I make no bones about the fact that OS5 developments and hence getting their hands on OS4 code is personally very important to me.

But OS4 is a great OS, with X11 support, in a good position. If OS5 came out, especially if it was based on OS4, that would be my ideal computer (if of course it lives up to expectations).

However, OS4 is not doomed because there is an OS5 available, especially if the latter is directly based on OS4. I assume OS4 essentials would become the basis of ports to lots of different HW while OS4 would be tied to PPC.

I would also assume even where there is direct competition (ie on PPC based designs like the PS3, ACK and SAM) that OS5 effectively would become an add-on. In which case my perfect computer would be effectively OS4 with OS5 (perhaps renamed, or rather should be renamed - AmigaAnywhere).

Obviously all speculation.

ACK specs seem to be for a really good desktop machine (something I have a need). SAM could be a great little mini-desktop top (read slower, but more robust because of its passive cooling).

SAM would make also a superb domestic server (24/7 access), ACK would be severe overkill.

SAM has inbuilt graphics, ACK does not. SAM as a server, with a cheep screen is an ideal domestic server, especially if it was packed via PCI slots and on-board SATA with HDs

PS3 has now server lookup, as well as SONY OtherOS, getting AOS4 onto SONY OtherOS with good SONY gameOS underlying communications would rally bring PS3 into a new area, but for that a good easy to run and setup reliable domestic server is needed (ie SAM).

I hope people can see a complete picture or immense versatility without the Linux and MS overheads and hot burning CPUs.

Businesses, especially small ones, do not need giant servers. The PS3 offers an off the shelf processing hub, the ACK a desktop easily transformed for more demanding and diverse tasks.

Getting Hyperion, AI, and Acube together packs a powerful punch.

It is not a case of competing HW and OSes, but complimentary ones, if OS5 produces the small device runability it has promised, we are looking at something really interesting, small efficient and immensely useful.

Who knows we could give the big boys a real run for their money.

@Mitch

Just read the pdf and many thanks for supplying the reference.

As the transcript is quite readable as it is presented, and I suspect by the nature of the presentation, both sides are at this early stage keeping their powder dry on certain important aspects, I thought to present a reading that makes arbitration rather than litigation a likely successful outcome.

---------------------------------------------
THE INSOLVENCY ISSUE
First, I believe the fundamental aspect that needs to be clarified is the one that appears to be Hyperion's strongest claim - the insolvency issue.

Insolvent means liabilities exceeding assets (or the ability to pay) and is the condition which leads to bankruptcy procedures, unless something is done to resolve it.

That IP rights transfer to Hyperion on insolvency, is a protection of Hyperion's rights in the IP. In this way the OS IP becomes a reserved asset, if a company is liquidated the rights are not put up for sale, but are instead transferred.

There is a formal legal claim of insolvency which is the beginning of a bankruptcy action. An action where the company states legally that it is beyond their capacity to remedy matters with their creditors (in this Hyperion stands as a creditor with special privileges).

However, insolvency is a condition as well as potential legal remedy. That is it is the same as claiming that a company is or was insolvent and made or is making remedies outside bankruptcy actions.

It does not really matter what has been stated in contract - ie if the company becomes insolvent, or if the company is bankrupted - in effect as legal states (rather than general statements) both only have meaning when triggered legally (ie by audit, by third party legal action - ie by creditors, by engaging in legal procedures to place the resolution in the hands of others).

Hyperion's claim that they have or should have the IP because the original AI reached a point of insolvency, is countered by AIs actions in preserving the rights of creditors in transferring to ITEC -KMOS and the new AI.

Hyperion on this issue has not been harmed and hence cannot rely on this clause - their interests have been preserved intact (ie nothing has really changed except the names, and asset basis - the deals being private - rather than publicly sold).

---------------------------------------------
THE $2 MILLION OFFER
It is very clear from the transcript (the reality may be different) that AI's offer was to buy back (not to be confused with a clause referred to by the same name elsewhere) all rights from Hyperion.

I would suggest that Hyperion, on the expectation of future profits from distribution, would view this as inadequate, and thus it was reasonable for them to refuse.

