Licensing Kickstart ROMs for Raspberry Pi

[wawrzon]

Hi Eben,

I'm a Raspberry Pi user and suggest that you look at (the 68k build of) AROS for Amiga operating system files. Since it's free, open source and unencumbered with Licence issues.

I'm still trying to get an Amiga Emulator to build on my Pi, GLES is cause the most headaches right now. More interesting is a direct compile of AROS for the RasPi, which makes a lot more sense than an OS as heavy as Debian

its neccessary to mention that aros/kickstart 68k although progressing very well, is not yet ready for everyday use. there are still bugs on a ground level, apparently hard to hunt down. but i hope it will be sun a real alternative.

[wawrzon]

Yes, this is already known. The question is who owns the copyright of the Amiga Operating System ROMs and libraries

(Not that it really matters now we have a 68k version of AROS)

apparently that isnt always a valid solution for companies. here someone made aros68k run on a coldfire industrial board, but apparently was prohibited even to show demo it on youtube, because of the license which isnt gpl.
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=36055&forum=17&start=200&viewmode=flat&order=0
 post 214:

Okay everyone,

I have the verdict regarding the project.

Here's the story:

Today, before lunch I asked my immediate supervisor if I could take some pics of the prototype. He replied, "You can take pictures and video of the screen, but not the hardware, because that hardware is a special run for one of our clients. It is not intended to be marketed to the general public." I said okay, fine. I was going to wait until lunchtime, and then do the pics and video of the screen while the board was in operation. Lunch time arrived, but before I could do it, my supervisor asked me to come with him to talk with the president.

The president asked me about my project, and I told him that I made "an emulator for a 1980's computer from Commodore, based on the Motorola 68000." He asked me, "Is all of the code your own work?" I told him that the firmware and the bootstrap was all mine, the most of the FPGA code and some of the Aros code was mine, the rest was already there. He then asked, "What license is the source code available under? GPL? BSD?" I then told him that part of the FPGA code was GPL, while Aros was APL. He said, "Affero or Apache Public License?", I replied that Aros was a custom license.

He then replied, "Unfortunately, I cannot allow you to display our hardware running ANY code that isn't licensed under an OSI recognized license, for legal reasons." He then proceeded, "Imagine if an IBM engineer posted a video on YouTube of an IBM machine running OS X from Apple? Apple's legal team would file a lawsuit against IBM within 10 minutes of it going live."

He then went on to say that if I made my own OS or software of whatever, they would offer it on the company FTP for our customers, but it would have to be ALL my code or under an OSI license, no exceptions. He then said that he thought it was a nice concept and that I am a talented programmer, and perhaps I should consider making a project that I could call my own.

So now I have to find something GPL to run on the prototype, write my own OS (i'll be done when Hell is done freezing over) or scrap everything.

Any ideas or suggestions are welcome... I'm at a blank.

post 284 in the same thread contains a link to a video running emutos on the same device instad, which was approved for licensing reasons.

@wawa

The video is up... http://youtu.be/mrBvJozVpcA

given thats all for real, but it seems so.

[wawrzon]

AROS public licence is just the Apache Public licence with the relevant terms adjusted for reference to AROS... But I guess not a lot of people know that :-/

aros licensing issues have been disputed on the ml list not long ago but nothing came out of that. everything has been postponed in lack of a real world issue, the discussion could relate to. now as i see here and on the other thread, such issues likely exist. most of those potentially interested in aros likely not even ask, seing something called "aros public license" they are not familiar with. in this situation aros likely remains a hobby solution, in a situation where it likely would have a chance to become a practically used one. this all beacuse the aros team doesnt expose the interface to the outside world where anyone could dock on, because they doubt anyone would, because none did so far...

[wawrzon]

i see the issue has got some attention on aros exec and meets necessary action. much appreciated. i hope soon comes he time when none needs to ask the questions about the origin of amiga kickstart license, being aware of aros as sloution. such a relief, it has been too long............................