Amiga osX

[Floid]

Guys, guys...

Re: All this crap.

-EULA enforceability does vary by jurisdiction, contract law, etc.  Germany seems to be in a bind with the GPL, of all things, because it's considered unlawful to agree to *revoke* certain rights in contract.  Sure, EU law applies too, but it'll take Europe a while to even approach the level of coherency of the US... Intellectual property issues are presently a crapshoot everywhere.  (As an aside - all USians, let's thank Lessig for bringing it to the Supreme Court, bungling his overeager argument, and accidentally proving Congress *can* extend copyright forever.  Thanks, Lawrence!)

-AInc. / Eyetech have gone to the 'dongled' technique in part *because* such covenants are unenforcable in certain parts of the world -- it's not about not running MacOS (though since Apple doesn't want other equipment running MacOS, that was one less reason to contract for an OpenFirmware when the simple PPCBoot/U-Boot loader could be brought up to snuff for free -- and they get the PR of supporting the open source project) ... it's about making it inconvenient to do the possibly-legal-but-maybe-not-what-the-company-needs-to-survive thing.  You couldn't run Classic AmigaOS (post 1.x) without Kickstart ROMs; you couldn't run Classic MacOS (pre-9.x.x?) without Apple ROMs.  There were better technical reasons back then (ROMs were fast, disks were small); today, the smaller fish can't claim a technical excuse, but they really could use that revenue.

-Apple are selling tools that may be used for copyright infringement or piracy.  (Rip.  Mix.  Burn.  Please don't steal music.)

-Eyetech are selling tools that may be used for copyright infringement or piracy...

-Copper wire and RCA connectors can be used for copyright infringement or piracy.

-Apple probably don't mind making the extra $100 off users who'd never touch their hardware anyway; similarly, they doubtless enjoy reserving the power to bring suit (re: the EULA) should such sales become a threat to their business model.

-Now, ignoring the debates of what the *law* allows you to do in your jurisdiction, here's a better question -- Why on earth should you support a platform that doesn't want you as a customer?  However you use MoL, it means you'll be running Mac software, not Linux or Amiga software.  Apple have bit the PowerPC community once, and, at present, have shown no interest in 'opening' their platform to other hardware.  If you demand the arguable 'ease of use' of a Mac, you should probably be paying for a Mac.  If you demand the GPL/BSDware available, you should be running the same on Linux or BSD, and if you demand the commercial software - fine, slink by in the gray area until ports occur, but you'd be remiss not to point the developers to your favorite OS4 or MOS.

-Especially in today's economy, software fees are unmaintanable, and while people *are* morons post-Napster, this endless He'sAPirateShe'sAPirateYou'reAPirateWe'reAllPirates whinging is crippling everyone's ability to conduct business.  Apple's charged roughly $100 thrice now for OS X, which would, of course, be less an issue if the first two versions were little more than demos.  (Nobody said it would be easy for them; nobody said they wanted to get screwed, either.)  On the other hand, they do have the sense to have made the one license good for all Macs owned, instead of per-seat.  Is this progress?  Is it not progress?  Vote with your dollars, *and don't give them the benefit of a userbase* if it's not worth the asking price.

-No matter where you are, it should be perfectly legal to *ask* a company to engage in maintanable practices for the mutual benefit of the end user and themselves.  Make suggestions; petitions can be fun, but often the management already knows.  If information wants to be free, don't follow the Napsterites error, and mistake piracy for a form of speech -- Linux, BSD, and AROS could always use a hand.

[Floid]

GAG wrote:

At the end of the day you 'do not own' the software, you only have a licence to use it.  If you breach that agreement (End User Licence Agreement) then they are quite within thier rights to remove or make the product unusable.

Just to clarify the issue, this is *still in dispute* just about everywhere, as the laws contradict themselves.  In the US, we've got the good ol' Copyright Act, pledging the right to fair use, while the DMCA, Telecom Act and other laws have been put on the books atop it.  

One school of thought argues that, should you fail to agree to the EULA, you've still exchanged money for a copyrighted work, and are thus entitled Fair Use.*  The other argues that It Ain't 1976 Anymore, copyright as we knew it no longer exists, and you'd better pay up just in case.

Court decisions across the US have been split.  The Supreme Court decision I whined about only dealt with duration of copyright - so far as I know, it addressed no issues of fair use, though extrapolated ad infinitum, it does point to the killing of the "creative commons."  In lower courts, there have been "victories" and "losses" for both sides of the issue, and very little coherent picture has emerged, other than that, if the material in question is music, you're probably #### out of luck even if you didn't do anything.)

The DMCA applies to specific violations of "protection techniques;" whether EULAs, Mac hardware design, or ROT13 are applicable as "protection techniques" has been left to the courts to make conflicting decisions over.  Whether misrepresentation (misuse of Philips' 'CDDA' logo on a copy-protected, CDDA-spec-violating-disc) trumps the producer's interest under the DMCA is, as far as I know, another area still in dispute.

*Very very roughly, as would apply to 'consumer' use of software, "whatever the hell you want, as long as you don't give it or share it with anyone else."  Copyright was invented to apply to printed works, and the intention was that it shouldn't be made thoughtcrime to manipulate data you've already purchased, so long as you're not reselling said data in some way.  Fair Use advocates argue that, for instance, reverse engineering should still be legal - at least until such point as it's visited in a copyright or DMCA-violating product.

[Floid]

Valan wrote:
@Gaidhea,

DAmn!
Then I cannot use my version of OSX on 2 machines at the same time either?

MOL looks great by the way.

Thanks
Valan

I can't find where he said that, but I was a little off.  The regular $130 Jaguar is single-seat, while $69 more gets you the family pack, explicitly allowing 5 installs, again on Real Macs you personally own.  Which isn't a *horrible* deal, if you're interested in supporting Apple.  (I'd like to see Hyperion offer something similar with OS4, but it looks like it'll be one-license-per-AmigaOne, but perhaps more free/affordable upgrades than Apple have provided per point-release.)

If you're going to disagree with the EULA, and "fall back" to your rights under copyright (which, again, depends how/if they're defined in your country, and you should be prepared to defend yourself in the odd chance you get sued)... you have the right to make copies for personal use; in the US, this has somehow been eroded to "you have the right to make backups" when it comes to things digital (so somewhere, *executing* the code has been decided different from reading it/owning_a_legal_copy_of_it), but I have no idea what the case histories actually say.  

In a business scenario, you're best off purchasing licenses Just In Case; yes, it's a scare tactic, but if the BSA ever comes-a-knockin', you do want to be able to wave the paperwork and say "Ha! We have a contract!"  This is why the really huge corporations cut site-licenses and other such deals with companies like MS or IBM; the licensees get to know their rights under contract law (rather than messy, ungainly Copyright law), and the software vendors get a nice chunk of change, sometimes selling the same thing twice ("Okay, want to buy a site license for all those Dells that came with $50+ of Windows XP?").

[Floid]

I enjoy the phrase "Minitels from Microsoft."

Edit: As has been brought up time and again in SCO threads, "intellectual property" is a meaningless phrase, at least under US law.  Real structures include copyrights, trademarks, patents, and contracts -- and more obscurely, things like 'trade secrets,' 'network elements,' 'telecommunications services,' and 'customer information,' all knowledge/communications artifacts regulated and protected under various laws.  As I keep saying, the regulations and their enforcement are very much in flux -- but just because there's a riot on doesn't mean you're obligated to loot the store.