Rats leaving a sinking ship, or something else?

[bhoggett]

It seems that as of today Amiga Inc's lawyers have withdrawn their services as counsel in the case against Thendic/Genesi.

While there can be numerous explanations for such a turn of events, it does mean that unless Amiga Inc replace them quickly they may be forced to default on the case.

It sure doesn't look like a good thing to happen at this stage, from Amiga Inc.'s point of view.

(The relevant documents are available on Rich Woods' page, but I won't link to it as it contains material I do not believe should be made public. The documents are also available direct from the court clerk, of course)

[bhoggett]

@FarQuad

I agree, which is why I said there could be a number of explanations.

However, whatever the reason, the timing could hardly be much worse.

[bhoggett]

Just one more thing: for those confused by the withdrawal document, no confirmation is yet available AFAIK that the judge has GRANTED the withdrawal request. (the document is not signed)

Of course, it's hard to see why the judge would reject the request though.

This, and the fact that I was unwilling to supply a direct link, is why I did not post this as "news".

[bhoggett]

@mikeymike

The news is on ANN and MooBunny, including the link. Like I said, the source is the same as for all the rest of the court documents.

I did read the documents before posting, in case you were wondering. I did not check with the court personally, nor will I do so in the future, as I don't have enough personal interest invested to justify the expense.

[bhoggett]

@FarQuad

Cheers. Now, why didn't I think of doing that?
 :-?

[bhoggett]

@FarQuad

Sorry, you didn't offend. I was chastising myself for not thinking of the obvious solution. I don't like posting a link to Rich's directory because of some of the material there, but I should have thought of posting direct links to the documents myself.

[bhoggett]

Skyraker wrote:
I note with interest that these files are held on Merlancia servers (a company most of us would never want to deal with).... I don't know much about this Rich Woods character except he seems to have a very personal agenda.

Ho hum, it'll all come out in the wash i'm sure.

Those are not Merlancia's servers. Rich Woods has registered the merlancia.us domain, presumably to annoy RC/Merlancia who, together with Amiga Inc, make up the targets of Rich's displeasure.

However, while most of us will acknowledge that Rich has his own agenda, and while at least some of us do not approve of his overall methods this does not invalidate the court ducuments he makes available. These have all been genuine so far and anyone can verify them at source.

As you say, it will all come out in the wash. Somehow I doubt it will make for pretty reading.

[bhoggett]

@Argo

If one of the actions the judge chooses is to approve the sanctions put forward by Thendic/Genesi's lawyers and as such includes the mentioned handing over of a copy of the source code of DE to Genesi to port. Amiga, Inc. could loose control over DE.

Absolutely not.

Access to source code does not mean freedom to do what they like with it. Genesi would only be entitled to use the source code to port AmigaDE to their own devices as per contract, nothing more. They would still have to abide by all the conditions and copyrights therein.

Furthermore, AmigaDE does not only contain Amiga Inc copyrighted material, but also TAO's IP. It remains to be seen if any commitment by Amiga Inc to hand over source code is binding upon TAO, no matter what the contract between Amiga and Genesi says.

No court can enforce a sanction which would be in direct violation of copyright law. Most likely, if the sanction was imposed and Amiga were found to be unable to comply with it in a legal manner, further penalties would be exacted against Amiga Inc.

[bhoggett]

@meerschaum

I think thats totally correct, I mean Amiga GAINS from selling DE right?, why are they so against porting it to Pegasos? IIRC bbrv even said that Thendic/Genesi where doing the porting and it wouldnt even cost AI any money. It looks to me to be more of a personal vendetta then anything else. All business logic says they should do it apperantly.

Well, we don't have all the details. Business logic based on what we are aware of suggests they would benefit from letting Genesi port it, but it is entirely possible that they can't do it and stay legal. Remember, letting Genesi port it involves handing them the ENTIRE source code, including that which is under TAO's copyright. Are they really entitled to do this without TAO having any say in it?

It could be that Amiga find themselves in a situation where they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. Not that I sympathise, since it's a situation of their own making.

[bhoggett]

@meerschaum

whats to lose from telling us that?

