Amiga and Hyperion Settle Ownership of AmigaOS 227
HKcastaway writes "Amiga Inc and Hyperion Entertainment announced a settlement over ownership and licensing over AmigaOS 4.0 and future versions. Since the bankruptcy of Commodore, Amiga's history has been littered with lawsuits that have affected the development of Amiga hardware and software. Having a lawsuit-free OS probably will help a great deal to the continuity and recovery of the Amiga heritage. Hyperion also provides AmigaOS SDKs for developers.'
Brutality (Score:5, Insightful)
There is little good in them coming out of their litigation.
Winding back the clock a little, Amiga Inc came out of the broken bones of the old Amiga organisation. They came up with some plans, most of which broke down.
What they did do, was ally themselves up in an evil triumverate, with two other companies.
Amiga Inc, Hyperion, and a third company, Eyetech.
These three cooked up a goofy plan to ship a half baked OS, on severely half baked PPC hardware, so broken it became an in joke. The worst lunatics in the 'community' bandwagoned this complete junk, and the vast majority of people who fell for it, paid a lot of money for over priced junk. The warranty was worthless. A great many people walked away during this time, and a great deal of friction arose because of these antics.
The fact that two of these were killing themselves through litigation led to a hope they might destroy themselves, if for no other reason than they be denied the ground to sell their next 'release' on the unwise, the ill educated, or the stupid.
Putting that aside, its hard to consider Amiga OS, and the hardware choices are appallingly bad (unless you like crippled and old PPC equipment tied to old junk from the PC world) - so unless this 'new' start comes up with very serious improvements in every area, including warranty and support, and merchantable quality in their goods and services, and decent, reasonably priced hardware, then there is no reason for them to even exist. And on past events, they don't deserve to.
Re:Wow, my clock must be broken (Score:3, Insightful)
For a second there, it looked like I was reading a story about the Iphone being able to check a website in 2009. Ha ha ha! Silly clock radio.
For a second there, it looked like I was reading a comment from someone still poking fun at the Amiga in 2009. Ha ha ha! Silly clock radio.
Yep that's right - one Amiga article in a blue moon and the jokes start, yet Slashdot covers all manner of other platforms and systems, whether they're still cutting edge or not.
Hell, we still have stories about other old platforms too (such as old Macs). The Amiga has plenty of historical importance, but I guess it's sad that the anti-Amiga posters are still here, even in 2009.
Re:In other news.... (Score:3, Insightful)
...Ford reintroduces the Model T! All new for 2010!
Maybe not Ford, but in about 30 seconds I found two places to buy new Model T / Model A parts. Not junkyard specials but newly manufactured for the classic enthusiast market.
http://www.superiorglassworks.com/Ford-Model-T.html [superiorglassworks.com]
http://www.rootlieb.com/html_files/ma_spd_kit/ma_spd_kt.html [rootlieb.com]
Personally I'm tired of cookie cutter cars, and would pay good money for a new model T, just to have something unique. That strategy worked for the "new VW bug".
Re:A little late? (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed, they probably can't, but would they have to?
Apple realised they were no longer able to compete with their MacOS, or hardware, so now we have Macs that are PC hardware running an OS derived from Next.
Does anyone mind? On the contrary, Apple fans seem to love the new platform better than the old. They seem to be doing better than before, now they've made the switch.
can begin producing hardware and operating systems that are going to compete with current market players in any meaningful way.
But you're conflating things - just because they can't compete on hardware doesn't mean they can't compete. I don't see how it isn't "meaningful", when you can make money and sell computers doing it. The market's moved on - people don't make custom hardware anymore, not even Apple.
Coleco announces they have a Windows 7 killer in a brand new updated ColecoVision 2009?
More like Apple announces they have a Windows 7 killer in a brand new updated Mac.
Re:let the flames begin (Score:3, Insightful)
...note that every pro-Mac argument is simply an argument against Windows,...
