Please open source all the things

[wXR]

Originally Posted by saimon69

Actually for me the point of AROS - missed by most - was not only to reimplement Amiga OS as open source and to do it cross-platform wise but also to offer open alternatives to the closed source toolboxes around: so you need a RTG? you have a cybergraphx reimplementation; you need MUI? there is zune; an open REXX reimplementation? we ported Regina, a 3D API? Gallium is here, and is working also as a gene bank to save some of the technologies that are not available for development.

All fair enough! By the way, I certainly mean no disrespect to the impressive pile of work that AROS represents. Indeed, it sounds like there is a good deal more there than initially meets the eye, and that better communication about that fact would greatly serve the project and the Amiga community as a whole. Wink wink, nudge nudge.

Despite the disagreements in here, I am feeling very inspired by this thread. It's good to see that at least some of the remaining active people may be inclined towards this new direction, which I think can only help.

[wXR]

"Planet Rocklobster", a new OCS/A500 demo by Oxyron from Revision 2015. From the readme.txt:

https://github.com/AxisOxy/Planet-Rocklobster

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=65355

[Korodny]

@wXR:

I read in another thread you want to compile a list of open source releases. I've been doing that for a while (only for games though), so here's what I got so far:

6tris++                   1999  (AMOS)    (PD)   (Info)  (Source)
Alien Bash 2              1995  (ASM)     (?)    (Info)  (Source)
Alien Breed 3D            1995  (ASM)     (?)    (Info)  (Source)
Alien Breed 3D 2 – TKG	  1996  (ASM)     (?)    (Info)  (Source)
Biker Babe From Barbados  1995  (ASM)     (?)    (Info)  (Source)
Dr. Strange 2             1995  (AMOS)    (?)    (Info)
Fire Power                1997  (AMOS)    (PD)           (Source)
Frontal Assault           1996  (AMOS)    (PD)   (Info)  (Source)
Gravity Force 2           1994  (ASM)     (?)    (Info)  (Source)
Imperium Terranum 2       1998  (Pascal)  (GPL)          (Source)
Knights                   1994  (AMOS)    (GPL)  (Info)  (Source)
Megaball 4                1995  (ASM)     (ASL)  (Info)  (Source)
Psycheual                 ?     (ASM)     (?)            (Source)
Solid Gold                2013  (ASM)     (PD)   (Info)  (Source)
Soliton                   1997  (C)       (GPL)          (Source)
Super Nibbly              1993  (ASM)     (?)    (Info)  (Source)
Yagg                      1996  (Blitz)   (?)            (Source)
Zombie Apocalypse         1992  (Blitz)   (?)    (Info)  (Source)

The list clearly shows that people need to be asked to put proper licenses on their releases: The column containing mostly question marks (and four "PD" monikers, which doesn't have any real meaning either) denotes the license used.

Without a proper license, the code can only be used for "educational purposes, i.e. studying it.

[commodorejohn]

Originally Posted by Korodny

Without a proper license, the code can only be used for "educational purposes, i.e. studying it.

Uhh, no? If someone puts something in the public domain, it's in the public domain. And in the US at least (and I think the UK?) copyright is a "use-it-or-lose-it" affair, so ambiguously copyrighted material can effectively be treated as if in the public domain until it's known that it isn't.

[Korodny]

Originally Posted by commodorejohn

If someone puts something in the public domain, it's in the public domain.

"Public Domain" is not a clearly defined term, AFAIK. Especially not if you're thinking global - there's no real "Public Domain" in Germany, for example.

Just check some releases marked "PD" on Aminet, and you'll get a long list of different definitions, ranging from "send me a postcard" to "non-commercial". In the list I posted above, James Daniel's PD releases have this condition: "If you modify it, you let me know." Not a problem, you might think - until you realise the specified mail address is 20 years old *.

If you want to preserve code for posterity and enable people to use it right away, you should pick a well known license. Doesn't have to be GPL, if that's too viral for your taste - but it should be compatible with the GPL and be approved by the FSF and the DFSG. There's a wide variety of licenses you can use that match these criteria.

The 2 clause and 3 clause BSD licenses or the Creative Commons licenses CC-BY, CC-.BY-SA and CC-Zero are all perfectly good replacements for "Public Domain" - and they're well defined and everybody understands them.

* (I know James Daniels, of all people, isn't hard to find. Just giving an example of problems you might encounter)

[commodorejohn]

Is it better to be clear and provide explicit terms-of-use for stuff you want to allow people to use? Sure is. But it's misleading to claim that unless this is done, it can't be used for any purposes other than study. Is it more ambiguous what you can and can't do with it when it's not released with explicit terms? Yep, it is. But there's still options, depending on where you live.

[Megol]

Originally Posted by commodorejohn

Uhh, no? If someone puts something in the public domain, it's in the public domain. And in the US at least (and I think the UK?) copyright is a "use-it-or-lose-it" affair, so ambiguously copyrighted material can effectively be treated as if in the public domain until it's known that it isn't.

