Castle, who last year purchased the RISC OS technology from Pace, have today announced the termination of RISCOS Ltd.'s licence to sell RISC OS. Castle argue this is necessary following what they allege as "the wilful and persistent failure of [RISCOS Ltd.] to correct breaches in the terms of its licence."
"For nearly 12 months Castle has been trying to resolve these issues, but has met with nothing but delaying tactics, intransigence and belligerence from the management of ROL," Castle CEO Jack Lillingston accused in his company's statement.
"Castle has regrettably taken this action having had no other option after following due legal process, during which ROL's management were given every possible opportunity to negotiate a solution with Castle. They declined to do so and are entirely responsible for the current situation."
We're awaiting a response from RISCOS Ltd. and other third parties, whom we hope to hear from soon.
Despite terminating the licence for RISCOS Ltd., formed in 1999 following the break up of Acorn Group to develop RISC OS for the desktop, Castle insists that it "has no desire or intention to harm [ROL sub-licensees], or act against the interests of the RISC OS community as a whole". RISCOS Ltd's sub-licensees include companies which use RISC OS 4 in their products; for example, VirtualAcorn and STD, who this week dramatically halted their sales. Describing the situation as "undesirable", Castle also says it can't grant new licences to ROL's sub-licensees right now, but is "committed to supporting 3rd party licensees of RISC OS, even when they are competitors".
Links
Castle's public statement
Castle website
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