Workbench disks and related license

[Iznougoud]

Originally Posted by Merlin

Suppose I wanted new Workbench 2.04 disks, could I still purchase new ones and still be sure that bit rot hadn't set in?

If you bought mine, you could

[Marcuz]

heh this is the only pirate community on the www who, maybe because of the medium age of its members, would like to see itself be embraced by laws...

[TCD]

Like alexh said once, I'm rather a pirate than someone who claims to only use 'abandonware'

[Merlin]

Harrr!! it's Pirates Day at the Yates' Wine Lodges in the UK today, topical, eh?

LOL

[_ThEcRoW]

If you let the update program on aforever do the thing, it will let you download all the adfs of the workbench. I downloaded all 3.1 adfs this way. You have a license to do that as already you payed for it.

Originally Posted by Rabbit80

and in the case of AF not providing me with complete copies of all WB disks? they quite clearly advertise that this is what they will sell me...

[JACK98]

basically,i think,the owners of amiga/workbench should release the rights,i mean they are not doing anything with the name or the workbench itself,they have fallen way behind the dominace of windows,well thats my crazy notion anyway

[TCD]

Originally Posted by JACK98

basically,i think,the owners of amiga/workbench should release the rights,i mean they are not doing anything with the name or the workbench itself,they have fallen way behind the dominace of windows,well thats my crazy notion anyway

Not really true, because Cloanto still sell it's Amiga Forever I think as long as they do, there is little chance they make the kickstart ROMs or the Workbench disks available.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by JACK98

i think,the owners of amiga/workbench should release the rights,i mean they are not doing anything with the name or the workbench itself

It would cost too much and be too much of a PITA to work the legal wranglings, especially as AmigaOS almost certainly contains code licensed from 3rd parties.

[OddbOd]

@Iznougoud: The fatal mistake you made was ignoring a portion of the copyright notice that appears in the Amiga manuals:

The distribution and sale of these products are intended for the use of the original purchaser only. Lawful users of these programs are hereby licensed only to read the programs, from their media into memory of a computer, solely for the purpose of executing the programs.

The reason that backup copies are allowed to be made is because it is specifically permitted under the US Copyright Act (USC17 Section 117), if you do not have the original disks you do not have any legal basis to copy or download them from somewhere else.

Originally Posted by TheCyberDruid

Not really true, because Cloanto still sell it's Amiga Forever I think as long as they do, there is little chance they make the kickstart ROMs or the Workbench disks available.

Logically that has no bearing on the situation, as stated previously Cloanto are licensees not rights holders. I've always wondered whether Cloanto really do have permission from all the rights holders whose software they include with AF.

[alphonsus]

You could always by an OS3.5 or 3.9 disk. The emergency boot folder contains a complete OS3.1 IIRC.