At one time I would have said, lets shut this guy down, but that was about 10 yrs ago.
Technically, this site is hosting illegal software, not much argument there, however that
doesn't automatically mean he is hurting the community. The older our beloved platform
gets, the harder it is to preserve all of the wonderful binary that has been developed. If
everybody gets too Naxi about this kind of stuff, many of those wondeful gems will be lost.
Since this guy is not making a profit (or any money at all from what I can tell), I would vote
that he is helping the community.

C Snyder

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"Space Mountain might be the oldest ride in the park, but it still has one of the longest lines!" - Ric Flair

Is James Jacobs also known as 'interesting/arc' ?

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Men who have girlies in their avatars are Girliemen!

@Darth_X
Quote:

Is James Jacobs also known as 'interesting/arc' ?

Give it up Darthy. Some people know things you don't know and it will remain that way no matter how hard you try. So just sit back and relax and enjoy the ride.

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ExecSG Team Lead

@DarkGlobe

I agree that IMHO, the Kickstart ROM should be made freely available as it might help the Amiga Community... More users will be able to use UAE/WinUAE, though it might hurt Cloanto' AF sells as less people might buy it from them.

To also offer OS3.9 freely downloadable should be stopped IMHO. This is "pure" PIRACY... And it also quite easy to buy LEGALY OS3.9 (There are a few legal resellers out there).

Those developer documents are impossible to acquire nowadays (and have been for years,apparently). Keeping them unavailable is hurting the community, since it makes it extremely difficult for people to code for the Amiga.

So, I'll treat this as any other pirated items that reach my hands: I'll use it a demo. If I like it, I buy the original, as I've done multiple times with films, audio CD's and games.In this case, if the manuals ever get released again, I'll buy them.

I'm against piracy, but not blindly so.

@weirdami

Quote:

By his reasoning, it's ok to go ahead and start manufacturing them himself because obiously it's an abandoned device.

"Abandoned" does not mean it will not be profitable again later on. Look at all the long forgotten TV series selling on DVD now. There's stuff I haven't even seen doing reruns on any channels. People probably considred Frogger abandonware for a while until it started selling on classic game CD collections for PCs and then in those direct-to-TV-joysticks. I don't think it's a good idea to assume that something not currently for sale is "safe" to pirate. You might tick off some IP/copyright owner who is preparing his own legal comeback for the game. You might not, but that doesn't make it right.

It's ONLY ok, legit, acceptable, "safe", etc. to give away things when you have the explicit permission of the copyright/IP owner to do so.

I don't know who this guy is and haven't heard of the games he's said to have created himself, but I'd say he's wrong in giving away stuff that is not his to give away, even if it does suck and things are not available by legal means at the time.

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All glory to the Hypnotoad!

@Samwel

Quote:

But regarding OS4.. Shouldn't all OS4 owners have access to ROM files?

What ROM files? uboot? 3.1 kickstart? My A2000 came with KS1.3 but I did not get a free upgrade to 2.x or 3.1. My A1200 and 4000T came with 3.1, but I did not get free images of 1.3 or 2.x.

For that matter, am I even an OS4 owner at all? I have an AmigaOneXE, but was never provided with an official OS4 prerelease CD, nor do I have a registration code, and thus I cannot get any OS4-native updates from Hyperion's web site for the pre-updates or any os4-native game patches. (I've asked, been told things would be straightened out, and then given up on it a year or so ago)

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All glory to the Hypnotoad!

@dan.hutch

Quote:

I think there should be a date set for pre-OS4 releases to be freely distributed if not open sourced. For me OS4 represents a watershed.

You're free to have your opinion, but what happens to OS4 is up to Hyperion/AmigaInc. Not you, not me, not anybody else. Hyperion/AmigaInc. have the right to sit on their watershed and do nothing at all with it for a very long time should they so choose.

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All glory to the Hypnotoad!

@billt

Isn't that what they have chosen to do?

@ssolie

Quote:

ssolie wrote: @Darth_X Quote: Is James Jacobs also known as 'interesting/arc' ? Give it up Darthy. Some people know things you don't know and it will remain that way no matter how hard you try. So just sit back and relax and enjoy the ride.

That's OK, because I'm not the only one who has left the amiga community because of stunts like this. Get it?

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@billt

Quote:

It's ONLY ok, legit, acceptable, "safe", etc. to give away things when you have the explicit permission of the copyright/IP owner to do so. I don't know who this guy is and haven't heard of the games he's said to have created himself, but I'd say he's wrong in giving away stuff that is not his to give away, even if it does suck and things are not available by legal means at the time.

I absolutely agree billt! This is exactly what James Jacobs does not understand or refuses to understand.

Message to all people who voted "yes" (means James is helping the community):
I believe, I really want to believe that people voting "yes" were considering James' contribution like his Amiga programs and games. But the question was about his illegal activities with AmigaOS3.9, BoingBags, Amiga ROMs, etc. (and I edited my first post accordingly).

Last edited by AmiKit on 01-Sep-2006 at 06:26 PM.

