Who has the rights to ARM AmigaOS?

stevelord · 23 October 2020, 18:39

Hi all,

I was catching up on some of the Cloanto/Hyperion stuff as I'd ignored it for years and it seems to me that Aeon have the rights to produce a new Amiga OS, and Cloanto have the rights to the old Amiga OS.

Am I right in thinking that Hyperion could produce an Arm version of Amiga OS 4.1, or possibly 4.2 or have I got it all wrong?

Cheers,
Steve

Matt_H · 23 October 2020, 19:20

I don’t think the rights are disaggregated by architecture. In theory, Cloanto/Hyperion could port their version of the OS to whatever they want. That’s my understanding of it, at least.

thomas · 23 October 2020, 19:47

AFAIK Cloanto does not have source code, so they cannot port to anything.

number6 · 23 October 2020, 20:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevelord

Hi all,

I was catching up on some of the Cloanto/Hyperion stuff as I'd ignored it for years and it seems to me that Aeon have the rights to produce a new Amiga OS, and Cloanto have the rights to the old Amiga OS.

Am I right in thinking that Hyperion could produce an Arm version of Amiga OS 4.1, or possibly 4.2 or have I got it all wrong?

Cheers,
Steve

Posts are just a snapshot in time and this is from 2011, but it is from Ben Hermans on the topic:

Quote:

All of this could be worked around however given sufficient funding. E.g. an ARM/X-Scale version of AmigaOS 4.x is perfectly possible.

Source

Obviously this an opinion and does not address the ability to do so.

#6

lesta_smsc · 23 October 2020, 20:43

How sad this is that there is such poor clarity on this issue.

It's like the head is with one company, torso with another and limbs with another. I just wish they would all the pieces together and make it whole again!

Bruce Abbott · 24 October 2020, 23:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

How sad this is that there is such poor clarity on this issue.

It's like the head is with one company, torso with another and limbs with another. I just wish they would all the pieces together and make it whole again!

It will never be 'whole' while people are looking to produce an 'Arm version' of Amiga OS 4.

Samurai_Crow · 25 October 2020, 03:15

AROS tried the ARM thing. The problem is still closed-source drivers. They are expensive to gain access to, let alone port to a non-POSIX operating system.

Promilus · 25 October 2020, 08:39

@Bruce Abbott
Well there were no ppl looking for ARM and it was still fragmented between cheap hw and MorphOS and expensive hardware with AmigaOS4.x
The future of ppc hardware is pretty well known by everyone. So either center around really expensive POWER boards or step down from PPC and make it available for way more hw. Depends on what you want to make money with, hw or OS.

Samurai_Crow · 25 October 2020, 10:52

I sense a flamewar coming on.

WebAssembly will commoditize operating systems the way 3d accelerated graphics have commoditized hardware.

Promilus · 25 October 2020, 11:59

Well there are opensource drivers in ARM world you know? Lima, Cedrus, Panfrost... It's not that all there is a binary blob and no chance for drivers. If that was the case none of Allwinner products (most of orangepi sbc, some of banana and nanopi series) would have any support. It takes a long time, yes, but there is a support. Might be better with paid developers the way AOS4 users pay for Radeon drivers. So... no, I doubt it's simply matter of drivers available. I think things to consider are:
1. most ppl would want to see both multicore and 64bit support which atm is behind schedule in AOS4, right?
2. most ppl would want free of choice between dozens of different SBCs based on different SoCs which would require a lot of effort to maintain support. And with plenty of new products each year that's something which could not be maintained.
3. all it would lead to is just another optional environment for SBCs and ports from linux. And while even PPC AOS4 uses plenty of linux ports I doubt that's the reason why ppl buy it and use it. Also - there's little performance boost expected just by switching to ARM. Actually - in most cases there's a regress expected unless multicore is used efficiently.

Samurai_Crow · 25 October 2020, 12:09

The RasPi 3 has open-source graphics drivers. It does not have open-source USB drivers.

Thomas Richter · 25 October 2020, 13:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevelord

I was catching up on some of the Cloanto/Hyperion stuff as I'd ignored it for years and it seems to me that Aeon have the rights to produce a new Amiga OS, and Cloanto have the rights to the old Amiga OS.

Aeon has nothing on the Os itself - though AFAIk the rights on ExecSG of AmigaOs 4, and some of the utilities, but not the remaining stuff. For the Os 3 versions, Cloanto "holds rights sufficient for emulation purposes" (due to earlier negotiations with Amiga Inc and Cloanto) and publication rights on the Amiga Kickstart ROM images up to 3.1. As development rights were negotiated before Cloanto obtained "all rights in the universe on AmigaOs", they do not hold exclusive development rights negotiated between Hyperion and Amiga Inc, as part of the settlement agreement.

