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Castle terminates RISCOS Ltd. licence

By Chris Williams. Published: 16th Jun 2004, 11:44:51.

Allegations of breaches

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

Discussion

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So this wouldn't be Castle wanting to be the new Acorn? (ie, one source for hardware and OS.) Which parts of the contract have ROL been disputing? Who actually owns the copyright to modifications to RISC OS 4? (a little birdy told me that it's not who think may first think.)

I think this press release is only going to raise more uncomfortable questions from the suspicious and cynical among us. (Not that I'm one, of course.

nunfetishist on 16/6/04 11:51AM [ Reply | Report ]

(Just to expand on what I said - even if Castle *are* saying they're happy to licence to third parties, there's now no competition, so they could charge whatever they liked, and price the competition out of the market, while badging it as a legitimate and sensible price for the development, and to pay back their investment - which of course, the amount they paid for RISC OS was never made public.)

nunfetishist on 16/6/04 11:53AM [ Reply | Report ]

If ROL have broken their licence terms, and refuse to abide by them Castle have every right to revoke the license.

AndrewDuffell on 16/6/04 11:54AM [ Reply | Report ]

I'm 100% behind Castle - RISC OS is now firmly in the hands with people with business sense.

SparkY on 16/6/04 11:57AM [ Reply | Report ]

I agree. But like most licence agreement disagreements, I bet this one comes down to interpretation, as well as non-future-proofing. Which is why I'm interesting in hearing about *which* points ROL are apparently breaching, as well as the agreement itself. (As I'm sure others would be, too.)

nunfetishist on 16/6/04 11:58AM [ Reply | Report ]

It's quite interesting to see that MicroDigital haven't made any announcements about where the Omega lies during the last two days...

Quazar on 16/6/04 12:00PM [ Reply | Report ]

SparkY: Ignoring the issue of people's preferences on "business sense", don't you think it's important to have competition, especially so in a market as small as this?

nunfetishist on 16/6/04 12:00PM [ Reply | Report ]

Competition is good - competition between competing strains of a tiny OS is not good. I really hope Castle will take this opportunity to clean things up and pull everything back together if at all possible.

SparkY on 16/6/04 12:01PM [ Reply | Report ]

"the wilful and persistent failure of ROL to correct breaches in the terms of its licence"...

Speculation: was this a refusal to feed back Select to Castle?

davehigton on 16/6/04 12:02PM [ Reply | Report ]

davehigton: I don't believe (I've certainly not heard/read/seen anything to the affect) that the licence demands that of them.

SparkY: Current RISC OS machines from Castle are too expensive. Without the competition provided by STD, Microdigital (if they ever managed it) and the other VA producers means that only very affulent people will even consider joining the platform. VA has always struck me as more than just a different way of having a RISC OS box, but also as a "try before you buy" thing. Certainly, I'll never buy an Iyonix at it's current price, but I was considering buying a VA-based machine. So that's instantly some money not going into the market. Surely that's bad? (I hope others see the same, too.)

nunfetishist on 16/6/04 12:06PM [ Reply | Report ]

@quazar:

Why should MD respond to this? They are not involved in this legal dispute.

Castle made it quite clear that they will licence 3rd parties, even if they are competitors. MD will have to wait, just like everyone else, what the outcome of this dispute will be.

Regards,

Rick

rdenk14 on 16/6/04 12:10PM [ Reply | Report ]

I'm glad that Castle have got this Press Release out so quickly. I'm in agreement with Andrew Duffell : RISC OS Ltd sould have either (a) stuck to the terms of their license or (b) if they wanted more lee-way have legally negotiated it with CTL/Pace first. ROL aren't doing RISC OS any favours now if they try to drag this out. There bluff has been called and they've lost. I'm sure Jack Lillingston has not authorised this course of action without it being a last resort.

martin on 16/6/04 12:10PM [ Reply | Report ]

In reply to nunfetishist: IIRC licensees have to feed back changes to Castle. It depends on whether you see Select as changes.

davehigton on 16/6/04 12:11PM [ Reply | Report ]

Hopefully this will result in a quick cull of ROL's mangement i.e. PM - who has been oblivious to the best interests of the platform for years, and has refused to work with other major players. The operation should then taken under Castle's wing, gaining access to the Select developments for both 26bit and 32bit machines.

druck on 16/6/04 12:11PM [ Reply | Report ]

martin: It's not yet clear if what CTL were asking from ROL was reasonable, or actually within the remit of the licence agreement. We need to hear ROL's side before we can say that's true. And whose to say they havn't been legally negotiating with CTL, and CTL have just considered them stalling tacticts?

nunfetishist on 16/6/04 12:14PM [ Reply | Report ]

@ martin:

WE all dont know if they are bluffing. Only the people who know the contracts can answer that. But even lawyers can interpret that differtly. In the end it is either settled by a new contract or in court....

So drawing pre-mature conclusions does *not* make sense...

Regards,

Rick

rdenk14 on 16/6/04 12:16PM [ Reply | Report ]

davehigton: "was this a refusal to feed back Select to Castle?"

No. There was no such obligation on ROL. Somebody who knows about this sort of stuff did post recently about it to csa.*, but I couldn't find it when I googled. Baseically changes made to RO4 were fed back to Pace and, I think, some subsequent ones too. But there wasn't (I believe) any contractual obligation for them to do that ad infinitum.

jms on 16/6/04 12:17PM [ Reply | Report ]

The licence back only covered modifications to existing RISC OS components, and not new code. It was due to expire sometime around the time of Select 2.

druck on 16/6/04 12:25PM [ Reply | Report ]

Taken from drobe article: [link]

"Paul Middleton pointed out that because more than 4 years had passed (the milestone being reached earlier in the year) since their agreement with E-14, all Select developments belonged entirely to ROL."

flypig on 16/6/04 12:34PM [ Reply | Report ]

A time limited obligation does makes sense. None of us know what's in the contract between Castle and RISC OS Ltd., but I believe that people have reported that it insists on sales for 'desktop' usage, whatever that means. Even it it does just mean non-embedded, x86 hardware is so ubiqutous that Windows does get used in borderline embedded systems.

Anyway, that's all water under the bridge now. Castle state they need RISC OS to acknowledge the breach of contract before they can issue new licenses, but that they *will* issue new licenses. It is a valid concern that without competition the terms may not be reasonable, but Castle need to goodwill of the community at the moment, and I'm quietly confident that this sort of shakeup is what was needed.

ninja on 16/6/04 12:37PM [ Reply | Report ]

nunfetishist, I share some of your concerns (and am in a similar situation regarding (not) buying an Iyonix).

I will also be very interested in any responce from ROL. While Castle make a good case for themselves above, it is clear that it must be taken with a pinch of salt: "Castle has attempted to involve ROL in its plans, but has been thwarted by the lack of vision shown by ROL's management." 'Vision' is a very subjective thing!

