This side-thread is a bit off topic I guess.

But yes, actually you are right.
The 8 bitters just sold. AFAIK there were no projects considered apart from the C65.
So the main mismanagement happened within the Amiga projects.

Manfred

Quote:

Simon Archer physically gave Ben Hermans 10,000 UK pounds in cash, and he got drunk and lost it?

Even given the ludicrousness of going on in the Amiga sphere, I don't know if I could possibly believe any of that. First, 10 grand is a lot of money. I mean, like physically. You'd need a suitcase or a large bag.

Secondly, it's actually really difficult to get your hands on that much cash at once. ATMs will certainly not spit it out (there's a daily limit), and going to the bank will result in a lot of questions.

Thirdly, anyone who handles 10 grand is either a security guard or a moron. People will literally kill for that much money, and there's no traceability. In a bank, everyone can see you get the money as the cashier doles it out. I'd be surprised if you got far without someone bashing your head in and running away with it.

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Here in the US post 9/11 and the (piece of sh**) Patriot Act, just carrying that much actual cash would get you detained by police. They'd confiscate the cash and hold you at least for hours questioning you. It's not right, but that's the way it is. Just simply withdrawing more than $4,000 requires the bank filing forms under The Patriot Act. 10,000 in UK pounds is worth more than 10k in USD. You don't have The (POS) Patriot Act, but I'm sure there would be similar suspicion.

10k Pounds in cash does sound suspicious. If it really did happen and Hermans (cough cough) "lost it", it would make Hermans even skeezier than *I* would have even thought.

* No, the 10k must be in cash! Unmarked bills!
* Ooops, I got drunk and lost it! Sucks to be you!

Well, Patriot Act aside, most country's police forces will stop you if you're seen to be carrying that much cash around. There really aren't many law-abiding reasons.

If it's true, then I'm guessing the case here wasn't law abiding either, and they were trying to avoid tax. That's as almost as serious in the UK as it is in the US, and can result in a jail sentence.

Edit: For my very first job after uni, I was paid for a body of work by cheque. It was a similar amount of money. I had to declare it for tax. I didn't have to pay any because my yearly income was below the threshold, but I had to declare it. Many dodgy "self-employed" in the UK will ask for cash because they know they can simply stick it in the bank and the taxman won't see it.

[ Edited by KennyR 27.03.2019 - 21:32 ]

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Suitcase? I don't know about U.K., but in the U.S. this would be short stack of 100 USD bills all of 1 inch high.
Ben lost the money? It says he left it in cab, but someone else might have instantly grabbed it, right?
No mention of whether the money was paid back to the lender or if it was, by whom either.
Amount? Again in the U.S. no report by bank unless it exceeds 10,000. And given this is "per transaction", you could just make 2 withdrawals. Heck even through ATM this could be done through multiple withdrawals.

#6

A £100 note (and above) are very rare denominations. I've lived all four decades of my life in the UK and never saw one.

I've only seen two £50 notes in that time. The banks used to give them out when you withdrew a lot in cash, but have been iffy about that in later years because nobody trusts them - common among forgeries, apparently.

No, what is most likely they had is £20 notes - resulting in 500 of them. Around half a kilogram in notes - too thick to be a wad.

Edit: Maybe someone from down south could confirm, but £50/£100 are likely to be a bit more common down south, especially around London where everything is a ripoff. But certainly they're rare in Scotland.

[ Edited by KennyR 28.03.2019 - 13:20 ]

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IIRC, the Patriot act requires all withdrawals over $4k to be reported.

Quote:

I assume it's time-limited too, so a person couldn't just drive to 20 different ATMs or withdraw over a number of days.

But anyway, beyond the shiftiness of it, lending large chunks of cash gives no protection to the lender whatsoever. What if you lend someone £10k and then they claim to have never gotten it... well then, you're up shit creek aren't you? If it never turned up again, I wouldn't be at all shocked if Ben never lost anything at all when "drunk", and had simply pocketed it.

It's all tragic really. Slap "Amiga" as justification and these guys just lost their minds. They bought crap hardware. They trusted con artists. And now we find they're very possibly giving large quantities of unmarked bills away.

(Btw, just noticed that AmigaDocuments has taken my wording here on MorphZone (or has quoted someone who did): "set friend against friend, leaving bitterness and debt as the only things that increase with the years." While I'm flattered, it really doesn't mean that I'm AmigaDocuments. :) I think I know who he is, but I think most people have come to the same conclusion and I'm not telling.)

