Critical components to open source

[grelbfarlk]

PeterK's icon.library, we can't have one person (however benevolent) distributing his critical piece of software as a "freeware". It MUST be purchased and GPL'ed and handed to an undying consortium in a perpetual safe trust for all of eternity.

[wXR]

I sense sarcasm in your tone there grelbfarlk, but to confirm: for sure I am not interested in anything but a GPL license for any of this stuff. As far as relicensing rights, etc, I really don't care about it or want to support that. I want a GPL fork of AmigaOS and all components, period.

[gulliver]

@wXR

I really understand and support your desition. Hopefully you end up achieving it.

As has been mentioned, there are some AmigaOS components that have not been homebred by Commodore. Many of them were licensed, and this may proove to be a showstopper in many cases.

I dont know its current situation but as far as I know these components were built by third parties and licensed, the extent of that license needs to be verified:

-Amigaguide document format
-Arexx was made by William S. Hawes
-CrossDOS was made by Consultron (which closed doors)
-Say was made by Simile Research
-CDTV specific components were made by Pantharay
-The Commodities concept and its library was originally made by Jim Mackraz
-There is still some MetaComCo code lingering here and there (Peter Mackeonis)

And the list probably goes on.

On the legal aspects, why dont you ask the Free Software Foundation or any other NGO that pursues open source for advice?

[wXR]

Gulliver,

Thank you friend, this is exactly what I was looking to uncover in this thread. Your small, incomplete list makes it easier to understand why this is so complex, and to what extent we will have to reach a bit for the stars if this is to be completed *in total*.

You also have a very fine idea there about asking the FSF for legal support. I will absolutely do that. I am still keen on finding an "Amiga supporter" to help us on the legal side (both for passion and possible cost-savings), but approaching the FSF for a recommendation may in fact be a better route in the first place.

Can you tell me, (unofficially of course, because you've never looked at it ), if source for all of those components is in fact in the leaked AmigaOS 3.1 source package that is floating around?

[michaelz]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

Regarding how well the GPL would serve the community, I look at UAE. Originally released as GPL. And while yes, this means that there are too many forks to count, in reality this does not hurt us. In the end, there will be a person or group with the most dedication and passion and they will end up with the dominant release. If UAE was not released as GPL, would we have WinUAE today ? An if WinUAE was not GPL, would we have FS-UAE etc ? The Amiga community is really only alive today IMHO because UAE was GPL.



The GPL is the only license to use if we want the sources to actually be "free" and never end up in the same situation.



However the points about this not being possible are unfortunately true. It it more than likely that some parts of the source are sub-licensed, and not able to be released under a different license by the current license holders.



Of course, this wouldn't prevent the rest of the code from being re-licensed.

I tend to disagree. There are tons of open source licenses to choose from. BSD, LGPL, MIT, Apache and lots more. GPLv3 might hurt the community, GPLv2 is quite okay. Every license has is pro's and con's.

[michaelz]

Originally Posted by gulliver

@wXR

I really understand and support your desition. Hopefully you end up achieving it.

As has been mentioned, there are some AmigaOS components that have not been homebred by Commodore. Many of them were licensed, and this may proove to be a showstopper in many cases.

I dont know its current situation but as far as I know these components were built by third parties and licensed, the extent of that license needs to be verified:

-Amigaguide document format
-Arexx was made by William S. Hawes
-CrossDOS was made by Consultron (which closed doors)
-Say was made by Simile Research
-CDTV specific components were made by Pantharay
-The Commodities concept and its library was originally made by Jim Mackraz
-There is still some MetaComCo code lingering here and there (Peter Mackeonis)

And the list probably goes on.

On the legal aspects, why dont you ask the Free Software Foundation or any other NGO that pursues open source for advice?

I think this is somewhat troublesome, but on the other hand; the core (kickstart and workbench) first and then the third party components can follow. I think kickstart and workbench itself isn't that hard to pursue, the parties that could claim any right are relative easy to find.

Third party components might be quite more troublesome and could quite possibly be replaced with open source variants or might even be used so little that there is no real use for them anymore.

Tackling something like that in one go would probably hurt this project. As this might kill interest.

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by michaelz

I tend to disagree. There are tons of open source licenses to choose from. BSD, LGPL, MIT, Apache and lots more. GPLv3 might hurt the community, GPLv2 is quite okay. Every license has is pro's and con's.

I agree there are some potential issues with GPL3 that might scare away some people.