Adam

adamr on 16/6/04 12:39PM [ Reply | Report ]

That's just pr fluff. The key phrase is 'breaches in the terms of its licence'. That's less subjective (though it's still open for debate which is why the door wasn't immediately closed).

ninja on 16/6/04 12:42PM [ Reply | Report ]

I'm surprised at the simmering sentiment in the Press Statement above. Public namecalling (i.e. 'belligerence') isn't going to help the situation, I wouldn't have thought. Nor does it reflect well on Castle, in my opinion, to jump up and down saying 'it's all their fault'. Seems like a case of 'Six of one, half a dozen of the other'!

Anyway, I guess there'll be plenty of opportunity for face-to-face questions about this, as both ROL and Castle are giving theatre presentations about the 'future' of their respective visions of RISC OS at the Dutch Expo this Saturday ;-)

In the meanwhile, I wonder if there could be some hints at:

[link]

Stewy on 16/6/04 12:43PM [ Reply | Report ]

Castle say that they have been trying to resolve the issues for nearly twelve months. They bought RISC OS last July, nearly twelve months ago. So presumably it's to do with something that happened before Castle bought RO or shortly afterwards.

RISCOS Ltd licenced RO4 to VA in September (hardly 12 months ago), but MicroDigital had it for their Alpha laptop at Wakefield back in May...

</speculation>

monkeyson on 16/6/04 12:46PM [ Reply | Report ]

I suppose that this is what happens when you build your house of cards (ie. products, solutions) on a dodgy table (ie. proprietary operating system with an ownership/licensing history almost as bizarre as SCO Unixware). Let's hope STD can keep on selling stuff based on Linux and free operating systems.

guestx on 16/6/04 12:48PM [ Reply | Report ]

Out of interest, why does CTL need ROL to acknowledge the breaches? It sounds like a combination of ego-boosting, and making end-users blame ROL for CTL not distributing copies to other people. What if ROL *havn't* breached their licence, or if it is down the interpretation, and they just want to put a spin on holding all the cards to try to make it look as if they tried, but in reality they've just put ROL between a rock and a hard place? All just violent speculation, of course...

nunfetishist on 16/6/04 12:56PM [ Reply | Report ]

Nunfetisthest, your speculation is getting a bit daft! What if CTL and ROL are actually aliens from rival planets attempting to take over our computing market? Read the statement again - there are some positive points in it.

SparkY on 16/6/04 1:02PM [ Reply | Report ]

In reply to Nunfetishist

And of course, Castle did it this week as they thought everyone would be watching the football and not notice ;-)

markee174 on 16/6/04 1:03PM [ Reply | Report ]

No obviously CTL and ROL are the same organisation, they just wanted some media attention </daft speculation>

graphrisc on 16/6/04 1:04PM [ Reply | Report ]

I also noticed that they announced their new 1GB IYONIX TC (Yes, that should be TC) just before.

AndrewDuffell on 16/6/04 1:08PM [ Reply | Report ]

SparkY: Perhaps you should try to think of an answer to the question, rather than making irealevent comparisons?

I'm continually amazed by the number of people in the "Castle can do no wrong" camp. I'm in the "Everybody can do wrong, and you should look at all the sides and think about all the possibilities before deciding camp".

Saying that they're happy to redistribute it to third parties, if ROL admit wrong-doing seems odd for several reasons: Why wait until ROL admit it before selling a product? There's no legal reason for this. Also, remember that the possibility does exist that ROL *have done nothing wrong* - why would they admit that they have, and put themselves up for being sued?

CTL may well be doing the right thing here, but something seriously doesn't smell right.

nunfetishist on 16/6/04 1:08PM [ Reply | Report ]

Actually the 'needing to acknowledge' was my (probably misleading) paraphrasing. It was originally written as 'ROL has refused to comply with the legal obligations placed on them by the licence termination and until it does so, Castle is unable to grant new licences to these sub-licensees'.

Unfortunately I don't know enough law to say what it is that ROL need to do, and whether Castle really are prevented from agreeing new contracts until this has been done. It's feasible though.

I'm not in the 'castle can do no wrong' camp. They clearly have been very naughty in the past (re: GPL), and until I've seen evidence of improvements to RO 5 which match what ROL were able to do I'm suspicious about their ability to maintain the OS too. But right now I'm so hacked off that any change is a good thing for me.

ninja on 16/06/04 1:18PM [ Reply | Report ]

Nunfetishist: what bit of "Castle is in discussions with the shareholders of ROL to find a way to offer RISC OS 4 and Select to users. It is expected this will lead to a satisfactory conclusion in the very near future" can't you read? I just think your speculation is a bit daft - think about all possibilities if you want but I would have thought Castle's statement was reasonably clear, considering the situation is ongoing.

SparkY on 16/06/04 1:18PM [ Reply | Report ]

As a side note. [link] appears to be down. As someone upset already started a DOS attack?

sa110 on 16/06/04 1:26PM [ Reply | Report ]

Maybe it's the Drobe effect?

monkeyson on 16/06/04 1:30PM [ Reply | Report ]

It seems to be online again now

j5m1th on 16/06/04 1:34PM [ Reply | Report ]

They should use ppf's hosting solutions if it is the Drobe effect ;-)

nunfetishist on 16/06/04 1:34PM [ Reply | Report ]

OK, some questions that I'd like answering:

1. Where's ROL's comment on this? 2. What have ROL apparently done wrong? 3. Why did it take 12 months for CTL to make a decision on withdrawing their licence? 4. Have ROL agreed to the withdrawal? 5. Why are CTL delaying a possible source of income until ROL fulfil their legal obligations? 6. What are these legal obligations? 7. Will CTL licence ROL to third parties on the same terms as ROL did? 8. What do the discussions CTL are having with ROL's shareholders about finding a way to offer RO4 and Select to users actually involve? 9. If CTL were to consider selling RO4 to VA distributers as non-desktop use, because you could embed a Windows box, what was to stop people embedding RiscStations or RiscPCs? 10. Who actually owns the copyright to the changes to RO4, and the extensions in Select? 11. Do the extensions in Select count as changes to the core OS? 12. Where CTL's demands reasonable and legitimate as far as ROL were concerned? 13. Why did ROL refuse CTL's demands if they thought they were reasonable, and as such their only form of income would likely vanish?

I'd personaly like to hear responses to those questions from both sides. There's no sense what-so-ever in forming opinions until you've heard both sides, certainly. You wouldn't sentence somebody having only heard the prosecution's arguments. I'd also like to make it clear that I'm on neither ROL's or CTL's side. (I don't even use RISC OS anymore, although I'd like to use VA-RPC, that option doesn't appear open anymore, and it certianly looks like it's not going to be re-opened for a long time yet.)

