For the last few months I've been making sporadic attempts to locate the copyright holder in the Amiga ROMs, with a view to allowing Raspberry Pi users to legally use emulators like UAE. Unfortunately I've met with little success.

Can someone enlighten me as to where the copyrights currently reside?

Eben Upton
Executive Director, Raspberry Pi Foundation

Of course, you could always run UAE with the AROS m68k ROMs, which are open source (MPL 1.1 variant)

They provide quite a bit of AmigaOS 3.1 compatibility.

According to open source Kickstart alternative try to contact Toni Wilen thru http://eab.abime.net/member.php?u=257 as he is one of the developers. More info for example here http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=56211&highlight=kickstart+alternative

There's always the free AROS equivalents now... Ah, I'm late to that, sorry for the dupe. Though I would like a link to them, as my first quest came up empty to find them.

http://aros.sourceforge.net/download.php

aros 68k iso extract it they are in the boot folder with a .bin and .ext extension.

That may not be easy, the only group I've seen trying to enforce the copyright lately is Cloanto, who would potentially be a competing licensee.

It would be worthwhile to try them though.  They might be able to license a portion of their own product to you if nothing else.

Do you believe they own the copyright, or do they just have a license? Their website implies the latter, but some of their efforts to actually enforce the copyright imply the former.

Great job on the pi BTW, looks like a good product that I'm very interested in.

Thanks. It's been a real labor of love, and it's great to see it paying off.

Do you believe they own the copyright, or do they just have a license? Their website implies the latter, but some of their efforts to actually enforce the copyright imply the former.

My thoughts exactly.  The ownership is quite a dispute with much questionable paperwork involved.

Personally, I think they had a license at one time and are just running with it since there is no one to dispute their claims.

I'm not aware of any licenses in perpetuity.

Thanks. It's been a real labor of love, and it's great to see it paying off.

It shows, I can't wait to get my hands on one.  My Beagleboard has been a bit of a disappointment.

It seems nobody has been able to answer this for the last 15 years. A quick glance at https://sites.google.com/site/freeamiga/ shows just what a spectacle this is and how much illicit activity it has been surrounded by.

The only party enforcing the copyright is Cloanto, but they say they don't know who owns the Kickstart, and don't seem to be interested in finding out. They don't even seem to know who they got their own license from.

Cloanto are also the only party who profits from selling the Kickstart and Workbench software. What a coincidence.

If someone did own the rights and cared about protecting them then they would've come forward and settled this many years ago, and I more believe the theory that the rights perished with the liquidation of Commodore.

If someone actually still own the rights then it would most likely be Amiga Inc. or Hyperion Entertainment, but if even Amiga Inc. themselves can't or refuse to give any answers then it just further supports the theory that the rights are lost and that the software is in the PD.

If you're able to find any answers it would be great if you could let us know here as well.

Wow! Eben Upton posting in Amiga.org!

I have my Raspberry Pi since May and I love it. It's currently running Gentoo Linux and the awesome Risc OS.
I believe the way to go would be AROS (native port was talked about time ago..) with the AROS replacement ROM: no need to mess with thieves, in my opinion.
UAE on Linux on the Rpi is NOT a good idea, believe me. To archieve smooth scroll you'd need custom video modes on X and SDL on OpenGL backend. Another option would be the SDL on the framebuffer, with the adequate custom modes in /etc/fb.modes, but I don't know how good is the framebuffer driver for the Rpi.
What's your plan, if you can tell me?