AK-Datatypes In Development

[amigakit]

Recently, AmigaKit Ltd acquired AK-Datatypes.

Since then development has been ongoing and we are very pleased to confirm that the package has been internally updated significantly.

The development will continue and a new public release for OS3 will be made shortly.

The  question we have is should we release this as free downloadable archive  to the Amiga community and ask for a small donation to cover the costs  of ongoing development?  Alternatively should we charge a nominal fee up  front?

Our initial thoughts are to release it for free, and if  we get enough donations then proceed to the next revision and so on.  If  we fail to receive enough donations then move to a commercial model to  sustain it's ongoing development.

I welcome the feedback.  Please  indicate if you would be willing to support this project by a donation  so we can gauge the response.

Thanks!

[Orphan264]

Greetings!

It would be helpful to know what "AK-Datatypes" is, and how it might benefit me.

Sorry for my ignorance

[TribbleSmasher]

This one looks like an easy to understand summary:
http://www.mfischer.com/legacy/amosaic-paper/datatypes.html

[TribbleSmasher]

Or in short:

Version 3.0 added datatypes support which allowed any application that supported datatypes to load any file format supported by datatypes. Workbench could load any background image in any format if the required datatype was installed. A tiny application called Multiview was included that could open and display any supported file. Its capabilities were directly related to the datatypes installed in Devs:Datatypes. The established AmigaGuide hypertext system gained more usability by using document links pointing to media files, for example pictures or sounds, all recognized by the datatypes.

https://www.wikizero.com/en/AmigaOS

[psxphill]

It would be helpful to know what "AK-Datatypes" is, and how it might benefit me.

https://aminet.net/search?name=ak&path=util/dtype

[giZmo350]

Datatypes are something I do struggle with as I don’t like to willie-nillie load my OS up with DT’s I don’t understand. I have tried various DT’s from AmiNet without a whole lot of success. That’s where an all inclusive, functional, clean, manageable & easy to understand DT package would be so brilliant.

When you state “small” & “nominal” that leaves little to go by for the target consumer. Only you know the cost of your current development. Also, in either case (donation or fee), you should be able to guesstimate the return on investment. IMHO, the donation method can sometimes come up a little short and inhibit updates. However, if the fee were truly affordable and would ensure continued updates in a timely manner, I, myself would rather pay a set price for a quality product (I have never used the product you acquired). I would even be willing to throw in a few bucks for updates if it were as easy as using PayPal and downloading.

Could you maybe give us a clue as to what an upfront fee might be? I think that would really get you more feedback. 

Also, thanks so much for the development of this product. Any ETA on release? Any thoughts on how it will be distributed? Please make it easy, maybe just by logging on to AmigaKit for payment and download. Maybe also offer it on floppy (just a thought there) through AmigaKit.

So, anyhoo, I vote for upfront fee.

BTW, your link is dead…. 

[amigakit]

Thanks, link fixed.

We were thinking of maybe $5 to $10 for each development cycle/major release to cover the ongoing developer costs assuming we have enough interest in it.

The AK-Datatypes package was last updated way back in 2009 before we took over development this year.   Our developer has already brought akPNG and akTIFF  components up to standard with the latest LibPNG, ZLib.   The JPEG datatypes are now being worked on.

Once the hard work of catching up from 10 years ago is done, then smaller, frequent updates will be much easier.

[kolla]

Can one expect updates to land on aminet, or will they vanish in the obscurity of AmiStore?

[my_pc_is_amiga]

I would be okay to have a small charge.  Would also be nice to have some updated sound datatypes as well that work with 3.1.4 (WAV, AIFF) but don't think that is part of AK.

[amigakit]

After a year of development and struggling "in the dark" without any documentation, the datatype.library has been built from the ground upwards.  It has been a long journey and hard work but the same developer who created a new sound datatype for us has gone further and created a modern datatype library that can be built upon going forward with some exciting new features.

The collection of AK-Datatypes, datatype.library and sound datatypes for our Classic systems are now progressing to beta test.

[TribbleSmasher]

So it will be called the 'AKdatatypes.library', to not get confused with the systems own datatypes.library?

[amigakit]

No, it is a replacement and enhancement for the system datatypes library.

[NinjaCyborg]

Include the DTM_WRITE method please do you can convert files

[Bladejack]

commercial model suits me fine, would rather pay for a quality product and support it.

[kolla]

So AmigaKit are developing their own datatypes.library in parallelle to OS developers extending and improving the official datatypes.library - or is this coordinated so that the above mentioned library is the official one shipping with OS 3.2?