Copyright is valid until either the copyright is transferred or released. In some places one can't simply release a work into the public domain so the only alternatives are transferring to another entity or allowing others to use the code under some kind of licence.

There are people that think copyright _should_ only be valid if using it in some way but that isn't the case. That means the concept of abandonware have no legal basis at all.

[phx]

I was also under the impression that making my sources public domain would be pretty clear to everybody. The header of each single file says:

* I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the
* public domain. This applies worldwide.

Isn't that as clear as a license? Why can't that be seen as a license?

[wXR]

Originally Posted by phx

I was also under the impression that making my sources public domain would be pretty clear to everybody. The header of each single file says:

* I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the
* public domain. This applies worldwide.

Isn't that as clear as a license? Why can't that be seen as a license?

Because there are so many possible interpretations of that. For example, are you OK with someone taking it, pulling out your name, and simply re-releasing it for credit, or even profit?

If not, then you need to be more specific than that, hence licenses.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by strim

I'm the owner of Sakura, some time ago I expressed my opinion about openness in the thread about Sonnet on AmigaWorld. It pretty much sums up my attitude.

When I produced the PCMCIA SRAM boards, did the fact that project is open impact sales anyhow? I highly doubt that.

Proponents of open source need to realise one important thing. Just opening everything does not magically solve the problems of our community. Sure, it often makes things easier, but the most important thing is getting people involved.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that are only good with writing stuff on forums, bitching and pretty much nothing else. But I'm not making the projects open to appeal these kind of people. What I care about is other developers, who (if the project was closed) in the future might have to reinvent the wheel. The most scarce resource in any computer community is the developer. Don't let this resource go to waste with constant need for reimplementation of existing things (or just figuring out how these things work)! It is also important for educational reasons, if we want our platform to survive, the new developers they need some examples.

In various Amiga-related projects I already had to reverse engineer, reimplement and rewrite existing things. I consider it a waste of time to write again something that already is out there.

Some hardware vendors are even refusing to release programming documentation. This is pathological situation. Fortunately a lot of new products are coming from Jens and he is doing a good job supporting independent developers with necessary information. I wrote NetBSD drivers for ACA500, X-Surf 100 and a couple of other products. It was a relatively painless process, compared to writing Mediator drivers where reverse engineering was necessary.

In the Amiga community there is some weird assumption that open source means the project must be non-commercial. At dayjob I work very closely with a major open source company. The amount of money they make is insane, and honestly I think it's more than all the Amiga companies make together... Could these methods be applied in Amiga community? I don't know, Sakura is a kind of experiment that will show it.



I think, what the closed model is currently doing, it's not accelerating but slowing down the development. We need to get out of this 90s mentality. Some project leaders need to realise that this closed-secretive approach makes it very difficult for other people to participate in development of existing projects.

Or even makes it difficult to create new things. Let's imagine I wanted to create a new graphics card for classic Amiga. Fine, I can make the hardware. But then, it needs to be programmed. The only viable OS3 RTG systems are Picasso96 and CGX. Can I just develop the drivers? No. Cause siikretz and driver development kit is not publicly available. Also see what Ratte wrote here. Crap, I don't have the time to reinvent the RTG wheel now, guess that graphics card project will be postponed.

PCI programming "standards" on OS3 are similar mess. Amiga developers managed to create a dozen of incompatible APIs through the years. All of them closed source (excluding the AROS one, but well, it needs AROS). OpenPCI is so "open" that it provides development kit publicly. At least that, but it's not nearly enough for more advanced projects anyway, like Sonnet. It's possible we'll have to reimplement PCI wheel for Sonnet (more about that here).

Concluding, I believe Amiga projects could benefit a lot from more open approach.

Interesting read, thanx. I can remember that bashing thread.

I am self-employed and when I have a task first thing is to look how world can be easier, if others have already solved my problem, are there components I can use. I also pay for components when I solve my problem with them because I save lots of time and time is money in business life. You can do more senseful things than reinventing everything.

And that is the problem in our community, we have "hobby projects" now. That is the case for all camps today including Hyperion. And in a "hobby world" being productive is not important because you are not paid for it. In a commercial environment people would work together simply because they would be forced to whatever they think personal about each other. In a "hobby world" you can celebrate emotions, aversions or even hate without limits.

Regarding opensource I do not think that it solves every problem but with such a small community you cannot develop a OS profitable so at least the basic infrastructure should be shared and open including all sort of drivers, most of the API, GUI toolkits, USB and PCI and others. It would have lots of advantages, all would be more stable, faster development, not reinventing the wheels, no incompatibilities and so on. All could still have closed addons or their own desktops. But as I wrote, we have a "hobby market" with no commercial pressure so it will not happen. All prefer to enjoy their ideology, "my rights", "I have the right", "the other could benefit from it" and so on and block each other. Really sad

[Korodny]

Originally Posted by phx

I was also under the impression that making my sources public domain would be pretty clear to everybody. The header of each single file says:

* I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the
* public domain. This applies worldwide.

