Open-source dos.library
 

I started open source project of dos library from Amiga ROM 3.1.
Here is available current version with source code:
http://wt.exotica.org.uk/test.html

This version is fully resourced, last code protections are fully removed,
I hope. Size of ROM and speed for 68000 a few optimised. Some bugs perhaps
removed too. All good ideas for size/speed optimisations or infos about
(original or my) bugs are welcome.

It's illegal in most countries in the world to resource an existing (commercial) software and sell/publish it as your own.

In Germany you may resource it, learn how it works and then write your own version, but you may not change and publish the existing thing. There are countries with even more strict laws.

I am quite sure a similar law exists in Poland.

Don, if there was any hope at all the current owners would ever make AmigaDOS 3.2, I'd ask you to send it to them. ;)

My suggestion is to talk to them. Take it offline, send it to them, ask permission if they can release it for use.

Maybe you've already done so?

I hope the misc. OS projects targeted for original Amigas work out, so we can get away from this hell-hole where owners "just want to sell a few more" without deving or caring. Some constructive way forward.

I'd like to quote The Prodigy on this:

"Fuck 'em and their law!"

But I think it would be pointless with all the vultures flying around waving their law-obedience flags...
PS. I'm not talking about you thomas :)

Plenty of vultures m8 that's for sure ;)

Thank goodness for the Amiga Community Police!

Are you sure you should not be on amigaworld/amiga.org etc ?

Indeed, who gives a shit, especially at this point. Given the profoundly rampant 'copyright violations' found everywhere online these days, this one is pretty damn mild.

It's useful, so why be a troll about it? (I -am- talking to thomas) :-)

I think thomas was just pointing out the legal obstacles that might interfere with good intentions. I think he's got nothing personal against updating dos.library...am I right thomas?

Well done. :great

Keep it going:agree

If someone of these "vultures" is flying around and is talking about a copyright protection of Amiga programs, like Thomas or me here, then we don't want to play the "Police" and say "You must not resource and publish..." but we just want to give a warning "Be careful with spreading copyrighted stuff...", because other people have already made bad experiences with the copyright owners in the past. Ask Piru for example what has happened when he tried to publish his Kickstart v44 or aPEX at a1k.org what the Amiga Copyright owners did when a1k.org tried to build a new Kickstart ROM and wanted to make it available.

It's easy for the "consumers" among the Amiga users to request updates of protected software and then leave the developers alone with the risks of a copyright violation. :nuts

and giving the warning brings all the wrong attention.

Not all countries have the same laws, just take adavantage of this.
And take the warnings, just a as something to consider from a positive selfprotecting legal standpoint. I see it just as a piece of advice from people with good will.

If money is not involved, and you are improving what you legally own, like in this case, in many countries what you are doing does not break any law at all, and it is absolutely permited.

i just feel such loud warnings and all the comments on top will bring the attention of the wrong people, and trouble will start (as it always seems to whenever someone tries to do something useful). we are all aware of the issues im sure, since we are still on a forum about a 25 year old computer, and this topic has come up a few hundred times over the years ;-)

Just gave the library a try, but my machine (A1200/ACA1230/OS 3.9) does not finish booting. After kicking the ROM-image I only see a black screen and booting does not continue. If I reboot and boot with "no startup-sequence" in Early Startup Menu I get to the CLI. But first a requester asking about ENV appears and afterwards the CLI-prompt is not shown, though the CLI can be used.

don, with your knowledge from ressourced dos library you could help out with aros(68k), true open source approach to improve on original amiga os. clean room would have to be kept because aros has to maintain legality. one of the members is toni willen here, the rest can be contacted via aros dev ml or aros exec. i think it would be best to bundle forces in this direction, even if aros, meant to be portable, is not written in asm for the most part. still critical optimisations might perhaps be accepted.

otherwise legal distribution of improvements or fixes to a particular library is perfectly possible in form of patches.

The vultures I was referring to are those who ENFORCE the copyright/whatever law (of ancient software), not those that just express their concern about it. So PeterK don't understand me wrong :). And keep on improving that icon.library :)

The vulture police will not always strike, it depends how they feel and if it will benefit them.

@Bamiga2002
Pardon, seems that I really misunderstood you. I would be glad if I could get rid of this damned copyright for the icon.library, but atm I'm too lazy to analyze, optimize and rewrite the very last library function (PutIconTagList() ;) because it consists of another 1300 totally boring code lines created by one of these terrible C-compilers. After that final task has been done the library would become OpenSource.

Next version is available.
My three bugs fixed, all "link A5,#-4" commands removed some other changes. Size a few optimised, speed a few fastest.