Comment by Gorilla1000kg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Gorilla1000kg | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The situation surrounding Amiga's legacy and its preservation is significantly more complex than it appears at first glance. Cloanto, holding a sincere desire for the Amiga's continuity, possesses the rights for the emulation of version 3.1. On the other hand, Hyperion Entertainment, which holds the rights to AmigaOS 4, opted for the PowerPC architecture over x86 to protect its niche in game porting, fearing that a transition to x86 would jeopardise this sector. Importantly, Hyperion does not hold rights to any version prior to OS 4. Indeed, Hyperion had a hand the death of AmigaOSXL / Amithlon.

A year or so ago, Mike Battilana of Cloanto, along with associates, has acquired the remnants of Amiga, establishing a new entity distinct from Cloanto itself.

Despite financial challenges, Hyperion is being financially supported by an undisclosed backer, aiming to initiate spurious legal action against Cloanto.

It's important to clarify that neither AmigaOS 4 nor AROS was ever at risk amidst these disputes. Mike Battilana has expressed a strong desire to see an end to these conflicts. He is firmly against the idea of undermining any Amiga-related initiatives. He said to me in passing that he would love to provide enhanced support for projects like AROS, so AROS can, if it wishes, call itself Amiga Research Operating System again.

Mike's actions and intentions throughout this ordeal have demonstrated a level of integrity and commitment to the Amiga community that stands out, marking him as a notably principled figure in the ongoing saga of Amiga.

He's a good guy.

>Cloanto, holding a sincere desire for the Amiga's continuity,

>integrity and commitment

>He's a good guy.

Please.

You don't have to step in to defend someone who's keeping AmigaOS source code tightly locked up. Nevermind open source; it's not even available for preservation.

But I still agree Hyperion is most evil.

Cloanto does not singularly hold the authority to make AmigaOS open source. As you well know, the ownership and legal rights to AmigaOS have been entangled in intricate legal matters, particularly following the involvement of Hyperion Entertainment and the settlement agreement under Amiga Inc.

Mike, as part of the new Amiga company, is in a legal position that potentially allows for such a transition. However, decisions around making AmigaOS open source are not solely at his discretion but are influenced by a web of legal agreements and considerations.

"At the end of December 2015, Austrian self-proclaimed "hacktivist" Mr. Bernhard R. Fischer gave a speech titled "The Ultimate Amiga 500 Talk" [236] at the 32th Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg, Germany. At about the same time as the speech, during which Mr. Bernhard R. Fischer cited his own past as a "cracker" and "spreader", the proprietary source code of Amiga OS 3.1 was leaked to that same event's file sharing network, and immediately became public [237]. Analysis of this leaked source code revealed how Cloanto had contributed to the Amiga operating system as far back as 1993 [230], leading to some speculation on whether it could use this status in relation to the complex legal proceedings between Hyperion Entertainment and the Amiga parties, and in the context of an open source scenario. Between 2016 and 2017, Cloanto added some details about "possible futures involving open source, a nonprofit and/or foundation, and other long-term preservation scenarios" to its cloanto.org page [238]. In what seemed like a response to this, Hyperion Entertainment director Mr. Timothy De Groote stated that "We cannot legally support this. Once it is open source, this is an irreversible decision that is beyond the scope of our license under the Amiga Inc. Settlement Agreement." [240]."

For a more detailed understanding, please read the Amiga Documents https://sites.google.com/site/amigadocuments/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com