Set the Amiga free... (kickstart)

[Franko]

I challenge amiga.inc and Hyperion, to bring forth any material that they consider to hold the Amiga girl in bondage....

or forever be silent....

The kickstart should be downloadable upon donation request...

I agree 100% that kickstart images should be available to purchase easily... (not encrypted ones like on Amiga Forever along with stuff you may not want or need) but how many years has all the arguments and counters arguments being going on for...

It way past time for anyone who want's them and is not able to purchase them easily should have the opportunity to obtain them on the net for free, cos apart from a few whingers on here still harping on about copyright, who actually cares any more , certainly not the various companies who claim they own them otherwise if these companies did care then why can they be easily found on the net...

It's ruddy pointless still going on about them in this day and age, if you really want them then just look on the net and you'll find them easily...

[Franko]

Franko.. right on

It is not just pointless, it is such total bullsh.t.

Franko, when was the last time you gave Hybris a spin??

The whole sorry saga of Kickstart & Workbench is the bigget load of BS in computing history and if all those companies or entities who still claim legal ownership over it but let it languish locked away in the darkness where no-one is allowed to use it can't be arsed to do something about it, then F the lot of them I say...

That's why I made it freely available to download and I am going to continue to do so until the rightful owners step forward and challenge me on it...

PS:Odd question about Hybris but to be honest it must have been the early to mid nineties...

[Franko]

Easy enough to get a copy of the roms by running the emulator with the encrypted roms and then ripping them out.
 
Most emulators allow you to use the encypted ones anyway.
 
I really don't see what the fuss is to be honest.  If somone still owns the rights to the roms and they dont want them being public domain then thats fair enough.  Get over it.   Either buy them from cloanto or as you say get them from dodgey websites

I'm all over it...

It's higher than thou copyright mafia that can't get over it even after all these long years...

[Franko]

No, it hasn't been long years as far as copyrights are concerned: http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html.

Stuff the copyright laws, it has been very, very long years if your an Amiga user..

[Franko]

Well Commodore USA will have to supply the Kickstart and C64 ROMs for their emulators for VICE and UAE so we will finally see who actually owns the Kickstart copyright once and for all.

Been wondering about that myself, wonder if they'll do what they did before changing the wording on their site and advise folk that they can find them freely on the internet or will they advise folk that they need to buy Cloantos Amiga Forever emulator in order to use their emulator...

Cos that only leaves them one option and that is to licence the roms from the copyright/IP holder, then as you say we will finally know...

[Franko]

@Franko

Or they could just use AROS 68k... This is what it is meant for, anyway I doubt C=USA would have any difficulties getting a licence from cloanto if they so wanted.

I have to ask, what is you obsession with C=USA, if you want their stuff so bad just give them a call and get a prototype or something :-S

You may ask and I shall gladly tell you...

It's not an "obsesion" as you call it I just hate to see the names Commodore, C64, Amiga & Workbench being used to sell an inferior product...

And why on earth would I want any of their stuff

@ Number6

Well as it's never been legally proven just who owns exactly what, then CUSA could attempt to purchase them outright but the legal arguments over just who owns what and who has the right to sell what would most likely result in even more years of court cases, and I don't see CUSA being around that long...

Plus as I've already said it's all the biggest load of BS in computing history and if you and all the others who are so fascinated as to all the legal ins and outs about who allegedly owns the stuff then why don't you hire some good lawyers and find out once and for all instead of just posting opinions on it...

I've already said I couldn't give a toss about who actually claims to own any of it, as they don't seem to be bothered about it themselves anymore...

[Franko]

ok, then I won't complicate this further by asking why the C64 is now the C64x. Heh. We'll just tiptoe away from Ironstone Partners on this one...

#6

Ok... don't ask... and I wont simplify things by telling you, I'll just stomp away noisily to watch Ironside on this one...

