| [Rant] Amiga Inc Software Licence - Poll | ANN.lu |
| Posted on 07-Jun-2002 09:51 GMT by Rodney McDonell | 22 comments
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A Poll concerning the AmigaOS + Hardware licencing Amiga Inc have dreamed up has been posted @ Amiga.org. The poll was set up so that the community could gather a better idea to how many people like/dont care/hate the licenceing. Those who also think its too late to do anything, also get a chance to vote.
Thanx to Wayne Hunt, Amiga.org Administrator for fixing the Polls :)
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| Amiga Inc Software Licence - Poll : Comment 18 of 22 | ANN.lu |
| Posted by Sven Harvey on 08-Jun-2002 21:36 GMT | You know I`m getting really rather tired of this... So hopefully some people may actually read the following, understand it and hopefully come to a significant conclusion...
1. Amiga Inc. have set up a licensing agreement for distribution of OS4.0 which stipulates the following:
a. All motherboards sold that have the ability to run OS4.0 MUST ship with an OEM license for Amiga OS4.0. This DOES NOT mean that the board cannot run and cannot be bundled with any other OS (e.g. Linux PPC). AI is not stopping AmigaOne owners (for example) dual booting thier machines.
b. That OS4.0 will only run on boards with some form of licensed hard-code (e.g. ROM chip) to help differentiate the boards. IE a version of the AmigaOne G3-se that doesn`t have the hard wired code for OS4.0, and therefore cannot run it, doesn`t have to ship with a license for AmigaOS 4.0.
2. Amiga OS 4.0 will be made available for the AmigaOne boards with appropriate ROM chips, users of certain older PPC processor cards for older Amigas that have a real KickstartROM available, and other PowerPC based motherboards/accelerators as negotiations and agreements go forward. AI are being transparent about this, if you want your card/board to run OS 4.0 you have to negotiate with AI, after all they paid a big chunk of money for the IPs including the OS an they don`t (nor does Hyperion) have a bottomless pit of money to fund various versions of the OS for different boards.
3. This is an anti-piracy measure, and the only people who stand to lose from this licensing system are those who want to use OS4.0 but are not willing to pay for it. Maybe Microsoft don`t do things this way (licensing agreements and certification for hardware) but look how many copies of Windows are illegal pirate copies - and does anyone think for one minute that Amiga, Inc. and Hyperion will be able to viably continue the Amiga OS or indeed any of thier business interests if OS 4.0 gets pirated to hell?
4. Even if there was no piracy at all in the Amiga market and you could guarantee that without a licensing system that everone using OS 4.0 had paid for thier copy of it... what mechanism would be in place to ensure that the hardware you were using would work properly. Just imagine if a company ran off a load of AMigaOne clone motherboards and you purchased one and bought OS 4.0 for it only for the whole kit and kaboodle to stop functioning after 2 weeks because of a massive design flaw in the hardware?
5. What exactly would you run OS4.0 on if you could buy it seperately for a new computer other than an AmigaOne, being as the AmigaOnes from Eyetech would be shipped with a copy of OS4.0 regardless (from the point of the end-user release)? A pegasos - not likely it seems that the producers have no interest in thier boards running OS 4.0. Thier loss. A Shark or other similar G3/G4 board...? Hmmm these won`t be much use unless they actually ship with OS 4.0 as I can`t see Warp OS working with them somehow.. Unless you want to run Linux and nothing else, in which case I`m sure if the demand is there an AmigaOS 4.0 diabled board that can run Linux would be made available.
6. If you change your mind after purchasing a G3/G4 system that can be made to run AmigaOS4.0 with LinuxPPC and you then want AmigaOS 4.0 then what makes you think you won`t be able to buy an upgrade kit that features a copy of OS 4.0 and the appropriate hardware solution to allow it to run the OS... Lets face it most of us can change a ROM chip... we had to when upgrading to OS3.5/9 in most cases! It has already been stated that for instance if a version of the G3-se was made available to run Linux only without the "dongle" code in ROM, then an uprade kit with a new ROM chip and OS 4.0 would be made available to those who need it...
Simply put after that essay (sorry to bore you to tears), I really do not see why people have such a problem with a licensing system. It appears to be (if you fully read the appropriate announcements) a sound and very very sensible business decision.
I can only conclude that the main reasons why someone wouldn`t be in agreement with the licensing system as set out is:
1. because they don`t understand it (which lets face it due to the international and multi-language nature of the Amiga community maybe down to bad translations and re-translations of the texts involved... I can only imagine what babelfish would do to such texts as English is my first, and possibly to my shame, my only language)
2. They don`t want to pay for thier copy of OS 4.0... (I won`t comment as bad language isn`t allowed :-)
Please try to understand the agreement before jumping to the wrong conclusions... I get the feeling a lot of people are reacting to hersay and chinese wispers
I have also yet to read/hear and really good arguments against or reasons why the licensing system is a bad thing... After all you can`t have your choice of board to run OS4.0 restricted by a licensing agreement when all the boards that can run the OS ship with it...
Thanks for your time and attention
Sven Harvey
http://www.cybertron.ournet.co.uk
Amiga Mart writer |
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