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Author Topic: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"  (Read 35845 times)

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Offline Matt_H

Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #14 on: February 13, 2020, 09:53:59 PM »
Right. When reporting a robbery, it’s important to be fair and balanced and blame both sides equally.

Knuckleheads.

And which of the inanely litigious companies do you think should not be blamed for this mess?

No one is benefitting from this. Not either of them, not other developers, not customers. No one.
 

Offline kolla

Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #15 on: February 14, 2020, 11:02:58 AM »
And which of the inanely litigious companies do you think should not be blamed for this mess?
Claonto.

I am not a huge Cloanto fan per se, but wow are there are lot of misconceptions about what Cloanto's contributions have been over the years - they are accused of "milking" despite financing and supporting development of UAE through the years. As well as other projects.

Quote
No one is benefitting from this. Not either of them, not other developers, not customers. No one.

Certain individuals at Hyperion benefit from having a semi-operational shell company.
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Offline Matt_H

Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #16 on: February 14, 2020, 09:07:35 PM »
Well, that's part of why this is such a disaster. Both companies have delivered very important products. I want them to continue to do so, but this idiocy is preventing that.

Even if there are individuals who ordinarily benefit from Hyperion's bizarre shell-corporation status, these lawsuits are eating away all of their revenue. They're sure not benefiting now.
 

guest11527

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Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #17 on: February 15, 2020, 09:23:16 AM »
Well, that's part of why this is such a disaster. Both companies have delivered very important products. I want them to continue to do so, but this idiocy is preventing that.

The trouble is much deeper than this. This is not only about two competing companies (or "companies", in case of Hyperion). It is a matter of the legal entanglements, and it is a matter of development culture and product definition. Yes, I should really stop posting because this creates another shit storm, but nevertheless, some food for thought:

Cloanto seems to prefer an "Open source" development model, with everyone able to take or contribute to AmigaOs, releasing its sources. Trouble with that is that I would not even know how Hyperion might be able to deliver that. They don't have as many rights on AmigaOs as may be needed for this step. Thus, it would be necessary to hunt down all contributers, and negotiate with them. So, who is going to do that? Who still has the contracts from back then? For example, for the 3.9 contracts? Do they even allow opening the sources? Can the authors even be reached anymore? Contracts had been negotiated individually, so there is certainly some variance in them.

There are sources for which there is no publication right (the "narrator.device" we have, but cannot publish as it would require negotiations with SoftVoice, Inc, who does not want to give it away  - been there, done that), and there are contributions in the Os for which Hyperion does not have the sources ("LoadModule" does not exist in source code form), and contributions for which Hyperion does have sources, but no clear statement other than "ready to publish in binary form" concerning its sources.

So that is a big pile of work, and it requires an expert in legal matters and an insider in the development history of AmigaOs to allow this. Thus, this "Cloanto dream" may just be a nice press release to "look nice to some users" and push the responsibility for this not happening into the direction of Hyperion, but the story is much more complicated than this.

Concerning the development model: This is another story. Cloanto seems to believe that it is a good idea that "the community" drives "development", they take a snapshot from time to time, put a nice box and a binder around it and sell the result. Nice model, but how to prevent that anyone can do the same who does not agree with "their branch"? Why shouldn't I publish "my branch" of AmigaOs then? What happens - which is likely - that multiple branches of AmigaOs came to existence?

Trouble with this model is: AmigaOs is not Linux - Linux has several important companies - yes, commercial entitities - that drive the process. Companies like Google and intel, AMD, network hosters and so on contribute a lot more than just individuals (shocking?), and they have an agenda. AmigaOs is "a bunch of hackers" (not excluding myself) that do not necessarily define a direction.Thus, if we end up with multiple AmigaOs flavours, how would it be possible to create products on such a diverse platform, if you cannot depend on "which version of the Os" the user has avaialble?

In my opinion, this makes software development impossible, as there are no stable interfaces to depend upon anymore, and it makes hardware development impossible, since there is no stable Os to depend upon anymore. This type of "erosion" we already see today: Vampire team being unwilling to offer such simple interfaces as autoconf, similar problems on the icomp side, causing all sorts of compatibility problems.

If you believe that a closed model is "undemocratic", I disagree. This is not "dictatorship". Democraty does not mean "everybody does what (s)he likes", but "finding consensus" and "finding compromizes" between multiple interests.

A good model, if you ask me, would be to hand over control to a "board", with multiple interested parties on the board, then negotiating on such board what the direction should be, then drive the process from there. I do have experience with such constructions - being a member of a board called SC29WG1, better known under the name of JPEG, which is also its most important "product", as in "standard" - so this model is doable. It is hard, though. But it does not mean "open sourcing anything", and "everybody does as he pleases". This would give everyone a voice, but also give AmigaOs a direction, which I consider quite important to create a platform that allows development of software and hardware.

 
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Offline kolla

Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #18 on: February 15, 2020, 10:52:23 AM »
It is quite possible to only open source what legally can be open sourced, and leave the rest closed sourced. This is exactly how it works with operation systems like macOS and even Windows. In time, closed source components can be replaced with open source components, if that is desirable, and by user’s choice.