As I said earlier, because we don't have all the facts, it's perfectly possible that CTL are completely right. But so many of the important facts appear missing, that it smells nasty.

nunfetishist on 16/06/04 1:36PM [ Reply | Report ]

Exactly who is to say that CTL aren't spouting a lot of crap here? What right do they have to terminate ROL's licence? Maybe they're just causing trouble and hoping that smaller companies won't have the money to fight them? Everyone's been super-quick to kick ROL in the teeth, despite ROL being the one keeping things ticking over since Acorn went kaput! CTL's done little other than acquire (however dubiously) RISC OS from Pace - I see them as a pure moneygrabbing outfit that doesn't put the community and users first. They refuse to give any details of WHAT parts of any ROL agreement they believe has been breached. Talk is cheap. Details from CTL are vastly vague. Lawyers are evil and bloodsucking and the only result is pain and suffering for everyone concerned. Certainly around here CTL have caused themselves irreperable damage by making this crazy move and a considerable number of businesses and large amount of money will be wasted over all this. It's an awful way for this great OS to end up.

imj on 16/06/04 1:42PM [ Reply | Report ]

imj: I'm glad somebody's not blind. Thought I was fighting a losing battle for reason, here.

nunfetishist on 16/06/04 1:47PM [ Reply | Report ]

IMJ: You've made your anti-CTL stance clear many times in the past and now you're almost spitting blood. Relax, CTL have the right to terminate the license if its been breached. If it hasn't, the legal action will sort it out.

SparkY on 16/06/04 1:50PM [ Reply | Report ]

SparkY: And you're the one who said that you're 100% behind CTL without hearing anything from ROL at all. That sounds pretty anti-ROL, to me.

nunfetishist on 16/06/04 1:52PM [ Reply | Report ]

1. I don't see why it's in their interest to make a statement, except possibly to refute petty claims of 'lack of vision' and the like. It wouldn't be unknown for a RISC OS company to make a press statement just to make a petty refutation of a petty comment though. 2. You mean, beyond breaking the terms of their license, according to Castle? 3. Castle claim they were trying to negotiate. 4. Probably not, if they're not doing whatever it is they're legally meant to do. 5. Good question. On the surface it looks like simple frustration. 6. Is there a lawyer in the house? 7. I'd have thought that'd be unlikely, though it's possible they'd be equivalent. 8. Shareholders? Do you mean sublicensees? It doesn't say they've been talking with them, just notifying them and trying to find a solution for them (with unnamed parties) 9. I'd personally think you need things like TV out (in the case of an STB) or other hardware features to make a system (borderline) embedded. ROL licensed RO4 for specific systems which were known not to be embedded, but they didn't know what system VA would end up on. At a guess. 10. Depends on the terms they contracted their software engineers under. And depends on what happened to the RO 3.8 and beyond changes that Pace sold to ROL. 11. That could be argued all day. I don't think it's actually relevant though, since nothing says ROL has to supply post Select 2 core changes to anyone anyway (unless the contract has specific clauses covering breach of contract, which is possible). 12. Almost certainly not. 13. See above. Either they couldn't afford to upgrade their license so their actions complied, or they thought Castle were just bluffing.

While we're missing some important facts, they're only really questions 2, 6 and 10. Everything else falls into place if we know those. However, noone we can explicitly trust is going to tell us immediately, though comments from ROL and other may shed light.

ninja on 16/06/04 1:58PM [ Reply | Report ]

imj: Castle own RISC OS and sell a licence to ROL to develop and sell RO4. If ROL breach the licence agreement, then Castle who issue the licence can revoke the licence at any time, as they have done. This is standard legal contract stuff. As to not revealing what parts of the licence agreement have been broken, they are probably keeping this secret so as not to interfer in any way (in their favour or ROL's) in any legal proceedings. I know very little about law but would assume, that at least until the case gets to court, they are not letting details out into the general public for good reason. I'm sure in good time we will know more details.

j5m1th on 16/06/04 1:58PM [ Reply | Report ]

Nunfetishist: I'm behind Castle, doesn't mean I'm anti-ROL or others. I have faith in what Castle do, they consistently show they deserve it. We do only have one side of the story, but it's a pretty strong side if you ask me. Tell me then, why haven't ROL spoken up?

SparkY on 16/06/04 1:59PM [ Reply | Report ]

SparkY: Only having one side always looks strong. Castle havn't *constantly* shown that they deserve faith - they've done many things wrong. (Such as the GPL fun, and things like the Oregano 2 upgrade cockups.)

There are many reasons why ROL may not have spoken up yet. The two most obvious and likely ones are: They've not gotten around to it yet, and the other is that they think it might effect their chances of proving their innocence.

nunfetishist on 16/06/04 2:05PM [ Reply | Report ]

I have a vague memory in the back of my mind about ROL's licence being reputed to be for ROM-based OS releases only, although after googling around I've not found much to back this up (one comment by Tony Houghton in late 1999). <speculation> If this is the case then VA would presumably break the terms of that licence. </speculation>.

jms on 16/06/04 2:07PM [ Reply | Report ]

GuestX wrote: I suppose that this is what happens when you build your house of cards (ie. products, solutions) on a dodgy table (ie. proprietary operating system with an ownership/licensing history almost as bizarre as SCO Unixware). Let's hope STD can keep on selling stuff based on Linux and free operating systems.

I did suggest making a free version of RISCOS years ago but no one was interested. I notice that Rob Kendrick says he no longer users riSCOs counter what has been said on ALUG.

speccyverse on 16/06/04 2:08PM [ Reply | Report ]

Jim makes a good point. Perhaps all that ROL could say without prejudicing the situation is 'castle have communicated that we've broken the contract with us' and 'we think we haven't'. To be slightly unkind to ROL, they may have their reasons for not admitting the former.

ninja on 16/06/04 2:08PM [ Reply | Report ]

"CTL have the right to terminate the license if its been breached" - says who? You've only heard Castle say this. Ok, so they apparently bought something from Pace, but did they buy the whole rights, and the head licence to sublicencees such as ROL? You're all just assuming what CTL say is true, despite their tremendouly dubious goings-on in the past with respect to GPL stuff in their hack of the OS. They're not squeaky clean, by proof. Sure, I don't like them, at all, for what they're doing to destroy the market I love, but I see no proof of what they've rambled about. Hell, *I* could claim I bought the head licence from Pace, send C&D's to a wodge of folk and claim that I can terminate ROL or even CTL. Would you then just assume that was true? No. Of course not. So why believe anything CTL says just because they're CTL? Or has everyone been fed with CTL's brainwashing pills? :-(

imj on 16/06/04 2:09PM [ Reply | Report ]

"I did suggest making a free version of RISC OS years ago but no one was interested."

People have been working on that, since long before you made any suggestion. It's called ROX. Now, if you've got any (sensible) suggestions on how to build a business case to accelerate that development, I'd be genuinely interested.

ninja on 16/06/04 2:11PM [ Reply | Report ]

In reply to Nunfetishist. You worry about Castle dominating the market. Ever heard of Microsoft? The competition lawyers seem to keep after them but they still dominate.

