Critical components to open source

[michaelz]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

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.

I guess it might be licenses as well. What if third parties did license their binaries to Commodore, but not to any party after the bankruptcy?

[grelbfarlk]

I consider PeterK's icon.library critical and that's one library not needed to license or rewrite. Even though it's freeware as you say it might not be GPL as you desire.

What about a TCP/IP stack? I have no idea what the license status of AmiTCP or it's different flavors is.

[gulliver]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

What about a TCP/IP stack? I have no idea what the license status of AmiTCP or it's different flavors is.

Amiga TCP/IP stacks are not great by any means. They arent worth saving IMHO.

They dont support any modern feature, and within time they will be rendered useless (no IPv6 support).

There are lots of very good open source lightweight TCP/IP stacks which could be ported and perform much better with more chance of being future proof.

I would say there is no benefit in making AmiTCP open. If you want a supported TCP/IP, just test and buy Roadshow from Olsen (be warned that it is not IP v6 compilant).

[Minuous]

Originally Posted by gulliver

these components were built by third parties and licensed, the extent of that license needs to be verified:

-Amigaguide document format

It appears any copyright relating to AmigaGuide was transferred to Commodore-Amiga: the original coder's site at http://www.reality-check-inc.com/aguide.htm, and the relevant parts of AmigaOS (both for binaries and sources) only mentions Commodore-Amiga as the copyright holder.

I don't think there is any point wasting money acquiring rights to the obsolete OS3.1. Acquiring rights to OS3.9 would make much more sense.

[michaelz]

Originally Posted by Minuous

It appears any copyright relating to AmigaGuide was transferred to Commodore-Amiga: the original coder's site at http://www.reality-check-inc.com/aguide.htm, and the relevant parts of AmigaOS (both for binaries and sources) only mentions Commodore-Amiga as the copyright holder.



I don't think there is any point wasting money acquiring rights to the obsolete OS3.1. Acquiring rights to OS3.9 would make much more sense.

I think someone should check this a bit further. That AmigaGuide was licensed to Commodore, doesn't mean the license was automatically transferred after the bankruptcy. Perhaps the license was to Commodore itself and not transferable to any other party. That would place the software itself back firmly in the original developer.

If the copyright and other rights where transferred to Commodore, it now should be considered part of kickstart and workbench 3.1.

[Korodny]

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

There's an English version here: http://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-...-00033-EN.html

[NorthWay]

I've said before (other places) that I would chip in $1000 and I stand by that.

Getting the sources to build is next to a non-issue - if that is your problem then you have already won, you're just doing the victory lap.
There should be _plenty_ of willing and able hands to work on that.
And 3.1 is a more than good enough baseline. Even AROS managed to come to that conclusion after years of lofty ideas.

[plasmab]

Originally Posted by NorthWay

I've said before (other places) that I would chip in $1000 and I stand by that.

Getting the sources to build is next to a non-issue - if that is your problem then you have already won, you're just doing the victory lap.
There should be _plenty_ of willing and able hands to work on that.
And 3.1 is a more than good enough baseline. Even AROS managed to come to that conclusion after years of lofty ideas.

Agreed. Building is work but its just work.

I think someone mentioned replacing the OS piece by piece.. I thought thats what AROS was?

If you can get a price agreed with whoever can sell the source then its kickstarter time basically. Count me in.

[nogginthenog]

The David Pleasance Kickstarter book raised £50K pretty quickly with 1,231 backers. This shows to me that there is still interest in the old beast. I'm in too.

[wXR]

My sentiments exactly nogginthenog.

[Marlon_]

I'll definitely back if a kickstarter pops up.

[michaelz]

Before a kickstart will be initiated; I would advise start the talks with for example Cloanto (who apparently owns the code for the original, copyright and the Amiga trademark) and get a written agreement for a price. This way they need to deliver if the kickstarter is successful. I would also advise to first check out what they make on Amiga Forever. Apparently they made 1 million dollar last year (check Hoover.com), but that is also for their other products. So I would estimate they make no more then a couple of ten thousand dollar a year on Amiga Forever and after discounting their costs for development licenses and legal advise, I can't imagine they make more then maybe $10-20k a year profit? Then maybe $40-60k should be a reasonable price point. But that's just a simple farmers math, not from someone with a lot of business experience.

[meynaf]

Hey people, do you really think those who try to milk the cow as much as they can, will accept to drop their rights for a few grand ?

