Who owns the copyrights to Workbench/AmigaOS?

[wawrzon]

Okay, I'm a little confused.

Who owns the copyright to AmigaOS? - I see this company Hyperion, then I see that Amiga Inc. has a section on Amiga OS.... who owns the classic version, and who is currently producing AOS 4 and possible later versions?

and why is this interesting? this is such a mess that whoever shouts most seems to be treated as copyright owner, but none knows it for fact and there is always a chance someone will appear from around the corner and claim the opposite.

as an end user its best not to bother with that. just use your amiga and when its not enough go for the open source amiga solution where is no doubt about any legality. (aros)

[wawrzon]

ermm yeah, suspect the trademark is actually in question here not the copyrights.

[wawrzon]

you will likely never have free kickstart that is legal beyond doubt. except there is aros kickstart, which is free, open source, compatible with the whole range of kisckstarts since 1.x till 3.x, and provides additional and better features. this kickstart and aros 68k still needs some work in order to be fully usable on amiga hardware, under uae it is quite usable as of today.

so dont moan about making kickstarts free, since no party that claims ownership is interested in supporting original amiga community (68k)  except cloanto/amiga forever. do something. support aros. programmers, help optimize it. users: test and report. its in your hands.

[wawrzon]

Wait what? I do not moan about it since we all can get them if we want for free from many online sources or dump our own. I just think it's silly that it's illegal to spread them for emulating purposes for us users even more when they are so easy obtainable.
I do not believe that spreading them freely would hurt cloanto since at least the people I know who bought Amiga forever didn't buy it for the kickstart roms but for the DVDs and hassle free emulation.

A user of WHDLoad might not need the complete package or users who set up their own emu environment etc so at least let people buy only the roms or let them be free, also as far as I know they do not ship all kickstarts from all amigas and thus you still need to obtain a complete dump set illegally if yo want/need them all.

Also believe me, if I had time to help the aros team I would in any way I could. I got loads on my plate and to little time and my boss are not keen on me doing private work when I'm at work.

cloanto has even contributed considerably to aros kickstart replacement bounty:
http://www.power2people.org/projects/profile/5
so its certainly not their intention to charge people for the roms. likely they are conttractualy obliged not to give them avay for free, perhaps they have to pay their share themselves.

what concerns supporting aros, we all have real life, we users same as also aros developers (who work free of charge). it isnt fair to demand things like free amiga, but refuse to help with a slightest thing. none needs to take more load that he cant carry. but even slight help as just using a system and providing educated feedback is contributing to an open and future proof platform.

[wawrzon]

what companies? after all the years you still expect integrity from amiga companies? a.inc? hyperion who likely have the same contractual obligations as cloanto and likely must pay licences they sell? otherwise they provide the uae kickstart-files with their os4. you must only buy the os..

so what do you people want? it reminds me those who demand os4 to run on x86. where as there is amigaos for regular pcs. its aros. but then they claim: "its not amiga!" or it doesnt run 68k apps without uae or doesnt run os4 software, whatever it is. well, if os4 was running on x86 it would have the same handicaps.

aros68k kickstart is in many ways better than original, help to make it perfect instead to demand the impossible year after year. isnt it more fun to contribute to common good "amiga" than wait for others to deliver you something you might not exactly want?

[wawrzon]

i dont demand anything from you. and you dont  *have* to conribute nor pay for anything. aros is fro free to use. you can support bounties but its your choice, not a requirement. if i bring aros, thats because i see it as the only solution to having free upgradeable amiga system, be it on x86, ppc, arm, uae or original 68k amiga. the awareness of this fact is too low, or it is being ignored for no reason. the solutions are at hand. thats all.