http://picasso96.tabt.de/--- Copy & Paste ---
Picasso96 AnnouncementAfter a 15 year hiatus without measureable progress we, Alexander Kneer and Tobias Abt, want to announce that Picasso96 has found a new home and owner effective January 30, 2017.
After long deliberations we have decided to sell the Picasso96 intellectual property to a joint ownership between Hyperion Computer Entertainment and Individual Computers GmbH (Jens Schönfeld).
We thought it best to sell the IP to a commercial endeavour to ensure that its further development is guided. After all, considering that we started the project as hobbyists, it now is way beyond the point that even a group of amateurs could boost further development on a spare time basis. Our own lives have moved on and now time is at a premium. We simply cannot support P96 as it should be. Individual Computers has the ressources to do that, which was the strongest reason we opted for Jens being part of the equation.
Hyperion and Individual Computers have assured us that they will continue to support both the classic Amiga and next generation systems as well. They plan to integrate P96 into upcoming new OS releases.
We are glad that the Amiga still has some life and a solid base of enthusiasts. Please show the new owners your support by buying licenses – especially if you haven‘t paid the shareware fee to us – and new products!
If you want to, you can leave us comments via email to
alexander.kneer@gmx.de and
tabt@gmx.de.
Impressum:
Kneer & Abt GbR, Alpenblick 6, 89143 Blaubeuren
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http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=115 ... stcount=22--- Copy & Paste ---
Schoenfeld:This has reached the public sooner than intended - we're not yet ready with a press release and the infrastructure of the shop system required for what I am planning: Sales of a slightly improved version on a pay-what-you-want basis.
Grond's point has been made a lot of times, and we're well aware that we can't change the status of the existing archives out there: It's shareware, and redistribution of this shareware is allowed. No need for panic-downloads
Further, I will open up the API of P96 for free. Tobias&Alexander's model of "two sources of income" (one from shareware fees and the other from paid API support) didn't work out. The UAE driver was used many times to reverse the API, and it was not clear if this was fully legal, as the UAE driver has put parts of the closed-source API under GPL. I really don't want to start yet another discussion about "was it legal or not" and "is it legal to use this information". As a result of past discussions, the best we can agree on is that it's a legal grey zone, as all sides have valid points.
I will end this legal grey zone by opening the API in my tech Wiki (wiki.icomp.de). This will allow hobby-projects to write drivers with full 2D acceleration support.
VA2000 and Vampire can already be considered "taken out of this legal grey zone" with this announcement. Just give me some time to make the Wiki page.
Jens
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