[UserReview] Vampire V2-128 received and it's just pure p0rn.

[wawrzon]

I can understand Hyperion's resistance at the moment. So many projects go nowhere.

afair its mostly their projects that go nowhere. instead, community based projects tend to succeed. and im a bit confused about what could they offer us under these circumstances.

[wawrzon]

I should have said "Hardware projects". Why are you a bit confused?

i see a number of community based hardware projects actually fluorish. mist, fpgaarcade, vampire, a number of projects by strim like the sonnetppc for mediator or 030-decellerator just to name few. okay, there are few projects that were actually obvious to fail like ultimate ppc or tina. but what does any of that has to do with hyperions constant denial of amiga as 68k platform and their habit not to deliver even what they have promissed?

[wawrzon]

But again, until any hardware is shipping in volume it isn't worth the hassle. A large user base opens up options for bounties and such.

according to kipper vampire2 will be in hands of 250 users soon. this is aan accel for rather unpopular model of amiga. this is within few weeks of initial release. in what volumes are hyperion accustomed os4 hardware to ship? just to mention, there is some 600 users on haperion forum, the talk about sam batches was by 25 if i remember right, the new os4 hardware like x5k or tabor were mentioned to be ordered like in 500-1000 quantities and everybody wondered if thera are customers for that much.

[wawrzon]

For you, it seems like a joke, but I consider this really a considerable problem.

Essentially, it means that despite the lack of proper licensing, a group (majority? minority?) of vampire users will use the P96 rtg driver on P96 and not AROS. This is a commercial use and a breach of the P96 license.

Hence, I believe at this point the Vampire can only be used on top of AROS. This is what I mean by "go all the way OpenSource then", and "Users might not be aware of the consequences".

Again, if this is good or bad is your personal perspective, but I doubt that such users are aware of these implications.

and what if vampire/apollo doesnt (need to) ship with any rom? will there still be a problem because hyperiuon has no argument to demand licenses?

[wawrzon]

Yes, it does. P96 support for a commercial platform requires a license. Is the P96 driver licensed? No, it's not.
...
Try to understand the situation for just a moment from the perspective of the P96 developers, please.

please be clear.
are you talking on behalf of p96 developers?  have they entiteled you to defend their rights in public? have they in person informed you that gunnar is acting illegally.

or are you just depending on statements from someone from hyperion and actually arguing on their behalf? if the  latter is the case, you might actually not know the whole truth, since the source you would be relaying on has proven not to be completely trustworthy.

i as kagain. why do you take issue with gunnar, but dont bother with anybody else developing third party drivers or depending on such without actual p96 license. i mean a number of a1k projects (at least three come to mind), elbox drivers, fpgaarcade and mist and so on..

[wawrzon]

Neither - nor. Again, I'm not under NDA from Hyperion, we have no contract. Neither am I under NDA from T&A, nor do I have a contract in this direction. Nobody is paying me, and these are all my sole and only personal opinions.

Call this my personal view on the affairs as an developer who helped once in P96 development, and a developer who saw the demise of P96 due to a dishonest company (Elbox, namely) simply using P96 for their commercial products. I also see that this history just repeats.


Don't worry, I've made my points more than clear with Gunnar already.



Indeed, same problems all again.

If you ask me where to make the cut (personal opinion): As long as I have a hobby project, and develop a driver for a low-volume series for a couple of friends in a non-profit way, I'll believe I as a developer would be fine. No harm done.

As soon, however, as I sell a product for a commercial interest, I personally see problems. Elbox is such a candidate for sure. They sold products to end-users, including drivers, hence created products for money that clearly depended on third party work, yet didn't want to pay for this third party work.

About the two other products I do not know enough to state a clear position.

so, this is your personal opinion. you have no contact to the original developers, who are being reported not to care personally and be fine with situation as is (sounds very likely). the demise  of p96 due to dishonest company already happened and therefore wont happen again. and still you go on a crusade agains apparently a honest appointment between gunnar and the original developers, because some third party, that has proven track of record of misinformation, lack of support, broken promisses and the like wanted to chip in in that deal.

really.. why do you care at all. i trust your good will and that you had hope to find some constructive compromise here, but what you are telling only makes it to look more utopic, based on communitys experience with parties involved.

