As I have stated before no one has ever proven ownership of the roms since the fall of commodore. I say by now, these files are public domain, and so should everyone else.
I am *not* a lawyer but I taught basic Copyright at the University for years and I can tell you that it just doesn't go into the Public Domain.
If you are not aware, a copyright is good until 75 years after the author's death. In this case, I think the following applies:
An employee who writes code does not get the copyright, that goes to the employer. (If you are a contractor it is different)
The employer gets said copyright and can keep or sell it like any other property.
If the employer's business goes bankrupt or is dissolved, the copyright returns to the original author - the employee. It would never go into the Public Domain by default.
Many software authors from the early 1980s found they had their copyrights to their own games back once the many companies went under. They then could release them into the Public Domain or GPL or whatever.
Kickstart is complicated because it is written modular but works as one. This is my best guess as a layman: I think each author would get his or her own code back. So, RJ would get Intuition back, Carl would get Exec back, etc... I'm not sure how they handle multiple people on a piece of code - say three people who wrote XYZ Library. Maybe they split the copyright? I'm sure they would just end up in court.
Bottom line, Kickstart is stuck in a legal minefield and it will remain that way until after everyone here is dead. The best you could hope for is that a single benevolent company owns Kickstart and makes it GPL or Public Domain (good luck). If the copyright has returned to the authors -I believe- you would have to seek all of their permission to have their code moved to GPL or Public Domain.
I personally believe that nobody knows for sure and that it would take a great deal of money to sort it all out. I suspect A LOT OF MONEY to read through all the paper work, talk to the attorneys, sort the different laws in different countries, etc... Somebody does own it, but the cost of figuring that out is just not worth it. If there was money in licensing it or something I'm sure they would track it down.
Perhaps find a copyright attorney, explain the situation, get his estimated retainer fee on this, and then take up a collection?
Does anybody actually have the source code for Kickstart? Does Amiga, Inc. or whomever actually have the original source code?
-P
