The Future of Commodore (fwd from cbm-hackers)

Those of you on cbm-hackers will have already seen this message. Some preamble: Commodore, just yesterday (see www.commodoreworld.com) was reintroduced by trademark holder Tulip as an electronics subsidiary. Most of their current and envisioned product line is fairly unimpressive me-too products including an iPod/iTunes ripoff and they're actually trying to resell the old Epyx Commodore 64 titles to which they have acquired the rights. One thing that has not endeared Tulip to the Commodore community was an attempt to grind down on trademark enforcement. First it was the Commodore name and logo, and then the system ROMs, and there is also some argument over the IP of the 64 itself. Apparently a collabourator called Ironstone is developing a new 64 of their own, separate from the C-1 being created by Jeri Ellsworth, which is nearing completion. There is worry that Ironstone/Tulip will clamp down on new hardware development as a result.

Anyone have any comments? This seems like the C64 community is going to get stomped on. (None of this affects the Amiga, AFAIK, which is not owned by Tulip.)