Of course, the pro-Windows arguments tend to be even sillier (including such classics as complaining about shortcomings that OS X or the hardware it runs on got rid of ages ago, I've encountered people IRL as recently as a few months ago who were utterly unconvinced that Macs supported mice with more than one mouse button, and that they actually ship with mice with more than one button (technically "no" buttons but that's just semantics) was unpossible).
/Mikael
Re:let the flames begin (Score:5, Insightful)
I've looked at that and similar systems for a while now, but honestly, I just can't justify that sort of price premium. In all reality if they had wanted to spur adoption, then they should have built it for plain-jane x86 hardware. No need to support everything under the sun - hell just approve a specific combination of hardware as a reference platform and go from there (for non-gaming applications there are several motherboards where the whole of everything a user would need is right there on the board, making testing easy).
I mean, honestly, $550+ for a motherboard/cpu that would have been fast-ish about 8 years ago (and is only good for an Amiga), versus ~$125 for an x86 motherboard/cpu that's several times faster and can be used for any other OS if I decide that AmigaOS isn't for me?
That's a pretty easy decision, and the results don't favor the Amiga.
Truthfully, if I wanted to play with a vaguely Amiga-inspired OS I'd try Syllable before going for the official AmigaOS these days.
Re:Hardware? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:let the flames begin (Score:3, Insightful)
DERP
In one corner we've got a global powerhouse of a company that commands 10% US market share (shipments) of personal computers, with even better numbers if you look at laptops only, and a huge share of the smartphone market. That's about 6 million computers per year. Oh, and their OS has no problems dealing with Windows-centric networks and filesystems, and is POSIX-Certified. On top of that, major software houses produce software for the Mac OS, in addition to Apple's in-house software which (in some cases, like Shake) is recognized as some of the best in the industry.
In the other, we've got the defunct today, not-quite-dead tomorrow zombie remains of a corporation that was cool but probably didn't ship that many computers in its HISTORY. Oh, and their OS really *is* a niche OS--it's has no developers, no compatibility, and nothing special to recommend it over anything else.
derp derp derp yeah, questioning the relevance of Amiga is "just" like questioning the relevance of Apple. If you want to try that line of reasoning, you should pick a better target for your angst: drop some trash-talk on FreeDOS, or Minix. I was going to throw in VMS, but then I realized that I actually use VMS all the time and people are paid to use VMS. Amiga, not so much.
Re:let the flames begin (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference is that what made the Amiga so revolutionary was it's ability to get mid-90s quality media and performance from mid-80s hardware. While the OS doubtlessly played a role in this, the question of the relevancy of AmigaOS in 2009 goes back to that same issue: does Amiga have the potential to out-perform contemporary hardware to the same degree that it did back in 1985?
Given the people at the helm today and the rate of development of modern PC hardware, I would be kind of surprised if they could. It's a shame, because I upgraded from a Commodore 64 to an Amiga 500 back in 1987, and used it faithfully for several years until I went to college.
Amiga had its chance to make its mark in the mid-80s, and Commodore unfortunately squandered that opportunity.
Re:Wow, my clock must be broken (Score:4, Insightful)
Even a mid-spec'ed Windows PC can handle genuine video editing, multi-track virtual recording studios with awesome soft synths and effects plug-ins
Yes, but the Amiga did this on an 8MHz 68K with 1MB of RAM. Can you imagine an Amiga with today's hardware specs?
Re:Amiga comeback (Score:2, Insightful)
It also taught me that, plus that users cannot rely on proprietary software.
Sure, I wanted the Amiga to "win," but as a user, what was really important was not whether it won or not, but whether it continued to be maintained and developed. Even with a small marketshare, a platform can totally kick ass and make that minority wonder why they're a minority. But if you don't get a serious update since 1992, then there's really nothing to wonder about.
