Amiga PCs on the way....

[guest5160]

I just found this lurking:

Cybernetman ZPC-GX31

http://www.cybernetman.com/cart/viewProduct.cfm?productId=2

[the_leander]

Some people keep hammering on this. All I can say is, good luck finding companies that you consider legitimate and respectful.

There are plenty of companies out there that respect copyright. Of those that don't, most have the good grace (not to mention sense of self preservation) to honour a licence when they're caught out.

To do otherwise is inviting a life altering lawsuit.

At the very least, altering the work in question to hide or disguise it's creator goes far beyond the story given out of "oh well if they copyright holder contacts us" crap.

Do you refuse to with these non-legitimate respectful businesses?

Where at all possible I know I do. Which is why I don't buy Coca Cola, Nestlé or Kraft (the new owners of Cadburys).

[amigadave]

Actually, I'm comfortably above having to deal with polite platitudes. I've got nothing personally invested in this. I'm a MorphOS user. I don't use classic or new generation Amiga hardware.  If the MorphOS developers decided to move to X86, I'd probably follow.

But I'm not hung up on the name Amiga. Its just a name. Apparently one you can buy.

I can put the name Amiga on any of my computers running MorphOS2.5 in any shape, way or form and as long as I don't try selling multiple computers with the intent to defraud the buyer into thinking that they are actually "Amiga" manufactured, or officially sanctioned by the owner of the Amiga copyrighted name, and there isn't anything anyone could do about it.

Amiga computers (for me anyway) stopped being manufactured with the last few A4000T's that QuickPak assembled (unless some A1200's were made after that time).  The many different forms of AmigaOne's are different and unique in their own way, but I don't consider them Amiga computers any more or less than a PC running AROS, or WinUAE, or a Mac, or Pegasos running MorphOS.

If AmigaOne and Sam owners want to believe that their computers are "Real Amiga's", that is okay with me too, I just don't agree with them and don't care enough to argue about it.

It is amazing and sort of sad that there has been so much fuss made over what Commodore USA and Amiga Inc. have done.  I doubt it will make any difference in actual sales of any AmigaOS4.x products now or in the future.  If anything, it might actually draw some attention to the Amiga community from people that have left it and that might lead to future sales of AmigaOS4.x and the computers that it runs on.

Be calm Navi', be calm.

[Belial6]

Where at all possible I know I do.

How about Microsoft?  Do you use any products from Microsoft?  Or Apple?  They are both famous for IP infringement.

[the_leander]

How about Microsoft?  Do you use any products from Microsoft?  Or Apple?  They are both famous for IP infringement.

As I said, where possible. It is easier to avoid Apple than it is Microsoft however.

[Tripitaka]

Where at all possible I know I do. Which is why I don't buy Coca Cola, Nestlé or Kraft (the new owners of Cadburys).

I could give you a whole lot more to add to that list (and you'd probably end up as a vegetarian in the process) but kudos from me on a damn fine start.

[Tripitaka]

It was much more work for them to port NeXTStep to PowerPC in the first place, and that did take a few years. Moving OSX from PowerPC to X86 was not so much work - the central parts of the OS had been running on X86 all along, the trouble was alot more about having all software providers move to X86 as well.

Fair comment. It was probably the last bit of this that cost the most, I've tried to find the exact figures but sadly I failed.

[SysAdmin]

There are plenty of companies out there that respect copyright. Of those that don't, most have the good grace (not to mention sense of self preservation) to honour a licence when they're caught out.

To do otherwise is inviting a life altering lawsuit.

At the very least, altering the work in question to hide or disguise it's creator goes far beyond the story given out of "oh well if they copyright holder contacts us" crap.



Where at all possible I know I do. Which is why I don't buy Coca Cola, Nestlé or Kraft (the new owners of Cadburys).

Don't forget McDonald's, Pillsbury and Kebblers.

[persia]

Apple is harder for me to avoid, we've got Mac in every room, plus iPods, iPads and iPhones plus a Mac Mini hooked to the TV, not to mention the fact that I run a bunch of Mac servers at work and support a Uni departmentntha is 80% Mac.  

As I said, where possible. It is easier to avoid Apple than it is Microsoft however.

[Amiga_Nut]

Some people keep hammering on this.  All I can say is, good luck finding companies that you consider legitimate and respectful.

Do you refuse to with these non-legitimate respectful businesses?  Avoiding them would be like avoiding businesses that use gasoline.

In the context of the corporate world..

Legitimate = bonafide business with original IP, or fully licensed IP, for their products/services sold.

Respectful = obeying the various laws governing commerce.

That doesn't mean they are ethical or tree hugging UNICEF protagonists in the real world, just straightforward commercial entities.

I suspect BS Altman gets away with some things because the IP owners involved in some cases do not have the sort of money that Microsoft et al have to throw at lawyers and courtroom sessions basically. Doesn't mean it is right commercially or 100% legal.

