Just when you thought the Amiga world was finally getting its act together, finally making things a little less obtuse for outsiders, this happens. So, we have the AmigaOne X1000 coming up, a brand-new PowerPC computer, running the real deal – AmigaOS 4. In the meantime, Commodore USA – the one with the sketchy website – has apparently secured rights to the Amiga hardware brand, and is planning to release Amiga-branded computers running AROS. In the meantime, Hyperion, the Belgium company behind AmigaOS, who is working with A-eon on the AmigaOne X1000, claims this is a clear violation of the settlement between them and Amiga Inc., and has notified its US lawyers.Commodore USA sent out a press release yesterday in which they state they’ve reached an agreement with Bill McEwen of Amiga, Inc. (one of the two companies named Amiga) in which Commodore USA may use the Amiga hardware brand on computers running AROS, the open source Amiga-inspired operating system.“We are ecstatic to be partnering with Amiga Inc. in this new, exciting product launch,“ states Barry Altman, President and CEO of Commodore USA, „The legacy of the Commodore and Amiga trademark brand, reunited once again after so many years, and our reintroduction of the legendary All-In-One computer keyboard form factor, combined with the twenty-five year anniversary of the introduction of the first Amiga computer by Commodore International, is a once in a lifetime opportunity.“My first thought was – wait, doesn’t this violate the settlement agreement between Amiga Inc. and Hyperion, which finally settled all the legal mumbo-jumbo in the Amiga world? It appears Hyperion believes that this is indeed a violation, and as such, they have asked their lawyers in the US to investigate the matter.
„Our American lawyers will take action against this,“ Hyperion states, „This is blatant violation of the rights Hyperion Entertainment secured in the settlement agreement with Amiga Inc., Itec and Amino.“
The facts here are that if there’s two companies I would blindly trust in the Amiga world, it’s Hyperion and ACube. These are the only two companies that have kept their promises and delivered actual working products we can buy today. Everyone else – including A-eon (until they ship the X1000) – are fair game.
The only conclusion I can draw from this is that my initial distrust of this Commodore USA thing was more than justified. Their website (shoddy doesn’t even begin to describe it), their rebranded products, their unilateral press releases which can’t be confirmed anywhere else but on their site… It all reeks of a massive con. Are their products even shipping, after months of promises?
Unless proven otherwise, I’m assuming for now that Commodore USA is, at best, a hoax, and at worst, a very inept con. They are properly registered as an LLC, though.
posted by Thom Holwerda on Wed 1st Sep 2010 20:24 UTC
Well, this was rather unexpected. As it turns out, Commodore USA’s CEO Barry Altman isn’t particularly pleased about the article I wrote earlier today in which I placed a considerable amount of scepticism with regards to Commodore USA and its business (and website). He (not his lawyer) sent us a threatening email demanding we take down the article, post a new correction article, the whole shebang. The entire email – as an image, you’ll want the original formatting – after the break. Our reply? We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram.
posted by Thom Holwerda on Thu 4th Nov 2010 21:22 UTC
A little over two months ago, OSNews had a bit of a run-in with Commodore USA’s CEO, about how I felt about the company and its rather dubious business practices. This led to alegal threat we laughed away here at OSNews, but laughable or not, a legal threat is a legal threat, and it never sat well with me that it was never retracted or apologised for. Well, that changed today.I received this statement today from Barry Altman, Commodore USA’s CEO.
Like many forum members, tech writers, and people in general, who sometimes react to statements in an inappropriate manner, I would like to:
retract the idiotic legal threat
apologize for the legal threat
ship something
Certainly a phone call would be considered appropriate before you print something, so you can have all the facts before determining your position.
The three points above came from me – before I would even be open towards changing my position on Commodore USA, the idiotic [my words] legal threat had to be retracted and an apology had to be made. The last point, about shipping something, refers to the fact that I believe Commodore USA should actually ship something as well.
My original opinion of Commodore USA, the opinion that started all this nonsense, still stands, and nothing has happened between then and now to soften that position (in fact, the threat only made it worse). We’ll have to see what the future brings, but in all honesty, I don’t have high hopes at this point.
Still, that silly threat has been retracted and apologised for, and that’s something I’m very happy with. No matter how silly it was, having a legal threat hover above your head simply isn’t something I particularly like.
Oggi mi sono reso conto di quanto grave sia il disagio psichico di alcuni esponenti della scena amiga. Si tratta di veri e propri psicolabili irrimediabilmente alterati nella loro capacità di giudizio dalla sconsiderata azione di alcune ridicole aziende, nonché siti e forum ad esse vicini, che hanno condotto un iniziale gruppo di irriducibili amighisti oltre il punto di non ritorno di un’estinzione ormai pressoché certa…e taluni persino oltre la stessa sanità mentale.
Alcuni individui di questo spurgo d’integralisti, seguaci del dogma informatico AmigaOS, sono arrivati persino a stilare delle Black List in cui segnalare (agli altri pochissimi fanatici della stessa staffa…) utenti e persone critiche con OS4 e/o vicine a C=USA
Benché sia legittimo aprire un sito o un blog critico contro chicchessia, l’azione fascista dei sedicenti amighisti talebani, volta ad intimorire persone comuni anziché limitarsi a criticare l’operato delle aziende ritenute avverse, ben dipingel’ignobile essenza di un’intera scena sprofondata negli inferi della cieca follia.
English Google Translate
Today I realized how serious the mental illness of some members of the amiga scene. It is true psychically irreparably altered in their ability to judge the reckless actions of some ridiculous companies, as well as sites and forums to them neighbors, who conducted an initial group of diehard Amiga beyond the point of no return now to extinction pretty sure … and some even beyond sanity.
Some individuals of this purge of fundamentalists, followers of the dogma computer AmigaOS, even came to draw up the Black List where indicated (with a few other fanatics in the same bracket …) OS4 users and people with critical and / or close to C = USA https://anticusa.wordpress.com/commodoreusa-fanboys-n-spammers-list-block-em/
Although it is legitimate to open a website or blog critic against anybody, the action of self-styled fascist Taliban Amiga, designed to intimidate ordinary people rather than simply criticize the companies considered adverse, dipingel’ignobile very essence of an entire scene sunk the underworld of blind madness.
So what we gonna answer with music, love and style
One must notice I do attack company, fan trolling and company announcements and policies, but beside well deserved troll label I don`t attack personal properties of personnas. That is big difference.
Also, anyone listed is free to contact I at rasvoja@gmail.com and explain himself,change etc. and will be removed from what I observe as current troll / propaganda list.
Update
A nice 3D animated tribute has been posted on 27.10.2012. as video response to famous
And how do they respect MINT dem a steal, pirates and lowlifes!
Hi,
They contacted us and we talked about a partnership initially. Then we didn’t hear from them anymore so we assumed they weren’t interested in doing anything with us.
We’re still happy to see our OS used by others and I don’t think there’s any problems in regards to licensing. It’s just a missed opportunity for them and for us to establish what would have been a very good partnership.
Regards,
Clement Lefebvre
——-
There has been much criticism of the company CUSA because of its hype and claims of creating a „new operating system for our computers“ and then simply skinning an existing linux distribution. Critics of CUSA and several linux experts have stated that COS development time has been less than 2 weeks time to write some scripts and replace standard mint graphics files with their own
On the Edge: Spectacular rise and fall of C=USA 