Yeah wawa, what you describe is not the situation I am after. It is GPL or nothing, as far as my interest in this goes. This implies that the source from that point forward, including all derivatives, must respect the GPL. It would be nice indeed if the trademarks etc were also freed up, but that is a fight (perhaps) for another day.

Matthey, the way I see it, this actually gives would-be "retro entrepreneurs" the freedom to make accelerators, and even whole new computers. And you're right, they wouldn't be able to call it "Amiga" without going the full nine yards with the trademark work etc, but it would at least be a massive step forward compared to where we are now.

I have heard that some people have started recreating AmigaOS piece by piece. They call its the Amiga Replacement Operating System, or AROS for short. Give them some time, they'll probably be done in a year or two...

here you are in a minority, alas. most people fear gpl for virality and wont accept contributing to such a project. good luck looking for contributors.

they ll never be done. there will always be some piece to improve..

Parasites absolutely should fear the GPL. That's an appropriate response to it. As for hobbyists on the other hand, it will be a dream come true -- and this is the only group of people that I am concerned with.

parasites are beings that prey on others. i dont think that someone who refuses to publish his own work under gpl, or doesnt want to participate in so licensed project is to be called by that name,

Well, first of all AmigaOS 3.1 isn't the (supposed) rightsholders own work. And if you believe that they have not acted like parasites, I really don't have anything to say to you. We simply have a different worldview. They are parasites in my book, and I want to eliminate any stranglehold that they may have over the freedom to continue developing this software (which, thank you pedants, is a separate thing from a clear plan to develop it).

we live in a collaborative society. even if i back my bread myself i wont tell anyone else that he is not allowed to buy one even if he starves. same as if i sell my painting to someone i wont support some other guy taking it away from him, because its not his own work.

assuming the holders rights or licenses are legal, they need to be accepted, no matter if we like, what they do with it, or not.

i dont knowingly let others pray on me, if you feel that about the amiga os owners or licensees, dont buy their products as i dont. but there is apparently enough people who seems to have different opinion about this subject and might not be happy, if parasiteds they fed for years would go away.

probably. i dont like to impose it upon others.

very well.

wawa, I don't really understand your point; I don't see much collaboration going on here, do you? Are you suggesting that a GPL-licensed AmigaOS would somehow be less collaborative, less inclusive, than one "owned" by a perpetually bankrupt (in every sense of the word) company?

If it makes you feel any better, they won't be forced at gunpoint. It will either come down to them agreeing to the terms, or not. If they care more about holding onto what they have than being paid to let it go (and possibly avoiding legal battles), they will be free -- of course -- to do so.

Why do they try to prove so hard that they are the owners? More info here. I would most certainly try to pry those rights out of their hands.

On the other hand, to get real Amiga 68k machines some investigation towards the original hardware designs would be needed as well. Schematics like the one Jeri Ellsworth is showing in this video could help a lot. Those should be acquired as well, because some could make exact replica's / simulations out of that with all the precise bugs without guessing why , experimentation and etc.

Michaelz, I encourage all of that. On the other hand, why don't we organize around one or two basic goals with some seriousness first. Here is my personal list of priorities:

1. AmigaOS 3.1 made GPL

2. Picasso96 made GPL

3. CyberGrafX made GPL

Considering my advanced age, that's probably all that I have energy/money/time for in this life. But once those tasks are completed, it is easy to imagine that everyone will be feeling pretty good about themselves. More good can be done then, assuming some will towards additional organization.

Please add your thoughts to what else would benefit from being liberally licensed, here:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=86798

I like this guy :) So I'm gonna stand by him, and support him.

I also hate Hyperion/Cloanto parasites.

So, for what it's worth.... You can count me in for every battle we can muster up.

Thank you Lord Aga, it is apprecaited.

Right now we need to find a competent attorney who will be willing to take this on. If no one in the Amiga community, past or present, steps forward, then we will need to seek this elsewhere. So please spread the word. It would be wonderful if the representing counsel also cared about the outcome.

its not my point. its a point i constantly encounter among the programmers, also open source ones.

the choice of license should be taken very careful. i have an impression that more permissive and non-viral lgpl would be preferred choice by the majority. note, that i dont put it as a statement, but rather as a remark, a subject to discussion, if you will.

you have grond here, who is competent in these matters, according to his own account. however it actually may be effect of his consulting, that initial accusations like about apollo p96 being illegal, have been refrained from finally.

you may receive some advice from such people, but i dont think it will be easy to find anyone to do the actual job, for money, anyone would be ready to invest in it. especially that any money would be better used invested in technical development, rather than legal battles.

