Who owns "Amiga"?

[Pat the Cat]

On topic - apparently lot of research done on who exactly owns what and why.

Interesting that the legal transfer of copyright from CBM was never offered as evidence in court... also interesting that the author is still looking for some "explosive" official documents.

https://sites.google.com/site/amigadocuments/

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Pat the Cat

On topic - apparently lot of research done on who exactly owns what and why.

Interesting that the legal transfer of copyright from CBM was never offered as evidence in court... also interesting that the author is still looking for some "explosive" official documents.

https://sites.google.com/site/amigadocuments/

Ambitious document.. Lots of research went into it..

I suppose just to add more confusion there are individuals listed on this page that own some bits and pieces of what is OS3.9 and part of the Official Amiga brand/product?

http://www.haage-partner.de/amiga/aos39/aos39who.htm

[Pat the Cat]

(Scratches head)

Nope, no claims of ownership, just claims of project management and work done...

... not a dig at 3.9, I never even saw it running or touched a copy of the thing so I cannot really offer an informed opinion on that.

Perhaps one of these days I'll buy a copy and see just what I've been missing...

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Pat the Cat

(Scratches head)

Nope, no claims of ownership, just claims of project management and work done...

... not a dig at 3.9, I never even saw it running or touched a copy of the thing so I cannot really offer an informed opinion on that.

Perhaps one of these days I'll buy a copy and see just what I've been missing...

You can't really tell from that document, but as I understand it, a lot of people were hired to write code for OS3.5 / OS3.9 and Haage Partner got distribution rights but did not own the sources. So unless I get this thing wrong, there are inddividuals out there who still own their IP so no single company owns the right to everything that is OS3.9

I'm sure you've ran across a "whats new in OS 3.9 -list" like this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmigaO...aOS_3.5.2C_3.9

If you ask me, OS3.9, (while modernizing the Amiga OS experience (anno 2002) and in many cases simply updating the codebase so it would compile on more common compilers as we heard in stories from Olaf Barthel) is kind of a leap away from the elegant simplicity of 3.1
In fact, just the other day I decided to update my aging install on the A1200 by doing a clean OS3.9 install on PFS (Professional File System -allowing partitions bigger than 4GB)
I did the the whole process from WinUAE and it took a bunch of hours to set everything up.. but while most stuff worked, screen prefs crashed every time I tried to start it for some reason then minutes later the whole thing froze, and now I think the whole CF card went corrupt and is no longer recognized. Sigh...
OS3.1 you can easily install from floppies on a real Amiga from CLI without installer disk and it just works. Most of the crap in OS3.9 you can add later form Aminet. ;-)

[wawa]

thats what i have told you earlier in the thread about opening the sources. os 3.9 in comparison with 3.1 is for a large part clumsy and overblown package of independant patches and contributions. especially that they eventually introduce new bugs and incompatibilities, that would have to be handled by subsequent boing ball packages and individual patches. in result the system needs to patch the kickstart and reboot, which may finally take about a minute alltogether, while the genuine amiga experience is almost instant on.

this whole management mess is fine if the user has means, patience and knowledge to tinker and set his system up. but generally each and every upgrade solution after 1993 was a sort of hack, be it hardware or software.

amiga doesnt need to be like this. the system should install by drag and drop decompressing to a boot drive, work on any configuration out of the box, be simple , up to date and maintainable by the community.

[idrougge]

It's no wonder your OS crashes if your installation medium has gone bad. Would happen under 3.1 and 1.3 as well.

People tend to fixate on the crap in OS 3.9 instead of focusing on the fact that the core OS has been updated. You can throw out the crap from 3.9 just as easily as you can add it to 3.1.

[matthey]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

You can't really tell from that document, but as I understand it, a lot of people were hired to write code for OS3.5 / OS3.9 and Haage Partner got distribution rights but did not own the sources. So unless I get this thing wrong, there are individuals out there who still own their IP so no single company owns the right to everything that is OS3.9

My understanding is more like H&P was contracted to create an AmigaOS update. They wrote some of the code but also sub-contracted some 3rd party software that was already created to save time rather than reinvent the wheel. The individual sub-contracts varied from entity to entity which was probably a mistake but I expect kept the cost down and likelihood of inclusion high. I don't believe H&P was ever completely paid under their contract so they probably retain some rights to some of the code even though they may not be able to sell them to a third party depending on what their contract says.

