Ben Hermans still staunchly against x86

[actung_bab]

My reasoning was in trying to come up with any reason the company would stick with PPC.

Pros:
Captive hardware market
No cost of porting

Cons:
Users pay high prices
Users have slower systems
Lower adoption rate

The only pro's I see are due to greed.

If they didn't want a monopoly hardware market, why didn't they port to Mac hardware long ago like Morphos did?

I don't see any benefit to PPC for end users, only downsides.

actaully l think you have to look esle where you talking greed and starts with A and ends in inc

what l have read in the past in the orginal contract hpyerion where forbiden from porting
to x86 l would thought this still applys as from what understand they have the owership
of what they ported only .
remember they where given the task by amiga inc to port it they made the ppc descion
ad then they thought later oh are amiga anywhere tke f where intrested in orginal amiga os at all untill there plans never worked out.

[Heiroglyph]

I've completely given up on A inc.  That's not even greed, that's pure stupidity and lack of any business sense.

I'm pretty sure that Hyperion has the crown jewels, the whole OS and AmigaOS trademarks to do with as they please.  I have no references, but I thought that's what was said at last years AmiWest.

Whether Amiga inc still has the right to use the source code too is anyones guess.  All I've heard is that they have most of the trademarks and the old hardware designs.

Is Amiga inc still really in business and if so, what do they do?

[SamuraiCrow]

Is Amiga inc still really in business and if so, what do they do?

The last I heard, they had sold the Amiga name to CommodoreUSA, a company with even LESS business sense than the old A Inc.

[mongo]

The last I heard, they had sold the Amiga name to CommodoreUSA, a company with even LESS business sense than the old A Inc.

They licensed the Amiga name to Commodore USA.

[persia]

Yes, Amiga Inc licensed the name AmigaOS to Hyperion and the Amiga name to Commodore USA.  They also licensed 3.1 to Hyperion, so as far as it goes the license thing is just small print and makes no difference in terms of day to day business.

[Heiroglyph]

Actually Hyperion got AmigaOS and the source code in the lawsuit.  It's not a license, Hyperion are the owners.

[Iggy]

Actually Hyperion got AmigaOS and the source code in the lawsuit.  It's not a license, Hyperion are the owners.

You didn't read the decision, did you? Hyperion and A. Inc.'s  resolution gives Hyperion an exclusive license to use AmigaOS3.1 to develop AmigaOS4, AOS5 a future variants as well as the right to use the AmigaOS name. They apparently as also allowed (with their associated companies) to market computers as AmigaOne computers.

The fact that they don't have control over the brand name Amiga is what led CUSA to be able to negotiate with A. Inc. for the use of that trademark on other computers.

[Heiroglyph]

No, I didn't, but I should have double-checked myself.

I can't find the decision, but the wording I read all over the net seems like more than a license.

"an exclusive, perpetual, worldwide right to AmigaOS 3.1 in order to use, develop, modify, commercialize, distribute and market AmigaOS 4.x (and subsequent versions of AmigaOS including without limitation AmigaOS 5) in any form, on any medium and for any current or future hardware platform under the exclusive trademark "AmigaOS" (Amiga operating system) and using other associated trademarks (such as the "BoingBall" logo).

Serious question: How does that differ from ownership?  It's a perpetual and exclusive right, which sounds like ownership to me.

[Iggy]

No, I didn't, but I should have double-checked myself.

I can't find the decision, but the wording I read all over the net seems like more than a license.



Serious question: How does that differ from ownership?  It's a perpetual and exclusive right, which sounds like ownership to me.

In the long run, there is no real difference (except that other license holders like Cloanto can still distribute their products).

I'm still not convinced that Amiga Inc. claim to ownership of these properties was valid. So the agreement really helps Hyperion since they now can claim to be the valid holder of the preperty.

[takemehomegrandma]

Actually Hyperion got AmigaOS and the source code in the lawsuit.  It's not a license, Hyperion are the owners.

No, they are certainly *not*, please read the settlement!

The document is actually *overly clear* on this point, it's "the Amiga Parties" (Amiga Inc) who are the sole and undisputed owners of Amiga OS 3.1 ("Grant 1a"), but Hyperion has *the right to use it* ("Grant 1b") much in any way they want, during the duration of the agreement.  

