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Author Topic: The Os 3.1.4 Thread  (Read 241058 times)

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Offline number6

Re: The Os 3.1.4 Thread
« on: September 22, 2018, 03:29:12 PM »
@Thomas Richter

Just for historical purposes, in case anyone is unaware of past and present discussion:

AmigaOS 3.1.4 beta!

Perhaps it will offer some worthwhile ideas for discussion.

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Offline number6

Re: The Os 3.1.4 Thread
« Reply #1 on: September 23, 2018, 03:23:49 PM »

Does the 3.1.4 changes I presume all fall under the ownership of Hyperion?  So any work you do for them is automatically assigned copyright to them?

I believe these are questions that Thomas would prefer to be discussed outside of the context of this thread.

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If, however, you have any official question regarding warranty, support, legal questions... go, ask the official sources.

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Offline number6

Re: The Os 3.1.4 Thread
« Reply #2 on: September 27, 2018, 02:44:01 PM »
I assumed that OS 3.1.4 won't contain most BB2 updates (Reaction, Amplifier, and several others)
It will not contain any extternal contributions that were made to 3.9, nor anything H&P developed in-house. However, fixes to Os core components that arrived through the BoingBags are included to the degree we could, either directly, or indirectly by re-checking the defect reports from back then and re-integrating appropriate bug fixes.

For example, H&P shipped in 3.9 a customized printer.device, which we did not have, so we had to restart the work on this component, which turned out to be a much longer and tedious job than we originally hoped. This is probably another story...

Workbench was also updated by H&P, but there is a later version from Olaf, plus more bug fixes, we include. So the workbench is in a post 3.9 state, and the printer.device is, too. The 3.9 version for example never worked reliable with my Nec P6 (or actually, any slow printer), but the new version does.

Reaction and components using reaction are not included, though. We don't have reaction.

Did you or Olaf speak to Detlef Würkner (tetisoft)?
I only mention this because we went through most of these issues concerning printer during AmigaOS4.x development, and he surely did a lot of work on this.

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Offline number6

Re: The Os 3.1.4 Thread
« Reply #3 on: September 27, 2018, 03:38:36 PM »
@Thomas Richter

Thank you very much for your detailed response.
One related item popped up in our long discussion during OS4.x work performed  by Detlef:

Are there any known conflicts with Turboprint?

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Offline number6

Re: The Os 3.1.4 Thread
« Reply #4 on: September 27, 2018, 03:57:51 PM »
Are there any known conflicts with Turboprint?

I haven't tested, but the interface of the printer.device is still the very same interface CBM defined in v39, except that we have now more than one possible back-end printer we can serve (as in 3.9). Thus, clearly, you cannot use the 3.1.4. printer drivers for TurboPrint, but that is old news and was always like this. Other than that, I do not quite see in how far it could conflict. TurboPrint just replaces the printer.device completely, so how could it conflict?

re:prefs

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TurboPrint installed? IIRC it messes with the prefs

Forgive me if I'm a bit behind as of any status change since 2006.

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Offline number6

Re: The Os 3.1.4 Thread
« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2018, 04:43:21 PM »
@Thomas Richter

Different topic. Pardon me is this has been mentioned here or on eab, but it's related in the sense of "sources".
Has a new icon editor been developed, or is the intent to use iconedit as it stands?

This is not a big issue to me, but I get questions...

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Offline number6

Re: The Os 3.1.4 Thread
« Reply #6 on: September 27, 2018, 05:12:21 PM »
Did you or Olaf speak to Detlef Würkner (tetisoft)?

Not to my knowledge. Porting code from OS4 is a thorny issue indeed.

Some of the earlier work on OS4 (2003-2007) was still built and tested on 68k machines before it was ported and developed further on PPC hardware. This is code which is both useful or interesting and likely to port easiest, but it is also code which has not been touched in more than 10 years. I still believe it would be a good idea to look at what we have in the archives, but code review and rework are guaranteed to follow. As small as the team was, this was not always an option.

Another constraint results from the code ownership. We can only work with material for which the author and owner consents that it may be adapted. So far we have limited ourselves to material for which the author's consent had already been granted or was easily obtained. Please do not assume that the "easy way" was at all easy in the end. It was "just" a trade-off in terms of time and manpower. Even something seemingly simple such as the whole set of tools and drivers for mass storage devices (e.g. scsi.device, HDToolbox, ProdPrep) quickly ballooned and required that we seek advice before finding an acceptable solution to apply fixes and enhancements. This kind of thing happened again and again over time. And the HDToolbox saga, for example, still is not over -- some of the work we began has in fact turned into research projects.

If anything, the Amiga operating system and its components are, or have become over the course of a decade, more demanding of finding clever ways to resolve their shortcomings, or to find robust workarounds.

Right. I'm aware of that and obviously am aware of the code ownership restraints. You are to be commended for finding workarounds.

