Few things in technology are more complex, convoluted, and riddled with literally decades of drama than the Amiga community. Luckily for all of us, a significant step forward has been made today: several of the key corporate players in the community have struck agreements to settle their legal disputes.
CIC licenses software and documentation for Commodore’s 8-bit computers from Amiga. In return, Amiga is permitted to continue using the Commodore trademarks in a “historical or descriptive context,” such as old documentation, copyright notices in existing software, or as symbols on a keyboard.
The agreement with Hyperion does not change the status of AmigaOS 4 – which was never a point of contention, according to Amiga – but it does specify exactly which code and trademarks the Belgian company is permitted to use [under license from Amiga, editor’s note].
But Hyperion’s involvement in the 68k market will end on December 31, 2027: the licensee may continue to distribute versions of AmigaOS 3 until then, including the as-yet-unreleased AmigaOS 3.3. After that, Hyperion will deliver source code, revision history, and documentation for AmigaOS 3.1.4 and its updates, including all fixes and updates, but excluding AmigaOS 4 code backported into AmigaOS 3.2 or 3.3, to Amiga Corporation and release the developers involved in the project from all obligations to Hyperion. Amiga itself will then take over further development of AmigaOS 3 in the future.
↫ Post on amiga-news.de
Hyperion is the company most known for developing AmigaOS 4, and with these agreements in place, they claim they can finally spend time focusing on getting AmigaOS 4.2 out the door. These agreements will also consolidate most of the AmigaOS 3.x code and IP under a single banner, which should make its status quite a bit clearer going forward. Whether or not any of this is actually good and beneficial to the Amiga platform as a whole and its individual branches – 3.x and 4.x, in particular – is anyone’s guess.
I don’t think there’s anyone here on OSNews who wouldn’t be interested in, say, an affordable and – most importantly – available AmigaOS 4 machine. While I have no clue if clearing up some of the licensing, IP, and ownership confusions will aid in getting new AmigaOS 4 hardware, it surely won’t make it any harder.
What all these companies should be doing is taking all the historical source code and documentation and releasing it all under a free and open source license YOU FREAKING GREEDBAGS
Not until there’s still some juice to extract…
“Business is war” – Jack Tramiel, Commodore co-founder
Hyperion’s de facto leader, de Groote, is a far right politician. I’d rather not fund fascism. It’s a genuine tragedy that they’ve somehow ended up with the stewardship of the Amiga operating system.
It won’t much much difference to OS4. But certainly it is the end for OS3; the only versions that will be sold will be obsolete ones so anyone wanting to run modern Amiga 68K software will have no choice but to pirate a recent version of the OS.
Cool news if it raises all legal weights to release new amiga stuff.
Btw, while I was looking for some info about this I found a mention of HamsterOS (https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/retro-gaming/hamsteros-jams-a-32-bit-gui-operating-system-in-a-1-44-mb-single-floppy-for-386-era-hardware-retro-os-should-make-for-easy-living-with-dos-machines-and-software) which looks great !
I’m not sure it has been mentioned on osnews (search results came out empty).
Djamé
So once we have a “complete” Amiga 3 that will only run on original systems. What’s the plan? Time capsule it? Build Amiga 4 (not to be confused with Amiga 4) so it can have compatibility with new Commodore systems and include bug fixes? Honestly Amiga has been such a mess for so long that I dont see a way out short of someone splashing the cash to but all the bits under one roof. Maybe one of the tech bro billionaires will do it as a hobby project?
Better than buying another football club
Adurbe,
Mark Shuttleworth popped into my head. Some like ubuntu and some don’t, but regardless years ago he played a critical role in making Linux more accessible to the masses. I think it’s profitable now through their corporate lines of business, but it took a massive fortune to get here. You may be right that Amiga needs that too, but the odds of that happening don’t feel very high.
When I look at the whole Commodore and Amiga situation based on this recent news. this is where I see things going forward:
Commodore: Lead by Commodore International Corporation (CIC). The released Commodore 64 Ultimate will be the best option for providing C64 compatibility (FPGA), and a path to grow ( https://x.com/commodoreofcl/status/2083236461243941118) the community. CIC will be handling all things 8-bit Commodore.
Amiga x86: This is being lead by the open source AROS (https://aros.sourceforge.io/).
Amiga PPC: The main two options are AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS. The future of the PPC hardware is being positioned around Mirari (https://mirari.vitasys.nl/) boards to run both of those. I think MorphOS is the better option since if you want cheap hardware to run it you can purchase a second hand supported Apple PPC system (https://library.morph.zone/Supported_Computers) or purchase a more expensive Mirari which is supposed to be released in 2026. Additionally, MorphOS seems to be the more mature OS, and has modern applications like Wayfayer Browser, Iris email client, Stylos word processor, Sigma Spreadsheet, etc..
Amiga 68k: The modern version of a 68k Amiga is being lead by Apollo Computers with their Vampire Hardware. It uses the open source ApolloOS, and offers a path forward with the 68080 and many more modern extras (https://www.apollo-computer.com/v4standalone.php)
Amiga Retro: This is being lead Amiga International, with products like Amiga Forever (https://www.amigaforever.com/). Of course there are lots of 3rd party hardware to recreate the original Amigas (https://www.a1200.com/), or modern expansion boards for original hardware from Apollo Computers (https://www.apollo-computer.com/firebirdv4.php). Amiga International seems to want to be a licensor of the names and preservation of the original systems.
That is how I see the stars aligning. I personally feel when it comes to PPC that MorphOS is the best option, and for 68k it is the ApolloOS/Vampire. I really think that Apollo Computer should license the Amiga name for their Vampire products, or partner with Amiga International to release their product under them in the same way that Commodore International Corporation did with the C64 Ultimate. That is how I see the current situation currently, and I don’t think it is as bad as everyone leads on now that the licensing mess has been resolved.
“I don’t think there’s anyone here on OSNews who wouldn’t be interested in, say, an affordable and – most importantly – available AmigaOS 4 machine”
after all this time?
it would have to be ridiculously affordable & easily available.