Don't know what it is exactly RISCOS have done but I can't imagine that Castle will cheerfully chuck money at lawyers if there's no need for it.

ChrisP

ChrisP on 16/06/04 2:11PM [ Reply | Report ]

I wouldn't expect ROL to say anything publicly until they have taken legal advice.

mrtd on 16/06/04 2:14PM [ Reply | Report ]

ChrisP: Microsoft are dominant for completely different reasons. Also remember that the situation is quite different: At the moment, the only way you can buy and run RISC OS is by going to CTL. Before, there were many choices, both for the hardware and the OS. Microsoft don't have that amount of control over the PC market - they don't mandate who you buy the hardware from at all. Apple are a much more accurate example. When they started licencing out MacOS to third parties, they suddenly noticed that they were all undercutting them. They couldn't compete. They couldn't make the machines cheaper. So they just withdrew everybody else's licence.

I personally strongly believe that the OS should be maintained by a company with no interest in hardware.

nunfetishist on 16/06/04 2:23PM [ Reply | Report ]

Ian,

I for one believe that Castle really bought RISC OS from Pace because I have read a press release from Pace. Maybe you should do the same and come back to reality afterwards.

But perhaps you are into conspiracy theories and believe that Castle have hacked the Pace webserver to place their own announcement there, without Pace even knowing...

hubersn on 16/06/04 2:23PM [ Reply | Report ]

imj: *You* may feel confident in doubting Castle's claim to own the head license. But I've not heard anyone else challenge that suggestion, so in my opinion the end suppliers have done the sensible thing in avoiding problems. Why should they have to take risks over that sort of assertion (that Castle are lying about the head license)? Particularly since you've provided no evidence for it.

dgs

dgs on 16/06/04 2:23PM [ Reply | Report ]

nunfetishist: "I personally strongly believe that the OS should be maintained by a company with no interest in hardware"

That's the position the RISC OS market has been for about the last five years. But the net effect was that development of native hardware slowed to a crawl.

The RISC OS market is not large enough to sustain a *separate* operating system development company that cannot draw substantial revenue from hardware sales.

(I've seen what ROL licensees are supposed to pay per machine shipped, and it really isn't very much at all).

dgs

dgs on 16/06/04 2:27PM [ Reply | Report ]

dgs: It still is crawling. One machine's hardly a barrage of new machines. And all of Castle's other XScale machines are just different cases. I've also seen what the per-machine licence is. If it's too small for them to make a comfortable amount of revenue, then they should have either upped the price, or marketed more.

nunfetishist on 16/06/04 2:31PM [ Reply | Report ]

imj:

Here's the press release from the Pace website, concerning Castle's acquisition of the RO license:

[link]

I don't think that Pace would have something like this posted on their website if it wasn't true. Although I'm no lawyer, I'm sure you can't generally just revoke a contract without some claim that the terms have been broken. Whether this is really the case here, remains to be seen.

flypig on 16/06/04 2:39PM [ Reply | Report ]

imj: If Castle doesn't own the head licence for RISC OS then who does? Given that Castle own RISC OS (see all the press releases from Castle and Pace announcing the purchase) I think it is safe to assume that they have the right to issue/revoke licences. You have not provided a single bit of evidence to back up your claim, so it is just wild speculation. Castle are a business, and will not do anything they know will destroy their image and their client base. They know what they can and can't do, we, however, do not. Castle would only have done this after full consultation with their lawyers, who would not recommend this action without Castle having this right.

j5m1th on 16/06/04 2:40PM [ Reply | Report ]

To nunfetishist (1): You ask "Out of interest, why does CTL need ROL to acknowledge the breaches?"

Well in their statement Castle wrote "However, ROL has refused to comply with the legal obligations placed on them by the licence termination and until it does so, Castle is unable to grant new licences to these sub-licensees.". I don't know the legal aspects applicable here but to me it seems that either ROL has to acknowledge the termination or the termination has to be approved by court perhaps before it is really officially terminated so that Castle is allowed to grant the new licenses.

To nunfetishist (2): You worry about domination of the market? True there is a risk, but - sorry - in the old days when Acorn dominated the market there was much more around and going on in the RISC OS market and Acorn World was really a show worth a visit from the Continent. So there seem to be good sides to this concept and time has to show how it works.

To all: I'll not add that I think Castle did the right thing since a) who am I to know, though it looks right and b) I rather avoid being labelled pro-Castle by the odd one here, though it looks that they do things right :-)

hzn on 16/06/04 2:47PM [ Reply | Report ]

nunfetishist: "If it's too small for them to make a reasonable amount of revenue, then they should either have upped the price, or marketed more"

Perhaps, but they didn't.

And as I said, they had plenty of time to get it right.

If it couldn't be made to work in five years, chances are that the next five wouldn't be much better.

dgs

dgs on 16/06/04 2:48PM [ Reply | Report ]

IMJ, you point about us all believing Castle is fairly mute. At the moment they are the only people giving out information about the whole mess the RO community is once again in. So until another knowledgable party speaks up either as a offical spokesman for ROL or someone with some knowledge of what's going on, we only have Castle's statement to go off and believe.

I think another key point that has been raised is, do Castle acutally own the RISC OS out right?

sa110 on 16/06/04 2:48PM [ Reply | Report ]

flypig, looking at the announcement on Pace's website, it says "Castle Technology Ltd today announced the purchase of the RISC OS technology from Pace Micro Technology plc". It then goes onto say that the IP rights were licensed back to Pace. So does that actually mean Pace still own the IP for RISC OS?

sa110 on 16/06/04 2:58PM [ Reply | Report ]

I'm no lawyer, but I imagine that this means that Pace were granted an automatic license from Castle to use RO in their products. In other words, Pace weren't going to sell RO to Castle if Castle then refused to grant them a license for their RISC OS based IP gateways.

Like I say, I'm not a lawyer and this could all be rubbish.

flypig on 16/06/04 3:05PM [ Reply | Report ]

Wednesday's 2 pence worth... (as ever, comments are based on observation/interpretation/opinions only) Well at least now we now for sure what the cause of the legal rumblings were (hardly a shock to most on these forums I assume :-)

). For what it's worth, I feel CTL are making the right choice - whilst I have no personal dislike of ROL, I (personally) believe they are worst thing to ever happen to the RISC OS world - doing more damage than even Acorn's closure (yes we had RO4/Select/Adjust - over 5 years though!) Imagine how far this might have gone if CTL had been running the show from the start (yes I am very pro CTL, anti ROL - it's a choice and I stand by it).

I do doubt that CTL would refuse to re-grant licenses to VA and STD - surely it's too much easy money from products which are hardly in direct competition with the Iyonix to give up on! As for MD - now I think they could have problems, although if CTL would still be making a slice from every competitor sale (without knowing how much CTL make per Iyonix sale I can't quantify this).

