving vintage sites and ebay lurkers insane.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by McTrinsic

The complete context is not available. Jens did not publish any direct communication between him and the other guy. He listed a series of communications which was confirmed and showed that there was IMHO a huge potential that the message we saw was torn out of context as it is one of the middle mails.
Bottom line, however, is that Jens seems to have the plan to buy the P96 DDK *in order to release it for free*.

Thanks,
McT

he buys it and give it away for charity? You really believe that? I do not. We will see who is right

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by kipper2k

this is like "He who controls the spice controls the universe.". Now that there has been an Amiga revival as such. P96 is the key to high resolution performance and if a person can lock up the rights it can become a valuable commodity and force other developers to pay up or stop developing.

What's the problem? You pay for your chips and connectors, why not the software?

[OlafSch]

I just read it... it will be free of charge for developers but users have to pay for it. I assume that it will not be available in current form because most users did not pay for the license.

Addition... users have to buy it in his shop

[cmsj]

Originally Posted by OlafSch

I just read it... it will be free of charge for developers but users have to pay for it. I assume that it will not be available in current form because most users did not pay for the license.

Addition... users have to buy it in his shop

That could happen without any changes to the P96 binaries - the archive on aminet right now says it's shareware and you're supposed to register it.

he could just open a registration page that lets us pay some money and make our P96 installs legitimate.

If that is what happens, I think it would go a long way to repair the damage done here.

Alternatively, he could release an updated version of P96 that removes the shareware model and is only available from his site with registration. That would still be something, in that we'd be getting fixes/features.

The worst move would be that the free DDK is licensed such that you can *only* use it to make drivers for the new P96.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by cmsj

That could happen without any changes to the P96 binaries - the archive on aminet right now says it's shareware and you're supposed to register it.<br />
<br />
he could just open a registration page that lets us pay some money and make our P96 installs legitimate.<br />
<br />
If that is what happens, I think it would go a long way to repair the damage done here.<br />
<br />
Alternatively, he could release an updated version of P96 that removes the shareware model and is only available from his site with registration. That would still be something, in that we'd be getting fixes/features.<br />
<br />
The worst move would be that the free DDK is licensed such that you can *only* use it to make drivers for the new P96.

<br />
<br />
He announced to buy it and even invest money in development. The old free P96 archive in aminet is a problem there, everybody shall buy a license from his shop so he will certainly think about how to get rid of that. We will see what will happen. I cannot remember him saying what will happen with the old one just that the new archive will be different for legal reasons. In the past there was already personal paint removed from aminet. The problem is there are certainly millions of P96 archives circulating around, almost impossible to remove. I do not know exactly what he plans.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by cmsj

The worst move would be that the free DDK is licensed such that you can *only* use it to make drivers for the new P96.

According to the A1k statement, that is out of the question.

[grond]

For some reason the amount of money required to buy the rights has always been estimated to be in the five-digit range. It appears unlikely that such an investment would pay off selling licenses to the original package on aminet. In my opinion it would even be difficult to do so by selling updates but I don't know Jens's sales figures for the other software he offers. I also don't think there is any potential to pull off some Microsoft move. If his stuff ends up being incompatible to the old picasso or to cybergraphx, it won't get used much. That's why I believe the money involved is much lower than what's been speculated and it will be in a range that can pay off selling distribution rights to small scale gfxcard manufacturers. The user license revenue will be a nice little extra. Of course there is some interest to make people believe he pays a lot of money as that will make his demands for OEM licenses appear more reasonable.

Personally I don't see much potential for damage here. Software, especially some driver stuff, is worth some money after all. I'd prefer free software but I agree with Olaf here: the community gets what it deserves. If there is not enough life in the community to come up with fully functional free alternatives to picasso, amigaos, tcp/ip, usb drivers and so on, well, that is that.

[OlafSch]

@grond<br />
<br />
it is not only if there is enough life for alternatives (indeed there is and components could be backported) but most people exactly want certain commercial components (only think of the partly hateful reactions when aros was announced as primary target platform for vampire). I needed some time to understand because I always thought that people would finally prefer a free alternative, but I was wrong. That will also mean that they have to pay for anything like the 4.X users all always made a fun of. It is their decision so they have to live (and pay) with the consequences. There were always people forecasting that but I did not want to believe it (silly me) but even I learn after some time. Now to all... pay (for everything), your choice your money

[Zetr0]

I am just going to highlight a few bits here (not trolling anyone)

Originally Posted by cmsj

That could happen without any changes to the P96 binaries - the archive on aminet right now says it's shareware and you're supposed to register it.

Legally speaking, once something is in the public domain (in part or in whole) it cannot be taken out.

Originally Posted by cmsj

he could just open a registration page that lets us pay some money and make our P96 installs legitimate.

If that is what happens, I think it would go a long way to repair the damage done here.

The damage at the moment is negligible, only words, puff and bluster - the *damage* will come when products requiring the use of p96 are denied licensees in favour of others, or even priced out of the market.

It wouldn't be the first time developers got a "fuck off" price from Jen's

Originally Posted by cmsj

Alternatively, he could release an updated version of P96 that removes the shareware model and is only available from his site with registration. That would still be something, in that we'd be getting fixes/features.

One thing sticks with me, in regards to the certain handful of products, and I am paraphrasing "we don't have money for product support"

Have a search on these fair boards and you will find the direct quote.

Originally Posted by cmsj

The worst move would be that the free DDK is licensed such that you can *only* use it to make drivers for the new P96.

I will be honest CGX is far better than P96 - consider P96 the lowest common denominator - it was only really popularized with WinUAE and to some extent the Mediator series of adaptors.

Originally Posted by OlafSch

<br />
<br />
He announced to buy it and even invest money in development. The old free P96 archive in aminet is a problem there, everybody shall buy a license from his shop so he will certainly think about how to get rid of that. We will see what will happen. I cannot remember him saying what will happen with the old one just that the new archive will be different for legal reasons. In the past there was already personal paint removed from aminet. The problem is there are certainly millions of P96 archives circulating around, almost impossible to remove. I do not know exactly what he plans.

The only way Jen's (or anyone) would invest money is if there is a financial return on that investment, and I suspect in this case that will be a 12 month cycle.

I have to admit reading about a developer whom loses his shit over a competing RTG graphics adaptor - so much so he will "threaten" to buy the rights to deny any chance of a completing its development under threat of law - that maybe some businesses, but its not one I would want to do any trade with.

If this is all true, then this is kind of activity is utter bullshit and as a community we shouldn't stand for it, let alone it being a 100% dick move against the community - I am very incensed about what I perceive as an injustice, this is NOT the community I want for our hobby.

So much so - I will spend the rest of the year developing a CGX or even an open platform driver - its been a while since I hit the metal on the Amiga, and this kind of activity can really motivate (kick in the arse) to change things.

There is always Kickstarter, Indigogo and GoFund me if anyone wants to raise a bit on the existing P96 worth.