[michaelz]

Originally Posted by meynaf

Hey people, do you really think those who try to milk the cow as much as they can, will accept to drop their rights for a few grand ?

I don't think they will drop it for a few grand. I do think everyone has a price and if you don't start any negotiation you won't learn that price. Whether the price is acceptable is what the other party is willing to pay or not. I do think if anyone is going to start negotiating he/she would also get some advice from someone who has bought companies and/or parts of companies before.

Added afterthought; if Cloanto could earn what they make in 2 years on Amiga Forever in one go with no effort but signing a paper, don't you think it would be realistic for them to give up their rights? They could still sell their "product" (repackaged win-UAE with some software), because they could also use the open source product.

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by michaelz

Added afterthought; if Cloanto could earn what they make in 2 years on Amiga Forever in one go with no effort but signing a paper, don't you think it would be realistic for them to give up their rights? They could still sell their "product" (repackaged win-UAE with some software), because they could also use the open source product.

They're probably not that smart. They want to keep the power.

[michaelz]

Originally Posted by meynaf

They're probably not that smart. They want to keep the power.

Yeah, I think so as well. On the other hand, they managed to "steal" the Amiga trademark in the us and are selling an open source product with a shell around it for years now. So apparently they are doing something a bit smart enough.

And maybe, they never got around to this because no one ever asked and really went into negotiations. I wouldn't offer it just like that if I were them as well. Would be a bit weird if they started a kickstarter to open source one of their top products

[Olaf Barthel]

Originally Posted by gulliver

Amiga TCP/IP stacks are not great by any means. They arent worth saving IMHO.

They dont support any modern feature, and within time they will be rendered useless (no IPv6 support).

There are lots of very good open source lightweight TCP/IP stacks which could be ported and perform much better with more chance of being future proof.

Sorry for the technical angle, but getting a TCP/IP stack working on the Amiga, keeping it working with the existing TCP/IP client software, is no mean feat.

The TCP/IP stacks which work with the Amiga client software are typically ports of the BSD kernel code, and this means that almost the entire kernel API existing around 1991 has to be supported, or your client software won't work (or will fail in interesting ways).

The typical lightweight TCP/IP stack doesn't have to support that much of an API, and replicating it is a real challenge. For example, some stack support poll(), but not select(), or select(), but not poll(). Rewriting a poll() or select() emulation is not a trivial exercise.

Because the Amiga has had Unix kernel TCP/IP software right from the start, back in 1987, porting it required cracking a number of challenging problems. This begins with making the TCP/IP stack's internal memory management work.

Why I am writing about all of this? You can't consider porting any modern TCP/IP stack to the Amiga (don't suggest writing one from scratch, please) without knowing about how one might be integrated on the Amiga platform. So, I believe it's important to save that code.

Incidentally, AmiTCP 3.0 is still on Aminet, and it's covered by the GPL.

[michaelz]

Besides a lot of discussion I don't see real action at this time. Tonight, if nobody opposes this decision, I'm going to start to gather the information to get anything done. First order of business; getting the right persons within Cloanto, Haage, Amiga Inc and Hyperion to do business with and requesting any information that might prove they have a stake in workbench and/or kickstart that has solid jurisdictional grounding. So between two parties that can be verified, or from bankruptcy with the proper paper trail.

[wXR]

@michaelz

As promised in other threads, I am going to contact the FSF about possibly working with them on the project after this week. Unfortunately no "Amiga Lawyer" has stepped forward thus far.

I would really appreciate to see you organizing the research into something we can hand over, as this will be a substantial task in and of itself (I planned to pay some kind of paralegal to take over as soon as it made sense to). The AmigaDocuments site is a good start, but it no doubt needs to be even further threaded. I don't see why this couldn't be done in public, as an EAB thread with something like a public GitHub repository (wiki) connected to it / able to be sent pull requests etc.

That said, I strongly suspect that Cloanto and Hyperion aren't going to say anything until they have to, or until they are tempted to. In other words, I doubt we will get much in the way of "proof" out of them until it is in their interest to provide it. That said, I am not familiar with European law, maybe there is something they are required to report upon being asked, etc. I am really ignorant of such matters. One could approach them about licensing, but that seems more than a little transparent. On the other hand, by all means do try if you feel compelled to.

[kamelito]

Why not compile AROS 68k to 68k asm the all OS and then hand optimize and enhanced it?
Kamelito