Hyperion Entertainment CVBA and Amiga Inc. reach settlement

[persia]

Congratulation Hyperion.  Now get that Mac Mini port out so we can dual boot OS 4 and Morphos!

[persia]

I didn't think OS 4 had a Kickstart.  

They have the rights to 3.1 to protect the bits of 3.1 that are in OS 4.  If AI goes belly up the right to classic OS will be in limbo, possibly a long time, with the possibility that whomever eventually ends up with those rights could take legal action against Hyperion, the specific granting of rights to 3.1 should prevent this.

Does the access and right to use OS3.1 to develop their programs also give the the rights to use Kickstart 3.1?

I'm wondering if this would allow Hyperion to develop a pre-loaded SD card for "Minimig" type machines with an office Kickstart and OS installation.  Perhap even a complete "Minimig" games system for commerical release...

Either way, well done Hyperion and hopefully this will allow OS4.x to move forward in leaps and bounds.

[persia]

I got the impression that AMiga inc was talking about CECT when it mentioned mobile phones.  CECT was on the hunt for an OS when the strange email form McBill arrived.  

As far as I could tell the Indian branch was never anything other than a way to launder money out of the country.  People in the Indian IT industry I knew, including university instructors in Poona, had never heard of it.

[persia]

Clearly you don't understand the difference between civil and criminal law....

Maybe AI felt it as enough benefit that they were not sentenced because of the fraudulous transfer of IP from AI (W) to AI(D)...



The chance to get out of it without being sentenced?



I would not say "a counter-lawsuit" - with this agreement they avoided being sentenced in THIS lawsuit (and obviously in all other pending, too).



That remains to be seen, I'd say...

[persia]

Nothing has changed with Classic AmigaOS, it remains the property of Amiga Inc, UAE is fine, but if Hyperion wish to distribute ROM images and Classic OS versions they need to deal with Amiga Inc.  The agreement appears to only cover code used from 3.1 not 3.1 itself.

Ok, it might be a little too soon to ask, but i'm still confused. Were dose this leave Amiga inc, bankrupt ? Out of Buisness ? Is Hyperion going to trash the Amiga cos there's no money in it anymore ? Will we have to pay for Winuae, or will they be threaten by legaality to cease continuing development due to breach of copyright or what ever excuse they might make up. All i can see is this is not over, and i would be very sceptical about what ever happens to the Amiga.

[persia]

It's a change in liability, if Hyperion goes bankrupt the creditors can no longer go after the assets of the Frieden Bros or anyone else who has a share of the company.

Can somebody explain the significance of hyperions change CVBA.  What does this mean  ?

[persia]

Accord to Hyperion's website they have an exclusive license to the name AmigaOS.  Meaning that the name AmigaOS still belongs to Amiga Inc, so Amiga Inc being the owner of the name could conceivably still produce an AmigaOS and they still own Classic AmigaOS.

But realistically this is a tiny market, a few thousand people, which Amiga Inc has pissed off, so there's really no incentive for them to even think of producing their own AmigaOS, but there would be some opportunity for them to produce classic machines in partnership with someone like NatAmi.

@dammy
Let me check my AmiWest notes here...

Hyperion will continue development, commercialisation and distribution of AmigaOS 4.x and beyond including AmigaOS 5.x world-wide and without any restrictions of any kind. Hyperion has ensured that it can continue these activities even in the event of an Amiga Inc. bankruptcy, insolvency or restructuring.

Hyperion is the only party allowed to use the "AmigaOS" trademark, Amiga Inc. included. There will be no "AmigaOS 5" from Amiga Inc. nor any other Amiga "operating system".

Amiga Inc. abandons all claims on the AmigaOS 4.x intellectual property and will refrain from any interference with the development and distribution of AmigaOS 4.x and beyond.

Personally, I think it would be best if we all stopped playing armchair lawyer and looking for ways to fail. AmigaOS is back in the hands of somebody who cares. It is time to stop speculating about what could go wrong and start thinking about all the things that could go right. AmigaKit still has a few boards left if you'd like to join us. Otherwise, get out of the way because there is nothing holding us back now. 8-)

[persia]

@bhoggett

When I entered the Amiga World it was because it was on the bleeding edge, that edge is so far away now that it is an unreachable goal, so why bother, Hyperion have a market that wants on a few changes, a retro OS that can use more modern hardware and one in which they can do a few modernish things, that's a doable thing.  That appears to be Hyperions target.  

And that market doesn't care about price, they'll pay what it takes.

[persia]

Classic Amiga OS is unaffected by this agreement, Hyperion never owed it and never pretended to own it.  It remains in the hands of Amiga Inc.  The only right Hyperion won to Classic Amiga OS was the right to use code from 3.1 that it used to produce 4.  AmigaOS 4 and Classic AmigaOS belong to different companies.

It would be interesting to actually read the document that was signed to understand what exclusive means in this instance.  Remember it's lawyers writing the agreement, not people with common sense.  The exclusive does mean that Amiga Inc can't license another third party, but whether they can produce anything named AmigaOS in their own right would have to be found in the agreement itself.

[persia]

Added it to my signature!

LOL that`s got to be the best quote i`ve ever heard on A.org  :-)

[persia]

Amiga Development India is actually in Pune, which most people would consider central India.  So you really should have said "Supposedly they had a crew of Central Indian programmers working on whatever it was they were/are working on."

Just for the geographically minded....

@Wayne sorry to hear about your troubles :-(  I'm not exactly sitting on fat stacks of cash either at the moment.  The United States economy is pretty much failing-all the money's at the top and staying there.

I really couldn't say what Amiga are doing for money.  Apparently, not selling OS4.  It makes me wonder why they don't get it together and become the games/apps portal for Android phones-Amiga did actually invent the iPhone app store concept, if the execution (and to be fair, the technology and vision on the part of 'partner' companies) was lacking.  

One of the biggest complaints about non-iPhone OSes and the equipment that they run on, is no centralized app store.  Once again Amiga invents it, then Apple comes out with it five years later and acts like they thought of it :-/

I go off on this cel phone tangent because Amiga themselves supposedly went off on it several years ago.  Supposedly they had a crew of East Indian programmers working on whatever it was they were/are working on.  if their AA concept could work seamlessly with one executable on RIM devices as well as on Android, they'd be sitting on fat stacks of cash pretty quickly.

Sadly, I kinda doubt they have the gumption to get this done.  But I'd happily be proven wrong..