Considering that WB 3 is about ten years old, and 3.1 is only a minor Escom update to the original 3.0, I don't see why anyone should have problems with that link.
If the Amiga had had any real OS support since Commodore died then that OS would be as ancient and unfunctional as 1.1 is when compared with 3.0.
It's actual market worth isn't that much, especially as most of the people that emulate Amigas just ripped the roms illegally from their Amigas anyway.
BTW which Amiga company has ever declared it's okay to rip the rom from a real Amiga?
It's sort of like the urban myth that says copyright law allows for backups of CDs and CDRoms.
Actually, mainly due to the music industry lobbying American politicians, it is about as legal as copying them and selling them on the street - which is to say not at all.
Ofcourse it's totally justifiable to say "I won't use my Amiga while I use WinUAE", but probably not really true - especially if you have both machines running to copy data backwards and forwards..
The only legal way to get hold of Amiga rom images is to pay for them (again), and the only place you can currently purchase them from is Cloanto's Amiga Forever website.
So while I agree with both that argument that 3.1 should be free - after all in OS terms it's as redundant as that of a Speccy or C64, and I agree that you should be able to rip the image from real Amiga roms, the reality is that it isn't free and it isn't ok to make copies, even for your own personal use.
Does anyone really think that making people pay for Amiga roms will cause people to buy more Amiga products? How so? Except maybe to pay $20 for a second hand A1200 on ebay, or a few bucks more to buy Amiga Forever. And if people do either of those it is highly unlikely they will spend the $600-$1000 needed for an A1 system.
The only AmigaOS roms that should still remain protected from free distribution are those included with the about to be released A1/OS4 systems.
Because if 3.1 was downloadable for free, and WinUAE was an entirely free emulated system, it might be possible to use it as a pre-release demo for prospective A1 buyers, that have left the Amiga scene.
The nostalgia alone of running a WinUAE system, and a carefully placed inbuilt commercial that informs these users of the new A1/OS4 system, could quite easily bring back a few thousand users.
BTW I did buy my rom images from Cloanto, just in case anyone thinks I'm just advocated copyright theft for my own benefit - mostly because although I no longer have a real Amiga, it doesn't mean I don't still buy Amiga software, and want to support the Amiga scene. But even though I had to pay, I still think new WinUAE users should be able to get a decent set of ROMs for free - even if they were just the v3.0 ROMs.
WinUAE could be a good, and extremely cheap marketing tool if used correctly.
