• Yokemate of Keyboards
    Yokemate of Keyboards
    Andreas_Wolf
    Posts: 12058 from 2003/5/22
    From: Germany
    > information quoted that insinuated that the MorphOS development team were
    > somehow involved with Amiga Inc. and Bill McEswen.

    I don't think there is such "information" here in this thread. As far as I can see, you were the first one portraying such idea here, only to immediately question its accuracy in the same line. That didn't make any sense to me (and still doesn't, to be honest).

    > you think very literally

    No, I *read* very literally.

    > Hyperion's lawyers stated their opinion that the contract that was originally in
    > place between Hyperion and Amiga Inc was null and void

    Actually, it was Amiga Inc. who terminated the contract:

    "The license agreement was terminated on December 20, 2006."
    http://www.amiga.com/about/history/?t=os

    > because te transfer of the obligation between the four corporations holding the
    > contract (Amino, KMOS, and both Amiga Incs) was not valid?

    These "four corporations" really are just two: Amino (aka Amiga Inc. Washington, AIW) and KMOS (aka Amiga Inc. Delaware, AID). Allegedly, the obligations of the contract were transfered between *three* corporations the following way: Amino/AIW -> Itec LLC -> KMOS/AID (with claiming "Itec LLC, later acquired by KMOS, Inc." being a sheer lie, as was KMOS' later claim to have acquired Amino/AIW).

    > They could also argue that the stipulations in the contract (ie time) were not met

    ...by themselves. According to the original contract, a first version of OS4 should have been done within 4 months time (and based on the WarpOS kernel, running on Amiga PowerUP hardware and Escena's vapour AmigaOne).

    > US law is what allowed there to be two different Amiga Incs in two
    > different states claiming to be different entities

    Yes, both Amino/AIW and KMOS/AID existing concurrently using "Amiga" as company name from 2005 to 2007.

    > after several claimed transfers between all four corporations

    Three companies really, see above.

    > There is no way to verify any of the particulars of an out of court settlement
    > except for the information the parties themselves agree to disclose.

    Yes, we mere mortals can only refer to the public settlement agreement.

    > I believe a similar situation occured once in the Amiga's history already
    > (CD32 units maybe - I can't recall).

    Yes, CD32:

    "a deadline was reached for Commodore to pay a patent royalty to Cad Track for their use of their XOR patent. A federal judge ordered an injunction against Commodore preventing them from importing anything into the United States. Commodore had built up CD32 inventory in their Philippine manufacturing facility for the United States launch, but, being unable to sell the consoles, they remained in the Philippines until the debts owed to the owners of the facility were settled."
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_CD32#Release

    Similar thing happened in the very early Amiga days:

    "Tramiel immediately used the situation to countersue Commodore through its new (pending) subsidiary, Amiga, which was done on August 13, 1984. He sought damages and an injunction to bar Amiga (and effectively Commodore) from producing anything with that technology. The suit tried to render Commodore's new acquisition (and the source for its next generation of computers) useless and do to Commodore what they were trying to do to him. Meanwhile at Commodore, the Amiga team [...] was sitting in limbo for nearly the entire summer because of the lawsuit."
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_Corporation#History

    > even though MorphOS is a seperately developed product (that has been
    > on the market for some time) Hyperion could argue that Amiga Inc's use
    > of the product is intended to circumvent their agreement [...]
    > Hyperion could easily argue that a business relationship between Amiga Inc.
    > and the MorphOS developers was an attempt to circumvent the agreement
    > between both paties

    Yes, that's how I read the agreement too.

    > you guys should issue astatement refuting this information

    Again: What information? Where did it come from?
  • »04.11.10 - 11:58
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