Originally Posted by eXeler0

If you ask me, OS3.9, (while modernizing the Amiga OS experience (anno 2002) and in many cases simply updating the codebase so it would compile on more common compilers as we heard in stories from Olaf Barthel) is kind of a leap away from the elegant simplicity of 3.1

There were many bug fixes and improvements made to AmigaOS 3.9 which needed to be done. The developers were limited that they were not allowed to create a new (kickstart) ROM but the whole AmigaOS needed attention. This is why you got the startup kludge. If you have an accelerator with MAPROM then it is a non-issue. Optimization was not a primary goal for an OS that needed major changes but there are still parts of AmigaOS 3.9 which are significantly faster like layers.library (better algorithm), and parts of exec.library like CopyMem()/CopyMemQuick and dynamic memory use with fragmented memory.

I don't believe much changed with the compiler situation other than cleanup for maintainability. Most of the code is still compiled with SAS/C which uses SAS/C features which were requested by C= AmigaOS developers (read ThoR comments for verification). The intuition.library was compiled with the ancient Green Hills compiler and was such a mess that it was difficult to update to even SAS/C (read Olaf comments). There are a few of the third party utilities which are compiled with GCC also. I doubt there is less elegance or simplicity to the sources now. Rather the old code probably used macros and special handling of C code to optimize to the limits of what compilers were capable of then but at the expense of simplicity, readability and maintainability.

Originally Posted by wawa

thats what i have told you earlier in the thread about opening the sources. os 3.9 in comparison with 3.1 is for a large part clumsy and overblown package of independant patches and contributions. especially that they eventually introduce new bugs and incompatibilities, that would have to be handled by subsequent boing ball packages and individual patches. in result the system needs to patch the kickstart and reboot, which may finally take about a minute alltogether, while the genuine amiga experience is almost instant on.

this whole management mess is fine if the user has means, patience and knowledge to tinker and set his system up. but generally each and every upgrade solution after 1993 was a sort of hack, be it hardware or software.

No doubt updating the AmigaOS and un-bottling it on faster machines uncovered more bugs. My perspective is that many more bugs and incompatibilities were fixed than added. Sure, there was eye candy and 3rd party tools included which could have been better but I think the idea was that it was nice to assemble them for the customer. Is all the software included with AROS high quality too?

Originally Posted by wawa

amiga doesnt need to be like this. the system should install by drag and drop decompressing to a boot drive, work on any configuration out of the box, be simple, up to date and maintainable by the community.

It is nice that the AmigaOS can be simply copied to install it and that it comes with drive and installation utilities. That is 2 advantages over most OEM Windows products. I don't know about a drag and drop installation feature being the best idea though.

Originally Posted by idrougge

People tend to fixate on the crap in OS 3.9 instead of focusing on the fact that the core OS has been updated. You can throw out the crap from 3.9 just as easily as you can add it to 3.1.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by idrougge

It's no wonder your OS crashes if your installation medium has gone bad. Would happen under 3.1 and 1.3 as well.

Yes, for sure, bad CF will even have Windoze choking, but that wasn't what I tried to say (I also obviously know that Screen Prefs works in OS39 as my old install is OS39 (and it works fine basically))
What I tried to say is that particular moment I realized the CF had gone bad I really wished I had chosen the much quicker OS3.1 install. (= less wasted time.. I do this like every 5 years, so I don't have a good/quick routine)

Originally Posted by idrougge

People tend to fixate on the crap in OS 3.9 instead of focusing on the fact that the core OS has been updated. You can throw out the crap from 3.9 just as easily as you can add it to 3.1.

OS3.9 has served me well for a couple of years now, so I have no intention of bashing it or implying its a "bad" thing, and the numerous bug fixes and modernizations are welcomed, but tbh these days when my Amigas mostly run the occasional game and demo and not used for everything else I used to do on it in the late 90 I think I prefer the "lightweight" OS3.1 after all.