Thus, all in one, as far as I see it, Cloanto may have the rights on AmigaOs, but they have no rights to develop it further as this is "contracted out to Hyperion" by means of an "exclusive development right" which came out of the settlement agreement. Thus, in a sense, they own it, but cannot do anything with it. Certainly a bizarre situation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevelord

Am I right in thinking that Hyperion could produce an Arm version of Amiga OS 4.1, or possibly 4.2 or have I got it all wrong?

They could, or at least partially, as ExecSG is again in other hands.

But then again, I am not quite clear why that would be a desirable goal (but I don't understand AmigaOs 4, PPC and AROS either). It's an outdated operating system, with many design problems of its own. Why it makes sense to port these to another platform is unclear to me.

OlafSch · 25 October 2020, 13:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Aeon has nothing on the Os itself - though AFAIk the rights on ExecSG of AmigaOs 4, and some of the utilities, but not the remaining stuff. For the Os 3 versions, Cloanto "holds rights sufficient for emulation purposes" (due to earlier negotiations with Amiga Inc and Cloanto) and publication rights on the Amiga Kickstart ROM images up to 3.1. As development rights were negotiated before Cloanto obtained "all rights in the universe on AmigaOs", they do not hold exclusive development rights negotiated between Hyperion and Amiga Inc, as part of the settlement agreement.

Thus, all in one, as far as I see it, Cloanto may have the rights on AmigaOs, but they have no rights to develop it further as this is "contracted out to Hyperion" by means of an "exclusive development right" which came out of the settlement agreement. Thus, in a sense, they own it, but cannot do anything with it. Certainly a bizarre situation.

They could, or at least partially, as ExecSG is again in other hands.

But then again, I am not quite clear why that would be a desirable goal (but I don't understand AmigaOs 4, PPC and AROS either). It's an outdated operating system, with many design problems of its own. Why it makes sense to port these to another platform is unclear to me.

for someone insisting on not getting any money you make a good job pro Hyperion. That is one of the reasons why this lawsuits happens... the formulations are not exact enough there so Hyperion thinks they have the solely rights to use the sources and they can do with it what they want. Cloanto on the other hand sees it (the settlement) only as a agreement that Hyperion can use it as a base for developing 4.X. The court will decide... BTW who on earth would sign a settlement that gives everything to the other side including all rights to the sources. That was all AmigaInc had with some value. It would have been total surrender... but we will see

Charles Littell · 05 November 2020, 17:48

Something else who has the rights to the Amiga chips? Who has the mask for them?

Matt_H · 05 November 2020, 23:56

The chips are out-of-patent, so, from a legal standpoint, anyone could make them. And several people have, using FPGAs. As far as making new ones in silicon, however, my understanding is that the chips can't be made on modern manufacturing equipment, or at least not without an enormous financial investment beyond the means of our community.

I don't know what happened to the original masks. Escom presumably had them and I imagine they were then passed on to Gateway. Any number of people/entities since then could have lost them. Maybe someone else has done some detective work on this...?

Samurai_Crow · 06 November 2020, 00:39

The masks were already for an out-of-date production process in 1998. That's part of why Gateway's Amiga Inc. didn't make any more chips.

brett71 · 06 November 2020, 15:24

Just for the sake of argument, could the design of the chips be updated (and improvements made at the same time) which could be made with current production processes....assuming someone had gagging bagfuls of cash to make it happen?

Hedeon · 06 November 2020, 16:38

Heard Jens is busy on Buster 13.

Quote:

Originally Posted by brett71

Just for the sake of argument, could the design of the chips be updated (and improvements made at the same time) which could be made with current production processes....assuming someone had gagging bagfuls of cash to make it happen?

Samurai_Crow · 06 November 2020, 16:38

It would need to be redesigned from FPGA cores instead of the originals because the originals were designed at the individual transistor level instead of VHDL or Verilog.

lesta_smsc · 06 November 2020, 17:05

Having FPGA in place of custom chips could work but then the entire Amiga can off FPGA so what would be merit in former approach?

23 October 2020, 18:39	#1
stevelord Registered User Join Date: Apr 2019 Location: UK Posts: 540	Who has the rights to ARM AmigaOS? Hi all, I was catching up on some of the Cloanto/Hyperion stuff as I'd ignored it for years and it seems to me that Aeon have the rights to produce a new Amiga OS, and Cloanto have the rights to the old Amiga OS. Am I right in thinking that Hyperion could produce an Arm version of Amiga OS 4.1, or possibly 4.2 or have I got it all wrong? Cheers, Steve

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23 October 2020, 19:20	#2
Matt_H Registered User Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 943	I don’t think the rights are disaggregated by architecture. In theory, Cloanto/Hyperion could port their version of the OS to whatever they want. That’s my understanding of it, at least.