The cost of $1.1 million to Hyperion seems reasonable and not inflated. This is important in terms of future arbitration if this path is allowed.

Hyperion is not claiming outlandish costs.

AI has shown a willingness to pay, a recognition of costs, but with caveats to its own interest (dissolving the previous relationship).

---------------------------------------------
WHAT REALLY APPEARS AT ISSUE
Obviously this battle has been going on for a long time, behind the scenes.

Two hostages are involved. One the source code - the very IP of the OS. The other licensing of HW, which has to happen before Hyperion can get anything for its efforts, or AI for its royalities.

The trigger for the case, was obviously Acube's SAM board.

This is hardball negotiation, Hyperion attempting to squeeze AI and AI forced to seek court relief.

This is not a claim of who is good and who is bad, but a logical result of the position of both companies and what they possess and can do.

HW, appears to be at issue but is not. The pity is that it would not be at issue if both companies went for an immediate PS3 port (I hope they see the point of this) and some actual cash flow was generated.

However, HW has become the pointy end of the stick. Clearly ACK (which has been in the process for sometime now - how close to production is another question, but legally irrelevant) has to exist so that AI can claim that Hyperion could have had a market under the conditions of the original agreements.

Likewise the SAM deal, can be seen as a reasonable attempt to provide a market by its own actions. Carefully, though strongly implied, there has been no claim by SAM to be a licensed Amiga board, but the inference is there and that matters legally.

---------------------------------------------
AN ARBITRATED RESOLUTION
First some distinctions in view of HW.

AI has some right to claim that SAM/Acube directly harms it.

Hyperion by like reason can claim that the lack of HW forced them to seek an avenue outside of direct licensing.

Since Eyetech has left the scene (re the MIA's collapse), the meaning of having the rights to distribute and OS have been overtaken by events.

Luckily, for us. The SAM and ACK boards are not direct competitors (there may be a need to legally ensure this for the future).

This is the important bit. SAM is a passively cooled "slow board", while ACK series are high performance desktop boards.

In my view we need both along with a PS3 port.

There is a possibility in this of resolution, that is AI licenses both, but that Hyperion has to either hand over all the code, or have some legal arrangement (like exchanging title deeds) so that both things happen simultaneously.

Amiga's $2,000,000 may or may not be in the picture, as surety, or an immediate payment tied to the above.

The other alternative is simpler, especially if Hyperion cannot provide the cash to pay its contractors for their work and for their rights over the code.

As Hyperion engaged these contractors and has in the original distribution rights a percentage of sales, then Hyperion may have to come to an arrangement where the contracts rights in the code are exchanged for percentages of their distribution.

I believe this would protect the developers and keep them in the mix, which I think is essential.

AI's royalties do not come into this. But if the $2million was placed in trust, as a loan against Hyperion percentages, that would give the capital, to buy out some developers, or offer them a fair percentage of the distribution profits.

An arbitrated settlement, might include any of the above.

Clearly AI wants the source codes, Hyperion wants to distribute for boards that actually exist (why the hell they could not have worked out something for the PS3 is beyond me, probably because everything else is in such a mess).

Luckily, there seems enough in the mix to get a real resolution fast if a third party genuinely would arbitrate - and this is the good news story within the current court case.

There are a lot of other details, which I do not believe effect such an arbitration/resolution to any great degree.

Whatever the arrangements between Hyperion and the contractors, there has to be fair settlement made with the latter and Hyperion has to be in a position to make good on the sources for the IP owner. Here the $2 million is important as a loan perhaps secured against a percentage of distribution profits.

In Hyperion shoes I would argue the Acube agreement was made out of necessity (in order to realise profits), From AIs perspective they want the source code, yesterday. From the contractors perspective, they need to have their interests, looked after (a percentage of the distribution rights would be a very good offer, IMHO, but a cash payout from the $2 million for residue rights is the other option).

Arbitration to work would have to legally cement together effectively a new contract.

The means to resolve this are available, if the will to get on with things is there, and people come to the table taking responsibility for fair licensing on one hand, source code on the other and the contractors as meat in the middle of this sandwich.

Perhaps the court case, and this is what I hope, is the means for bringing about a resolution.

