This discussion is almost as strange as the discussion "too much Linux threads on AmigaOS forum". You guys really know how to motivate the few developers :-). Really what are you talking about? I own both several licenses of AmigaForever and the WHDLoad key. I am the creator of AROS Vision and WHDLoad perfectly works in it (without it many games would not work on it). Then I hate discs, I find them annoying today. That so many users sticked on discs in a time HD was becoming standard on the PCs was one of the reasons why the Amiga-platform lost the game. There is abolsutely no reason to use discs or ADF today and WHDLoad solves it for many old games. It is one of the few brilliant amiga programs that are still in development. I would recommend to support all developers that still do something and that is the case for both AmigaForever and WHDLoad. And moral issues... you cannot blame WHDLoad for being also used for "cracked games", that would be the same when you would blame the atom for being used as bomb. And besides the damage was done back in the days when there was still a commercial market and people copied the games instead of buying them ("because the software companies are all rich and people are only poor children"). If more people would have bought new hardware and new games at this time who knows. But that is another topic...
If you would go back to the first posts, you would see what was the main point; was nothing more than a personal debate at moral level, about why I decided to ditch WHDLoad. Because to me; asking for money for something that is based on copyright protected games, seems not right; especially when you consider that the main function is to install games on hd (and in other cases, to run them on configs that were not supporting these games).
Then I pointed out that to me, AF was more value than WHDLoad, since it doesn't just allow to install games on hd, but is more of a frontend/collector tool, which also comes with licensed roms and software.
That's the sum of what I said; altho it seems that it was considered as a direct propaganda against WHDLoad. The fact that I don't want to use it, doesn't mean that people worked hard on it (as was remarked to oblivion, so let's add it again!
), or that it is evil and people must purify themselves from it.
To me disks are fine; especially because I own originals, I didn't download the whole shebang from torrent sites...since we talk about support towards developers.
Forgive me but the atom comparison is a bit bizarre...what WHDLoad does, is not different from what a nocd crack does on a pc game..this is maybe a better comparison, since there are people that legally wants to play without carry a ton of games disks, but the majority uses them to circumvent disk protections. I get your point thou.
The damage was done; people that used copied software killed the Amiga; and that's a fact that is clear to many; but is this a reason to say WTH; they won't make money anymore anyway
I have problems with my own conscience; that's what is harder for me to accept; especially when I still scavenge the interwebs to find original games today...as I mentioned, I must be an old fashioned person, that puts principles ahed of everything.