Gold 2.7 release for the Vampire accelerators

[OlafS3]

So they don't care and neither allow nor prohibit copying of 3.9, at least not if no money is charged for the copy. That's what I would consider abandonware.

ApolloOS is highly illegal from a legal point of view

To find copyright owners and get approval, examine documentations regarding distribution and so on is a lot of work. That is expecially true for former commercial software. I would estimate at least 40% of time is needed for that. To say I do not give a %&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@! on laws and simply ignore it saves a lot of time. Cinema4D f.e. what was included is still sold and not abandonware (of course not for amiga and reprogrammed not based on the old sources). So team members should not promote ApolloOS in public to not make them attackable in a legal sense. Vampire is if you look how many devices are sold something commercial so rules and laws have to be accepted. How much profit you do with it is not important.

[Gulliver]

ApolloOS is highly illegal from a legal point of view

To find copyright owners and get approval, examine documentations regarding distribution and so on is a lot of work. That is expecially true for former commercial software. I would estimate at least 40% of time is needed for that. To say I do not give a %&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@! on laws and simply ignore it saves a lot of time. Cinema4D f.e. what was included is still sold and not abandonware (of course not for amiga and reprogrammed not based on the old sources). So team members should not promote ApolloOS in public to not make them attackable in a legal sense. Vampire is if you look how many devices are sold something commercial so rules and laws have to be accepted. How much profit you do with it is not important.

That last two sentences are probably the most important parts to have in mind.
If you sell something and take advantage of other people's work the law will not be benign or light regarding your doings. If you are doing it without any commercial intent, you will probably get a cease or desist first and can get away stopping those activities without any hard consequences.

On the other hand, some Team members saying that they couldnt contact any of the parties that have rights regarding 3.9 is a blatant lie: Thomas Richter, as an example, is easily available, and recently got back the rights of his contributions to AmigaOS 3.9 (BenchTrash, IOTools, VinCed, etc), so he is one that can be asked for those particular rights. Has anyone of the Team asked him? If he wanted he can probably sue them with a degree of success. So I wouldnt be trying to seek his anger, as it would be a very dumb move. Furthermore, remember AmigaOS 3.9 still has many 3.1 components so both Hyperion and Cloanto could probably sue them too if they wanted.

AmigaOS 3.9 is a mess regarding rights, because there are many entities involved that have different rights, many can be contacted, and many not. Distributing it for commercial purposes, is putting yourself in bad spot because any of those entities can potentially sue you, and they are so many.

[Djole]

That last two sentences are probably the most important parts to have in mind.
If you sell something and take advantage of other people's work the law will not be benign or light regarding your doings. If you are doing it without any commercial intent, you will probably get a cease or desist first and can get away stopping those activities without any hard consequences.

On the other hand, some Team members saying that they couldnt contact any of the parties that have rights regarding 3.9 is a blatant lie: Thomas Richter, as an example, is easily available, and recently got back the rights of his contributions to AmigaOS 3.9 (BenchTrash, IOTools, VinCed, etc), so he is one that can be asked for those particular rights. Has anyone of the Team asked him? If he wanted he can probably sue them with a degree of success. So I wouldnt be trying to seek his anger, as it would be a very dumb move. Furthermore, remember AmigaOS 3.9 still has many 3.1 components so both Hyperion and Cloanto could probably sue them too if they wanted.

AmigaOS 3.9 is a mess regarding rights, because there are many entities involved that have different rights, many can be contacted, and many not. Distributing it for commercial purposes, is putting yourself in bad spot because any of those entities can potentially sue you, and they are so many.

So if i buy a HP laptop and install illegal Windows on it, Microsoft can sue HP ? Nothing comes preinstalled on a Vampire board, so your story just doesnt hold water. Its up to the user to install the OS or distribution if you like of his choice....

[Romanujan]

If HP had advertised illegal/cracked Windows and provided you a link to download it - I believe Microsoft would have sued them.

[kolla]

Okay, so even you perfectly know that the team has done the certification measures officially, you write a sentence suggesting to the readers of this thread that this is not the case and that there is cheating?

No - I am pointing out that CE marking is something the manufacturer itself and the resellers are responsible for doing correctly, it is not a certification granted by an independent third party on behalf of authorities. It is all nice and cool that the V500 went through EMC testing, but CE is much more than that - it is also RoHS and other things. And the V500 above is just that one board/model, how about the V600 boards produced by Kipper2k? What about modified boards? What about the newer V4 boards? Anyways, I am saying that with CE marking, there comes certain responsibilities - is "the team", aware and able to handle these responsibilities? Or are all these responsibilities all on Majsta?