PS it would be helpful for the community to refer to SAM as a small server/embedded board, and to ACK as a high performance desktop board. It would be helpful to clarify the room for complimentary development.

I have found a barcode generator, written in Postscript Level 2, that is intended to be added to the prologue.ps file that your software uses to generate postscript files. Since it is written in postscript, it should work with any platform, including Amiga. As the software?s website shows, there are already some front ends for it on some platforms. Creating such a front end for the Amiga OS (3.x, 4.x) might be a useful endeavor.

@bean

Hehe, you're not holding us back. We keep asking for more code

FuZion.

@FuZion

Quote:

I'm holding these guys back a little here, they are doing a great job creating and converting skins and I'm trying to cram in as much as possible into the TuneNet preview.

Soon you'll all be able to get creative with a fairly powerfull (if un-optimised at the moment) Skinnable system.

Cheers,
Bean.

P.S. I'm pretty pleased with it, can you tell!

P.P.S. It will be demo'ed again at ABW (former ANT group) this Sunday.

http://www.amiganorththames.co.uk

@Mitch
To me it looks like Hyperion is trying to grab as much as they can get and run. It isn't Amiga Inc's fault Hyperion sunk a million bucks into OS4 knowing full well they could lose it all for $25k. Maybe this risk will pay off or maybe not but I must say taking such a large risk was a real stupid move by Hyperion's management in the first place. They are insolvent, they are not the same company, you can't serve us in English, you don't have jurisdiction, it was finished on this date; no wait, this other date, etc. Please spare us the bad acting. Looks to me like Hyperion risked it all on nothing but a whim and now they are being challenged.

I always wondered why Hyperion refused to give us all a product road map beyond 4.0. Why the feature list kept changing and never really proclaimed "finished" until Dec. 2006. Now we know why. They were hoping not to get caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

I'm not an Amiga Inc. fan but they are obviously not going to just go away and they have the Amiga brand. I seriously doubt Hyperion has the money to go the other way around. Hyperion should sell the lot to Amiga Inc. and go back to making games or whatever. Don't even bother partnering, sell it all. Just make sure you don't accept a cheque...

All just IMHO of course.

@nubechecorre

I've booked next week off work so I'm going to spend some quality time tidying up some bits. Then I'll twist Pauls arm to put a shot on the TuneNet site. Hope you don't mind hanging in there a little while longer.

FuZion.

@acefnq

Hyperion signed a document accepting the transfer to ITEC, their own website reflected (according to the plaintiff exhibits) that Hyperion knew and accepted that they were under license from KMOS, and Amiga Delaware is simply a rename of KMOS, requiring no transfer or acceptance, as it is the same corporate entity.

@acefnq

The question is, what where the terms of the license agreement from Gateway, where they fulfilled and who currently owns them now?

@Mitch

From memory Amiga Inc Washington licensed IP and bought soem trademarks from Gateway does that mean assignment is required to transfer to ITEC, KMOS and Amiga Delaware? Did that happen?

ac

@acefnq

I remember the first edition of the joint press release announcing the branding programme stated that Eyetech was exempt from the terms of the programme.

It is obvious that Amiga Inc have been deliberately blocking Hyperion on Amiga OS4 with granting licenses to third parties. The old excuse that they used to spread around on IRC that Eyetech was the one standing in the way each time was clearly bullshit now we see their declarations of how in touch with Eyetech they really were.

Hyperion could have ( and should have ) challenged Amiga Inc.'s right to block once the asserts where not correctly transferred in the first place. But this can been seen as acting in good faith and only undermines their position slightly - and not fatally.

Eyetech left because people had stopped buying the product in sufficient numbers to justify the outlay at manufacturing time. There is only so long a company can take a loss for.

Why this was is down to Hyperion not releasing something they called final in time, down to black PR on the forums, down to minor problems with the hardware and mostly down to cost.

The Amiga market is dead, it just hasn't been declared so. The only way to revive it would be to get on and use what we have available, which IIRC is the reason amigans.net was put together in the first place.

@Mitch

Thinking more about it, the issue of HW has not come up but is central to Hyperion being able to make money from the venture.

