Cloanto are changing the Kickstart ROMs yearly?

[kolla]

The highly entertaining part here IMO is that the maintainer (or what to call it) of the mighty dubious BB3+4 is bashing Cloanto over instabilities/obsolete versions/whatever - talk about pot calling kettle black.

Anyone can update the KX-light, it's not black magic

[tero]

I don't think WB 3x0 is that bad, it's pretty nice actually. I comes with some librarys missing in 3.1.

Searching around on aminet and other websites i could update it quite a bit. So far it seems it is compatible with 3.5/9. I haven't found a single programm for 3.5/9 that doesn't work. (yet)
wbinfo, deficons, vinced, THE, TeakWB. workbench.library 45.132 (with patch from PeterK iconlib)
It just works. As 3.9 can't be bought anymore this is a pretty nice legal alternative.
I own 3.9 too and i can't say which setup i like more. Some programms and libraries in 3.9 are newer than 3x0 or the amnet versions or you have to use alternatives for e.g. the CD player but that's it.

The one thing i'm missing is amidock. there are amidock-like programms out there but i can't say i like them. So far i'm stuck with toolmanager. 2nd would be BiB.
And some librarys aren't updated e.g. dos.library.

Maybe i should strip my setup and create an update-pack for an easy install

besides CWB, Amikit,AfAOS etc, an environment for 3x0 is still missing.

[Minuous]

@kolla:

>BB3+4 is bashing Cloanto over instabilities/obsolete versions/whatever

I'm afraid I don't see the connection. If there is some specific problem with BB3&4 feel free to report it, preferably in the appropriate thread; the only "obsolete" versions in it are when there is some known problem with a newer version of a component. Whereas Cloanto using ancient versions of eg. ReAction classes seems to be just because they don't like H&P.

@tero:

>As 3.9 can't be bought anymore

Yes, it can, eg. at http://www.vesalia.de/e_os39.htm

>So far it seems it is compatible with 3.5/9. I haven't found a single programm for 3.5/9 that doesn't work.

Actually there are several, eg. http://aminet.net/util/misc/ReportPlus.lha , http://aminet.net/game/edit/MCE.lha , etc. The reason is because, as you noted, some programs and libraries in 3.9 are newer versions than what is in 3.X.

[tero]

Hmm, last time i checked vesalia didn't sold 3.9. But nice it's available, It is the best WB for classics imo.

It was expected that there are some programs that don't run. I just haven't found them But for most of them alternatives can be used anyway.

nb: If one wants to cheat it's enough to copy the contents from the classes drawer (minus datatypes) of 3.9 and those programs work too.

[kolla]

Originally Posted by Minuous

@kolla:

>BB3+4 is bashing Cloanto over instabilities/obsolete versions/whatever

I'm afraid I don't see the connection. If there is some specific problem with BB3&4 feel free to report it, preferably in the appropriate thread; the only "obsolete" versions in it are when there is some known problem with a newer version of a component.

It's rather obvious that your MO is to throw in new stuff in BB3+4, and then in hindsight remove whatever causes problems for users, where this new stuff comes from, the legal status etc. is none of your concern.

Whereas Cloanto using ancient versions of eg. ReAction classes seems to be just because they don't like H&P.

Whereas Cloanto actually do care about copyrights and licensing issues, and walk the fine line. Not like this is any secret, they have explained it umpteen times, and it is quite elaborate on their web page why OS 3.X is what it is.

What does ReAction have to do with H&P anyways? All they did was license it.

[Minuous]

>What does ReAction have to do with H&P anyways? All they did was license it.

They also further developed it.

Cloanto have pretty randomly mish-mashed OS3.5 and OS3.9 together. I have never heard any talk of ReAction being illegal, there is no legal or technical basis for downgrading classes from the OS3.9 versions. Also they excuse missing components by talking about patents that expired years ago and making unsubstantiated allegations about H&P.

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by tero

The one thing i'm missing is amidock. there are amidock-like programms out there but i can't say i like them. So far i'm stuck with toolmanager. 2nd would be BiB.

Well, you can try PolyNet NG which has some cool features that AmiDock hasnt. Its bad side is that it is difficult to master. But for that purpose, I have written a small tutorial that will help:

http://lilliput.amiga-projects.net/P...NG/polynet.htm

[tero]

Originally Posted by gulliver

Well, you can try PolyNet NG which has some cool features that AmiDock hasnt.

Thx, that one looks nice. And thx for the tutorial, i doubt i would've found the mui files

I tried a little with it and it's using ~80kb less than toolmanager. That's a lot,
The workbench is going up to 1.980.000 free chipmem with this.

EDIT: And back to tollmanager. I can't get this dock to use .info files as picture for the buttons. But the real downside is that it only accept ttf fonts.

[kolla]

Originally Posted by Minuous

>What does ReAction have to do with H&P anyways? All they did was license it.

