The Gentleman's Debate: Should the 1.3 ROM be made free?

[The_Power_of_the_Ginger]

Should whoever owns the 1.3 ROM legally and freely release it on the Internet to allow a world to easily pretend their PC/AmigaONE/Mac/XBox is an Amiga 500?

Or should users be made to buy Amiga Forever 6 to get anything in the way of ROMs? Not that people who want to play Amiga games do that- they tend to use Google and get the ROM illegally...

What do you think?

[The_Power_of_the_Ginger]

My, what have I stirred? Still, a debate's a debate, and I asked for a minefield...

Just to clarify, I'm not a pirate or anything. I own an Amiga 1200, WinUAE, and a legal 3.1 ROM. (Bully for me, I've even got OS 3.9 running happily under emulation, although the T-Zero demo I've got runs a bit slow. Tch.)

Seriously, don't take down my contact details and report me to FAST, or doing anything hasty like that. It's legal. If it isn't, please tell me and the thousands of other WinUAE users...:-D

All I wanted to know, really, was if novice users like User X could relive their Amiga days (we'll assume they sold their Amiga long ago, or they simply can't use it now) more easily than now, by getting hold of a ROM legally (as company X made it free). 'Twas a hypothetical situation, m'lud, and not a personal one.

The defence rests. (Darn it, watching too many episodes of Law & Order...)

Ooh, I wish I'd stuck on the Kid chaos thread. I knew what I was talking about then... :-D

[The_Power_of_the_Ginger]

Incidentally, the only reason I didn't get Amiga Forever 6 was because I've got all I need now (excpet maybe CD32 emulation, but perhaps I can live without that). I agree it is a terrific package, and if more people knew about it ("Hey, kids! 14 computers for less than the price of a Playstation One!") it would skyrocket in sales. I just have everything I need, but if I didn't, I'd have bought it in no time.

Perhaps as compensation for my refusal to purchase it, I should spend my summer in a city centre wearing a sandwich board saying "Buy Amiga Forever from Clotanto! Only about the price of a pair of jeans!". Possibly. And learn what the correct spelling of Clotanto is.;-)