[wawrzon]

@thor

btw. if you have a list of people who would have helped with improving the os for part of money gunnar would pay to hyperion (im sure they would keep some part of it) why not put up some aros bounties the people can work towards and be dependably rewarded that way?

i mean i doubt hyperion is a potential source of investments here, the money must come from elsewhere. so logically, if they are not involved, there is potentially more funds at disposal, as they dont need to be granted a share, for whatever they would do, likely nothing.

[wawrzon]

And now I see all this happening again.

it happened once. under different circumstances. if gunnar has approached the genuine coders and has their approval its all fine. a completely different thing. you have all the time poating as if you have been in contact with those and mediating an agreement. as it turns out, you didint have any contact and are relying on what gunnar and hyperion say. why are you insisting on your personal views based on hearsay as being objective?

I'm sorry, this really p*sses me off. It's exactly this type of dishonesty that caused a lot of problems in the Amiga world: CBM, essentially stealing ARexx. Elbox stealing P96, Haage & Partner stealing Genesis.And now, yet again?

Oh, please, do we *really* need to repeat history?

It would be really about time that we get things done the right way and the correct way.

and yet we are here. doesnt look like gunnar was doing anythig particularly wrong in this context. it may not be exactly by the book, but it isnt incorrect so far, while others are.

i dont like to think like that. but im really starting to feel that you are being pissed off not because the original developers are not getting their share, but because hyperion has missed an opportunity to intermediate and gain on that.

[wawrzon]

If those 10.000€ are somewhere lost in the machinary of Hyperion: I believe we agree, that's not worth it. If the 10.000€ arrive - to some degree - in the pockets of the developers, that's probably not too bad a deal at all.

but this money is not donated by hyperion. they only want an administrative share. who knows how much. once assumed the money is there, wherever it has been found, isnt that better if all the money arrive in the pockets of actual developers?

[wawrzon]

You're right of course. Indeed, I had. I send them a pretty angry email two weeks ago how they could have possibly missed this type of a deal. There was a long talk with Gunnar, and they also f*cked this up. Thank you for pointing this out.

Then later last week send me "we would like to talk to you later, there are other FPGA projects", and my answer was, "thanks, no".

Reason is basically that the best they can do is a "Me, too!" project that comes too late, does too little, and even more - with whom working on the FPGA? It's not that there is any in-house knowledge for that at Hyperion. It requires a knowledgable CPU designer  - exactly like Gunnar - to get this job done. Done right.

So whom are they fooling? There's nothing better concering 68K on the market right now.

And yes, the Vampire does a lot of things right, from the technical perspective. It's a brilliant project as such.



Yes, actually now that you mention it.

as you see all they can is ride on tails of others, miss deadlines, oversee opportunities, blame the audience, pretend to own or have licenses for something none can verify.

why would you want to associate yourself with someone like that? to have gallium and multicore promissed and talked about on forums for another twenty years? until maybe someone else achieves this?

no, thanks. i prefer they stay with ppc business and target audience, where they are welcome. they dont bring anything to the table.

[wawrzon]

No. Can I release it? No.

Do you see a pattern here?

i feel your pain. any investment there is lost. but you are not a newbie, you know the people and the circumstances, how come you are surprised by this attitude?

[wawrzon]

Thomas, how come you have all those programs and the respective sources without being under NDA? It's a pity you can't release this stuff. But that's due to Hyperion's lack of interest and not our fault. Collateral damage, so to say. So the work and disappointed idealism that went into it is the reason why you are so angry? Don't worry, the day will come when AOS will be legally open source (and hopefully merged with AROS).

i dont like myself saying this, but looks so true..

[wawrzon]

well, this therad as another on a1k and who knows where yet, illustrates hopefully for everybody rather well, what may usually happen, when coming too close within the vicitnity of some ips, copyrights, assumed ownerships or licenses, especially as soon as some hope for money to be gained of them even remotely (and funny enough upon somone elses work) appear somewhere out there.

is this what the community is served best with?

you tell me..

[wawrzon]

I can't speak for AROS but you certainly could contribute to parts that have no antecedent in AOS such as device drivers for modern devices.

there is even a "core" os4 developer contributing to aros diskimage device, frederick. or rather he has become core developer at os4 after he has parallelly contributed his work to both for a good while. but i think thomas decision is right and i honour and understand it. he could consult, but then this is up to everybody personally.

[wawrzon]

nice wish concierto. already thought about feature creep, a fate of natami, and who would write the drivers?

[wawrzon]

Hey yeah, will the A2000 version be a CPU slot adapter or an adjusted A500 design (68k slot drop in)?

something like that i guess, but does that matter either way as long it works?