[Franko]

Ironstone Partners is one of the curious ones involved in the AI/Hyperion settlement. They licensed C64 from Tulip and their license is valid until 2015. You might notice some similarities in how they approached things:

source

a bit later on

fun stuff

#6

@ number6 & bloodline

Sigh... you don't get it do you who cares about all the crap from the past, I sometimes wonder if certain folk who post here even use an Amiga or C64 anymore, they just seem to like quoting BS articles and legal documents from years ago that don't mean a thing anymore instead of enjoying the Amiga for what it was and still is....

It would be far more useful and helpful if these certain folk put a bit more effort into helping others out who post Amiga hardware/software problems and questions here...

But then maybe if it's been so long since they abandoned the Amiga they've either forget how to answer such questions or maybe they just never owned an Amiga in the first place and just come to these forums for something to do and re-hash the same old stuff over & over again...:rolleyes:

[Franko]

@ Number6

It's not disturbing it's just pointless, until the day someone can finally & conclusively and with a shadow of a doubt prove who owns what...

Until then let the armchair lawyers like Dammy spout their unfounded and unproven legal views, in the meantime I'll just set the stuff free once again and see if anyone who can genuinely prove ownership of it comes forward and demands I stop...

[Franko]

It's been said publically on commodore-amiga.org that C=USA does have a license from AI for kickstart/wb.

So that makes Commodore-Amiga.org the official mouthpiece of CUSA then does it... :lol:

So why doesn't CUSA state it on their own site then

[Franko]

I'll throw in another example from 2006, so we don't focus on just the two above:

"Amiga Inc. do care. Just a few months ago, their lawyer ordered a German forum to remove a *video* showing a selfmade 3.9 Kickstart ROM." - cgutjahr

I'm not picking on anyone's methodology at determining ownership here, nor am I supporting it.
It's just a fact that (1)usage (2)wait for response
seems to be be in vogue these days.
Think about what this nonsense does from a developers standpoint.

#6

Thought about it... and came up with ziltch...

[Franko]

Heh.

Since the point was about how confusion of ownership affects amigaland development, I'll give a Jens Schoenfeld example from April, 2007. There are many more, and I'm not implying things have not changed since this was posted.

"Bill McEwen, who hasn't been able to give any proof of ownership of the classic Amiga OS in the past 20 months, who wanted to send me contracts "by the end of the week" (that was in february)"

Surely you can draw the connection between ownership and development confusion here.

#6

Bill McEwen is just a mad Scotsman, haven't you learned by now not to take anything a mad Scotsman gibbers seriously...

But I do see your point, although if you writing software or building hardware that doesn't include any code that's owned by whomever claims to own Kickstart or the OS then no-one can stop stop you from doing so and trying to sell it, so whomever does legally own it has no say in the matter...

[Franko]

yeees  

+1

& Yeees indeedy...

[Franko]

Different topic from the "we think we know who owns this one" file, released a few days ago:

http://www.trademarkia.com/logo-78940434.html

Perhaps a legal minded person can explain "Word Mark:

(NO WORD)". Does that mean we're talking about the picture only and not the term "boingball"?

#6

The "No Word" part of it means the logo doesn't contain any text, if you wanted a trade mark called for example "Amiga" using text then you can in theory apply for one but the text must not be an exact copy of any currently in use

eg: "amiga" and "AMIGA" could be registered as two different trade marks by two different entities providing the copyright office legal bods say that there is enough difference between the two fonts used to distinguish between them, but this can be challenged by either party in a court...

Just like you could use the boingball logo and add some text to it and provided you did not just use a direct copy of the original logo and there were enough subtle differences for the legal eagles to give it the go ahead as your trademark...

[Franko]

If you really want to use the trademark "Amiga" it's legally available to register here...

Click on "Basic Word Mark Search (New User) "
then enter the word "amiga"
then see item number 17...

(sorry but whomever made that crappy site doesn't allow direct links to the results page, so you have to follow the above instructions...)

Amiga Tradmarks Live & Dead

But does anyone really want to go to the expense of owning it...