A statement concerning the distribution situation of Amithlon

[Chathurawind]

@Cyberwlf

Hey - I put it in thread mode and saw that you linked to me.

 I didnt once say anything about MOS or Windows - I dindn't once say that I was a fan of either products. My post was about fair play - about Ethics.

I'm fully behind A1 and AmigaOS4. I'm just saying that I feel Bernd is the real victim. H&P are ignoring him, and the impression that I got was that Amiga were cool with Amithlon, as they had publically voiced support for it! Therefor, I can see how Bernie had come to the conclusion that interlectual property rights had been sorted. So your right, Ainc have every right to do what they have done - but it does seem a little carrot and stick to me.

 I dont even own Amithlon - have no want or need to buy it. I'm just looking at the little guy in this.

If you read my other post you'll see that I think Bernie is the victim in all of this, and I also speculated as to this being the second case of intelectual property infingement by H&P. I also wanted clarification as to who owned what!

[Dr_Righteous]

Ok, I got it figured out now... Seems the only person who knows anything about anything these days is Ben Hermans.

AI is under perpetual use license for the Amiga patents.

AI is the exclusive copyright holder to the AmigaOS.

Part of the OS is contained in the Kickstart ROMs.

Thus, AI owns the ROMs.

Which leads us right back to, WOW! THIS IS MESSED UP!

[JetRacer]

Things may look a bit more bright when AOS4 is released. Then Amiga Inc actually own the ROM and the OS and the ownership matter is history.

[ensu]

There is unfortunatly no AmigaOS 3.5 or 3.9 running on my Amiga2000. But I would like to know what the workbench menu "Version, copyright" tells about the copyrights (Kickstart, Workbench) on these versions. Can anyone give me an answer?
And what about this point on Amithlon?

May be that the answer will help to clear some theories.

Thanks...

[Dr_Righteous]

My version of OS3.9 is from Amithlon/OSXL, and it comes up as Copyright 1985-2000 Amiga Inc.

[System]

On my BB2 3.9 it says something like copyright 1985 - 2002, Amiga Inc.  That's from memory though, so the exact words might be a tad different.

[Chathurawind]

You are not a legal expert that is planly obvious.

There is such a thing as US copyright law and it dictates what happens to copyrights obtained in the US.

There is no such thing an International copyright per se.

There are agreements and treaties between the various countries of the world, that basically say you enforce my country copyright law and I will enforce your copyright law.

Do NOT pretend to be an expert when you are not an expert! :-?

[Bobsonsirjonny]

But Copyrite law is such that it is posiible to enforce your copyrite in other countries. In the UK if I was to write a book, or create some music etc.. - I'd own the copyrite automatically - and then for a further x (50 - or 70, I cant remember) amount of years after my death. Likewise - under UK law, with patents - these have to be paid for. The guy that created the Dyson vacumm cleaner, at one stage couldnt keep up patent costs - and thus people were free to  effectivly pinch his idea.

In the US its different - hence Shrek had loads of Disney characters in it.

Now - under European rulling copyrite stands across the board - they have a deal with the US - so effectivly you do have international copyrite law - or at least, recognition of another persons copyrite.  

The only places where copyrite seems to be consistently ignored, or breaking it is accepted is in places like Thailand - where they have been known to broadcast the latest film releases on the TV network!

[DethKnight]

.

[Chathurawind]

I think it is a shame that Bernd is the one who is going to end up with a large lawsuite on his head.

At the end of the day I don't care who owns the IP or whatever for (i assume) the kickstart roms. From the evidence it would seem that H&P have:

A) Mislead Bernd and,
B) Broken the contract they signed with him.

This isn't about Amiga INC or IP or copyright, it is about a large(?) company, H&P, abusing the rights that they have been given by Bernd, for misleading him, and by not withdrawing HIS product from sale, putting him into a very stressful situation which could risk his proffessional career and heavy financial cost.

As some one said, we don't need this in-fighting.

I hope for Bernd's sake things go in his favor.

[boing]

I think the best thing for true Amiga diehards to do is to treat all these fighting parties like children: "I don't care who hit who first, you're going to have to all get along, OR ELSE."

  We, the real Amiga base, lose whenever these suits start wars with each other.  The best thing for us to do, is to express equal displeasure to all of them, and tell them all to just give up a few inches in an effort to save the ship.

 BTW, Gateway owns the hardware patents (they're not dummies), and IIRC the "software patents" (a stupid US notion if I ever heard one).   Amino/Amiga ostensibly owns the OS and WB from 3.1 and earlier.
 However, I've seen an article that says a German court ruled that in the Escom-to-Gateway sale (which took place under German jurisdiction), Escom never actually sold the OS rights to Gateway (possibly becase Escom may have never had clear title to it - not sure, the translation is rough).   It is possible that technically, the OS may be in legal limbo which would make this current spat moot.

 I'm no fan of Amiga Inc's turning the Amiga into a generic Mac-like off--the-shelf box of parts... hence I haven't been following everything real closey.  So if anybody could point (URL) me to statements from all concerned parties, I'd appreciate it.

 But I seem to recall the Amithlon is just an AMD-enhanced UAE, and that AmigaOS/XL is QNX with an abstraction layer to redirect AmigaOS calls to analagous QNX routines (and supply AmigaOS-compatible routines where analagous routines don't exist in QNX).

 I also seem to clearly recall that Bill and Fleecy were heralding Amithlon and AmigaOS-XL as GREAT things.

 It seems to me the underpinning of so many of these OS-ownership/license spats come out of both legitimate concern for control of their respective work/products, the AmigaOS (Amiga Inc has abandoned true Amiga hardware, not to mention featuresets), greed, fear, uncertainty but ALSO a lack of understanding about the absurd technology IP laws (WIPO is insane) as they differ from ethical expectations--  in other words, what IS vs. what SHOULD be law.   The fact that differing countries come into play really makes this more complicated (ironically, WIPO could actually expedite a resolution if worse came to worse- although it could easily be the *wrong* solution).  Sad to say but the Amiga (such as the brand name persists) is once again being bettered about by legal confusion * international differences in said law.  Since all parties have valid concerns, they should all just GROW UP and try to work together.

 If these guys can't sort things out, we, the long-suffering users, lose out.  Go tell them.  If we can't get all sides to give in just a little, there'll be no amicable resolution.

[bloodline]

Maybe it's not too hard to think of a solution?

Cough...AROS...Cough...

cough, cough...damn that nasty cold I've got...