Cloanto

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Hmmm, I see they're now using Microsoft-style shill tactics in a desperate attempt to fix their shattered reputation.

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Why would buying OS3.9 be a bad thing? At least you would be rewarding H&P for doing quality Amiga development, not rewarding Cloanto for scumming the Amiga community.

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>What shill tactics? Where?

In this thread! Ie. first post, it's clearly a shill.

>How is their reputation shattered?

Everyone is aware that they are leeching Commodore's IP without contributing anything positive, plus sending out C&Ds to various Amiga sites for no apparent reason.

Blaming H&P for Bernie's actions is a cop-out...Bernie should take responsibility for his own actions. I'm sure even he would admit that it was at his insistence and general whining and threatening that Amithlon was withdrawn, to the detriment of the community. I don't see how that makes him some kind of hero.

I'm no troll, but when I see this kind of mindless Cloanto fanboyism it's difficult to let it pass without at least warning other users about possible shill tactics. I don't think there's much point in writing, or reading, "yeah, great" posts, generally, so generally the only time I will post is when I read something that is greatly inaccurate or concerning.

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alexh wrote:
Amiga Explorer by Cloanto is a GREAT program.

A Windows program...

I worked closely with H&P on eg. OS3.9 BBs, they were always responsive, I should especially commend Martin Steigerwald.

As to the link given, without seeing the contracts and knowing all the facts it is difficult to be sure of the true course of events. On what can be measured objectively, ie. quality of work, H&P certainly delivered. I think that one of the worst events of the last few years was the hatred of H&P which eventually drove them out of the Amiga market. The Amiga community has seemed eager to persecute H&P.

I can only speak of my own dealing with them, certainly nothing solid seems to have been advanced by those seeking to condemn H&P. If the Amiga community is willing to forgive Elbox for their proven RDB trashing code, we should at least  not rush to judgement against H&P.

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by Piru on 2008/4/22 8:01:56

>And what exactly is wrong with that?

When was the last time Cloanto wrote an Amiga program?

>GENESiS is just a GUI for the AmiTCP/IP. Selling the license (which wasn't transferrable in the first place!) to the GUI does not automagically give you everything else.

Seems like the blame would lie with the Genesis developers.

>H&P knew it, as is quite clear from their offer to obtain the license after the fact.

Seems to be an act of goodwill to the Amiga community, given that they were lied to by the Genesis developers.

>Cloanto does not include GENESiS or any other unlicenced AmiTCP/IP files with Amiga Forever. Cloanto has some moral backbone at least.

Yes, they include a crippled version instead of the real thing. I paid for my OS3.9, don't regret a cent, and don't see why the world's best OS should be crippled because of a dispute that has not even been brought before a court. Cloanto seem to be pre-judging the matter.

Rather than backbone, it could be interpreted as Cloanto being fearful of any possible source of litigation, and willing to distribute a crippled version of the AmigaOS rather than facing any such remote legal risk. Needless to say, such a suit would be brought against H&P before being brought against Cloanto, no such suit has ever eventuated nor looks likely to.

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>It would not be right to profit from something that has shady legal status.

AFAIK no evidence has been produced by the relevant developers to justify their claims. If I went around saying things like "OS4 is infringing on my IP" without producing any evidence of this, would that mean that everyone selling OS4 would be lacking in "moral backbone"? Or the same for Windows, or MacOS?

>I'm saying you don't have to be tied to them, but you must use their ROMS to be legit.

This is nonsense. It's annoying to see this kind of misinformation. I suppose by this logic it would be illegal to use A-Max even if you own the Mac ROMs because it is not a solution that is officially approved as "legit" by Apple.

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I have nothing against emulation.

But people seem to think that using Cloanto's crippled ROMs is the only way to do it, this is wrong.

There is no need to dump them yourself either, if you are the owner of said ROM then you can use said ROM image. There is no need to laboriously generate a ROM image, it is more convenient to download one. As the two would be bit-exact equivalents it does not matter how they were generated.

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@Piru:

They are encrypted and require the use of a keyfile, ie. effectively DRM-encumbered. Unlike other ROM images, which are straightforward dumps.

@amigakidd:

>Now, I don't have an actual Amiga 500 or any Amiga machine at my disposal, but I don't want to hack out the ROM and transfer it to my PC. That takes a long time and I'm not a hardware guru.

Just download it then, you will end up with a byte-exact copy of what you would have dumped anyway.

>I like them because they're part of the Amiga Community, they're part of the original boat of developers from wayback.

Well, so were Microsoft, Electronic Arts, etc...

>I cared about the early developers and those at Commodore who devoted their lives to Amiga. I bought my ROMs not just to have a clear conscience, but to honor the past.

How much of your Cloanto money do you think is going to support the original Amiga development team? None, of course. Of course none goes to Hyperion either, I'm not necessarily saying that it should but at least that would help the Amiga. Maybe some of the money gets to Amino, but that doesn't help the Amiga: Amino have made it quite clear through words and actions that they only care about their AmigaAnywhere rubbish.

>I just wish as an alternative, there would be an open source kickstart from GPL. I guess that would make some happy. Hey anything can be open-sourced right? Why not.

Yeah but it would be less compatible as it would not be 100% the same.

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>Also THANK YOU authors of all FREE software which is included with AmigaSYS/AmigaKIT

You're welcome. Any suggestions for improvement of said software will be considered.