Face.

It would be the equivalent of saying "we're a bunch of morons and we signed contracts that had clauses we could never honour".

As long as they think they might not lose the case, they will think they don't have to make any admissions which would damage them further.  Bear in mind that if they lose the case, and cannot comply with sanctions because they would be breaching copyright, then they will leave themselves open to further punishment.

Like I said, they could well be in a no win situation, no matter what they do.

[bhoggett]

JoannaK wrote:
Hammer: Well. If they didn't have right to port it why did they sing the deal in first place. Besides they have been doing so (or someone has?) since there are Amiga-DE players for various pocker-PC thingies (and Linux + Windowse).

Well, those were done by in-house staff or people working as 3rd party contractors. The point being the ports were done on Amiga Inc's behalf by people appointed by Amiga Inc. In fact, you need to remember that the "ports" are merely built on a pre-supplied TAO base, so they're not complete ports.

What Genesi want as a sanction is something else entirely. They want TAO's IP to do the port for themselves.

As for why Amiga Inc signed the contract in the first place, bear in mind that the contract was initially intended for a WindowsCE device, not the Pegasos and MorphOS. Genesi's case is based on the failure of Amiga Inc to ensure that the contract they signed was watertight, not on Amiga Inc promising to do a MorphOS port then going back on that promise.

It is entirely possible - indeed likely - that it would be illegal for Amiga Inc to comply with the requested sanction. I really don't expect Genesi to get the TAO source code even if they do win the case, not without making a separate deal with TAO. If they win, the most likely outcome will be that Amiga Inc will fail to comply and Genesi will have another case against them, or the court may impose further sanctions.

[bhoggett]

@AmiGod

I don't particularly like Woods either, but so far I haven't seen any evidence of him lying or falsifying documents.

As for the court, you'll notice FarQuad checked the validity of those documents by ringing them up. I'm sure if you drop him a PM he will tell you how to do this yourself.

I'm sure all the contact information is available on the Web somewhere, but I'm not about to do the investigative work myself at this point.

[bhoggett]

Glitter never ever was charged,convicted of having sexual intercourse with a child, both women was exposed to be money grabbing liars, so please at least find out info before you type this nonsense.

Let's not pussy-foot around here. The guy is a despicable pervert and that's all there is to it. He did collect paedophilia off the internet, and there are no two ways about it. There's no comparing him to Amiga Inc. Amiga Inc may be crooks in many people's eyes, but Gadd is a pervert and a danger to society and children. If they locked him up for ever it would be too short a sentence.

His music or artistic achievemnts are irrelevant.

[bhoggett]

@Karlos

I have to agree with Bobson on this one. Amiga Inc., in my opinion are primarily guilty of being inept at running the company. I don't think they would have willingly set themselves up for all this crap...

They have screwed up rotten and haven't delivered on many promises, but I don't think that was their plan.

I don't think that anybody in their right mind believes they set out to scam people when they bought & licensed the Amiga stock and IP off Gateway.

However, when they screwed up, they reacted by attempting to sweep the mess under the carpet, and then turned to downright fraud rather than give it up as a bad job. Did they really intend to scam people with the Party Pack and coupon discount schemes? Maybe not, but my take is that they weren't at all certain they could honour their end of the bargain, but decided to take the money anyway and hope something would turn up before they'd have to make good on it.

It's not such a surprising story. A lot of people who end up committing fraud don't set out to do so, but simply get caught up on the downward slide and can't get off before it's too late.

At the end of the day, claiming that their current plight is just down to bad luck or evil competitors is a very sorry excuse for utter incompetence.

[bhoggett]

@Tigger

You are missing a whole lot of steps here, however understand, MorphOS runs on multiple PPC boards

Ummm, correct me if I'm wrong, but MorphOS is not available independent of the Pegasos hardware. You can't use MorphOS without buying a Pegasos any more than you'll be able to use AmigaOS4 without buying an AmigaOne (the CSPPC/BlizzardPPC cards don't count).  The fact that the impediment is not hardcoded into the firmware is rendered meaningless by current marketing policy.