When you get down to it, proprietary means "killable," whether killed by competitors or the parent. Linux may not win, but at least it's not killable. The only person who has any say in whether or not I can use Linux forever, is me. The Amiga OS copyright holders (whoever they are), not me, is who decided that I don't get to stay on Amiga OS. Never again will I spend a lot of money on something and remain vulnerable to that.
Re:Wow, my clock must be broken (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it would be "in development" until 2015, and then released to practically nobody, who would promptly sue.
I've ceased to be excited by the "potential" of any hardware platform. The history of technology is littered with a lot of potentially great things that failed to do anything remotely great.
If you wanted to sum up Apple's recent successes, it would be "they delivered." Apple didn't promise the world, they merely delivered a continent or two. Here's a product: you can do these things with it.
Re:Brutality (Score:3, Insightful)
If the Amiga has been allowed to "die" back in the mid 90s I think it would probably be in a much better position than it is now.
Endless promises and outright lies over the years have slowly destroyed the community that was once so strong. If people had just accept that it was a retro system, much like the Archimedes and Atari ST guys I think more people would be interested in the Amiga today. I sold my last one (yes, the "Ami" part of my handle is short for Amiga) in 2004. I was just so fed up with the whole thing I just wanted rid of it.
The World of Amiga 2001 was the final nail in the coffin I think - we (the organisers) had been promised a new Amiga and OS4 running on it for the show, we even had a full page magazine ad for it. Then they tell us two days before the event that actually they have not even started planning the new hardware and OS, let alone prototyped it. How could we ever trust them after that? We didn't even like what they were promising: a final classic OS update and then something called AmigaOS but otherwise baring no relationship to it at all and running on mobile phones and set top boxes. Even the classic OS update seemed pointless as there would be no new software to run on it and the last chance to keep the few remaining developers with us was fast slipping away.
Up until that point people were still doing stuff with Amigas, making new hardware and apps and generally getting a lot out of them. On that day people kind of realised that all the effort and energy they put in had been shit on by some lying arse holes who a decade later still have not delivered a single product. All they wanted to do was milk the community for all it was worth while making plans to simply discard all the things we loved and produce a VM that had already missed the boat Java sailed in on by about 5 years.
The best thing that could have happened to the Amiga would have been for it to die in 1994 and the source to the OS to have been leaked. If that had happened I imagine I may well still be running one today.
Re:let the flames begin (Score:4, Insightful)
You ARE comparing Apples (sic) and oranges here.
The Mac platform was revolutionary... well, the software anyway (the hardware sucked from the get-go, despite the pretty plastic). 20 years later, they have actually fixed the OS (eg, went from a fairly poor low-level design to the Mach kernel and some other decent underpinnings), they have a growing user base, you can actually buy one in a store, there are many modern applications, and the company behind the Mac is making gobs of money. None of those things are true about anything related to the Amiga. And don't get on me for Amiga bashing -- I designed a bunch of them, I love the Amiga. I just hate what happened to it. It has gone nowhere significant since the mid 90s, and things were shakey even near the end, between Commodore's slow death and the year+ it took between that and the sincere attempt to bring things back at Amiga Technologies.
Sure, you may find a few things in AmigaOS that are still better than Windows. You can find that in just about any OS... Windows is an easy target. That doesn't make AmigaOS a useful choice for getting most kinds of real work done today. And it also doesn't remove the fact that the only real platform for AmigaOS today is software emulation of AmigaOS 3.x on a PC, under some other PC OS.
Telling the truth about something is not the same as bashing it; dreaming about what might have been doesn't change what is. But keep in mind... the AmigaOS has been in post Commodore, even post-Commodore/Amiga Technologies neglection longer than it had existed before this. That's a pretty harsh way of looking, but it's the truth. It was 10.5 years from the introduction of the Amiga 1000 (September 1985) to the functional end of Amiga Technologies (March 1986). It's largely been in the hands of lawyers and bozos ever since. Is there anyone really holding their breath for an AmigaOS re-introduction of any kind, much less one that invites a thriving user and developer community? I'd love to see that, but I don't believe in it.
