MikeB on 25 April 2009
@ crumas2
Although I disagree with you more often than not, I still respect the fact that you don't resort to name calling and insults in your arguments.
Thanks.
I've never felt that you would openly lie or intentionally deceive.
I do my best.
To be more complete here is some more information regarding my take on what happened over the years based on what I have been told and personal experience.
In addition there have been other issues, I was once part of the Phoenix Developer Consortium. At a time Gateway owned Amiga's assets, they partnered with QNX Software Systems to use QNX Neutrino at the core of a new Amiga operating system. Sadly due to Gateway being a PC maker, Microsoft pressured them to kill the project (PC manufacturers get discounts on Windows, they wouldn't get them anymore which would cost them many millions, this is what Amiga's CTO claimed but is in line with Gateway testimonials regarding the antitrust case against Microsoft by a former CEO of the company later on).
Out of the ashes rised the Phoenix Developer Consortium with the QSSL's CEO Dan Dodge as one of the key members. But after my meeting with him, I came to the conclusion he wasn't all that committed to the project and I passed my findings to the rest of the consortium, some of the consortium members got upset and believed I was lying, but it turned out to be correct. Many of the phoenix group would later turn towards Thendic (/later Genesi) or Hyperion.
The only interesting indirect Amiga product which came from the dealing of QNX with the Amiga community was AmigaOS XL by Haage & Partner (probably one of the most hated companies amongst the former Phoenix Group developers). It was an interesting emulation platform though, basically running a classic AmigaOS environment on top of QNX Realtime platform. It had some interesting features such as within the adapted QNX OS it would suddenly have an Amiga-like title bar, with which you simply clicked a button to switch to AmigaOS (and vice versa), you could also launch QNX apps from AmigaOS and vice versa. But alledgedly H&P, failed to pay royalties for AmigaOS 3.9 usages to Amiga Inc and pay one key developer of Amithlon.
That's just a small snip of a very long story, but illustrates why there is some bad blood amongst certain ex-Amiga developers / supporters. It's really a complex and extensive story. Just reading the court documents of the various lawsuits and their allegations will make your head spin. Even I'm a bit out of loop by now.
In the end most issues regarded people taking sides or money/IP related disputes. I got caught in the middle mostly as I wanted to help push the AmigaOS4 project forward which is now at a pretty advanced state, but there's still a long way to go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx3q2wFIn6k
http://arstechnica.com/software/news/2008/09/amigaos41-ars.ars
