New Kickstart 3.9.1 68k on the way

[kolla]

There is a new thread with a poll.
It is rather simple:

Would you buy a new OS for 68k Amigas?

What do you mean "a new OS"?

[guest11527]

This might give the impression (after he clarified that he believed Hyperion was the one to contact) that such ideas might be discussed with Hyperion.
Whereas, we're really talking about Hyperion in terms of "consent", as mentioned.

Oh certainly, such ideas *should* be discussed. But as said, I don't count myself part of the circle Hyperion would listen to.

[Pentad]

I've said this for years, if the Amiga community is truly serious about the original AmigaOS, why don't you do the following:

1.  Pool your money and hire an attorney to find out who really owns the original AmigaOS source code.  Explain the situation to the attorney, the history and what you are trying to do.

My company hired both a patent attorney and an international patent attorney.  It wasn't nearly as bad (cost wise) as I thought it would be.  

I would think the initial consultation would be free and he (or she) could tell you how much it would cost.  Again, for a simple research job I would think the cost would be pretty reasonable.  

2.  Buy the source code and open source it.

The owners can only say no.  Your attorney should be able to tell you what they think the patents are worth and what options you have.  Our patent attorney specialized in technology.  If you hire the same type they can even contact the owners and broach the subject with them.

Personally, I think the Amiga source code and patents and nearly worthless.  The owners have not done anything to expand upon them, they haven't  defended them, and I'm not sure what you do with them all these years later.    According to RJ, Microsoft was in violation of one of the patents for years and nobody did anything.

For the hobbyist community I think it would be a great investment.  

Just a thought,
-P

[number6]

Oh certainly, such ideas *should* be discussed. But as said, I don't count myself part of the circle Hyperion would listen to.

Heh. Well, the "trusted" list contains quite a number of names to choose from. Perhaps somewhere on that list is a "fit" for you.

#6

[kolla]

Thor: yeah, and we all know how well that went for SCO.

[bloodline]

Consider we would. Consider somebody would find a suspicious function in AROS, where a potential rights' owner might consider his rights violated. How can Olaf, or I potentially prove that we haven't contributed this code by copying it from the original, hence violating the rights of the owner? I personally don't want to be in this position. Just in case you believe that this is a constructed case, I give you three letters: S, C and O.

Perhaps you could offer "user applied" patches for AROS? a special "Olaf and Thomas" set patch...

[guest11527]

Thor: yeah, and we all know how well that went for SCO.

Certainly, but how much money went into paying the lawyers? If I had big companies at my side, or even small ones (like Hyperion) that would be worth trying. But no, I cannot pay such a case from my pocket, no matter whether I would win or not.

[Fats]

Well, we could try, but there's a risk of tainting the project. AROS is on safer grounds if it's a clean room implementation of the API rather than if people who had access to the original AmigaOS source code had been involved. Personally, I don't want to risk compromising the AROS project.

This is my personal opinion but I wouldn't mind taking the risk of tainting the AROS source code with contributions from you or thor or other people who have seen the source code. But I do understand these people would also expose themselves to possible lawsuits and understand if they prefer to not do it.
We also try to stay away from USA for AROS infrastructure as there the most trigger happy suing companies are located. Of course this does not guarantee anything.
What people have to realize is that currently AROS Team is no legal entity, so when a case will be made individuals will be sued; e.g. the people who contributed the disputed code.

[olsen]

Thor: yeah, and we all know how well that went for SCO.

It took 6 or 7 years for the boulder rolling downhill to come to a stop, during which time the status and future prospects of Linux as it existed prior to the case going to court was in doubt.

This may look tangential, but there was a case related to this in the early 1990'ies and it concerned BSD Unix. If I remember correctly, AT&T brought claims against the University of California because BSD Unix was likely to use trademarks and contain code which AT&T had claim to. Prior to that case finally coming to court, companies such as Sun Microsystems and SGI were using BSD Unix derived operating systems had switched to AT&T Unix because it was doubtful that the legal standing of BSD Unix would be upheld.

Because no Unix-like operating system was legally available for free during that time, Linux development got a boost. By the time BSD Unix was found not to use trademarks and code which AT&T had claim to, Linux had matured quite a bit and was well on its way to where it is today. But companies such as SGI and Sun Microsystems didn't switch back to BSD Unix. BSD Unix in its final form did not become available until 1993. Remember how far Linux had come during that time?

You don't want to get tangled up in a court case like this. While it may eventually result in a decision in which a jury finds that the initial claim did not have merit, years can pass during which there are side-effects you don't want to go through with.

Laws can change, the law can remain unchanged but the interpretation of it can change, the law can remain unchanged but its effects may be changed by multilateral international agreements. Here in Europe we shouldn't take the current application of laws concerning patentability of software, and how intellectual property rights are applied for granted. These may change, and it may be wise to avoid weakening projects such as AROS by accident. It did happen to BSD Unix, and it did happen to Linux, in spite of the fact that both cases ended in favour of each respective operating system.

[trekiej]

Out side of Kickstart switchers, are there any rom boards that would allow the user to add a user rom that would allow the addition of more rom space?

[QuikSanz]

Flash adapter would be perfect. You could have some different ones on one flash, maybe even boot right in to WHDLoad.

[slaapliedje]

Flash adapter would be perfect. You could have some different ones on one flash, maybe even boot right in to WHDLoad.

I was thinking along these lines, have a board that you plug your original ROMs into, then have an FPGA or something on there holding the rest of the patches, so we don't have monstrous startup-sequence files like we currently do.

A lot of stuff could go in there.  In fact, maybe we could have something similar to how the Aroma installer for Android works.  An installation wizard that asks 'do you have USB?' then installs poseidon into the boot block, then we could get USB boot support.

Not sure how well that would work, but it would be sweet.

slaapliedje

[QuikSanz]

To heck with actual ROM's, plug in a custom flash adapter instead, right in the ROM socket.

[psxphill]

To heck with actual ROM's, plug in a custom flash adapter instead, right in the ROM socket.

A 1mb 16 bit flash rom would be interesting. Recovery from a bad flash would be a tad annoying, although you could avoid updating the initial boot & that could have some form of recovery built in.

[kolla]

http://youtu.be/unqY2QD8uq8

[QuikSanz]

There you go, Proven to be do-able. Amigakit are you watching?

Chris