[ Edited by KennyR 28.03.2019 - 22:43 ]

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It could be any of the ASD and OCD riddled "community members". Far too many of them to count. ;)

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Court ruling despite any information concerning C-A Acquisition Corporation being enjoined or filing their own suit:

Source

#6

@thread

See prior post about C-A Acquisition Corporation.

Court order denying motion to enjoin C-A Acquisition Corporation

Some interesting details on the timeline of the newish company and the Amiga assets.

#6

[ Edited by number6 09.04.2019 - 08:52 ]

> Some interesting details on the timeline of the newish company
> and the Amiga assets.

Indeed:

"C-A Acquisition [...] granted Cloanto the right to register and monetize the trademark “AMIGA.” [...] Mike Battilana describes a back and forth negotiating process to acquire Amiga’s intellectual property assets starting in October 2017, and the creation of C-A Acquisition in 2018 at the point in the process when “some encouraging signs” made it seem “that a closing was imminent.”"

And the beat goes on.

The problem with Cloanto's entire argument is when these deals were supposed to have occured, and the fact that they involve properties that were already encumbered.

I honestly don't think Mike is going to prevail in this.

At best it will just complicate ownership of legacy AmigaOS.

McEwen should have just given it over to public domain. No one would have legally been able to create an OS4 from that, but advancing 3.1 would have been easier.

Cloanto having the Amiga IP is just a side-show.

The core problem is that Hyperion believe that "the software" in the Amiga Inc settlement means AmigaOS < 4. It's fairly clear even on a cursory read that it doesn't.

> Hyperion believe that "the software" in the Amiga Inc settlement
> means AmigaOS < 4.

In fact, they claim to believe that the term "AmigaOS 4" can mean any Hyperion-developed version of AmigaOS, regardless of version number. "The Software" on the other hand is defined as Commodore's AmigaOS 3.1, so Hyperion is correct in this regard.


Edit: corrected nonsense statement

[ Edited by Andreas_Wolf 10.04.2019 - 08:05 ]

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Yep, anyone reviewing the settlement would have to agree that it doesn't give Hyperion any ownership rights to OS3.1. Just a license to develop from it.
BUT, does that license allow them to sell products developed from 3.1 other than OS4?
OS5 is mentioned, but versions below OS4 are not.

However, OS3.1.4 is more advanced than OS3.1.

Hyperion's real mistake was bundling OS1.3 with OS4.

Their license makes no mention of OS versions prior to 3.1 what so ever.

Cloanto may not have a right to develop from OS3.1, but they may have some valid claim to all versions up to 3.1, and ownership to the original 3.1 (if not modified or enhanced).

It's going to be a difficult case to rule on.
I'm glad its taking place where it is.
At least the judge will have some experience with a few of the parties.

Pity we can't just combine forces, cooperate and forge ahead.
The rights to essentially everthing are out of Bill McEwen's control, and we're still stuck in a ligative limbo.

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The new and improved interpretation so to speak.
Ben wasn't there (cough) at the time. We know for fact that Evert flew there and signed the settlement agreement. He constantly had to correct Ben in the forums about what the agreement meant and what he had signed.

one example of many

#6

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I wonder what part of "a perpetual license to develop and market AmigaOS 4" they find unclear.

> I wonder what part of "a perpetual license to develop and market
> AmigaOS 4" they find unclear.

The first controversial wording, relating to object code and source code use, is this (emphasis mine):

"the Amiga Parties hereby grant Hyperion [...] an exclusive, perpetual, worldwide and royalty-free, transferable right and Object Code and Source Code license to the Software in order to use, develop, modify, commercialize, distribute and market the Software in any form (including through sublicensing), on any medium [...], through any means (including but not limited to making AmigaOS 4 available to the public via the internet) and for any current or future hardware platform."

...with "the Software" meaning Commodore's AmigaOS 3.1 in *both* occurences, of course. One might suspect that the second occurence was actually meant to say "AmigaOS 4" instead of "the Software" (as it does in Hyperion's subsequent press release). But that's not what it says in the settlement agreement. And even if it did, see below.

The second controversial wording, relating to your quote about trademark use, is this (emphasis mine):

""AmigaOS 4" means the Operating System developed by Hyperion and based in part on the Software, including without limitation the Software Architecture of the Software as described in the Documentation, in any version (irrespective of version numbering, e.g., AmigaOS 5)."

