Amiga OS 3.1 Source code leaked yesterday

Guys, this is *not* funny anymore. You are all dealing with copyrighted material and I can assure you, Hyperion will definitely *not* tolerate any unauthorized use of this material.

You should all think twice before publishing more copies of this material. (or making available via "The Zone" or similar)

[Knoeki]

Originally Posted by Cyborg

Guys, this is *not* funny anymore. You are all dealing with copyrighted material and I can assure you, Hyperion will definitely *not* tolerate any unauthorized use of this material.

You should all think twice before publishing more copies of this material. (or making available via "The Zone" or similar)

Nice troll, 7/10.

[Locutus]

Its not exactly going away anymore, sorry!

(welcome to 2016 and the internet)

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Cyborg

Guys, this is *not* funny anymore. You are all dealing with copyrighted material and I can assure you, Hyperion will definitely *not* tolerate any unauthorized use of this material.

You should all think twice before publishing more copies of this material. (or making available via "The Zone" or similar)

Let's say you're right....However, Hyperion does not have Apple's army of lawyers. There is not a lot of money to be won from poor hobbyists. So you don't spend a million $ on lawyers if you only get coffee change from those you sue.

[-Acid-]

Originally Posted by Olaf Barthel

...everybody would naturally assume how you came by the information on updating the code (why? it's the easiest way), putting you on the defensive to prove that you achieved this by different means.

I found this amusing as in the legal world your accusers have to prove your guilt, you do not have to prove your innocence.

[Olaf Barthel]

Originally Posted by -Acid-

I found this amusing as in the legal world your accusers have to prove your guilt, you do not have to prove your innocence.

Depends; when IBM designed the PC and its BIOS, the first company which created a 3rd party BIOS (which allowed non-IBM hardware to be used with it) did so by using clean-room reverse-engineering techniques. Without proof of that approach, IBM would have found it much easier to sue them and prevail in court.

[Derek]

Originally Posted by -Acid-

I found this amusing as in the legal world your accusers have to prove your guilt, you do not have to prove your innocence.

The stress of the whole situation and the cost of defence works well as a deterrent

Originally Posted by ptyerman

And what magical pink unicorn is going to appear IF it was open sourced? It would end up abandoned and forgotten just like the thousands of open source projects that lay dormant. Take this simple search of Aminet for example, http://aminet.net/search?query=open+source, a page of results and a page of abandoned software. People wouldn't just appear out of nowhere to start working on 20 year old source code.
If you want open source, it's already here! Work on Aros or Haiku, where development help would be appreciated, or on Linux where it probably would not be.
Open source does not equal a magic pill!

Correct me if i'm wrong, but open source doesn't have to equal FOSS. I'd be inclined to agree with you if it were FOSS, but just being open source could provide 'assistance' to Cloanto who can incorporate peoples ideas/fixes but still retain the right to sell it when others don't. Managed well, could it actually be beneficial to Cloanto and the broader Amiga community?

[kamelito]

Originally Posted by 8bitbubsy

The leaked, incomplete one?

Same as yesterday link...
Kamelito

[TenLeftFingers]

Originally Posted by Derek

Correct me if i'm wrong, but open source doesn't have to equal FOSS. I'd be inclined to agree with you if it were FOSS, but just being open source could provide 'assistance' to Cloanto who can incorporate peoples ideas/fixes but still retain the right to sell it when others don't. Managed well, could it actually be beneficial to Cloanto and the broader Amiga community?

You are correct. FOSS and Open Source are not the same. Permissive licensing doesn't have to be attached to the opened source.

[ascp]

Originally Posted by Cyborg

Guys, this is *not* funny anymore. You are all dealing with copyrighted material and I can assure you, Hyperion will definitely *not* tolerate any unauthorized use of this material.

You should all think twice before publishing more copies of this material. (or making available via "The Zone" or similar)

Yeah, I guess Hyperions business would be REALLY REALLLY hurt by a leak of pre 4.0 material. Right? No - Actually a pre 4.0 open source would probally SPUR the interest in overall Amiga, and make more sales for OS 4++, but if they're stuck in the early 80:s to thinking... well.
It won't happen though, but the leak is at least giving some attention to amiga - and that might make some more people interested in 4.++
So I only do see positive things with this leak.

[ptyerman]

Originally Posted by Derek

Correct me if i'm wrong, but open source doesn't have to equal FOSS. I'd be inclined to agree with you if it were FOSS, but just being open source could provide 'assistance' to Cloanto who can incorporate peoples ideas/fixes but still retain the right to sell it when others don't. Managed well, could it actually be beneficial to Cloanto and the broader Amiga community?

