As a hobbyist myself i think it is just fair to take payment for the work i do. And if i do work in someone else territory, it is their choice to collect on any claims regarding copyrights or not.
If you take somebody else's work, you need follow the rules its creators have set. Like it or not.
The only progress made in the last 15 years are made of hobbyist dedicating their spare time to develop expansions to an aging old hardware platform.
And Hobbyists do not need to respect copyright?
As for this adapter of Cosmos goes. If i understand correctly it will boost the performance of a system made for the 040. Ok it wont be as fast as a full blown 060 system. But who cares, for real who cares? the system was not designed that way in the start.....
If it makes a good system faster, ain't it worth it?
Maybe. But then again, if I offer my work, I should really state clearly what it does and what it does not. I cannot sell a work - for money - under false or incomplete claims. Fair is fair. I need to state what it does, and what it does not. I cannot say "Replaces a 68040 by a 68060" because exactly that it cannot do. I can say "Ok, couple of drawbacks: Either use a 68LC060, no FPU, or you need to find some other means to get the machine working, unfortunately I cannot provide binaries due to copyright reasons", or "I can provide binaries because I bought a license for 1€ you need to pay on top". That would be all ok.
Otherwise, if I as an end user would buy it, and would install it, and would see my machine crashing, I would honestly feel being ripped off. Even more so if there is no warranty.
Thus, to come back to your initial question. "Ain't it worth?", I can only say that in order to estimate the value of a product, I need to know what it does, its advantages but also its drawbacks.
That's not what happens here, and that is what *saddens me*. It looks to me like a rip-off of users, of users unaware of the technical problems such an adapter creates, and unaware of it being (potentially) dependent on a pirated piece of software if you want to avoid its drawbacks partially.
If i understand correctly, Cosmos is from France.
And like most European countries you are actually allowed to have a hobby, and you are allowed to make money of it. At least up to a certain point.
Indeed, *up to a certain point*. Given the amount of stuff Cosmos sells, it seems not too unlikely to me that he is beyond this certain point. He seems to make a living from selling stuff here, and on ebay, stuff with questionable quality, and of questionable source, with questionable statements on its value.
That's not what I consider a fair deal for Amiga users, leave alone for the people that do pay their taxes - and somebody has to say.