PFS3 is soon to become FREE and opensource
 

I sent an email to the creator of the widely known Amiga Professional Filesystem, Michiel Pelt, and he seems to be willing to share his creation with the entire comunity, and he is also willing to give away the sourcecode of it. For further details what follows is an email exchange we had, and will keep having :)

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 7:42 PM, Ignacio <xxx@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hi, I am sorry to bother you with this ten year old stuff. The thing is that I have bought PFS 3 Amiga filesystem solution a couple of years ago.
It is great sofware for Amigas, and since you have been in the past a great supporter and developer for this now small Amiga community, is that I dare ask you if you could please allow me to put these files on the Public Domain, so that they are freely available to everyone. I would also add if you think it is necessary, that you wont provide any suport whatsoever, and not be liable for any damage at all.
By the way, if at some point, you are willing to give out the sources of this excellent software for non commercial purposes (If you still have them), that would be even better.
So please, just say yes.


Thank you for your time,
Regards,
Ignacio gully


--------------------------------------------


"Michiel Pelt" <xxx@gmail.com>
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To:
"Ignacio" <xxx@yahoo.com>
Hi Ignacio,

For me it are good old times. How different things would be if the
Amiga platform had been in capable hands. I remained hopeful for a
long time. I even have a complete design of PFS4 on the shelves, but
eventually I gave up on the promise of a future for the Amiga. I
think it is great an Amiga community still exists though.

About your request. Yes, I think it is about time to make PFS3
available in the Public Domain. However I must think about the license
to use. Can you tell me what the main public domain channel for the
Amiga is these days?

I do still have the sources but I don't have an Amiga - my A4000 was
broken beyond repair and is gone now. I can't release the sources
without one because I have to make clear instructions of how to set up
the build environment and build PFS which I can't without being able
to verify. I guess I'll have to set up a WinUAE environment but then
there is the problem Amiga floppies cannot be read. I still have the
compiler, the workbench etc, but it is on floppy. So this is not going
to be easy. As you still are in the Amiga community, perhaps you have
some ideas.

Regards
Michiel Pelt

This is the PFS3 feature list, for those that dont know much about this filesystem:

PFS Doctor, a repair program
User definable deldir up to 992 entries!
Extra long filenames, up to 100 characters (optional)
Improved long term performance, PFS3 hardly fragmentates !
HDInsttools for easy installation
Our own format command
Several bugfixes
superior performance. Up-to 500% improvement over FFS/DOS5!.
disk are always valid. No more 'validation disk'!
supports partitions upto 104 Gigabyte
supports harddisk sizes upto 2000 Gigabyte
works on all Amiga's/harddisks without the need for extra hard or software!
TD64 support
excellent reliability
concurrent access without performance loss. PFS3 handles simultaneous accesses very well!
easy file-recovery with the delete directory. Getting a deleted file back never was so easy.
automatically truncated logfiles. Get rid of those ever growing logfiles.
multiuser support
Special upgrade price for PFS2 users, NLG 89 including P&P.
68000, 68020, 68040 and 68060 optimized versions

Built-in interface for the live optimiser that is under development. This interface makes it
possible to optimise the disk without taking it off-line. When the disk is accessed during
optimisation, PFS2 will stop the optimiser, which can continue afterwards. A dormant optimiser
can even be automatically notified when the system is idle, making optimisation completely
transparent.

improved testing procedures making PFS3 more stable and reliable then ever before.
enhanced documentation including programming docs (disk structure and special packets).
new versions of supplied tools (bug-fixes mostly), diskvalid etc
full support

early problem detection mechanism. The early problem detection mechanism detects problems with
your disk before it is too late, ensuring optimal protection of your data.

extended disk structure to make disk-repair easier
Comes on CD
PFS3 makes your Amiga faster!

nice work there ! :great

looking forward to integrate it into my miggies :agree (hmmm, now that I think again messing up all partitions, swapping data here and there ... :shocked maybe someday :p)

This is really great news. This is the best filesystem for classic Amigas. 68000 compatible, DirectSCSI. KS 1.3 compatibility is the only missing "feature" but perhaps it isn't too difficult when sources are available. (at least I am going to try..)

Well done gulliver :great

Excellent news, I might give it a go once it's "out".

First I stole PFS2, then I stole PFS3, then after I became an adult and got a job, I finally was able to buy a legitimate copy of PFS3, just because it ruled so much. :-)

It's been my Amiga filesystem of choice for well over a decade now, hope you guys pull this off!

SFS - not on my Amigas. :-)

Excellent news Gulliver. I cannot praise you enough for such a move and Michiel to be willing to make PFS3 public domain. :)

@Toni Wilen

Michiel seems to be having problems in retrieving the source files from the floppies. Would it be okay for you to receive such floppies and retrieve the files yourself and respect his distribution conditions, of course, this is an idea, I havent talked with Michiel yet.
The thing is that I am worried my floppy drive might kill those valuable floppies, and you seem to both have quite some good Amiga hardware, and enough knowledge to recover them if they have been somehow damaged during storage.

Can do and I am sure SPS guys can also help (if disks are already partially damaged)

Very good news.

Can I recommend that he send floppy disks to someone in his own country for recovery? I thought that international Parcels are routinely x-ray'd these days. Dunno but I heard stories this can wipe disks?

Fantastic news! :D

PFS3 is without doubt the best FS on the Amiga.

Thanks gulliver, would you please pass on my thanks to Michiel.

True, there is always risk of losing disks completely.

adfread (PC 2-drive trick) should be easiest solution if disks are error-free.

Good news. have to say I don't use it though. I have an original of pfs2, but, had some situations with pfs causing illegal memory accesses, and worse still on a couple of occasions the RDB being overwritten! (which I did have a backup of).

Still what with the current state of sfs being closed (at least the recent versions), and specifically the recovery tools etc, a new and improved pfs3 would be great.

@gulliver: great action, thanks for your successfull attempt and also thnx to Michiel Pelt :great

did you told him about adfread on the winuae hompage?

I have just replied to him:

Hi Michiel,
Thank you for your kindness and generosity. The Amiga community will certainly thank you a lot for your noble gesture, in fact, they are already pretty enthusiastic and thankful about this possibility.
How I wish you would still be developing Amiga software, PFS4 would have probably been such a great product!

Back to some answers: Aminet is the current source of Public Domain Amiga software, it is reachable at http://aminet.net/

It should be no serious problem to retrieve the source files from your floppies. With the help of Adfread 1.1 you will be able to read Amiga formatted floppies using "2-drive trick" on Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 PC. You may download it at http://www.winuae.net/files/stuff/adfread-1.1.zip
If not, there are other alternatives, and of course, you can always send the floppies to me, and I may retrieve the files for you. Anyway, I have even contacted some very skilled Amiga users, that have special hardware, that may even recover the files for you if they are somehow damaged or seem unrecoverable.

Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you go on with this endeavour and please keep me updated on how things are progressing.

Kind regards,
Ignacio

@gulliver: :great

Great news!
I'll be happy to switch from SFS to this. I don't see any problem with SFS to be honest, but the fact that I can use this in my 68000 Amiga 600 is much cool!

oh yeh. that's a good point. 68000 ftw! ;-)

OMG!!!

THATS AWESOME !!!!

+1 Gulliver and +1 Michiel


and its just bloody typical that this happens when I just learned how to use and setup SFS!!!!!

LOL - Awesome to the max - as a fellow lost forum soul would say!