Licensing Kickstart ROMs for Raspberry Pi

[dammy]

They haven't done so for the last fifteen years they've been selling Amiga Forever - draw your own conclusions.

I would chalk that up to no one asking who went through with a contract.

I know Barry.

And your a mind reader, gotcha.

Look, I'm not happy about the situation as it is - but ESCOM did buy the rights, I have no doubt about it (and neither did they, or anybody else in the community - until recently). Heck, they bought the whole company. Even if there is a hole in the paperwork (which is not proven by the outcome of the lawsuit in Germany), trying to use that against any ESCOM follow-ups would just be as petty and miserable as the performance of said ESCOM follow-ups.

And AmigaOS still wouldn't be "free", there would still be an owner, and he would still be as dumb and greedy as all other owners have been.

Why don't you go ask the Bahama Court appointed Trustee for C=?  If someone else had owned the kickstart (or the rest of the OS for that matter), they would have been screaming about violating their IP when ESCOM produced additional Amigas and sold off Amiga to Gateway.  Or is it to your belief that the Bahama Courts still retain control of that IP?

[jj]

There is one quick way to find out and that is to start using it and wait until someone rears their head with a C+D ... at that point you can start to discuss the licensing terms.

 
which will forever now be know as the "Commdore USA gambit"

[wawrzon]

AROS public licence is just the Apache Public licence with the relevant terms adjusted for reference to AROS... But I guess not a lot of people know that :-/

aros licensing issues have been disputed on the ml list not long ago but nothing came out of that. everything has been postponed in lack of a real world issue, the discussion could relate to. now as i see here and on the other thread, such issues likely exist. most of those potentially interested in aros likely not even ask, seing something called "aros public license" they are not familiar with. in this situation aros likely remains a hobby solution, in a situation where it likely would have a chance to become a practically used one. this all beacuse the aros team doesnt expose the interface to the outside world where anyone could dock on, because they doubt anyone would, because none did so far...

[number6]

Yes, this is already known. The question is who owns the copyright of the Amiga Operating System ROMs and libraries

Perhaps determining who is licensing holds more weight at this point than any proof of ownership.
One thing we know from the Jens Schoenfeld posting about negotiating recently...it sure wasn't with Amiga Inc.

#6

[dammy]

Perhaps determining who is licensing holds more weight at this point than any proof of ownership.
One thing we know from the Jens Schoenfeld posting about negotiating recently...it sure wasn't with Amiga Inc.

#6

The smart move would to be just use AROS kickstart and be done with it.  There is no reason to pay out money any more for the original kcikstart.

[Fats]

AROS public licence is just the Apache Public licence with the relevant terms adjusted for reference to AROS... But I guess not a lot of people know that :-/

It's the Mozilla Public License...
Staf.

[wawrzon]

i see the issue has got some attention on aros exec and meets necessary action. much appreciated. i hope soon comes he time when none needs to ask the questions about the origin of amiga kickstart license, being aware of aros as sloution. such a relief, it has been too long............................

[Kooler]

I contacted Petro T. Tyschtschenko the other day and he just got back to me with the following about Amiga IP.


My understanding is that Gateway is the owner.
 
 best regards  Petro T. Tyschtschenko

You created a fresh amiga.org account just to make this one post (like you did at raspberrypi.org)?

Mr Tyschtschenko worked for Commodore, ESCOM and in the Gateway days, then he retired. So why do you ask him about what happened afterwards? How is he supposed to know?

[psxphill]

Mr Tyschtschenko worked for Commodore, ESCOM and in the Gateway days, then he retired. So why do you ask him about what happened afterwards? How is he supposed to know?

Gateway retained the patents, which if you asked about Amiga IP is what you'd be talking about. Trademarks lapse if you don't trade using them & who owns the copyright of the software has been debated in court as there is no documentation of a transfer.
 
Asking the wrong question is unlikely to get the answer you want.
What was it you wanted to know?

[persia]

There should be no Amiga Patents left, they only last for 17 years...

[haywirepc]

Shhhh... The amiga grave robbers will hear you.

Don't you know those people expect to make a living off a corpse for the rest of their lives?

:laugh1:

[runequester]

have there been any single instance of a ROM site being shut down for hosting amiga ROM's?

[mcb]

Well, I've left a message with Cloanto. I'll report back if I get any useful clarification.

Since an update has been requested by many visitors here, this is to confirm that we've been exchanging some mails.

As they say, uncertainty is one of the few certainties about software development, and the Amiga has added its own challenges in recent years. This helps explain why the Amiga side of Cloanto generally had a preference for shipping over announcing. I apologize if this could be interpreted as not wanting to be open about whatever may be ongoing. This is not the case. Feedback is always welcome! Feel free to contact me directly or post at http://www.amigaforever.com/contact/.

Regards,

Mike

[KimmoK]

btw. I noticed some time ago that you can buy some 2eur application for Android to load Amiga kickstart files from the net. (ROMs for free, most likely illegal)

Not tried that app though. (UAE for droid is waiting for me to have more time to play with it)

[cgutjahr]

There should be no Amiga Patents left, they only last for 17 years...

The USPTO has a nice searchable patent database (use "quick search" then search for "Assignee name" = Commodore). The list of results is sorted chronologically. start at the bottom and then go up the list.

For somewhat complicated reasons, the patents in question expire either 17 years after the issue date or 20 years after the filing date - whatever is the longer term. I count 6 patents which are still active, all of which will expire in the next year.

[dammy]

have there been any single instance of a ROM site being shut down for hosting amiga ROM's?

The late Gary Peake use to love shutting down Amiga IP pirate sites.