As to the comparisons with Apple - I do see the analogy, but on the flip side - look where Apple and MacOS is today - doing better than ever, primarily through good management and marketing. I do feel sorry for people who may lose their income through these problems - but this business and CTL are running a business (which to me is a refreshing change compared to the number of 'Hobby' companies in the RISC OS marketplace).

Surely the only amicable solution left would be for CTL to aquire the remains of ROL, retaining staff if possible and getting all the updates to RO (with the current situation I doubt ROL shares are at a high) - the final step in what I consider to be a grand strategy (which I for one, applaud). Now get it sorted. And get back to producing more machines! Iyonix 2 is overdue!

Regards, Ryan

drjones69 on 16/06/04 3:12PM [ Reply | Report ]

How I read the statement was that Pace were getting a license from Castle to use RISC OS in their exisiting products i.e. the RISC OS based IP gateways, and also maintain the rights to their Intellctual Property with regards to their gateways to allow future developments. This would leave Castle owning all of RISC OS and, importantly for this discussion, the head license.

j5m1th on 16/06/04 3:27PM [ Reply | Report ]

drjones69: "Imagine how far this might have gone if CTL had been running the show from the start"

Imagine, if ROL hadn't picked up the baton in 1999 then there might be no CTL / ROL / MicroDigital / STD et al now.

"but on the flip side - look where Apple and MacOS is today - doing better than ever" boosted, in part, by Microsoft who are afraid of the anti-competetive laws if they were seen as having no competition at all.

Anyway, thanks for the post. It gave me a good laugh.

jms on 16/06/04 3:35PM [ Reply | Report ]

jms: no, you've missed the point. Castle, and a number of other parties had a chance to "pick up the baton" in 1999. However, that's largely a matter of historical interest and speculation.

It's just a shame that something that's really quite negative for all parties involved (at least in the short term) has generated so much interest with so many people ready to damn others. That alone reflects badly on all of us.

mrchocky on 16/06/04 4:21PM [ Reply | Report ]

Here's some 5 year old information: ------ Firstly on 5th March 1999 an agreement was signed with Element 14 to licence and develop the RISC OS 4 operating system whilst element 14 Ltd revised its business from manufacturer to silicon designer.

The essential element of the RISC OS licence agreement with Pace is that RISCOS Ltd is the only company with full access to all RISC OS Sources.

RISCOS Ltd can provide programming support to licencees to aid the conversion work needed to port RISC OS to new hardware platforms. It will also be possible for sub-contractors to work for RISCOS Ltd and the AMS on source code level development.

CTL then became the first company to take out an authorised manufacturing sub licence agreement with RISCOS Ltd on 9th November 1999. This enables them to ship their current Risc PC and A7000+ machines with RISC OS 4 pre-installed. ------

That second one could prove interesting depending on the timing of RO5 development and the purchase of RISCOS from Pace. The 4th one is a cracker as well.

This whole situation is a legal minefield and statements from CTL or ROL before any legal settlements should be ignored.

From what I have read from 5 years ago it would seem that ROL have a far stronger case than the statement by CTL implies. I think everyone should just sit back and wait for the lawyers to sort it out.

Look on the bright side: after this, the current OS mess will be sorted out one way or another.

regards,

Malcolm

mripley on 16/06/04 4:27PM [ Reply | Report ]

ROL's licence was for 26 bit desktop systems ONLY. The VA stuff has rather breached this.

anon/195.195.78.77 on 16/06/04 4:34PM [ Reply | Report ]

How as VA breached this? And every RiscPC is a 32bit desktop system running in 26bit legacy mode, anyway.

nunfetishist on 16/06/04 4:37PM [ Reply | Report ]

I smell the end of the RISC OS market, I would be very surprised if the non-Castle camp, particularly the VA camp dont just go mainstream Windows.

If various software companies, large and small can produce RISC OS like clones of their software for Windows, David Pilling, and Mark Sawle, spring to mind, then I can see a large shift away from Castle toward Windows XP based products.

The market place will be decimated, and Castle will ultimately follow Acorn down the proverbial pan.

If that's Castle's game plan, so be it.

I am not saying that ROL are faultless, but I think it bad form at the very least that Castle if they have the legal high stand allowed the situation to continue, and ROL to support Select/Adjust, and the VA marketplace, much longer than a few weeks after their acquisition of RISC OS.

They must be seen as the baddies, for pulling the plug nearly a year after.

Little or no press has been given to the impression than ROL were all at fault.

Personally I feel the time has come, sadly to fully migrate. I have supported it in all forms since 1982. But this is the final straw, that broke the camels back!

Enjoy, what's left, but the Iyonix was never on my shopping list, and having suffered from Castle's crass stupidity regarding it's own marketing of Products, I bid it fairwell!

< Oregano, Oregano 2 > spring so clearly to mind. Promises, promises, promises, oh it is Oregan's fault.....seems everyone is at fault but Castle.

I do hope ROL manage to survive this, and should that be the case, I may linger a while longer, but ultimately the market looks doomed!

Yours a very disappointed, RISC OS user.

jcmcculloch on 16/06/04 4:46PM [ Reply | Report ]

Engage yer intelligence before pedantry.

anon/195.195.78.77 on 16/06/04 4:46PM [ Reply | Report ]

jcmcculloch: Castle have been trying to sort this out for nearly a year on a friendly basis. They will have taken this action as a last resort. Castle would have been seen as even bigger baddies if they pulled the plug on ROL immediately they took over, and the repercusions could have been a lot worse.

j5m1th on 16/06/04 5:00PM [ Reply | Report ]

j5m1th: To be fair, there's no evidence that it was on a friendly basis. The problem is that there's no evidence at all.

nunfetishist on 16/06/04 5:02PM [ Reply | Report ]

Interesting. I didn't renew my SELECT subsription from somtime late last year, as I wasn't entirely convinced it offered me good value for money. I presume this means Select subscribers are left with a lemon for their current subscription? Very sad.

harmsy on 16/06/04 5:05PM [ Reply | Report ]

nunfetishist: OK "friendly basis" was phrased badly. What I meant was, that Castle have been trying to resolve this for nearly a year without having to resort to revoking ROL's licence. Obviously we are relying on Castle's word that it has been trying for nearly a year, but lets give them the benefit of doubt.

j5m1th on 16/06/04 5:13PM [ Reply | Report ]

And not give ROL the benefit of the doubt? Why not share it equally and await both sides to comment?

nunfetishist on 16/06/04 5:18PM [ Reply | Report ]

I don't recall there being a clause about 26-bittedness in the agreement anyway. Can you find a link to back up that assertion? It wouldn't make sense for ROL to be wittering on about 32-bitting it if there was enough demand if they'd never be allowed to sell it, would it?

ninja on 16/06/04 5:22PM [ Reply | Report ]

That was a reply to MrChimpy, by the way

ninja on 16/06/04 5:22PM [ Reply | Report ]

ninja: Your recollection is absolutely correct.