Or maybe I should go "All in" and try something like AKReal

@thread : sorry for drifting OT

[Korodny]

Originally Posted by matthey

H&P [...] wrote some of the code

They actually wrote very little code - pretty much only those things that never made it into AmigaOS 4: IIRC, the new installer used in 3.5+ (which could run on its own screen and pop up pictures while installing) and a few prefs programs which had been rewritten to use a Reaction GUI - that's it.

I don't believe H&P was ever completely paid under their contract so they probably retain some rights to some of the code

It was the other way round - H&P were the ones paying AInc. H&P were not contracted to do 3.9, they licensed the source and the trademark from AInc so they could develop and market 3.5/3.9 themselves.

The license from AInc was limited to a few years and it was revoked early anyway, due to unpaid royalties and/or disagreements regarding Amithlon's legal status. The licenses from the external developers (for the improvements/new modules they had contributed to 3.5/3.9) all had a limited lifetime aswell and have all expired long ago.

These days, H&P only owns the right to the code that was written in-house (not much, see above).

[matthey]

Originally Posted by Korodny

They actually wrote very little code - pretty much only those things that never made it into AmigaOS 4: IIRC, the new installer used in 3.5+ (which could run on its own screen and pop up pictures while installing) and a few prefs programs which had been rewritten to use a Reaction GUI - that's it.

I didn't think H&P wrote much but included software they already had like WarpOS and Warp3D.

Originally Posted by Korodny

It was the other way round - H&P were the ones paying AInc. H&P were not contracted to do 3.9, they licensed the source and the trademark from AInc so they could develop and market 3.5/3.9 themselves.

Interesting. So did H&P approach Amiga Inc. or did Amiga Inc. approach H&P about doing an AmigaOS update?

Originally Posted by Korodny

The license from AInc was limited to a few years and it was revoked early anyway, due to unpaid royalties and/or disagreements regarding Amithlon's legal status. The licenses from the external developers (for the improvements/new modules they had contributed to 3.5/3.9) all had a limited lifetime aswell and have all expired long ago.

That may be true of purely 3rd party software but some AmigaOS source was enhanced by 3rd parties like ThoR's layers.library. He supposedly asks "someone" permission to release updates but supposedly retains copyrights on his changes. Both ThoR and Olsen are still around and seem interested in further AmigaOS updates, or at least bug fixes but the powers that be don't seem interested in the 68k despite more Amiga interest in the 68k as demonstrated by more 68k Vampire accelerators being sold than PPC hardware. I guess the PPC was being threatened by the Amithlon sales and had to be stopped too?

[Korodny]

Originally Posted by matthey

I didn't think H&P wrote much but included software they already had like WarpOS and Warp3D.

Warp 3D never was a H&P product. H&P did write some code for 3.9, but nothing essential.

Interesting. So did H&P approach Amiga Inc. or did Amiga Inc. approach H&P about doing an AmigaOS update?

3.5 started out as a Gateway-AmigaInc. project but got shelved and then handed over to H&P. I'm not sure who approached who here.

As for 3.9: Everybody pretty much begged Amino-AmigaInc for permission to release another AmigaOS update, but they blocked it because they were only interested in pushing their new AmigaDE. Only when they realised they had nothing to release for christmas, they would give in.

That may be true of purely 3rd party software but some AmigaOS source was enhanced by 3rd parties like ThoR's layers.library.

These parts have two owners: the owner of the original 3.1 code (who licensed it to H&P) and the external developer who owns the code he wrote (and licensed it to H&P, for inclusion in 3.9).

He supposedly asks "someone" permission to release updates but supposedly retains copyrights on his changes.

To distribute his updated layers.library, Thor needs a license for the original 3.1 code that's still in there. He (or rather H&P) had one when the 3.9 project was still going. Now Thor had to get such a license somewhere else - he asked Hyperion, who gave him one.

Both ThoR and Olsen are still around and seem interested in further AmigaOS updates, or at least bug fixes but the powers that be don't seem interested in the 68k

Actually, Hyperion distributes updated 3.1 Kickstart ROMs now, they are interested in anything that generates money I guess. Cloanto also has a updated 3.1 distribution.