23 October 2020, 19:47	#3
thomas Registered User Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Germany Posts: 6,985	AFAIK Cloanto does not have source code, so they cannot port to anything.

23 October 2020, 20:43	#5
lesta_smsc Registered User Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 3,173	How sad this is that there is such poor clarity on this issue. It's like the head is with one company, torso with another and limbs with another. I just wish they would all the pieces together and make it whole again!

25 October 2020, 03:15	#7
Samurai_Crow Total Chaos forever! Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Waterville, MN, USA Age: 49 Posts: 2,186	AROS tried the ARM thing. The problem is still closed-source drivers. They are expensive to gain access to, let alone port to a non-POSIX operating system.

25 October 2020, 08:39	#8
Promilus Registered User Join Date: Sep 2013 Location: Poland Posts: 806	@Bruce Abbott Well there were no ppl looking for ARM and it was still fragmented between cheap hw and MorphOS and expensive hardware with AmigaOS4.x The future of ppc hardware is pretty well known by everyone. So either center around really expensive POWER boards or step down from PPC and make it available for way more hw. Depends on what you want to make money with, hw or OS.

25 October 2020, 10:52	#9
Samurai_Crow Total Chaos forever! Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Waterville, MN, USA Age: 49 Posts: 2,186	I sense a flamewar coming on. WebAssembly will commoditize operating systems the way 3d accelerated graphics have commoditized hardware.

25 October 2020, 11:59	#10
Promilus Registered User Join Date: Sep 2013 Location: Poland Posts: 806	Well there are opensource drivers in ARM world you know? Lima, Cedrus, Panfrost... It's not that all there is a binary blob and no chance for drivers. If that was the case none of Allwinner products (most of orangepi sbc, some of banana and nanopi series) would have any support. It takes a long time, yes, but there is a support. Might be better with paid developers the way AOS4 users pay for Radeon drivers. So... no, I doubt it's simply matter of drivers available. I think things to consider are: 1. most ppl would want to see both multicore and 64bit support which atm is behind schedule in AOS4, right? 2. most ppl would want free of choice between dozens of different SBCs based on different SoCs which would require a lot of effort to maintain support. And with plenty of new products each year that's something which could not be maintained. 3. all it would lead to is just another optional environment for SBCs and ports from linux. And while even PPC AOS4 uses plenty of linux ports I doubt that's the reason why ppl buy it and use it. Also - there's little performance boost expected just by switching to ARM. Actually - in most cases there's a regress expected unless multicore is used efficiently.

25 October 2020, 12:09	#11
Samurai_Crow Total Chaos forever! Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Waterville, MN, USA Age: 49 Posts: 2,186	The RasPi 3 has open-source graphics drivers. It does not have open-source USB drivers.

05 November 2020, 17:48	#14
Charles Littell Registered User Join Date: Jul 2020 Location: ct USA Posts: 14	Something else who has the rights to the Amiga chips? Who has the mask for them?

05 November 2020, 23:56	#15
Matt_H Registered User Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 943	The chips are out-of-patent, so, from a legal standpoint, anyone could make them. And several people have, using FPGAs. As far as making new ones in silicon, however, my understanding is that the chips can't be made on modern manufacturing equipment, or at least not without an enormous financial investment beyond the means of our community. I don't know what happened to the original masks. Escom presumably had them and I imagine they were then passed on to Gateway. Any number of people/entities since then could have lost them. Maybe someone else has done some detective work on this...?

06 November 2020, 00:39	#16
Samurai_Crow Total Chaos forever! Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Waterville, MN, USA Age: 49 Posts: 2,186	The masks were already for an out-of-date production process in 1998. That's part of why Gateway's Amiga Inc. didn't make any more chips.

06 November 2020, 15:24	#17
brett71 Registered User Join Date: May 2010 Location: Ames, IA, USA Posts: 521	Just for the sake of argument, could the design of the chips be updated (and improvements made at the same time) which could be made with current production processes....assuming someone had gagging bagfuls of cash to make it happen?

06 November 2020, 16:38	#19
Samurai_Crow Total Chaos forever! Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Waterville, MN, USA Age: 49 Posts: 2,186	It would need to be redesigned from FPGA cores instead of the originals because the originals were designed at the individual transistor level instead of VHDL or Verilog.

06 November 2020, 17:05	#20
lesta_smsc Registered User Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: United Kingdom Posts: 3,173	Having FPGA in place of custom chips could work but then the entire Amiga can off FPGA so what would be merit in former approach?

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