Isn't that as clear as a license? Why can't that be seen as a license?

Like wXR already said: It's not clearly defined what "Public Domain" means. One example would be code mergers: can I add a GPL licensed mod player to your code (and thus make your code GPL too?). Can I go to a GPL licensed project and ask them to include your "PD" licensed double-buffering routine (they'd probably refuse, if they're serious about licenses)?

Granted, it's not that urgent in case of a retro game developed in m68k assembler. And since you're not an ass, another coder could simply make assumptions about what you mean with "Public Domain" and it would most likely be fine. But if we're asking developers to release their sources, we should also try to create an atmosphere where they can be sure that whatever rights they decide to keep to themselves will be respected, and that they will be properly credited for their contribution. And the way to achieve this, is to encourage people to use proper licenses and make sure others respect the terms of these licenses.

Btw.: Since you're German, you can't actually release anything into "PD"

Ah, forgot to mention: AMOS sources for AmiRobbo released on Aminet. Using the ever popular "Public Domain" license

[Megol]

Originally Posted by phx

I was also under the impression that making my sources public domain would be pretty clear to everybody. The header of each single file says:

* I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the
* public domain. This applies worldwide.

Isn't that as clear as a license? Why can't that be seen as a license?

Because public domain isn't defined worldwide And there are varying interpretations of it in places where it is defined.

In many places one can't simply give away the copyright in an open contract (which is what a licence text is).

Also at least in theory you may be sued for bugs or incomplete implementations etc. This is mostly an issue in the US but still...

[wXR]

Originally Posted by Korodny

Btw.: Since you're German, you can't actually release anything into "PD"

Huh? Can you explain that in more detail?

Originally Posted by OlafSch

Regarding opensource I do not think that it solves every problem but with such a small community you cannot develop a OS profitable so at least the basic infrastructure should be shared and open including all sort of drivers, most of the API, GUI toolkits, USB and PCI and others. It would have lots of advantages, all would be more stable, faster development, not reinventing the wheels, no incompatibilities and so on. All could still have closed addons or their own desktops.

Hear Hear!

[Korodny]

Originally Posted by wXR

Huh? Can you explain that in more detail?

(note that I wasn't completely serious)

The original meaning of "releasing something into the public domain" means giving up all your rights on it - the released piece of code is no longer yours. You, like anyone else, can of course reclaim it as your own and release it in whatever way you like - it's public domain, after all. But by releasing it into PD, you're giving away your original ownership rights.

Under German Law, it's not possible to give up ownership rights - at least that's what the majority of lawyers will tell you, not all of them agree on that one. You can of course hand out very broad licenses that for all practical purposes have the exact same effect - but if you apply the original meaning of "releasing something into the public domain", that's simply not possible in Germany.

[phx]

Originally Posted by Korodny

The original meaning of "releasing something into the public domain" means giving up all your rights on it

That's also my understanding of public domain.
So I don't understand the questions about merging it with other licenses or re-releasing it under a different name. Of course you can! It belongs to the public.

Under German Law, it's not possible to give up ownership rights - at least that's what the majority of lawyers will tell you, not all of them agree on that one.

I didn't know that. I really would like to understand the reasons behind such a stupid law...

[wXR]

Relevant threads:

Open-source dos.library:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=60181

Open-source graphics library:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=62731

Open source CLI commands:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=67120

Heart is in the right place, but again these are mostly bereft of licenses and attribution, so it is unclear what can legally be done. Let's try to clean this up a bit. It will take some hand-holding and effort to educate our community about all of this, but the end result will likely be worthwhile.

Has git been ported to Amiga 68K?

[strim]

Originally Posted by wXR

Has git been ported to Amiga 68K?

Nope, there is no working 68k port. For the projects where I need to access the source on Amiga, I just set up CVS server. Then set up automated CVS to git conversion that pushes all changes to git, as they are committed to CVS repo. SonnetAmiga repository works this way. It's actually developed on a real Amiga.

[Locutus]

I saw a while ago that someone is actually working on a git client for Amiga: https://github.com/sba1/simplegit

But i think its OS4 only, so well. have fun backporting

[daxb]

Originally Posted by Korodny

Under German Law, it's not possible to give up ownership rights - at least that's what the majority of lawyers will tell you, not all of them agree on that one.

And there is the problem who is the owner. What if I tell you that I don`t have the owner rights of something I released? Who has to prove that?

[wXR]

Originally Posted by strim

Nope, there is no working 68k port. For the projects where I need to access the source on Amiga, I just set up CVS server. Then set up automated CVS to git conversion that pushes all changes to git, as they are committed to CVS repo. SonnetAmiga repository works this way. It's actually developed on a real Amiga.

Wow that's pretty neat. Can you share the setup for that workflow somewhere?