Amiga Inc answers your questions (updated)

[JoePillow]

Let me quote this part from question and answer 24:

Q: ... the security certificate on Amiga.com has expired at the end of 2005... Is Amiga, Inc. nothing more than a software publishing house?

A: Bill McEwen -- I would not place any importance on the software certificate "issue." The certificate has been renewed and is currently in use...

As everybody can see if they visit https://www.amiga.com/shop/, the site does indeed have a new certificate, issued by Starfield Secure Certification Authority on August 29, 2006. But... just click on the lock symbol or equivalent, depending on your browser, to see who the company that requested and obtained the certificate is! It is Amiga, Inc. (Washington), and not Amiga, Inc. (Delaware)!

But... Didn't the same Bill McEwen just say in reply to question 2 that the Washington company and the Delaware one are unrelated, and that the Washington company is now closed? Let me quote again:

There has been no deception and no hiding of the assets in any form or matter.
...
This was an asset purchase agreement, and once completed, Amiga, Inc. of Washington (which now owned nothing) closed its doors.
...
the Washington Amiga and the Delaware Amiga are unrelated
...
There is no deception, no hiding and the fact that we announced all of it in the public forums would make that clear.

Now, I am getting really confused. Bill McEwen is telling us, the community, that the Washington company is closed, and that everything is now done via a new Delaware company, which is the only Amiga company. And that there is no deception. So, "they" are now the Delaware company, right? Bill McEwen also just told us that "they" are in business, and that "they" just renewed a security certificate. He also encourages the community not to place too much importance on the security certificate. (Why does he do that?) But, in my humble opinion, this is instead very important. Because a security certificate requires paperwork, and verification, not just nice words like we are hearing here, and apparently there is something that is not right here, because what we are told is the new and only Amiga company cannot even get a security certificate!

Look for yourself inside the certificate:

E = webmaster@amiga.com
CN = www.amiga.com
OU = Web Services
O = Amiga, Inc.
L = Issaquah
S = WA
C = US

This is the old Washington company, apparently still being used (even if inactive) when it is convenient to do so. In Mr. McEwen's own words, this company is now... "unrelated" and "closed its doors", and there is "no deception". If things like "unrelated" and "doors closed" mean nothing, and a security certificate and related audit is "not important", what meaning and importance can we expect to be attributed to "no deception and no hiding"?

[JoePillow]

"Hi, it's Amiga Inc here, our security certificate has run out. Can you renew it please and send us the bill" and Starfield said "Yes, Bill, we'll do that right away"

This may apply for any other service, but a security certificate is a statement about who you are. This statement is not accessory to the service, but rather this is what the service, and what you declare, and what is verified, are all about. If you cannot even state properly who you ("us") are, then I would say that you have a problem. And if you call a certification authority pretending that you are Amiga, Inc. (Washington) when instead you know that you are Amiga, Inc. (Delaware), an unrelated company, then that could even be considered something like fraud, I guess.

Of course, this may be bordering conspiracy theory, but think about it for a moment, because it could even make sense: maybe they can't change the certificate, because their little secret is that the new Amiga, Inc. (Delaware) does not own the domain amiga.com. So they can only renew it by pretending that they are the dead company. Which, according to whois data, is the owner of the amiga.com domain. I don't think this is peanuts. People know how much a domain like this is worth, especially if they care so much about "intellectual property", and if they carefully transferred things from one company to the other in several steps. So, I'd be curious to know what is behind this. If it was just a mistake, it could confirm how everybody treated the two companies as if it were one, which is also a bad thing to do, when you are trying to avoid legal and financial problems by setting up a new and "unrelated" company. Certainly, by running two businesses with the same name, as they are doing now out of two states, and even providing and renewing services for each other, and in particular doing so on such important things like your web presence and your digital identity, you don't help support the "unrelated" claim.

[JoePillow]

Condolences

With my deepest respect for what happened, I am not sure about how appropriate it is to mention this personal tragedy over and over again in this unrelated thread. I mean, we are going on with condolences and thanks for condolences after more than two years after the event, and after this already came up on Amiga mailing lists and sites of those days (such as Amigaworld.net and Moo Bunny Amiga).

I am mentioning this now just in case it is not clear that we are talking about events which happened in May 2004.