Well I already have the software, or had it until the bits rotted away on the drive. I even have a set of original Workbench floppies, I was just hoping to save the effort of going through the whole setup process, I'm not looking for a bunch of sketchy pirated stuff. Connecting the drive to my PC and imaging or mounting it in WinUAE is trivial, I already did that with the drive from my A3000 but that install is a bit of a mess too.
Yes, I'd tend to agree with you that concerns over the copyright issues are a bit overwrought.
As the system had a functional install, all you are talking about is recovery media.
Microsoft allows the distribution of recent versions of Windows, since that software requires registration in order for it to continue to function.
Is it our fault that no comparable mechanism was built into Workbench/AmigaOS to guarantee the honesty of Amiga users?
Further, as all Amigas came with Workbench, the only legitimate objection would be to providing a newer version than that which was shipped with the machine.
And finally, while I personally would have no problem buying new media from either Hyperion or Cloanto, their claims to the rights to this intellectual property are backed up by dubious transfers of the IP long after the originating company has expired.
Frankly, if I could ascertain what version was originally installed on the machine you have, I would have no legal qualms about helping you restore it.
But I wouldn't offer to do it on a forum like this, because as the above answer clearly indicates, some people are far too tightly wrapped when it comes to this matter.
BTW - I wouldn't have a problem helping a PPC Mac user reinstall their OS either.
Again, every Mac sold was sold with a copy of MacOS installed.
Our market is NOT like the PC market, where equipment could be bought without the OS.
Only the new hardware we have created ourselves has that issue.