I only mentioned/linked to detlef because at that time we seem to have encountered similar issues to what you are discussing...lack of sources, working with a binary only, issues with prefs, etc. I just happen to see a lot of parallels in the struggle.
I thought perhaps if all of detlef's postings from that era were examined, you might find something helpful, or perhaps an issue not considered yet.

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Offline number6

Re: The Os 3.1.4 Thread
« Reply #7 on: September 27, 2018, 05:57:12 PM »
Different topic. Pardon me is this has been mentioned here or on eab, but it's related in the sense of "sources".
Has a new icon editor been developed, or is the intent to use iconedit as it stands?
Neither - nor. We did simply not have the capacity to develop a new one from scratch, nor did we have the sources of the 3.9 one, nor reaction available. So, what happened in the end is what happened with many components: We took what we had (the v40 version) and fixed as many bugs as we could find. Which were also a number, such obvious ones as forgetting a WaitBlit() such that the editor rendered nonsense, broken picture import functions, incorrect handling of rtg screens and a couple of others I would need to look up in the release notes.

This is pretty much the theme of 3.1.4: It looks very much like 3.1 looked, but we tried however our best to iron out all bugs we could find. There are only very few components we did not touch - some of the shell commands did not require a change. Probably the half of them has been updated to support the new features such as working softlinks or long file names.

The problem is: If you have so few active developers, and only partial access to sources, it already takes a long time to review all of the Os. In this case, almost three years, "all in".

I'm aware of the lack of sources there (iconedit), but it was a good idea to state that for those who were not aware.
I understand fully from what you and Olaf have written what the 1st step is, and that future enhancements depend upon success with this version. (repeating that so you don't get any new feature requests. heh.)
As far as "problem is", that's also something I don't think we should dwell on, since it only distracts from your sincere desire to help.
Thank you both for all of your hard work over the years.

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Offline number6

Re: The Os 3.1.4 Thread
« Reply #8 on: September 28, 2018, 02:00:42 PM »
@olsen

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Personally, I feel uncomfortable to "mine" the work of other developers for clues instead of asking them directly

I agree. My comment about postings refers only to the fact that years of public discussions where we all attempted to better one another....are just that...public.
Therefore, looking at that public information should not fall under your concern of code ownership or anything related to same.

Not being aware of the degree of interaction nor the rights to do so between folks working on "classic" vs "NG", I posed an admittedly ignorant alternative means to acquiring information.

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Offline number6

Re: The Os 3.1.4 Thread
« Reply #9 on: September 30, 2018, 02:27:27 PM »
 

Offline number6

Re: The Os 3.1.4 Thread
« Reply #10 on: October 01, 2018, 03:00:45 PM »
Apologies in advance for somewhat off topic, but I'm concerned about this:

@bubbob42

Would you please do something about the facebook page.

By having the April posting as the last current legal status, how can one draw any other conclusion that you still have an issue re:

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As of today "AmigaOS Workbench 3.1 (40.43) for desktop Amiga" is available again as digital download ! For now only in the European Economic Area but we are working to go worldwide again soon.

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It is not meant to replace our official website, support forum, development blog or other resource, but to complement them

How does the above information "complement" the official website?

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Offline number6

Re: The Os 3.1.4 Thread
« Reply #11 on: October 04, 2018, 03:44:23 PM »
Anyone know why the Hyperion page still charges VAT for those that live outside the EU?

Source

Only Hyperion's "fullfillment partner" will respond to that apparently.

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Offline number6

Re: The Os 3.1.4 Thread
« Reply #12 on: October 23, 2018, 07:26:13 PM »
OK so attempted to purchase 3.1.4 for my 3000 and 1200..  Made the purchase (Of course my money is taken with zero issues)
Then when I try to download it says I need to create a new account.  So I do this and it says OK click on the link in the email we sent you.
I received no email.  Checked multiple times and even tried to create account again and no dice.  So the account was created but I can't activate.

So I go to the forum and apparently they are having some kind of issue sending emails and are getting blocked.  So I try to ask a question in the forum and of course I need to create an account and guess what?  Yep I will need to click on another email that never arrives.  And NOWHERE on the site is a place to reach anyone if you have issues.

So exactly how is anyone supposed to download their software with this situation?

Would you please give a direct link to forum where this issue is being discussed?
Thanks.

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Offline number6

Re: The Os 3.1.4 Thread
« Reply #13 on: October 28, 2018, 04:37:19 PM »
@thread

To all inquiring about the changes:

Olaf/Olsen

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Offline number6

Re: The Os 3.1.4 Thread
« Reply #14 on: June 21, 2019, 01:21:15 PM »
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What is the problem with distribution? You can buy it, in multiple ways. With ROM, without ROM, electronically, physically, as you like. At that point, you started to provocate. Questions nobody here can answer

Not entirely true re:answer. Everything may change with time, but the legal docs are clear.
The request for injunction to prevent release was denied.
In layman terms rights revert to time prior to the filing of the suit basically.
Therefore there is currently no problem with the distribution.
Please don't make me cut and paste from the docs. Just accept it.
There really are other threads to argue the lawsuits themselves.

#6