I guess the PPC was being threatened by the Amithlon sales and had to be stopped too?

No, Amithlon died because the two authors (Harald Frank, Bernie Meyer) started disagreeing about who owns/controls what. That quickly turned into a massive mud slinging contest that killed the product and was followed by Frank blocking any attempts by Meyer to create a Amithlon successor free of any Frank code (the project was nicknamed "Umilator").

[wawa]

Originally Posted by Korodny

Actually, Hyperion distributes updated 3.1 Kickstart ROMs now, they are interested in anything that generates money I guess. Cloanto also has a updated 3.1 distribution.

they seem to be interested in getting money for no work (i dont think olsen has been paid for his bugfixes, he probably provided for free, being an idealist). but they wouldnt want to allow to establish another viable alternative to their own primary "product". so similarly as many times before we are seening here a deadlock of interests. its there to stay.

[Pyromania]

Originally Posted by Emmet

Thanks @wawa and @eXeler0 for the interesting reads, it's such a shame that "Amiga" is in such a complete mess today.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and ask, is there anything that could be done to save the "Amiga" brand, or has what's happened over the year(s) simply damaged it beyond repair?

Just enjoy your Amiga hobbie and don't worry about it. Buy the hardware/software you love and support the developers that are still left.

[amiwolf]

Originally Posted by Korodny

Actually, Hyperion distributes updated 3.1 Kickstart ROMs now, they are interested in anything that generates money I guess. Cloanto also has a updated 3.1 distribution.

If Hyperion and Cloanto had any nous between them, they'd've joined forces to release a new Kickstart combining the best features of each. As it is, I don't see the point of either of their offerings. What I'd give for an A600 1MB Kickstart ROM containing all the updated modules! Adding in compactflash.device and PFS3AIO would also be really useful and worth the extra payments necessary.

I guess if both companies think there is no market for such a product, then they can hardly claim to be losing money when folks burn their own.

[NorthWay]

(I read through that copyright analysis page - what a nightmare.)

Is it clear who owns the rights to the chipset schematics?

[absence]

Is it even clear if the schematics exist anymore?

[jediknight]

i tell you what made me sell my amiga 4000 and buy a pc , i went to town and walked past a computer shop and in the window was a pc playing rebal assault and watcing the fantastic out of this world graphics seeing tie fighters and xwings i though holy hell amiga is dead and i was right , the amiga lacks the 3d acceleration graphics and that killed it and pc games doom quake made the amiga look plop thats what changed me into a pc fruitcake lol.

[matthey]

Originally Posted by absence

Is it even clear if the schematics exist anymore?

Sure. Jeri Ellsworth has them and respects them more than any of the entities claiming to own the rights to them.

Originally Posted by jediknight

i tell you what made me sell my amiga 4000 and buy a pc , i went to town and walked past a computer shop and in the window was a pc playing rebal assault and watcing the fantastic out of this world graphics seeing tie fighters and xwings i though holy hell amiga is dead and i was right , the amiga lacks the 3d acceleration graphics and that killed it and pc games doom quake made the amiga look plop thats what changed me into a pc fruitcake lol.

Easy is the path to the dark side young Jedi. Resist you must. Return the Jedi will.

[nobody]

Originally Posted by jediknight

i tell you what made me sell my amiga 4000 and buy a pc , i went to town and walked past a computer shop and in the window was a pc playing rebal assault and watcing the fantastic out of this world graphics seeing tie fighters and xwings i though holy hell amiga is dead and i was right , the amiga lacks the 3d acceleration graphics and that killed it and pc games doom quake made the amiga look plop thats what changed me into a pc fruitcake lol.

Yes, when I saw the PS1, I knew the Amiga was done for good. Already 1 generation behind, when PS2 came the Amiga was a relic in 2000. The problem is that PCs and PSX are not friendly or fun

[absence]

Originally Posted by matthey

Sure. Jeri Ellsworth has them and respects them more than any of the entities claiming to own the rights to them.

Does anyone know where she got them?