I have known Michael personally for almost a quarter of a century now. Boy, does time fly...
You might say I am biased, but I can vouch for his genuine work to preserve the history of computing, not just Commodore or Amiga. For example, I think he bid on an Cray that the DoE was getting rid of and had to get it shipped to Italy for his computer museum project. Which wasn't cheap, because the thing weighted a ton. Multiple ones, actually.
Several of his projects were definitely not for the money, like his collaboration with a research team at University of Bologna to create drop-in replacements for narrator.device and/or translator.library that could convert Italian text to speech. Commodore Italy donated a bunch of machines to the team. This was in the context of Amiga software for people with severe disabilities, which wasn't a cash cow.
Which is also funny, because in 1997 Michael was the one in the audience that challenged a bit Richard Stallman on software economics, during the latter's talk at the Italian Amiga developer conference. He got RMS to say that, no, professional software developers like him were not necessarily entitled to make more money than a waiter. Quite a few of us among the hundreds that witnessed it still remember the exchange.
I haven't followed the latest controversies, but I do agree that his is nothing but fan work.
I guess my main concern would be his bus factor. What guarantees are there that his estate will provide the same gentleman's agreement to focus on archiving rather a money grab?
No guarantees, although knowing how careful he is with legal issues (see how he might have involuntarily started the GIF wars, by asking Unisys where to send them money for a patent license), I wouldn't be surprised if he already thought of that. I'm sure I'd first knock on wood if he read your comment, though.
You might say I am biased, but I can vouch for his genuine work to preserve the history of computing, not just Commodore or Amiga. For example, I think he bid on an Cray that the DoE was getting rid of and had to get it shipped to Italy for his computer museum project. Which wasn't cheap, because the thing weighted a ton. Multiple ones, actually.
Several of his projects were definitely not for the money, like his collaboration with a research team at University of Bologna to create drop-in replacements for narrator.device and/or translator.library that could convert Italian text to speech. Commodore Italy donated a bunch of machines to the team. This was in the context of Amiga software for people with severe disabilities, which wasn't a cash cow.
Which is also funny, because in 1997 Michael was the one in the audience that challenged a bit Richard Stallman on software economics, during the latter's talk at the Italian Amiga developer conference. He got RMS to say that, no, professional software developers like him were not necessarily entitled to make more money than a waiter. Quite a few of us among the hundreds that witnessed it still remember the exchange.
I haven't followed the latest controversies, but I do agree that his is nothing but fan work.