Regarding rights and licenses, it is just as questionable that all of them were transferable to post-commodore owners in the first place, it can be just as “illegal” for Hyperion...
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guest11527

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Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #19 on: February 15, 2020, 11:06:37 AM »
It is quite possible to only open source what legally can be open sourced, and leave the rest closed sourced.
And who attempts to find this out what can be open sourced? And how?
 

Offline kolla

Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #20 on: February 15, 2020, 12:38:14 PM »
Who? The willing party, Cloanto. How? By research and contacting original owner/authors. As I am sure you are aware, most of the source files do have copyright and license information.
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Offline number6

Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #21 on: February 15, 2020, 01:36:00 PM »
@Thomas Richter

Quote
A good model, if you ask me, would be to hand over control to a "board", with multiple interested parties on the board, then negotiating on such board what the direction should be, then drive the process from there.

In essence this is currently a method employed by ExecSG through their steering committee, with the obvious comparison of multiple visions being discusssed.

#6
 

guest11527

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Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #22 on: February 15, 2020, 03:24:51 PM »
As I am sure you are aware, most of the source files do have copyright and license information.
Which is  not at all accurate, and neither up to date. Don't be naive. For example, the intuition.library has all (c) CBM in it, though in the form we use it, it is a port from the original intuition sources made by Peter Cherna. Same with all other files - more or less every file has been at least touched by me, without leaving my copyright all over the place. That will be a big hunt down of svn logging messages, at best, and a big hunt trying to contact the contributors, and another hunt to find out under which conditions they contributed. Whether Cloanto (who?) has the man-power or the knowledge to do this is just another question. If you ask me, this is nothing but a big PR-gag from Cloanto.

If you want open source, go AROS, no problems like that attached.

 

Offline kolla

Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #23 on: February 15, 2020, 03:43:26 PM »
Your contributions are irrelevant to the topic of open sourcing OS 3.1 - of course there will have to be a new start, again. I have been saying this all along.
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Offline number6

Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #24 on: February 15, 2020, 04:17:46 PM »
@Thomas Richter

Quote
This is not only about two competing companies (or "companies", in case of Hyperion)

I hate to ask, but are you assuming the casual reader of these affairs understands what you mean by putting "companies" in double quotes when speaking about "Hyperion"?

#6
 

Offline Minuous

Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #25 on: February 15, 2020, 04:27:43 PM »
Open sourcing 3.1? What would be the good of that? It's been obsolete for decades. Plus the 3.1 sources have already been floating around the net for years, no one has done anything much useful with them.
 

Offline kolla

Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #26 on: February 15, 2020, 05:30:14 PM »
No purpose for you perhaps, but then why would you care one way or the other?
People have been doing things with the OS 3.1 sources, but keeping it private. Except you and Gulliver of course, you had no issues releasing various leaked v42 components in BB3+4, legal or not.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2020, 05:30:50 PM by kolla »
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Offline bison

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Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #27 on: February 15, 2020, 06:10:39 PM »
Quote
Linux has several important companies - yes, commercial entitities - that drive the process.
Linux didn't start out this way.

Quote
AmigaOs is "a bunch of hackers"
This is how Linux started.

Quote
if we end up with multiple AmigaOs flavours, how would it be possible to create products on such a diverse platform, if you cannot depend on "which version of the Os" the user has avaialble?
Target the dominant version.  In the Linux world, there are things that run on Ubuntu that aren't going to run on Void.  People who want a high level of software compatibility use the more dominant distributions.
"Unix is supposed to fix that." -- Jay Miner
 

Offline bison

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Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #28 on: February 15, 2020, 06:19:57 PM »
Quote
Who? The willing party, Cloanto. How? By research and contacting original owner/authors. As I am sure you are aware, most of the source files do have copyright and license information.
I'd be surprised if they haven't already done a lot of this.
"Unix is supposed to fix that." -- Jay Miner
 

Offline kolla

Re: "Hyperion and Cloanto allegedly close to finalizing settlement"
« Reply #29 from previous page: February 15, 2020, 07:26:18 PM »
Quote
If you believe that a closed model is "undemocratic", I disagree. This is not "dictatorship". Democraty does not mean "everybody does what (s)he likes", but "finding consensus" and "finding compromizes" between multiple interests.

Look at your own team then - it consists exactly of people who have been doing whatever they liked, even when it meant distributing AmigaOs components that are copyrighted and closed source. And I have been told by several people who are officially involved with OS development, that the software license is to be ignored. Well, duh. So clearly legality and morals means nothing for neither the OS team nor Hyperion, and we are back to everyone doing whatever the f they want, share and enjoy. As long as you’re one of cool guys. If not, expect all kinds of threats, from white knights and “officials”.

The consensus has been clear and obvious for years - Amiga OS should be made freely available for anyone to alter, hack, modify, compile, develop and distribute as she or he likes, without having to worry about legal nonsense.
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