It's just more ill informed rumours.

apdl on 16/06/04 5:37PM [ Reply | Report ]

Yes, I agree - a statement of ROL is what we'd like to read now. Time has to show if they intend to put one out.

As for "To be fair, there's no evidence that it was on a friendly basis. The problem is that there's no evidence at all." What evidence do you expect? As for friendly I'd say that if Castle tried to solve the issue with ROL for nearly 12 months as they write, then this does show a lot of patience and thus is very friendly since they seem to have given ROL quite a chance.

hzn on 16/06/04 5:52PM [ Reply | Report ]

If this means we'll end up with a single version of RISC OS it might not be a bad thing

zito on 16/06/04 6:01PM [ Reply | Report ]

harmsy: "a lemon"

Lemons are useful in many popular Indian meals, including the Pathia dishes available (amongst others) at ROUGOL meetings.

dgs

dgs on 16/06/04 6:20PM [ Reply | Report ]

1. Where's ROL's comment on this? In the future

2. What have ROL apparently done wrong? Broken terms of their agreement

3. Why did it take 12 months for CTL to make a decision on withdrawing their licence? Because they wanted to give them a chance

4. Have ROL agreed to the withdrawal? See 1

5. Why are CTL delaying a possible source of income until ROL fulfil their legal obligations? See 3

6. What are these legal obligations? To abide by said contract

7. Will CTL licence ROL to third parties on the same terms as ROL did? Probably similar

8. What do the discussions CTL are having with ROL's shareholders about finding a way to offer RO4 and Select to users actually involve? Ask the shareholders

9. If CTL were to consider selling RO4 to VA distributers as non-desktop use, because you could embed a Windows box, what was to stop people embedding RiscStations or RiscPCs? I would think the problem with VA is the not ARM thing. Either that or Castle are just making everyone stop because of ROL

10. Who actually owns the copyright to the changes to RO4, and the extensions in Select? Everything after 4 years: ROL, so from 2003 onwards

11. Do the extensions in Select count as changes to the core OS? Some would, the core OS changes.

12. Were CTL's demands reasonable and legitimate as far as ROL were concerned? Probably not, because ROL didn't comply

13. Why did ROL refuse CTL's demands if they thought they were reasonable, and as such their only form of income would likely vanish? Because if they complied their main form of income would likely vanish (VRPC)

Speculation is fun.

Who've have guessed that imj would be anti Castle

mavhc on 16/06/04 6:21PM [ Reply | Report ]

jcmcculloch: "I smell the end of the RISC OS market, I would be very surprised if the non-Castle camp, particularly the VA camp dont just go mainstream Windows."

Well, with Castle and "friends" playing spin the bottle, perhaps a number of people would do well to wake up to the alternatives, rather than insisting on the highly-nostalgic pure-ARM, pure-RISC OS solution. Believe in the spirit of RISC OS rather than the increasingly contested and depreciating "intellectual property", as it were.

guestx on 16/06/04 6:34PM [ Reply | Report ]

Damn Castle for bringing a 32bit OS and an Iyonix computer to market, I hate them for destroying RISC OS, without Castle we could have been using Omega computers and emulators by now.

I could also claim that I bought ROS, but if I hadn't it would be pretty stupid, when, in the future, someone requires proof.

So what you're saying is ROL don't think that Castle really bought ROS, they just nicked it. Makes sense really, what RISC OS company would have made enough money to buy it. And their plan when someone asked was to distract them with shiny objects?

I love stuff like this: "their hack of the OS", really making your case there. In what way is a 32bit RISC OS with HAL a hack?

mavhc on 16/06/04 6:41PM [ Reply | Report ]

guestx: The spirit of RISC OS always *was* running the OS on native hardware, preferably plus BBC BASIC.

Politically correct notions that this isn't "the right thing" any more, won't sway everyone.

dgs

dgs on 16/06/04 6:44PM [ Reply | Report ]

mavhc:

That's not the legal obligations he was talking about. He was talking about those in the following quote frm the Castle statement: "However, ROL has refused to comply with the legal obligations placed on them by the licence termination and until it does so, Castle is unable to grant new licences to these sub-licensees."

It is not referring to the same contractual obligations that ROL allegedly broke, but some additional obligations invoked by license termination. We really need a contract lawyer here.

Also, it doesn't infer that Castle is not granting licenses to ROLs old sub-licensees because it's being nice to ROL. The agreements between VA and ROL and A6 and ROL have already effectively terminated, if not actually terminated. It infers that it's legally unable to grant new licences until ROL complies. You could however argue that in fact Castle is not granting licenses to break their competitors, and blaming ROL while it's at it to cover up - but I don't see any reason to jump to that particular conclusion given the current evidence.

ninja on 16/06/04 6:48PM [ Reply | Report ]

fwiw, there's a response from ROL here:

[link]

Chris.

diomus on 16/06/04 6:53PM [ Reply | Report ]

I am glad

ROL were bad at passing back code down the dev tree.

Example: RO5.06 has no "make backdrop" from a menu over a sprite...

Why?

Speculation = bits of "desktop" code that ROL "forgot" to pass back along...

Which at last means we may be rid of ROL... :-D

epistaxsis@work on 16/06/04 6:56PM [ Reply | Report ]

epistaxsis: That posting makes no sense at all.

nunfetishist on 16/06/04 7:30PM [ Reply | Report ]

Is this the last nail? We were just about to purchase 2 new Panthers to keep our business running on RO, and now my partners have voted for cheper Microsoft based machines, as we can not afford to waste money on a system that could now fall by the wayside. If this is not sorted soon, then this market will have only a very small user group. Chris

Chrise on 16/06/04 7:47PM [ Reply | Report ]

nunfetishist: sense is not perhaps needed :-)

passion is...

epistaxsis@work on 16/06/04 8:01PM [ Reply | Report ]

"cheper Microsoft based machines" are often a LOT more expensive once you get all the LEGAL software you need on there. IME people who say M$ solutions are "cheap" tend to have only paid for one seat copy of Office or DevStudio for a whole office to run on. Sure, the Iyonix machine itself is expensive, inexplicably so, but as a whole solution, IME, RISC OS is cheaper. When Microsoft publish Office 19 in 2009 or whateveritis will you still be able to run it on a lowly 3Ghz Pentium 4? Doubtful...

As for the point in hand, here, do you really want to buy from a company who puts out press releases like CTL have? It's the same ranty nonsense that put me off ever dealing with Microdigital - if you can't trust the company even to be businesslike, don't do business with them. Assume for a moment that CTL's rant is illegal, as ROL are suggesting it is, then ROL and other companies could counter-sue CTL for loss of earnings over the debacle, meaning CTL disappear and companies such as STD and VA come to the fore for the future of the platform. I think it's too early to say how things will pan out -- everyone's just _assuming_ what CTL say is actually legal. We'll all just have to pray the market doesn't get destroyed completely by all this.

imj on 16/06/04 8:20PM [ Reply | Report ]

My new theory is it's not about 32bit, 26bit, emulation, embedded or anything, it's that ROL don't believe Castle own RISC OS so they won't pay them any money

mavhc on 16/06/04 8:23PM [ Reply | Report ]

IMJ: You said you don't use RISC OS anymore - this might explain why you think there is more of a future in running RISC OS in an emulated environment on a Windows PC than developing and advancing modern hardware and a 32 bit OS. Bizarre!

