C-A Acquisition Corp. vs. Hyperion Ent.

[Gulliver]

@Louis Dias

I believe you are more or less right with your assumptions.

For Cloanto it would be a nightmare to get control over 3.2. They don't have the inside knowledge, nor technical infrastructure to carry on the project. They also lack all the third party licenses and the access to OS4 code. Despite all its flaws, Hyperion has all this in a working state.

So it would not be reasonable at all to shoot for a kill, because they will lose it all, and in the best case scenario end up with 3.1 (v40) code that has gaps all over the place and won't compile.

The best solutions for both parties is a mutual agreement IMHO.

[guest11527]

For Cloanto it would be a nightmare to get control over 3.2. They don't have the inside knowledge, nor technical infrastructure to carry on the project.

Neither has Hyperion. The problem for Hyperion and Cloanto is to have support from the developers, and their/our good will, and their agreement to publish their contribution.

The trouble is that 3.2 depends on more than just the people that work right now on 3.2, but also on the people that contributed indirectly by working on Os 4.x and whose code was merged into 3.2.Thus, it would be necessary to research which agreements Hyperion made exactly with their authors, and in how far and under which conditions publication rights are transferable to another party.

It might well happen that everything falls apart as some parts of 3.2 remain at their authors, and it could only be published by Cloanto if the rights are re-negotiated individually.

Maybe this works, maybe it does not - but it surely takes a long time.

[kolla]

Yes, 3.2 is now in the same legal swamp that has prevented updates for OS4 for years, where the individual developers who hold the rights to their individual components (or blocks of code, shrug) depend on Hyperion to organize OS releases.

In my view, as customer and user, Cloanto is the better choice as Mike has stated he will open the OS as much as possible, including open sourcing as much of it as possible, which (for example) would allow merging AROS and Amiga OS code where it makes sense to do so, and a common source tree for anyone to contribute to. Current developers with their individual copyrights can then make their own choices if they wish to participate and contribute, or if they wish to continue their current project with what they have.

[Minuous]

I don't see any reason to believe what Cloanto says. I think it much more likely that their current policy of just milking the platform for nostalgia money would continue, rather than advancing the state of the OS.

I for one would certainly not continue developing AmigaOS if Cloanto was involved.

[guest11527]

In my view, as customer and user, Cloanto is the better choice as Mike has stated he will open the OS as much as possible, including open sourcing as much of it as possible...

Which may be "not possible at all", a possibility you may have seem to forgotten. The question here is in how far the contributions can be opened as it requires a license change, and potentially renegotiations, potentially with parties that you can no longer reach. By that I not only mean "our contributions" or "Os 4 contributions", but the trouble goes back to CBM times, and what CBM negotiated, and which licenses they had.

So, just to give you some ideas: The dos.library is not only Tripos and CBM code, it is also ARP code. Did CBM have licences to put out the source in the wild? Or only for their internal Os development purpose? What about ARexx, which is a third-party contribution? What about CrossDos?

We already found out that the narrator.device didn't have a source code license at all, but only a binary license, so its sources are completely unacessible unless someone is willing to pay off SoftVoice, which is exactly the reason why it is no longer included in any Os version beyond 2.04. Chances are that its inclusion in 2.04 was not even covered by a valid license at all and only the original unextended version from 1.2 times was really ok.

Reaction is something Hyperion recently acquired. Whether the license they paid for allows opening the source I do not know, but I'll bet that Hyperion is not willing to give that away for nothing after having paid for it.

So please don't believe in the shiny rainbow Cloanto is willing to promise. That is nothing but politics. Reality is much more cruel. If you want something open, without entanglement of third party rights, your best bet is AROS.

[kolla]

Blablabla... which part of “as much as possible” is so hard to understand?
It would be quite possible for them to open source the bits and pieces they have full ownership over.

[kolla]

At least Cloanto has said they will look into these options - Hyperion not at all.

Regarding the licenses you mention, what did those old right holders get from the current development? What saying did they have in the so called transfer of rights (not really!) to Hyperion? Did William Hawes give his thumbs up for continued development of RexxMast?

[kolla]

I for one would certainly not continue developing AmigaOS if Cloanto was involved.

That would be a nice bonus

[guest11527]

Regarding the licenses you mention, what did those old right holders get from the current development? What saying did they have in the so called transfer of rights (not really!) to Hyperion? Did William Hawes give his thumbs up for continued development of RexxMast?

I do not know which arrangement exists between Bill and CBM besides rumours, but what I do care about is that that my back is covered it case trouble is coming.

How can Cloanto indemnify anyone working on it if the source is out in the wild? I wouldn't know how to arrange that.

[guest11527]

Blablabla... which part of “as much as possible” is so hard to understand?

The part of "how to make that happen".

It would be quite possible for them to open source the bits and pieces they have full ownership over.

The problem is just the "if" part, for reasons I already explained, and the "williing" part, i.e. how much to trust them.

What you probably do not understand or do not want to see is that this is a pretty obvious political move of Cloanto. Well, you are entitled to your opinion, but if I have a choice between politics and getting something done, I'll pick the latter.

[CBH]

I don't see any reason to believe what Cloanto says. I think it much more likely that their current policy of just milking the platform for nostalgia money would continue, rather than advancing the state of the OS.

I for one would certainly not continue developing AmigaOS if Cloanto was involved.

That's funny. First you say that you think Cloanto would probably just milk IP rather than advance the OS, then you say you wouldn't advance the OS for Cloanto.

Almost a self fulfilling prophecy, if it wasn't for your nobody status.

[Gulliver]

I don't see any reason to believe what Cloanto says. I think it much more likely that their current policy of just milking the platform for nostalgia money would continue, rather than advancing the state of the OS.

I for one would certainly not continue developing AmigaOS if Cloanto was involved.

That's funny. First you say that you think Cloanto would probably just milk IP rather than advance the OS, then you say you wouldn't advance the OS for Cloanto.

Almost a self fulfilling prophecy, if it wasn't for your nobody status.

@CBH

Nobody status? What is this kind of argument?
Do you know what he does and what he did in the past?

I don't really understand these kind of extremist view on things. It is okay that you love Cloanto products, go buy them, and cheer for them, and let the rest do whatever they like and think differently. How can you call another human being like that because he chose to have an opposing view?

Minuous has been a long contributor to the Amiga community in general, supporting different OSes and architectures.

And not only that, he is the person who took the daunting task of porting back ReAction from PPC to 68k, and fixed a lot of bugs down the road, and optimized it in such a way that now works on a 68000 processor. And he started doing this alone, later we all jumped in to help him in the way each of us could.

If it was not for him, AmigaOS 3.2 would not have ReAction included.

He is a truly talented developer. We are fortunate to have him working on AmigaOS.

[Pyromania]

@Gulliver

I just wanted to wish everyone working on AmigaOS 3.2 health and happiness. I hope everyone is doing well. Thank you so much for your hard work updating and improving AmigaOS. You are doing the community a great service and it is really appreciated.

[kolla]

@Gulliver
So you’re saying that if Cloanto takes over, not only will Minious vanish, but he will take Reaction with him?

Even better!

I find it rather ironic that seemingly half the OS team now, are old pirates and hack&patch pushers...

[Minuous]

Of course he isn't saying that. It would remain part of the OS. The rights to ReAction are owned by Hyperion not by myself.

[kolla]

(And by hack&patch, I don’t mean Haage & Partner - I mean hacks and patches)