This is true, but nobody suggested it should be FOSS, me included.
Open sourcing of any kind just isn't going to happen without some sort of miracle. Not all of the code is Commodore, quite a lot of it is owned/copyright of other companies and developers.
It would take a lot of time, work and money to have all the code searched and audited for none Commodore code, after that, licences would have to be agreed upon and purchased for any non Commodore code, IF that could even be possible at all!
Nobody is going to put that much money and time into this, especially as Hyperion and some others would rather see any OS 3.x related material simply vanish into the void!

@Olaf
on behalf of the other posts
http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...1&postcount=71

Respect!

[-Acid-]

Originally Posted by Olaf Barthel

Depends; when IBM designed the PC and its BIOS, the first company which created a 3rd party BIOS (which allowed non-IBM hardware to be used with it) did so by using clean-room reverse-engineering techniques. Without proof of that approach, IBM would have found it much easier to sue them and prevail in court.

Yes but as someone already stated, there is no money in suing hobbyists not that it would even get past a cease and desist order. Besides that with the complex state of who holds what copyrights, you could probably just claim whoever was taking action against you didn't have the right to, it would most likely take them years and more money than they had trying to prove they owned the copyright

[Olaf Barthel]

Originally Posted by -Acid-

Yes but as someone already stated, there is no money in suing hobbyists not that it would even get past a cease and desist order. Besides that with the complex state of who holds what copyrights, you could probably just claim whoever was taking action against you didn't have the right to, it would most likely take them years and more money than they had trying to prove they owned the copyright

Could be, but then who knows how this plays out when you're actually at the receiving end of such a lawsuit.

I take it that current laws in the USA and Europe provide enormous leverage to go after even those accused of intellectual property infringement. The law is blunt, so to speak, and the subtle points of your actions may not be handled well by it. Money may not even be an issue either, as the parties who may come after you would be doing this because of contractual obligations (as in "we granted you the right to use this material under specific circumstances and you will lose that right if you fail to police its use").

I don't know about you, but I have come to view caring for software as a responsibility. Software ought to be useful. How would you achieve this if you are running the gauntlet of avoiding getting tripped up by whoever is after you for tinkering with code you were not supposed to be using? User feedback being as important as it is, how do you listen and respond to it if you end up having to do so clandestinely? Seems like an awful lot of distractions to me, where at some point you'll have to consider whether the effort you spend on making the software work well has come to be overshadowed by the effort spent on evading the agents of law and/or justice.

I can easily imagine causes which in my eyes would justify this effort (e.g. PGP comes to my mind, even Tor). But some small Amiga hardware driver? That seems to become even smaller as you look at it.

That said, if there is a reason to work on the 68k Amiga operating system of old, I think it ought to include being able to cooperatively work on it, within the legal boundaries that exist. If this old operating system has to live on and grow, it cannot do so in the shadows only.

[frank_b]

Originally Posted by Olaf Barthel

That said, if there is a reason to work on the 68k Amiga operating system of old, I think it ought to include being able to cooperatively work on it, within the legal boundaries that exist. If this old operating system has to live on and grow, it cannot do so in the shadows only.

We should approach Cloanto and ask them how much to open it. It can't be worth much these days. If we can raise more than it's currently worth, opening it might be possible.

[Mr.Flibble]

It'd be a good start, asking couldn't hurt.

[xArtx]

Hi Olaf,
It seems big from a hobbyist point of view. Without ever recompiling it,
it would be of some help to hobbyists programming the Amiga through the OS,
but hard to fathom why any company would be interested in a 68k OS source
that’s a big inconvenience to compile... (Other than Cloanto due to some built & useable ROM)

Originally Posted by Olaf Barthel

I can easily imagine causes which in my eyes would justify this effort (e.g. PGP comes to my mind, even Tor). But some small Amiga hardware driver? That seems to become even smaller as you look at it.

[TenLeftFingers]

@frank_b, re approaching Cloanto to put a price on opening the source; they provide an amazing package that Id imagine would survive being open. But they would need a way to manage their competitors in some way so someone doesnt start cloning any if their USPs.

Its a kickstarter Id definitely back though.

Sent from Ubuntu Touch using the Forum Browser app

[frank_b]

Well if the Kickstarter was worth more than Amiga forever it would make business sense to sell it.

[gilgamesh]

It is not at all clear that Cloanto has the right to open source Amiga OS. And if he does, open sourcing it would make his whole business model moot. Kickstart is an integral part of classic Amiga OS.

Having a closer look at original CBM source code is interesting, but today we have AROS.