We'll cross that road when we come to it then wawa. If no one steps forward, then I will look for external counsel.

Why? I don't need a detailed answer, but your statements so far imply that you want to do this just to screw Hyperion/Cloanto and for no other reason.

It might be theoretically possible to prove that the later incarnations of AInc were not the legal owners of the code - and hence couldn't really license and/or sell it to Hyperion and Cloanto. Hyperion actually did a not so bad job of proving that during the court battle against AInc - until they got what they wanted (settlement agreement) and dropped all their charges.

Problem is: Somebody does own the code. Even if you manage to invalidate Hyperion's and Cloanto's licenses (partially in the latter case, they have some quite old licenses too), there would still be an owner - one that is extremely hard to track down, insane (McEwen) or dead (Kouri), might not give a shit (Gateway) stopped existing 20 years ago and didn't even have his paperwork in order back then (Escom) etc.

IMHO, that approach can not work. You will have to forget about all the shady machinations of the last 20 years, pretend the current owners are the rightful owners and try to buy the rights from them.

Dear Korodny,

I certainly don't care about Hyperion or Cloanto. I will not lose an ounce of sleep over their complete disappearance. They have hardly any kind of presence as it stands, so why are we concerned about that? On the other hand, I'm pretty sure I've made the "why" clear in my repeated posts on this forum over the last year: Proprietary software is corrosive and inappropriate in a retrocomputing/hobbyist environment (arguably _any_ environment, but let's avoid going there for now). I want to create a situation where anyone who wants to work on AmigaOS, can fork it themselves and go, or alternatively join or contribute to an already active project. I also want groups like AROS to stop worrying about "clean room" conditions, which is totally ridiculous.

The AmigaDocuments site aleady gives us a pretty clear idea of who might own these materials; the idea is to hire an attorney who can take it further and verify the research, giving us the best idea for an approach. At which point I would make an offer to the relevant parties, and either pay for the relicensing myself (if within range), or publicly crowdfund it.

As an aside, what is it with the Germans here being (in particular) so negative and doubtful? I understand that the UK and Germany had the largest Amiga communities in the world, so don't you actually have the most to gain from the above scenario? Would you prefer another fantasy about a highly organized company coming in to take care of everything?

@wxr

i dont know about korodny, but i am not german, even though i usually post from berlin. and no, im not fantasizing about any company that might save whats left of amiga. quite the opposite. i rather hope the companies (in question) will continue to stay away, rather than to spoil our fun as they have spoiled it in their own traditional field.

i am for open surce, as you do, even if not as orthodoxicly, but rather for practical reasons. i dont believe it being an all round perfect solution, but a preferable one in our current situation, without going into detail on that. simply because the companies in amiga sector have overwhelmingly proven themselves not very dependable.

but i understand and accept (if not prefer) exceptions, like in case of vampire/apollo approach (which isnt exactly open).

that said, actually in contrary to any fantasy, i made up my mind a long ago, practically in accordance with what korodny wrote above. and as result i turned to the only advanced amiga open source solution, there is, as soon as it started to be available for real amigas. i dont want to spoil your thread, advertising aros again, as you specifically asked for before, but i need to mention it, in order to explain my standpoint, and why i dont think, its fancy.

Okay. You downplaying any statements regarding the complexity of such an effort (working on the existing code) in this and the other thread made me wonder.

Would you mind telling us who that would be? I've been following this very closely for a decade and a half (I'm covering it for amiga-news.de), and I certainly have no "pretty clear idea" who might own these materials. Could be either ESCOM's creditors or Amiga Washington's, but that are just wild guesses.

There is no research yet. I love the Amiga Documents effort, but it's not a substitute for proper research. In the trial against Hyperion even the judge noticed at one point that the AInc crowd was simply making up documents as they needed them (they had backdated an allegedly for or five year old contract a week too far) And the players from that trial are dead or gone now, Same goes for the original AInc investor ("Invisible Hand", IIRC) that was shut down ages ago.

The whole point of that entire AInc Washington/KMOS/AInc Delaware mess was to make sure there's no trail to follow. These were all privately held companies, so the only ways to extort information would be to find creditors willing to be part of a trial and fund them.

Again: unless you're willing to burn a lot of money, the only sane approach would be to not look too closely, assume that nobody else will because of the problems listed above and make an offer to Cloanto.

The Amiga is a retro toy now, 99% of the user base has no real need for continued development - they certainly wouldn't mind, many would probably even donate to projects or buy ready-to-use ROM chips. But if none of that happens, they'll be fine with the ready-to-use ROM chips and Kickstart images available now and the P96 archive from Aminet.

You're simply 20 years to late.