They also further developed it.

Under a license, by individuals who pretty much volunteered to do it, and who may or may not have had contracts that also gave them the copyrights to whatever software they wrote, including Reaction classes, as their contract with H&P expired.

Cloanto have pretty randomly mish-mashed OS3.5 and OS3.9 together. I have never heard any talk of ReAction being illegal, there is no legal or technical basis for downgrading classes from the OS3.9 versions.

Reaction is not illegal, the code base very much moved over to OS4. Whether Cloanto has rights to distribute the software is hence up to the individual authors of the classes, and perhaps even Hyperion.

Also they excuse missing components by talking about patents that expired years ago and making unsubstantiated allegations about H&P.

I suppose the patents you are talking about are the MP3 patents? Yes, they expired, one after the other, till "years ago", in April of 2017, mp3 was at last patent free.

What allegations?

[Minuous]

>Under a license, by individuals who pretty much volunteered to do it, and who may or may not have had contracts that also gave them the copyrights to whatever software they wrote, including Reaction classes, as their contract with H&P expired.

The work was done in-house by salaried H&P employees. It's not normally the case that an employee be granted separate rights over the software in such a situation.

Even if the rights to those classes were owned by someone other than H&P, there is nothing to stop Cloanto using the money they have made from selling old ROMs etc. to license those rights. Just greed I suspect.

>Whereas Cloanto actually do care about copyrights and licensing issues

It doesn't appear so, eg. see http://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-...-00046-EN.html

>I suppose the patents you are talking about are the MP3 patents? Yes, they expired, one after the other, till "years ago", in April of 2017, mp3 was at last patent free.

The GIF/LZW patent(s) also expired years ago.

>What allegations?

They keep talking about "legal challenges" to OS3.9, when the fact is that there have been no court cases and the statute of limitations for any such cases that could have been brought has long expired.

[kolla]

Originally Posted by Minuous

>Under a license, by individuals who pretty much volunteered to do it, and who may or may not have had contracts that also gave them the copyrights to whatever software they wrote, including Reaction classes, as their contract with H&P expired.

The work was done in-house by salaried H&P employees.

Oh really, that was not my impression... I also did some work for H&P and I was never employed, I just got a free copy of the final work.

It's not normally the case that an employee be granted separate rights over the software in such a situation.

However, that was really not the case, which is why there is currently so much OS3.5/3.9 components being updated by their individual programmers, who worked under contract with H&P, but not as employees of H&P.

Even if the rights to those classes were owned by someone other than H&P, there is nothing to stop Cloanto using the money they have made from selling old ROMs etc. to license those rights. Just greed I suspect.

Or maybe those entities were not interested in licensing their work yet again, as they might for example have moved on to OS4 and are now under contract with Hyperion.

>Whereas Cloanto actually do care about copyrights and licensing issues

It doesn't appear so, eg. see http://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-...-00046-EN.html

So, did you read what it says there on that link?

>I suppose the patents you are talking about are the MP3 patents? Yes, they expired, one after the other, till "years ago", in April of 2017, mp3 was at last patent free.

The GIF/LZW patent(s) also expired years ago.

And Cloanto was there in 2004 when it happened and added GIF support all around their products... what is your point?

>What allegations?

They keep talking about "legal challenges" to OS3.9, when the fact is that there have been no court cases and the statute of limitations for any such cases that could have been brought has long expired.

You suggesting that there are no legal challenges in distributing OS3.9 with a commercial product without any consent from the rights owners? I think the various rights owners have a different opinion.

Or are you saying Cloanto should forefront the anti-copyrights movement, like the Apollo Team to a degree is doing?

[xArtx]

Foobarred? In what way?

"for a few year[s]" sounds like you know something specific which I don't.

Foobarred means that for some years, the Cloanto ROMs were modified to contain illegal CPU op-codes so that they would work fine with an emulator,
but couldn’t be burned to EPROM to use in a real Amiga, even once they were decrypted. I believe this has changed a year or so ago.

They probably have to keep doing something to the software so it doesn’t look abandoned.

[Minuous]

>Or maybe those entities were not interested in licensing their work yet again, as they might for example have moved on to OS4 and are now under contract with Hyperion.

Even assuming that it had to be licensed directly from each programmer, I can't see that they would object to having extra money thrown at them for work they already did nearly two decades ago, regardless of what they are doing now.

>And Cloanto was there in 2004 when it happened and added GIF support all around their products... what is your point?

They didn't uncripple GIF-related components of OS3.X.

>You suggesting that there are no legal challenges in distributing OS3.9 with a commercial product without any consent from the rights owners? I think the various rights owners have a different opinion.

I never said that. Of course it is copyrighted and they should get the consent of the rights owners, H&P or Alinea, before distributing it...I'm just saying there is nothing inherently illegal about OS3.9 as Cloanto like to imply.