Hyperion claim that this definition of "AmigaOS 4" also applies to what they released as AmigaOS 3.1.4.

"the Amiga Parties hereby grant Hyperion [...] an exclusive, perpetual, worldwide and royalty-free, transferable right and Object Code and Source Code license to the Software in order to use, develop, modify, commercialize, distribute and market the Software in any form (including through sublicensing), on any medium [...], through any means (including but not limited to making AmigaOS 4 available...

Note underlined portions.
This would seem to validate the creation of OS3.1.4.

Hyperion has the sole right/license to develop from AmigaOS source code.
That may very well be limited to OS3.1, but outside of compatibility for software that will not run under 3.1, does that really matter?

Again, the only flaw I see is their distribution of 1.3, and even that is a minor transgression.

Mike on the other hand has tried to obtain complete ownership rights to intellectual properties that were already under license.

This lawsuit could really backfire on Cloanto.

Even McEwen's ownership of AmigaOS was in question before the Hyperion/Amiga Inc. settlement, but once that took place it was recognized that Amiga Inc. was the property owner, and Hyperion was granted the SOLE license to develop from the property.

Cloanto, another former licensee, in purchasing these assets after said license was granted is still under obligation to honor the terms of the prior settlement.

[ Edited by Jim 10.04.2019 - 12:15 ]

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Unfortunately McBill wasn't the worst player in the space, that would be Hermans. Until Hermans is gone, there cannot be any sort of peace. Problem is, Hermans would not leave the space without creating a scorched earth trail behind him.

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Yeah, I've exchanged messages with Hermans. He can be charming when he chooses to, but he isn't consistent in his statements.
Funny, after my previous statement about my own inclusion of qualifiers, you'd think Hermns, as a lawyer, would use more himself.

The thing is, Cloanto won't secure OS4 via this lawsuit, and Hermans won't sell the IP without an exorbitant payment.

So OS4 stagnates, and we see most OS4 development occuring outside of Hyperion (i.e.- Aeon's packages, Bigfoot's network driver, etc.).

If a real savior/investor could be found for this platform, I'd support the re-integration of all NG OS' into a real Amiga OS5.

Again, a pipe dream. But...a new Power9 based Amiga, with SMP, memory protection, and other modern features? That could pull us out of the hobbyist realm.

Sorry, it's as clear as day from the wording that "the Software" and "AmigaOS 4" are two different things. If they weren't, there would be no need to keep reverting between one and the other, and simply call "AmigaOS 4" the software consistently and definite it clearly in the index.

As for claiming 3.1.4 wouldn't fall under AmigaOS 4 because it has some "backported" code - it's like putting your own sprinkles on someone's cake in the workplace fridge and claiming it was yours. Not gonna wash.

> it's as clear as day from the wording that "the Software"
> and "AmigaOS 4" are two different things.

Yes, as acknowledged by Hyperion, "the Software" means Commodore's AmigaOS 3.1, whereas "AmigaOS 4" is, according to Hyperion, defined as anything Hyperion develops using "the Software" as base.

> If they weren't [...]

Nobody says they aren't.

> As for claiming 3.1.4 wouldn't fall under AmigaOS 4

At least Hyperion doesn't claim such, quite to the contrary.

> because it has some "backported" code

I don't think it's about this. It's more about the power of definition, i.e. defining terms consistently within a certain framework (like the settlement agreement) when the definiendum has a different widely accepted definiens outside this framework. To understand this concept, it could help to re-read the settlement agreement after replacing the definiendum "AmigaOS 4" by a random character string while keeping the definiens :-)

The settlement was created to allow both companies to do business. Hyperion could keep making AmigaOS 4 without Amiga Inc's interference, but in return Hyperion would not get rights to what they consistently had not paid for, i.e. classic AmigaOS, Amiga hardware exclusivity. They developed OS4 themselves. Other versions of AmigaOS simply do not belong to them. They did not pay for them in any way.

This was the understanding of all parties at the time, including the judge. Hyperion's trying to unravel it in their favour by using uncertain wording, just because AmigaOS 4 flatlined while classic blossomed again, is sure to seen with the dimmest of dim views by the court.

[ Edited by KennyR 10.04.2019 - 18:31 ]