And in a way, like most people, I purchase products based on the product sold not the company mantra evangelising some mission statement

Like I said if he came out with a C64C style case or an Amiga 3000 style case that you can drop in a Mini ITX board then fine, but he hasn't and he won't. As stated many times I don't believe the custom chips>CPU brute force situation of Amiga 1000 in 1985 will ever repeat itself in the computer world though so I don't expect anyone to come up with a true spiritual successor to the Amiga 1000. If anything that could only have happened on launch day for the Xbox 360 motherboard if it was licensed out to some company to build a home computer with and it had a superior OS designed for it than Windows and sold for half the cost of an identical PC in 2006 which could play games at DirectX 10 levels of detail @ 1080p just like an actual Xbox 360 did for 200 bucks here in the UK. But he is still just a furniture importer running some very shady business cashing in on the vintage cachet of 'Commodore' and 'Amiga' to me, and this will not change in the foreseeable future.

[Amiga_Nut]

Apple is harder for me to avoid, we've got Mac in every room, plus iPods, iPads and iPhones plus a Mac Mini hooked to the TV, not to mention the fact that I run a bunch of Mac servers at work and support a Uni departmentntha is 80% Mac.  

Yes but that is mostly all work related, and what you choose to use for computing at home is your choice. Also you can even buy iPhone rip-offs from China that cost about 50 bucks on ebay, ditto for iPod touch rip-offs too. For 15% of the cost you get 90% of the functionality = WIN!

I use Windows, but then not for any love of Microsoft, it's for convenience for me. That doesn't mean I automatically rushed out and bought Vista or 7 though, neither of those 'upgrades' adds anything significant to XP for home users in general and I have a PS3 AND 360 for gaming needs anyway so who cares if it is DX10 or DX11. I'd rather have an extra 16gb free on my hard drive to use for storing nice things like movies and music not CAB/DLL files

Ditto as much as I like Google as a company, their Chrome operating System has a joke of a user interface (a whole OS GUI based on the Chrome browser UI!) so count me out on that one too.

[the_leander]

I could give you a whole lot more to add to that list (and you'd probably end up as a vegetarian in the process) but kudos from me on a damn fine start.

Ta, tbh I don't tend to buy much meat, though when I do I try to get locally produced stuff. And the list is quite a bit longer than that, it's just I figured stick to the big ones

C= actions whilst illegal and immoral, don't really rate highly, but, because what they're offering is what I would consider to be a luxury (or very niche) item, I find it trivially easy to dismiss them for it.

Don't forget McDonald's, Pillsbury and Kebblers.

Even if McDonald's were the most ethical company on earth I wouldn't eat there - their food is vile, tasteless pap. In the UK they don't even offer a decent management training scheme as they do in the US.

Never heard of the other two.

[Belial6]

So, basically, you feel good about not buying things from companies that you wouldn't do business with anyway.  If that is your thing, that's fine.  It doesn't change the fact that all of the people hammering away at CUSA for being this huge villain for doing what is down right common, is ridiculous, and 99% of the time hypocritical.

Is the posting of the picture illegal?  About as illegal as a restaurant staff singing 'Happy Birthday' to a patron.  Is it immoral?  Again, about as immoral as a restaurant staff singing 'Happy Birthday' to a patron.

Oh, and I don't blame you for not eating at McDonalds in the UK.  While I didn't venture much outside of London, I was amazed at how bad McDonalds was there.  Here in the US, McDonalds make delicious burgers.  Of course pretty much all of the food in London was terrible, so it isn't much saying that the McDonalds there was bad.

[the_leander]

So, basically, you feel good about not buying things from companies that you wouldn't do business with anyway.

I didn't say that, way to miss the point.

 If that is your thing, that's fine.  It doesn't change the fact that all of the people hammering away at CUSA for being this huge villain for doing what is down right common, is ridiculous, and 99% of the time hypocritical.

Oh you're bringing figures into this, presumably you've some evidence to back up not only the number but the claim of hypocrisy..

Is the posting of the picture illegal?  

Copyright infringement.

That they went a stage further and actually altered the picture only compounds the issue.

About as illegal as a restaurant staff singing 'Happy Birthday' to a patron.  Is it immoral?  Again, about as immoral as a restaurant staff singing 'Happy Birthday' to a patron.

Strawman.

[Orkin]

Strawman.

It seems to me that he brought up a fairly reasonable comparison, since both are copyright violations. Someone owns the rights to Happy Birthday, and if singing Happy Birthday contributes to the atmosphere that people are seeking in that establishment, it can be argued that they are benefiting from someone else's work without paying for it... much like someone taking a picture from the web and posting it on their site in an effort to make money.

Honestly, I'm against copyright protection in both areas. Happy Birthday is so commonly sung, it shouldn't be an issue, since the owners of the copyright know it's in the public domain now due to the nature of the song. Likewise, if you don't want someone else to post your image somewhere else, possibly modified, don't post it to the World Wide Web -- it's the antithesis of a private medium.

[the_leander]

Honestly, I'm against copyright protection in both areas.

Fine.

Happy Birthday is so commonly sung, it shouldn't be an issue, since the owners of the copyright know it's in the public domain now due to the nature of the song.

Except it isn't. Now whether you like it or not, that's the law. Don't like it? Get the law changed.

Likewise, if you don't want someone else to post your image somewhere else, possibly modified, don't post it to the World Wide Web -- it's the antithesis of a private medium.

Heh, fortunately content creators do have legal levers they can pull when freetards start taking liberties.