Amiga Inc issued a (note a) license on the basis of meeting "Brand" expectations, price, quality and warranty, they issued a license to Eyetech, clearly their product was not up to scratch, Hyperion at that stage relied on that product for future sales. However, at no stage did Amiga Inc intervene or demand or enact remidial action, I would never buy an Amiga Inc endorsed product ever again. How then could Hyperion sell a product based on a flawed product endorsed by Amiga?

In my opinion they have failed to enforce their own expectations and have duped Hyperion deliberately. I hope the court gets to see this.

I am sure Eyetch would have stayed in the market and improved their product if Amiga Inc (Washington, Delaware, Siberia, Antartica or whatever) were an honourable company.

ace

@Mitch

Totally agreed.

ace

@acefnq

You could make the case that a company that is technically insolvant does have the right to sell assets in order to try to break even.

But transfer them, that is tricky. Morally wrong IMO.

@ssolie

Totally agree and now at a time where Amiga Inc seems to have the cash behind them to finally move forward, although with AOS4 and not DE which they had always pinned their hopes and future fortunes.

Perhaps between them we have now the makings of a viable robust company, individually they are weak.

What does this now make AOS4? Looks like it is a closed and open sourced OS, strange.

ac

@Mitch

As I posted on AW

What really amazes me though (and it is not unique in this case) is that assets can be transferred but debts are not. I find that quite disgusting, it happens over and over again in western society and it is just plain wrong.

For me this is a moral issue, Amiga knew they were struggling back when the contract was made and they made it public that they wanted Hyperion to have the IP should they fail, fail they did otherwise there was no reason to create shelve companies.

I take no glee in that at all but the spirit of what they were both trying to achieve in those days is lost and to claim otherwise is sad.

I wished they could come to a reasonable agreement and all participate, I guess that is what the Judge was trying to tell them.

ace

@FuZion

News ?.. i cannot wait

@Mikey_C

Hyperion certainly has the better lawyer. If with four attorneys that is all that Amiga Inc can argue in 30 minutes ( 25 pitch, 5 rebuttal ) versus one for Hyperion who was concise and accurate then they really are in trouble. However they will up their game, and bringing along a load of lawyers at the start is just a way of showing your arnaments before the battle.

Hey we got 4 long range cannons and a handgrenade! Be intimidated! Look how deep our pockets are!

Even the judge commented on it.

To me, that is a sign that they know it isn't done and dusted, a sign of weakness.

One decent, smart and dilligent lawyer would have been a better investment. Amiga Inc's legal team needs to bring their A game next time or it WILL become expensive. Whilst a judge might do the thinking for a lone lawyer against a team of 4 I doubt that he will compensate the other way around.

Another tactical misstep - in my view.

A lot of "ifs" and cause that Amiga Inc has to get dismissed by the judge to be sure of the very limited success this court can achieve for them.

Their best hope is if it is heard in front of a jury, because juries are frequently too collectively thick to understand the nuances of contract law and shell games.

As soon as legal counsel starts to use sarcasm, you know he has got nothing tangible to show.

The more interesting thing is going to be to see whom has changed their mode of attack from Amiga Inc to Hyperion since the Thendic court case. Then you know who really despises AmigaOS4.0 and Hyperion as opposed to what they claimed at the time.

I see a temporary injunction coming out of this, the judge not going against either side in reality and both sides will claim victory in their own way.

You have to ask yourself if Amiga Inc realised that the effect might be to end up with nothing and kill off Hyperion, in which case that might illustrate their deepest motivation.

@ToAks

In the meantime, there is another project aiming at providing similar functionality as configure (CMake) already in use by some projects (Icculus uses it for some of his stuff). I had a brief look at it and it should be fairly easy to port, just didn't have the time to do it yet.

@Mason

search on AMINET "copy progress" and you get:

pcopy.lha util/cli 7 12K 2002-03-24 m68k-amigaos Like AmigaDos copy; with progress, time and speed - (readme)

SCopy10.lha util/cli 3 15K 1996-06-01 m68k-amigaos See copy speed and progress on slow devices - (readme)

SCopy108.lha util/sys 0 8K 1995-04-26 m68k-amigaos Copy command with progress indicators - (readme)

BYE