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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: fishy_fiz on January 07, 2010, 09:17:32 PM

Title: Poseidon
Post by: fishy_fiz on January 07, 2010, 09:17:32 PM
Ive never really been one to follow licenses, but am wondering what Poseidon having recently become open source means exactly ? Does it become effectively freeware ? Also I vaguely recall there being support for Amithlon dropped at one point. Is anyone able to elaborate to me why ?  Reason I ask is that Id like to use it on my Amithlon machine and am wondering how to go about this ? Thanks in advance.
Title: Re: Poseidon
Post by: Golem!dk on January 07, 2010, 10:24:22 PM
Quote from: fishy_fiz;536984
Ive never really been one to follow licenses, but am wondering what Poseidon having recently become open source means exactly ? Does it become effectively freeware ?

I don't think licensing changed for previous versions, but you are of course free to grab the sources from AROS and build an 68k version.
Quote
Also I vaguely recall there being support for Amithlon dropped at one point. Is anyone able to elaborate to me why ?  Reason I ask is that Id like to use it on my Amithlon machine and am wondering how to go about this ? Thanks in advance.

I think Poseidon versions after 4.0 only supports licensed (E3B) hardware, so the latest 3.x release and the ArakAttack driver is probably the easiest way to go about it... provided you have keyfile.
Title: Re: Poseidon
Post by: platon42 on January 08, 2010, 11:52:10 AM
Quote from: fishy_fiz;536984
Ive never really been one to follow licenses, but am wondering what Poseidon having recently become open source means exactly ? Does it become effectively freeware ? Also I vaguely recall there being support for Amithlon dropped at one point. Is anyone able to elaborate to me why ?  Reason I ask is that Id like to use it on my Amithlon machine and am wondering how to go about this ? Thanks in advance.

What Golem said is pretty much accurate. The APL'ed AROS sources of Poseidon can be used to do pretty much, including porting it back to 68k, including Amithlon. In fact, I'm pretty astonished that this has not happened yet.

However, the existing Amiga 68k versions of Poseidon (V1.x, V2.x, V3.x and V4.x) and their binaries remain what they were before, thus not covered by APL and certainly not freeware. It is still illegal to spread keyfiles.

About why dropping Amithlon support:
1) Amithlon is dead. It barely runs any recent PC hardware. Amithlon itself cannot be bought any longer, and probably >95% of the installations out there are pirate copies.
2) When dropping the keyfile scheme and locking it to E3B hardware, Amithlon was a casuality, too.