[kolla]

ApolloOS is highly illegal from a legal point of view

To find copyright owners and get approval, examine documentations regarding distribution and so on is a lot of work. That is expecially true for former commercial software. I would estimate at least 40% of time is needed for that. To say I do not give a %&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@! on laws and simply ignore it saves a lot of time. Cinema4D f.e. what was included is still sold and not abandonware (of course not for amiga and reprogrammed not based on the old sources). So team members should not promote ApolloOS in public to not make them attackable in a legal sense. Vampire is if you look how many devices are sold something commercial so rules and laws have to be accepted. How much profit you do with it is not important.

Wow - screenshot worthy.

Now look over at http://www.apollo-core.com - see if you find any traces of promotion of ApolloOS there.

[kolla]

Nothing comes preinstalled on a Vampire board,

Not true - it comes with a kickstart that is pretty much a homebrew OS 3.9 kickstart - including, among other things, shell 45.39, in addition to Vampire specific ROM modules.

Whatever happened to the "Screw AmigaOS, we will just use AROS" mantra that was some time ago? I heard some AROS developers were not so happy about Apollo people doing changes to the sources without committing them upstream. How did that work out? What is it about Apollo Team and communication skills?

[kolla]

If HP had advertised illegal/cracked Windows and provided you a link to download it - I believe Microsoft would have sued them.

In this case, Apollo Team seems reluctant to support people who use "plain" AmigaOS instead of ApolloOS, and have an official support forum for "Coffin" software - http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=9

One can speculate that they gamble on facing legal consequences, would fit perfectly if they can bail out the entire "hobby project" and blame it on "copyright nazis".

[grond]

First of all, it is not up to you to decide what has been abandoned or not.

Neither is it up to you to decide. It is up to the rightsholder. That is what I was asking about above: whom should I show the receipt to?

It is entirely Haage's private business and none of anybody's matter whether other people's rights are infringed or not. Be concerned about your own rights but not about other people's.

[TrashyMG]

In this case, Apollo Team seems reluctant to support people who use "plain" AmigaOS instead of ApolloOS, and have an official support forum for "Coffin" software - http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=9

One can speculated that they gamble on facing legal consequences, would fit perfectly if they can bail out the entire "hobby project" and blame it on "copyright nazis".

Stop inventing controversy, Gunnar didn't even know what ApolloOS was when it first came to be. Quite a bit of people are running classicWB or regular WB3.1 setups they've brought up themselves. Apollo/Coffin came to be because there were a few members on IRC that shared their already build CF images to help out people that didn't want to or had the ability to put together their own OS image. It didn't come directly from the Apollo Team.

Personally I'd like to see a legal route to a vampire friendly OS personally, something stripped down to only the essentials with Apollo core specific drivers installed already. But as we all know this is a legal quagmire.

[kolla]

Be concerned about your own rights but not about other people's.

Another one for the screenshot collection.

[kolla]

But as we all know this is a legal quagmire.

No, it isn't, there are lots of 68k operating systems around to build from. AROS is one. All that would be needed is an AROS kickstart with enough of a bootloader for the user to load a "real" kickstart file. Not even seriously advanced.

Heck - they even got a license to use kickstart 3.1 - why not just use that? What's with all the OS3.9 kickstart components, why are they there? Is it because another reboot would be required and certain people are overly concerned about boot times?

[kolla]

Neither is it up to you to decide. It is up to the rightsholder.

No it isn't, the righsholder can even be dead, and the work is still under copyright protection for another 70 years.

[grond]

No it isn't, the righsholder can even be dead, and the work is still under copyright protection for another 70 years.

Then the heirs of the rightholders are the new rightholders. It doesn't change anything: prosecution of copyright infringements is entirely up to the rightholder and not to anybody else. If nothing happens, it seems it doesn't matter to whom it might concern. In any case it's none of your business.

[guest11527]

If nothing happens, it seems it doesn't matter to whom it might concern. In any case it's none of your business.

But it is my business, as I provide the patch. And I can only grand you rights I received, not more, and I will follow the agreement from back then.

So, once again, if this wasn't clear enough: This patch is for owners of 3.9 *only*.

This is the intention of the rights holders, and this is through the agreement from back then also my intention. If you want 3.9, go, buy it.

[kolla]

Then the heirs of the rightholders are the new rightholders.

That is not automatic, people also die without having heirs, and copyright still last 70 years.

Stupid law? Sure, but that's what it is.

It doesn't change anything: prosecution of copyright infringements is entirely up to the rightholder and not to anybody else. If nothing happens, it seems it doesn't matter to whom it might concern. In any case it's none of your business.

I make it my business, since you ("the team") have been so super nice with me and others. I am sure you want me to shut up, but as long as the Apollo Team keep up with arrogance and BS, I will not shut up about it.