Distribution Licence For Workbench...

[antonvaltaz]

@Franko,
 
I have every sympathy for what you're doing, it is absolutely ludicrous that they are not distributed for free. As others have said, though, it does seem a little pointless your making a big deal about it, as they are easy to find via Google.
 
What I suspect will happen though is that you will be contacted by Cloanto, especially as their representatives are regularly on these boards. They are not the copyright owners, but as licensees they seem to be under the impression (whether rightly or wrongly I don't know) that it is their legal obligation to take action when they are made aware of sites distributing Kickstart or Workbench files.
 
From http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/13-122:
 

While Amiga Forever as a whole, being the result of several years of work by Cloanto and its licensors, is a commercial package, we do not oppose, and actually repeatedly encouraged, both the idea of making the original Amiga operating system "open source", and that of creating a similar operating system from scratch (e.g. the AROS project).
 
At the same time, because we are licensees of multiple components from different parties, we are part of a chain of responsibilities, both contractual and determined by local jurisdictions, when it comes to information about unlicensed ROM and operating system files, or copies of Amiga Forever. When we receive reports about web sites which are claimed to provide such files, we are obliged by law and by contract to take some action. This could be a friendly informative email to the webmaster, which usually concludes the matter in an amicable and constructive way for all parties, or, more regrettably, it could escalate all the way to the ISP and to local computer crime authorities.

I'll be curious to see what happens anyway!

[antonvaltaz]

Amigaforeveryone.info was alive for a whole year without a single take down email or phone call received. You could download the entire TOSEC sets of kickstarts and workbenches off that site.

Was it actually heavily advertised though? I only stumbled across it from some obscure link somewhere (I forget where) - wasn't it hidden from Google search spiders etc?
 

It's not their f**king IP at all, some low life crook let them have the Kickstart ROMs and WB disk images to put on their overpriced SHIT compilations with the FREE WinUAE emulator.

That'll be Amiga International back in 1997 then... you do know that Amiga Forever is a lot more than just WinUAE and some ROMs? If you don't want it, don't buy it, but why the hatred?
 

And Tony better fix the f**king damage he has done to the Amiga community by letting those assholes Cloanto use his WinUAE and get a Kickstart replacement rom that will run ALL OCS/ECS/AGA games ASAP so we can finally shove those Amiga Rip-off CD/DVDs up their fat hairy arses and just use WinUAE and the ADFs without interference from Cloanto once and for all.

It's not Toni's WinUAE, he's the current maintainer but it was around for a long time before he started. It's released under GPL so Cloanto are perfectly within their rights to include it on their compilations, as long as they make the source code available (which they do).
 
Given the immense work that Toni has done, for free, for the Amiga emulation community, it's a bit rich to suggest he owes anyone anything. Especially as his current work on the open source Kickstart ROM will mean that there is a freely distributable alternative (which Cloanto have also repeatedly said they want, and indeed have funded it's development).
 
What is your problem with Cloanto? They're not the ones blocking the distribution of the original Kickstart ROMs. Save your hatred for Amiga Inc.