SparkY on 16/06/04 8:26PM [ Reply | Report ]

Chrise: How on earth does this affect your buying two new Panthers?

Perhaps you should phone Castle to discuss this with them, and they can explain whether any of this affects your purchase.

imj: You're starting to mix your blood-spitting rants with pretending that you're a lawyer. It's quite clear that you're not a lawyer. Quite apart from making yourself look silly, this sort of thing may get you into trouble.

If you're saying that what CTL say isn't "actually legal", in what respect do you suggest that it is illegal? Or do you need to clarify that statement just a little bit?

dgs

dgs on 16/06/04 8:32PM [ Reply | Report ]

Sparky: You're talking crap. I most certainly did NOT say I don't use RISC OS any more. For example see my recent dobe article about the STD Unipod for an example. I have a pair of RiscPCs here and laptop and desktop PCs for emulators. I use RISC OS as much as ever and still actively develop for it. Whether you care to bother thinking about the actual words I said, or are more intent on your own sillynotions such as me not using RISC OS, is up to you. Weird.

dgs: You're also very odd with your putdowns and attempts to put words in people's mouths. It's just odd. Give up making YOUR self "look silly". Pretending you're daddy and suggesting my few comments could be anything like getting me "in trouble" is just ridiculous. Wise up and stop being silly. Since you're clearly unable to understand what I said about CTL, I'll attempt to explain it more simply for you ; CTL have made an accusation about ROL's activities. ROL dispute this. One company will be legally proved right. You assume this will be CTL, but why? There's no evidence been given to back up that idea that I've seen. Hence I said ".. assuming what CTL say is actually legal" - it may well NOT be! Got it yet?

imj on 16/06/04 8:49PM [ Reply | Report ]

imj: How can what CTL say "not be legal" ?

I'm sorry if my comments upset you, perhaps you want to explain what you actually mean.

dgs

dgs on 16/06/04 10:16PM [ Reply | Report ]

dgs: I think what imj means is what CTL are illeging are not legally sound. Stop trying to misread people's postings. Ta.

For extra excitement on dgs's aguement style, see [link] (I refer to it quite frequently for amusement's sake. It's even more amusing if you have the full context - it's a shame that it's missing.)

nunfetishist on 16/06/04 10:30PM [ Reply | Report ]

nunfetishist: "I think what imj means is what CTL are illeging are not legally sound."

This doesn't look very coherent to me.

Either you and/or imj are suggesting that CTL's statements are untrue, or you suggest they have reached some "legal" conclusions that do not follow from those statements.

The latter looks like your random speculation, not like a legal opinion that would hold any weight.

"For extra excitement on dgs's arguement style"

Drobe readers have had plenty of "arguement style" to view recently, including mine. I'm sure they can make up their own minds ;-)

dgs

dgs on 16/06/04 11:03PM [ Reply | Report ]

dgs: "ither you and/or imj are suggesting that CTL's statements are untrue, or you suggest they have reached some "legal" conclusions that do not follow from those statements."

I've suggested no such thing. Try reading postings, for a change.

nunfetishist on 16/06/04 11:24PM [ Reply | Report ]

nunfetishist: "I've suggested no such thing."

That's OK, then.

dgs

dgs on 16/06/04 11:35PM [ Reply | Report ]

dgs: I assume that now you've read my postings, you've discovered that I suggested no such thing. Kindly in future read what people have said before attributing points of view to them.

nunfetishist on 16/06/04 11:45PM [ Reply | Report ]

nunfetishist: So what *were* you and imj suggesting? I can't see any other conclusion than what I said above.

It does seem interesting that you have contributed so many forum posts on this subject, clearly you feel strongly about it, even though you don't use RISC OS very much.

dgs

dgs on 17/06/04 00:05AM [ Reply | Report ]

dgs: I've been suggesting that people don't make their decisions until they've got all the facts. Which most people seem happy to do.

Why is it interesting that I still comment, even though I don't use RISC OS anymore?

nunfetishist on 17/06/04 00:12AM [ Reply | Report ]

nunfetishist: "I've been suggesting that people don't make their decisions until they've got all their facts."

I'm glad you haven't been suggestng that a RISC OS company said something that supposedly "wasn't legal".

dgs

dgs on 17/06/04 00:23AM [ Reply | Report ]

dgs: As am I. For that would clearly be wrong, considering I don't have the information to prove it. Out of interest, why don't you use TOTH anymore? Not seen you there in a while.

nunfetishist on 17/06/04 00:35AM [ Reply | Report ]

nunfetishist: So you *can't* back up what imj said earlier.

It seems you took a rather roundabout route to say so ;-)

dgs

dgs on 17/06/04 00:49AM [ Reply | Report ]

dgs: I didn't back up what imj said. I simply pointed out that you'd misread what he'd said. Perhaps if you were more direct, rather than sly, you'd find conversations in future easier?

nunfetishist on 17/06/04 00:56AM [ Reply | Report ]

nunfetishist: "I didn't back up what imj said. I simply pointed out that you'd misread what he said."

It sounds like you're arguing just for the sake of it.

If you understood and believe what imj said, that's up to you. At least a few others here will agree.

I didn't.

dgs

dgs on 17/06/04 01:04AM [ Reply | Report ]

Dan: You should know about arguing just for the sake of it. I'm just a person pointing out that you'd got the wrong end of the stick. Sorry for pointing out that you were wrong, but I'd thought you'd be used to it by now.

nunfetishist on 17/06/04 01:08AM [ Reply | Report ]

nunfetishist: Like I said, a few may agree.

Most will read the press releases and more measured comments for themselves, and ignore the endless arguments.

dgs

dgs on 17/06/04 01:16AM [ Reply | Report ]

Now we know why Select was not negotiated between ROL and CTL. Maybe we could help ROL and CTL save dispute time and money (lawyer fees) by just using Drobe Users to compile the (Jury's) verdict! "SparkY" Competition is good, but not for us small user market..... I agree, and an important point I feel because the arguments for and against the competition needs people claim really just pulls us apart.... M$ does not appear to worry about competition to succeed, or does it??? "Martin" Spot on point about 'Should have stuck to their licence agreement'. I agree and ROL are lucky it isn't MicroSoft hitting back on breaches from their side of the fence ( NO, I didn't say there is a problem ) "Sparky" I would be very pleased if CTL and ROL try to take over MicroSoft, and therefore I would shut my mouth and ask no questions as to the origin of their PLANET! "Markee174" Which football was England watching distracted Drobe Users attention? The football I watched was the Rugby match between New Zealand thrashing the world champions (England!)... "nunfetishist" While we all want to hear responses to you questions from both sides, I fear it may take a while to get an answer (if we do get one!!). After all, Castle claims 12 months in the waiting. (unusual to me why it took so long, but it would be silly for CTL to take action prematurely in it's market position. CTL may now feel established enough to make a move, meaning why the long wait???) Anyway, all we can really do is just move on with what we have and dream of getting in the better or bleak future, once we have been "Shot in the Foot" all is not lost "yet"! Anyone know or recall the Monty Python's Flying Circus TV series, when the Knight guarding to small footbridge over the stream, one by one had each arm an leg cut off but limbless he still threatened to bite his opponent!! Well, we may be ARMless but we still have a leg to stand on!! :grin: (my subjects may be off topic but my thoughts try to remain focussed) Cheers, Steve.

