Is Hyperion the new Amiga Inc.?

[commodorejohn]

Stumbled on it on Commodore-amiga.org.
(there, I completed your sentence for you). Heh.

Glad I'm not the only one who thought that article was suspiciously ass-kissing of CUSA. I'm no defender of Hyperion, but painting the company that employs Bigbenaussie as being the true friend of the Amiga community is pretty comical.

[commodorejohn]

Whatever it is, instead of slagging off one of the last active Amiga companies we are much better off giving our support. IMHO thats the only way forward for Amiga, respect, a bit of loyalty, and some real community spirit.

I still cannot fathom this "any company is better than no company" sentiment that a baffling number of Amigans seem to share. If even half the stuff in that blog is true, Hyperion's been trying to bully and threaten competing NG-Amiga OSes out of existence based on no evidence at all - I don't care if it killed the Amiga commercial market deader than it already is, that's not a company worth supporting.

[commodorejohn]

I find it funny that a lot of people are surprised that the official AmigaOS developers (weather you like it or not) moaned and complied about the unofficial AmigaOS 'very inspired' releases, it is after all their main competition

Thing is, though, it being understandable from a business standpoint doesn't make it okay. Their claims were groundless and everybody knew it, yet they tried to intimidate legitimate competitors into backing down with the threat of legal action. That's some SCO shit right there. A good business responds to competition with counter-competition, not by trying to bully their competitors out of the market.

[commodorejohn]

Ah, here we come to the real reason some people are bitching about Hyperion.

Even if that were true for everybody (it's certainly not for me, as I have no interest in MorphOS or PPC in general,) how is that relevant? Whether or not leander or anybody else has ulterior motives or slightly more personal grudges, that doesn't make any of Hyperion's actions discussed in this thread at all okay. Threatening legal action against competitors on obviously groundless claims and constantly bad-mouthing them on the same baseless allegations, toying with a third-party developer to stall out the competition, etc. are reprehensible regardless of whether the people pointing them out are doing so out of a personal vendetta, and not all of us here are willing to smile and nod and pretend otherwise just because they're one of the few remaining Amiga companies.

[commodorejohn]

If Hyperion was serious, they'd be making more threatening posts related  to MorphOS as it is much more closely related to their product than AROS.
And as AROS is a reverse engineered work alike product, Hyperion's comments in regard to the legality of AROS are a without merit.
While these posts have been almost uniformly negative toward Hyperion, they fail to make one point.
Hyperion promised a product and delivered on that promise. Their hardware partner (Acube) delivers what they announce.
Yes, they've been litigious, but they have advanced AmigaOS to a new level. I don't use it, but AOS4 is a fairly impressive product.

So, what, that makes it okay? Are we to believe that their legal threats and accusations of code theft were all in good fun, then? Because they've "advanced AmigaOS to a new level," we're just supposed to smile and chuckle and go "aww, that's our Hyperion! What won't those rascals get up to?" It might make them a business with a better product track record than, say, CUSA, but it doesn't even remotely excuse their behavior.

This is another fine example of the "we'll put up with anything as long as we don't have to see the Amiga name die off entirely" mentality shared by an alarming number of people in this community. Is having a commercial maintainer for AOS4 so precious as to be a "get out of misbehavior free" card? Really?

[commodorejohn]

Is this the Commodore USA thing? I think we already worked out that was because they were going to use the Amiga name with AROS, and Amiga Inc. couldn't license the Amiga name to Commodore USA for that particular use because of the terms of the license with Hyperion. Or the 2005 quote about Aros, which someone else in this thread earlier said wasn't something they were worrying about any longer, and as common sense dictates isn't an issue because they haven't been going after AROS itself, nor the iMica or Ares One - not that we know of anyway.

Well, the fact that we even have to clarify between multiple instances here says a lot, but I was specifically referring to the threatening discussion about AROS and MorphOS. The CUSA thing is at least not completely groundless (after all, they did sign that agreement,) but badmouthing legitimate, underived competitors and impugning their legal status because they're stepping in on your territory is completely indefensible.

Now, I do understand that that was some time ago, Hermans has left (I think? Correct me if I'm wrong,) and I don't think that it's entirely reasonable to hold their past misdeeds against them indefinitely. (Though as near as I can determine, they've yet to apologize in any way, shape, or form for that behavior.) My objection here is more to the idea expressed by multiple people in this thread that their behavior is somehow justified by their producing a product for the Amiga community, like their usefulness in one regard gives them carte blanche to get away with whatever FUDding and contract shenanigans they feel like. That is not an acceptable excuse, never has been, and never will be.

[commodorejohn]

No. That is incorrect, unless something changed this week. heh.

Thanks for the correction. All the more reason to not turn a blind eye to this behavior out of convenience, then.