In fact, the agreement means in practice that Hyperion aren't even the sole owners of OS4:

Hyperion has built a house (AmigaOS4). They have built it using construction materials that *in major parts* are *loaned* (Amiga OS 3.1). Hyperion actually acknowledge in the settlement that the loaned bricks and planks (Amiga OS 3.1) used to build the OS4 house are indeed owned by Amiga Inc. Amiga Inc acknowledge in the settlement that the house is owned by Hyperion, *except* for the loaned bricks and planks they used to actually build the house, which are still owned by Amiga Inc.

Now, who owns the house?

The situation gets even more problematic if you actually consider OS4 to be true derivate work, since there are several unattended ownership/copyright issues surrounding various parts of Amiga OS 3.1. Third party entities (like Cloanto for example) claimed to be co-authors (hence a stake holder) of Amiga OS 3. William S. Hawes is the author of AREXX, which Commodore included in OS 3 without his permission, which Hyperion still does AFAIK. There are others. Heck, even the entire path of transferring of Amiga IP from Commodore, through the previous IP owners, to what's today known as Amiga Inc is dubious:

http://sites.google.com/site/freeamiga/

Reading that site raises the question of how much this agreement between Amiga Inc and Hyperion is worth at all? Does Amiga Inc even have the right to make deals with Hyperion regarding the IP in the first place? It might work just fine as long as no old stake holder with his documents in order is opposing it? Like a house built of a deck of cards; it might look like a pretty construction as long as it's left alone. But as soon as someone opens the window on a windy day and let the drag in, it can collapse in an instant.

[takemehomegrandma]

The last I heard, they had sold the Amiga name to CommodoreUSA, a company with even LESS business sense than the old A Inc.

No, it was a *license to use*. Much like in Hyperion's case (they don't own any trade marks either).

Hyperion has a license to four marks: "AmigaOS", "Amiga OS", "AmigaOne", "Amiga One", limited for marketing of OS4 and HW needed to operate it.

Commodore has a license to the mark: "Amiga", for marketing of their "All-in-one" computers.

[takemehomegrandma]

Serious question: How does that differ from ownership?

In the long run, there is no real difference

Well, for one thing, you can't sell what you don't own.

[Hammer]

No, it was alot more about sticking with Motorola - Apple were the jerks that killed the PowerPC when they ruined the marked by preventing MacOS licensing to CHRP machines.

People seem to forget history around here

According to Steve Jobs, the clones are unwilling to pay higher licensing cost.

[the_leander]

The situation gets even more problematic if you actually consider OS4 to be true derivate work, since there are several unattended ownership/copyright issues surrounding various parts of Amiga OS 3.1. Third party entities (like Cloanto for example) claimed to be co-authors (hence a stake holder) of Amiga OS 3. William S. Hawes is the author of AREXX, which Commodore included in OS 3 without his permission, which Hyperion still does AFAIK. There are others. Heck, even the entire path of transferring of Amiga IP from Commodore, through the previous IP owners, to what's today known as Amiga Inc is dubious:

http://sites.google.com/site/freeamiga/

Reading that site raises the question of how much this agreement between Amiga Inc and Hyperion is worth at all? Does Amiga Inc even have the right to make deals with Hyperion regarding the IP in the first place? It might work just fine as long as no old stake holder with his documents in order is opposing it? Like a house built of a deck of cards; it might look like a pretty construction as long as it's left alone. But as soon as someone opens the window on a windy day and let the drag in, it can collapse in an instant.

And if you read the court dox it gets even more fun - Hyperion only own the right to sell the OS4 binaries, the source code remains the property of the developers.

All in all, I'm not entirely certain how this could be made more of a minefield legally than it is now.

[the_leander]

According to Steve Jobs, the clones are unwilling to pay higher licensing cost.

I imagine that whilst there is some truth to that, the idea of other OS's running up and possibly beating them on their own hardware didn't make Jobs all that happy. This is backed up by the fact that they refused point blank to supply the necessary info to Be Inc regarding post CHRP hardware.

[kedawa]

I don't understand how that's such an obsatcle.  Linux runs on those machines, so why couldn't BeOS?