An Open Letter to Dave Haynie

[Piru]

Hello Dave,

You have more than once claimed that the MorphOS Team has stolen AmigaOS source code. The latest incident happened on amigaworld.net: "We didn't steal a single line of code from AmigaOS… The MorphOS people did not not-do any of those things."

I'd like you to put up and present your evidence to the public. If this is not possible please send such evidence to my email address at sintonen@iki.fi for my review, and acknowledge sending it in public.

Alternatively you can of course retract your claims. An apology wouldn't hurt either.

Best Regards,
Harry Sintonen
Member of the MorphOS Team

[Piru]

I've also heard that they used an awful lot of aros source code.
 
If they are using aros source code then closing their own source and charging for the resulting product, I find a bigger problem with that.

AROS Public License clearly allows that. Furthermore the MorphOS Team has contributed their changes back to AROS. Also, we clearly indicate the origin of the AROS parts in the Docs/Licenses.txt, relevant parts quoted here:

Many components are fully, or partially under  the AROS Public License,
these should be identifiable through  the notice in their version-info,
some of those are also embedded in the boot.img, and are mentioned here
for convenience:

   dos.library
   gadtools.library
   intuition.library

We also use various other components under  other licenses. The licenses include: GPL, LGPL, FTL, BSD, TrueCrypt License Version 2.6 and some custom licenses.

[Piru]

Why not take it to email

What is his email then? I tried to find it, but could not. If you know it, please PM me or email it to sintonen@iki.fi.

rather than drag up a thread from 2004

He made the accusation couple of days ago.

to here cause a guy stated his opinion

So if I claim you stole my car it's just an opinion?

[Piru]

come on people, everybody should get a nice cold beer and drink together!!

I know Dave likes a cold one. It's unfortunate he is making these accusations he's not willing to back up.

[Piru]

Let's not piss off one of the few Amiga legends who still bothers to maintain an interest in Amiga developments.

From my perspective it rather looks like a besserwisser kind of snide remarks from the side of the court. Also I have much more respect on the software guys than him.

Of course everyone is entitled to have an opinion, there's nothing wrong with that. What I dislike is making wild accusations of theft one is not willing to back up.

[Piru]

Someone delete the silly thread please.

This thread is not going anywhere, it's not breaking the TOS nor is it offending towards anyone in any way. All I want is to have the evidence of the supposed wrongdoing brought to public. Or the claims retracted.

[Piru]

Is Dave Haynie even a member on Amiga.org? How is he going to see this thread anyway?

It was pointed out that the letter was linked in the aw.net thread. Also, Dave has now responded it seems. I'm still not happy with it however. He is still repeating the old heresay (someone once saw some comments in some unrelated code).

He has no basis for his claims. MorphOS does not, and never has contained any content from AmigaOS, code, comments, documents, graphics, fonts, sounds or otherwise.

Also, I'd like to add that US laws (thankfully) don't apply globally. In sane parts of the world reverse engineering for the purposes of interoperability is allowed.

[Piru]

the reason you are posting this here and not posting at the forum the comment was made is?

I do not have an account on aw.net, nor was I willing to create one just for this (and I'm not particularily fond of aw.net in general, although it has gotten much more sensible lately). I do not know Dave's email address either.

By the time I posted here he hadn't responded yet.

[Piru]

Coincidentally since you left.

left?

[Piru]

You could contact him directly on ebay

I don't have an ebay account and don't intend to get one for this.

[Piru]

No, it isn´t

Why not? (If the answer is "because it is pointless.", I ask, "why is it pointless?")

[Piru]

No, as I said in my earlier post, Piru needs to take it up with Dave personally

Couple of things:

• I have better things to do than to try locate (working) email address of some random guy. Say like fix & port PFS3.
• Dave didn't make his accusations in private, nor is this the first time he's making the accusation.
• You have a weird definition for childish and lame. What should be inferred from that?

[Piru]

Oh, so now Dave's just some "random" guy?!

Yes. A guy who I've never had any direct dealings with. I don't know his contact details, nor was quick googling helpful. Thus: random.

As for the rest of your rant: You need to relax.

[Piru]

Did the email address from the link I gave you in this thread not work?

Since Dave already responded I don't see much point in harassing him with further emails now.

[Piru]

So someone may have said you appropriated someone else's code?

Grow a set and toughen-up...

I don't know where you're coming from but around here claiming that is about the worst kind of insult you can make. Claiming you stole someone else's work without any kind of attribution is yelling bloody murder. This has been going on for 10 years now, and still no-one has cared to point a shred of evidence to back these claims up.