Re:Wow, my clock must be broken (Score:4, Insightful)
A big snag was that it, as well as the Atari ST and Apple IIGS which came out at the same time, were bridge products between the old style home computers and professional business oriented computers. The market for a "home" computer just was not very large at all, and that never really took off like mad until the web browser. The business market for small computers was solidly DOS based, and issues of colors, video, and sound were not important to them. So these computers grabbed a lot of niche markets instead: programmer hobbyists, video enthusiasts and professionals, musicians, gamers, etc. Remember at the time that the Mac was also very much a niche market as well, and a much more expensive product.
Of course, I think another huge reason PCs won, is that they had all the clones. IBM didn't lock things down very well, so just about everyone could make a copy and sell something just slightly cheaper than the next guy. If you just needed to print memos and work on spreadsheets, you went with the cheapest no-name option. The "expectations" for the typical PC user were extremely tiny.
Re:A little late? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe it's not that big a deal really to the pragmatic engineer side of me, but the idealistic engineer side is disappointed
Not the world as it is... (Score:3, Insightful)
...but the world as it could be. That has always been the nature of the Amiga.
I've always had a strange feeling that the Amiga was like something out of an episode of Sliders.
It was almost as if, with this system, instead of being something from our own world, at some point a brief window to a different and more positive reality was opened; a place where the priority systems of people was aligned with what truly worked, and said place's inhabitants cared more about creativity, and community, and real innovation, and less purely about the profit motive, than they do here...and that for the few seconds said window was open, an A500 fell through it, was found by someone here, reverse engineered, and then reproduced.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_1PjOEFPTk [youtube.com] - This is an example of what I'm talking about. A comparison with Linux on a very old machine. The Amiga always demonstrated the kind of performance which logically, just didn't seem as though it should be possible... ...and yet somehow, it was.
Re:let the flames begin (Score:3, Insightful)
"I know I'll be flamed, but in all honesty, is the Mac platform even relevant any more? The hardware and OS were revolutionary in 1989, but 20 years later, is it really something all that different?"
See, if I posted that to every Mac story, I'd get modded down in an instant.
Rightfully so, because it's an extremely idiotic thing to say.
Why must every Amiga story (it's not like we get them often, unlike the three Apple stories a day) be bogged down with these flames?
Because Amiga *isn't* relevant today. Since you have such a hard on for Apple, you probably know of at least 10 people who currently own and use a Mac, at least 50 who currently own and use an iPod or iPhone. How many people do you know that currently use an Amiga?
Media interest, market share, available hardware, available software, retail space (even *outside* of Apple's own stores), their own stores... In which of these categories is Amiga even *remotely* similar to Apple?
Hell, how many people do you think would even recognize the word Amiga as applies to computers? How many do you think don't know about Apple as applies to computers?
go to an Apple versus Windows debate, note that every pro-Mac argument is simply an argument against Windows
I use Macs because of their usability, the quality of the hardware, the overall feel and polish of the apps (both from Apple and third party software), and things tend to "just work". Any "Apple versus Windows debate" will have pro-Mac arguments just like mine. You clearly haven't thought this through.
[pro-Mac arguments are just anti-Windows] and therefore note they can be applied here in favour of the Amiga too
Not really, *because the Amiga isn't a modern platform*. An argument against GM in defense of Toyota is not also an argument in favor of a Model T or a Gremlin.
See? I used to have trouble arguing for the Amiga in the late 90s, but now supporting a non-Windows platform here on Slashdot is easy :) A shame the anti-Amiga trolls are still around though - why not moan about the platforms we hear more often about?
If you think simply being "not Windows" is sufficient to garner support on Slashdot, you are woefully clueless. There will always be supporters of pretty much *any* platform here, but the hive-mind here doesn't just go, "not Windows, then it's good!". In fact, there are a *lot* of Windows supporters here.
Your powers of observation are severely lacking.