GPL2 has a proven track record with Linux. All the other licenses would be better than where we are now, however with some of them we could end up with closed source forks, still better than where we are now.

[wXR]

@alpine9000

I would prefer to pursue GPLv2.

@michaelz

I agree with your assessment there.

[michaelz]

Maybe this is interesting for this discussion as well. Hyperion appears to be busy with some trademarks (my German is a bit too rusty) http://www.amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-...-00033-DE.html

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by michaelz

Maybe this is interesting for this discussion as well. Hyperion appears to be busy with some trademarks (my German is a bit too rusty) http://www.amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-...-00033-DE.html

That is interesting. My understanding of GPLv2 is that there are no restrictions in selling derivative work. With that said I can see an issue with retaining the word "AMIGA" on the GPL'd source should it ever happen because other parties have trademarks on that name. Just my 2 pence.

[michaelz]

Originally Posted by plasmab

That is interesting. My understanding of GPLv2 is that there are no restrictions in selling derivative work. With that said I can see an issue with retaining the word "AMIGA" on the GPL'd source should it ever happen because other parties have trademarks on that name. Just my 2 pence.

Probably the name Commodore is everywhere as well and that is in a lot of other parties hands.

[wXR]

Yes, it should be no problem to sell derivative works, as long as the terms of the GPL are adhered to.

[alpine9000]

Of course, even if we are successful at getting all the sources, being able to build them is another story.

From what I can tell it was a massive effort to build them in a way that (a) worked, and (b) fit into a rom.

Not saying this to be negative, more just for people to be prepared for a big technical challenge in the event that the legal obstacles are overcome.

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

Of course, even if we are successful at getting all the sources, being able to build them is another story.

From what I can tell it was a massive effort to build them in a way that (a) worked, and (b) fit into a rom.

Not saying this to be negative, more just for people to be prepared for a big technical challenge in the event that the legal obstacles are overcome.

As a starter for ten I would try to build the modules inside the 3.1 rom one by one and then test them using existing binaries for the remainder....

i.e. start by building exec then use that new exec with what you get when you romsplit a KS3.1. Rinse and repeat for all components.

[ascp]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

Of course, even if we are successful at getting all the sources, being able to build them is another story.

From what I can tell it was a massive effort to build them in a way that (a) worked, and (b) fit into a rom.

Not saying this to be negative, more just for people to be prepared for a big technical challenge in the event that the legal obstacles are overcome.

Well, one person on this forum has vast knowledge about that, and has actually replaced the whole build before. I am not saying he would be interested in doing that task again, but im pretty share he would share some of his knowledge about it - and he already has in some other threads.

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by jonathan

Well, one person on this forum has vast knowledge about that, and has actually replaced the whole build before. I am not saying he would be interested in doing that task again, but im pretty share he would share some of his knowledge about it - and he already has in some other threads.

I would imagine (very happy to be wrong) that there will be an NDA with hyperion preventing that from happening.

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by jonathan

Well, one person on this forum has vast knowledge about that, and has actually replaced the whole build before. I am not saying he would be interested in doing that task again, but im pretty share he would share some of his knowledge about it - and he already has in some other threads.

Yeah, I read one of the write ups.

The most concerning thing was the need to use a specific version of the Greenhills C compiler. That would be an absolute showstopper for an open source project.

So the alternatives would be modifying the source to use a more accessible compiler, or modifying a compiler.

[michaelz]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

Yeah, I read one of the write ups.



The most concerning thing was the need to use a specific version of the Greenhills C compiler. That would be an absolute showstopper for an open source project.



So the alternatives would be modifying the source to use a more accessible compiler, or modifying a compiler.

Both cloanto and Hyperion have pushed updates to the original 3.1. So both should be able to provide information on building the code and that should also be part of negotiations with these parties.

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by wXR

Gulliver,

Can you tell me, (unofficially of course, because you've never looked at it ), if source for all of those components is in fact in the leaked AmigaOS 3.1 source package that is floating around?

Yes, the sourcecode leak contains the source of those third party components.

Be warned, that the leak is a disorganized mess.
And recompilation requires lots of expertisse.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by michaelz

Both cloanto and Hyperion have pushed updates to the original 3.1. So both should be able to provide information on building the code and that should also be part of negotiations with these parties.

Cloanto didn't recompile any of the original code. They just replaced some of the modules with already existing updates and created a new ROM based on those, removing workbench.library in order to make space for the replacement components. Whether that's because they don't have the expertise, don't have the source licence or don't have the will I don't know.