New Kickstart 3.9.1 68k on the way

[Pentad]

Because you misunderstand one central point. These are *not* *your* sources. They belong to somebody else. Whether you give them away for free or not is completely irrelevant for the question.   That does not make them open source. Just for your information, a "creative work" becomes "public" 70 years after the death of its creator. IOW, we'll still have to wait a long time until AmigaOs becomes "free".

Again, what's your problem of simply approaching the right holders and ask them a very simple question. "Can I use your sources in my hobby project"? The way you're acting right now does violate the rights of these partners. You can either develop from scratch (which you don't), or you can ask for a licence (which you didn't either).  

That's not stupid - that's just what the situation is.

Let me clear some points up for you:

1.  I'm not sure what you mean by "creative work" but if you are referring to a copyright it is 70 years after the death of the author.  Creator is vague and has different meanings in copyright.

2.  If you mean "Creative Commons" then you are going to be really surprised.

3.  Finally, none of this applies to Cosmos.  He is French. Viva la France!

[Pentad]

I am not a lawyer. The last time I had a look at how these things play out my impression was as follows:

1) There's the Berne convention, which covers works created by authors and those created for and owned by corporations. Protection covers 70 years after the death of the author, and 120 years after the creation of the work as owned by a corporation.

2) The protection/restrictions given by this legal framework do apply to citizens of the member states of the European Union.

3) Ownership of the Amiga operating system and its components, as well as works created for the AmigaOS updates 3.5 and 3.9 which may be relevant here is rather well-defined.

4) Authors and owners of said Amiga operating system and AmigaOS update 3.5/3.9 components may not want to enforce these rights, or may not be in a position to do so. It does not follow that their rights, in particular the moral rights of the authors, are forfeit if they do not enforce them.

Olsen,

As a University Professor I had to teach basic copyright and patent law.  They are very complicated with an endless list of exceptions depending on certain situations.  I could list all the ones that come to mind but I just don't care enough about this thread.  :-)

However, without comparing and contrasting French and American copyright laws I have no idea what parts of copyright law are the same in both countries.  However, I can tell you from starting my own company that patents laws are very different from the US and Europe.  Having experienced that, I am skeptical copyright laws in the US are the same in France.

My super objective was really pointing out that one cannot blindly apply US Law to the rest of the world.  Though, it does seem like we do that too often.

Thanks for the reply though!

-P

[Pentad]

I've said this for years, if the Amiga community is truly serious about the original AmigaOS, why don't you do the following:

1.  Pool your money and hire an attorney to find out who really owns the original AmigaOS source code.  Explain the situation to the attorney, the history and what you are trying to do.

My company hired both a patent attorney and an international patent attorney.  It wasn't nearly as bad (cost wise) as I thought it would be.  

I would think the initial consultation would be free and he (or she) could tell you how much it would cost.  Again, for a simple research job I would think the cost would be pretty reasonable.  

2.  Buy the source code and open source it.

The owners can only say no.  Your attorney should be able to tell you what they think the patents are worth and what options you have.  Our patent attorney specialized in technology.  If you hire the same type they can even contact the owners and broach the subject with them.

Personally, I think the Amiga source code and patents and nearly worthless.  The owners have not done anything to expand upon them, they haven't  defended them, and I'm not sure what you do with them all these years later.    According to RJ, Microsoft was in violation of one of the patents for years and nobody did anything.

For the hobbyist community I think it would be a great investment.  

Just a thought,
-P