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Modern Retro Experience

@AmiKit

I voted I didn't know because you hadn't provided a link to the site for me to make an informed choice but knowing now what I do, I'd switch my vote to yes. I don't approve of everything he's apparently hosting, but on balance I'd say his site is helping the community since I'm part of the community and I'd find it helpful.

@billt

Quote:

For that matter, am I even an OS4 owner at all? I have an AmigaOneXE, but was never provided with an official OS4 prerelease CD, nor do I have a registration code, and thus I cannot get any OS4-native updates from Hyperion's web site for the pre-updates or any os4-native game patches. (I've asked, been told things would be straightened out, and then given up on it a year or so ago)

Who have you contacted about this?
A valid A1 serial# should be all you need to, in turn, get a registration# that
gives you access to the website and the updates.

#6

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This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
*Secrecy has served us so well*

@DarkGlobe

Quote:

I'd say his site is helping the community since I'm part of the community and I'd find it helpful.

No doubt the legal material on his site is helpfull. All I asked him was to remove ILLEGAL material. I repeat, I am talking about AmigaOS3.9 and ROM files... How could this help you? Aren't you legal owner of this software already???

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Modern Retro Experience

@AmiKit

You did not read my earlier post in this thread.

I'm not sure I am a legal owner of OS3.9, but certainly I am of 3.5. I recently needed an A500 ROM, which I am also legally entitled to as I have an A500 up in the loft.

Now, it will take me at LEAST 2 hours to retrieve my A500, find an old boot disk, boot it up, extract the ROM and copy it back to disk for use elsewhere. Assuming the A500 boots still, it hasn't been powered up in over a decade.

Alternatively, I can find a helpful site like this one James Jacobs runs (which you've not provided a link to) and download the ROM, which I already own, in 2 minutes. Saving 2 hours would be very helpful.

As it happened, I couldn't find the A500 ROM on the net, lots of dead links, very annoying. Got it off a mate in the end. Still quicker the digging around in my loft.

I also made the point that the A500 ROM should probably be made available free to all because it helps people run UAE, classic Amiga software and may help increase the size of the Amiga community.

James Jacobs is breakig the law, but the law is black & white whereas reality consists of infinite shades of grey which is how come one can break or bend the odd law without being 'wrong' & burning in hell. Breaking the law is not always a bad thing, some laws are stupid. You adhere fully to every law? You never break a speed limit, you never smoked a little dope, you never drank until you were 18, Every MP3 you own is legal, never obtained a pirate video or took a short cut across private land?

It may always be illegal to break laws but it is not always immoral.

@DarkGlobe
Sadly the same argument can be applied to any pirated digital copy: e.g. It's SOOO much more convenient to download X-Men.avi (or whatever), rather than having to encode it from your legal DVD, so that you can watch in on holiday on your laptop or PSP or whatever. That might very well be true, but in all probability most downloads will be by people who do NOT own it (or have any intention of doing so).

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Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

@ChrisH

Yes that is true, but one is a currently available in any high street store DVD and so making it available online will almost certainly cost some sales.

The other is a 20 year old ROM file of no use to anyone but those interested in a community that badly needs to attract more people :/

@billt who said Quote:

"Abandoned" does not mean it will not be profitable again later on. Look at all the long forgotten TV series selling on DVD now. (etc)

A better example might be those hundreds/thousands of Spectrum games, which most definitely fit in the "abandoned" category. In this case most of the companies no-longer exist, most of the authors are impossible to contact, and almost no-one has the hardware needed to play the originals any longer anyway.

If these games were not (technically illegally) distributed, then very few people would have access to them, or even KNOW/remember about them. Subsequently there would be very little interest in them, and it is highly doubtful that anyone would even consider trying to make money from them. (I'm not sure what money might have been made from such old games in recent times - perhaps a joystick with some games built-in, or as part of a "classic" games collection?) So TRUE abandonware *probably* helps keep the product in people's minds, and so *if anything* enhances the commercial value of it!

BTW, I don't think anyone has ever said that abandonware is legally safe, but then again it probably isn't finanically worth-while to sue anyone for such old property either.

_________________
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

@ChrisH

BTW, I don't think anyone has ever said that abandonware is legally safe, but then again it probably isn't finanically worth-while to sue anyone for such old property either.

Maybe not for old 8bit games, but the underdogs mention something about it.

Last edited by Seer on 04-Sep-2006 at 12:08 AM.

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Everything you say will be misquoted and used against you..
~

What AmiKit doesn't mention here is that he is getting financial kickbacks from Cloanto for each copy of Amiga Forever they can flog off. I should also point out that I have in the past submitted bug reports re. AmiKit, I was even going to write a decent tutorial on how to work around the bugs at his behest since apparently he couldn't be bothered to (a) write one or (b) fix the bugs.

And last time I checked Boing Bags are freeware, these were NEVER sold, so why would there be any problem with them? Would he prefer that people be stuck with buggy OS versions, that way the AmiKit bugs could be blamed on the OS?