Sawadee on 17/06/04 01:56AM [ Reply | Report ]

It was the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and not the TV series where King Arthur chopped off the arms and legs of the knight at the bridge. It's small details of fact like that that you need lawyers to sort out ;-)

regards,

Malcolm

mripley on 17/06/04 08:31AM [ Reply | Report ]

mripley That's right, the "Holy Grail" movie and I remember now that they rode like on horses with coconut sounding horse gallops! The point of why I even mentioned this Knight scene is that even though he was cut down dramatically, he carried on with his task. I we would be very lucky if the ROL and CTL situation is sorted out, I think it is more likely that the market place for us will see some very different changes. For good or for worst, depends on your expectations but to turn back the hands of time now looks like it is too late to do that. Why I think that is because of the fact that this matter has it's roots of the problem much longer than recently and that it never was and hasn't been resolved still. If ROL and CTL shared common interests and goals, the would never been any need for lawyers to be involved as deep as speculated. I feel that what ever small money our platform has for it's future is in jeopardy not only to cost licence disputes between third parties, but to the number of users who will not want to take the risk of investing in an unstable platform's marketplace. The public announcement of this matter is bad enough and may have already triggered a departure of users as well as more soon after careful thought about where one can best go. Who is going to the mad rush hour sale to purchase their collectable dying duck? Anybody who may take an interest in investing in RISC OS / Iyonixs computers, would probably take one look at this site and make a very quick decision..."No Thanks"! I have told a number of non RISC OS computer users to watch this space for an interesting alternative in development. Now I have to run around and tell them to shut their eyes! :o)

I do hope my speculations are wrong or are cured by the miracles of a quick solution and that we will all live happily ever after! (sounds like a fairy tale gone wrong). My final thought to date, things should surely get sorted out now that it's out in the open. What do you think? Cheers, Steve.

Sawadee on 17/06/04 11:24AM [ Reply | Report ]

The RISC OS community says: "Come here! I'll bite yer legs off!"

ninja on 17/06/04 11:41AM [ Reply | Report ]

Or perhaps more appropriately: "I'm invincable!" "You're a loony."

nunfetishist on 17/06/04 11:51AM [ Reply | Report ]

dgs: "The spirit of RISC OS always was running the OS on native hardware, preferably plus BBC BASIC."

Really? I thought people bought computers for the user experience, whether the desktop is nice to use, whether the computer seems fast (as Acorn computers once were), whether there are some nice applications available for those computers (Impression was pretty nice for its time). But I see now that it's all about sentimental attachment to a programming language that was already primitive upon its introduction, running on expensive and/or elusive hardware. I guess that explains the increasing obscurity of the platform better than any black helicopter conspiracy involving Stan Boland and RISC OS Ltd.

guestx on 17/06/04 12:52AM [ Reply | Report ]

guestx: "I thought people bought computers for the user experience"

That'd be why Windows 3.11 was so popular, presumably.

dgs

anon/195.217.253.5 on 17/06/04 1:16PM [ Reply | Report ]

[link] <-- the issue is now on The Reg (2 million viewers a month, hm..)

I like the way ROS is in the Business -> Channel section, rather than the Video Games -> Ancient that it normally seems to crop up in.

Chris. Just me.

diomus on 17/06/04 2:16PM [ Reply | Report ]

dgs: "That'd be why Windows 3.11 was so popular, presumably."

Amongst other reasons, yes. Not everyone in the computing universe was reading Acorn User at the time, you know.

guestx on 17/06/04 3:06PM [ Reply | Report ]

diomus: The first release of this article included a wide variety of spelling mistakes, including mis-spellings of RISC OS and Iyonix, and randomly inserted words. Most or all of these seemed to get corrected pretty quickly - I wonder who is keeping an eye on them :-)

dgs

anon/195.217.253.5 on 17/06/04 3:15PM [ Reply | Report ]

We emailed TheReg and got a reply from the writer, Tony.

Chris. Just me.

diomus on 17/06/04 3:25PM [ Reply | Report ]

Any way to make the bbc news site aware of it?

Might have a silver lining after all.

jess on 17/06/04 4:42PM [ Reply | Report ]

It's hardly a battle of the titans, though, is it? If both companies were in the same neck of the woods, however, perhaps local news would mention it between talking dog stories.

guestx on 17/06/04 4:48PM [ Reply | Report ]

I think there are probably better articles to make the BBC aware of if you want to increase positive interest in RISC OS ;-)

hutchies on 17/06/04 4:51PM [ Reply | Report ]

Yay! 100th post to the thread.

Apologies for making a pointless post, but hey, most posts have been pointless speculation since the first page anyway.

ninja on 17/06/04 4:59PM [ Reply | Report ]

Of course there are better things that would be nice for them to publish, but would they?

Positives -

1 Make people aware that RO still exists.

2 RISC OS is good enought that two companies are prepared to fight over it,

jess on 17/06/04 4:59PM [ Reply | Report ]

Well, "companies" is a strong word. Both companies often seem to display themselves as fanatics, just with an Ltd. tag.

nunfetishist on 17/06/04 6:09PM [ Reply | Report ]

But pointless speculation and the chance to prove we were right by posting every possibility imaginable is what we live for!

Will Castle have to stop selling ROS4 A7000+s until ROL terminate their sublicence?

mavhc on 17/06/04 6:23PM [ Reply | Report ]

Now that is an interesting question

j5m1th on 17/06/04 9:04PM [ Reply | Report ]

Coming rather late to the debate; what surprised me was the tone of the Castle statement. Knowing the normal language and presentational style of Castle press releases, I was surprised to see words such as 'belligerence' 'intransigence' etc in the press release.

I hope that the concilliatory comments about the continuing supply of 26bit flavours of RISC OS bode well for the future as do the comments regarding new products from Castle.

Castle have invested lots of their own money into acquiring the RISC OS 'brand'. It is logical that they want to protect the brand name and take it forward in the future.

I don't see that the end of ROL means the end of RISC OS whatever version you happen to like the most.

blahsnr on 18/06/04 5:45PM [ Reply | Report ]

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