OpenSource for Amiga.

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asian1 wrote:
>AmiZilla US$ 4000 fund

Hello
If there is a similar US$ 100,000 fund for OpenSource Amiga software developments, which software projects should be given priority?

Is it GeekGadget, OpenOffice, AbiWord, GTK, X-Windows, or others?

Is it better to port "commercial" portability tools first? (such as MKS, Bristol, QT others)

Before we need any Opensource Apps, we need an Open Source Operating system  :-D

Wouldn't you agree?

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dammy wrote:
by bloodline on 2003/5/28 10:18:57

Before we need any Opensource Apps, we need an Open Source Operating system

Wouldn't you agree?

I thought we already had one.  :-D

Dammy

We almost do :-D

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Dr_Righteous wrote:
Indeed, I too believe AROS is too important to be open source... Freeware and open to contribution, but not redistributable like Linux.

S'Just how I see it... *shrug*

Interesting frame of refreance there!?!? AROS will never be like Linux... For one thing we will keep the Distributions together. That is to say the cores should be all the same, thus all DI's should be compatible, differing in only look and supplied programs.

I don't like linux for many reasons, but one of these is that I can't get an x86 Linux binary and know it's going to run on my Linux box... but I do like the fact I can get the source code and compile it for my Linux box... Swings and roundabouts

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Tickly wrote:

If we obtain the AmigaOS in the bankruptcy this is what we will do:

I can't believe you posted that sentance in quite that wording, to be honest.

3. Give the AmigaOS to AROS!

You can't "give AmigaOS to AROS". Releasing the source code to the official AmigaOS would infringe all sorts of patents and licenses, or so i'm lead to believe.

I think they mean give the AmigaOS name to AROS, so we can call ourselves AmigaOS rather than AROS.

That's rather nice of them, actually. It's good to see some one with both sense and money.
If Gensi were able to buy the Amiga IP, it would be nice to think they would do everything possible to keep the Aros Dev Team together hint hint :-D

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Tickly wrote:
Well, its nice to some.

Personally, while I have nothing against AROS, I don't really think it should be the official successor to AmigaOS; having read the AmigaOS4 featurelist, *if* OS4 actually follows it, I think I would much prefer that.

Maybe if AROS copied some of those features, i'd agree  :-D

Which features are those...?

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I dont know why BBRV says this. Maybe he's just talking hypatheticly? In which case, i'll shutup, and enjoy the rest of the thread.

Everything is hypathetical until it's true :-D

Anyway, I am enjoying this thread. It's not often that a Company can make me smile with a few simple words.

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I can't comment on the font engine, but AFAIK, the exact same ARexx binary from 3.x will be included in OS4, and I presume they know what licensing needs to be attained to include this.

ARexx was third party, that can be relicenced. AROS chose to remake ARexx from scratch, Thus our ARexx is called Regina. And yes it is fully compatible :-)

As for the right-click patent, I was under the impression this was owned by Gateway, licensed to Amiga, Inc., and sublicensed to Hyperion.

The patent runs out at the end of this year IIRC, and notice that all AmigaOS 4.0 screen shots have shown the AROS style Menus (i.e. floating menus).

Actually, for the font engine, I presume you are talking about the bullet engine, not the whole Amiga font system, since the bitmap support is very much created to be easily done almost entirely by the Amiga's blitter, and hence would have been done inhouse.

Who needs that old thing, We have much better systems now.

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Tickly wrote:

Who needs that old thing, We have much better systems now.

I know, I was just not sure what was meant by "font engine", is all.

Indeed, anyway what about these so called "Feature" that AOS4 has that AROS doesn't have.

Cheers

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1) A JIT 68k emulation for starters. AROS can only run 68k apps on 68k.

Ok this is one we don't have any real plans for, but we have made sure it can be added is so desired, and the hardware is capable.

2) Unified input system. AmigaInput looks really good.

I think our Prefs system is certainly over a very high standard.

3) Resource tracking for memory, message ports, messages, and semaphores

Yup, AROS has RT.

4) Unified MMU interface (difficult to implement for a system with multiple CPU targets.)

Difficult one, as we have had many disscusions as to how this is best done, and since there are so many different types of MMU, an mmu.library has been considered.

5) Limited memory protection. Protection for critical memory areas; Kernel memory areas, all code areas, unused memory.

MP has been talked to death,,, we can add limited MP (as you mention) with realative ease, but old APPs won't like it or care about it, which totally defetes the point. And limited MP is only one step away from useless.

6) WarpUp emulation

Not applicable. This has never been a goal, no doubt, on a PPC it could be easy, very easy to write a warpos.library.

7) Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP): support for multiple CPU's

Yup, much has be talked about. And is certainly planned.

Multithreading

Hello, this is an AmigaOS clone :-D Of course you can multithread :-)

9) New library model with dynamic interfaces depending on the methods used to invoke the library by the application

We have decided to stick with the original AmigaOS library interface (it's smaller, faster and is just as flexable imho), but Fabio has plans to improve it... I personally don't think we need it improved (each to their own)

10) Fully virtualised address space

No, I don't think that is a planned feature, though I remember the PCI guys talking about something to do with this...

11) 3D drivers (Warp3D followed by Warp3D Nova)

Of course 3D drivers are being planned, though AROS has chosen OpenGl rather than Warp3D

12) The application library (something that should have been there since at least 2.x)

I'm not sure what you mean... I'm sure AROS has an equivilent.

13) Roadshow (although I understand other Amiga-like OS's will get this later)

Roadshow? if it can be compiled for AmigaOS 3.1, it can be compiled for AROS.

14) Mount Rainier support

I have no Idea what that is, see comment 13

15) AmiDock. I was never a big fan of Docks, but AmiDock in 3.9 won me over. 4.0 looks great, and from what I hear will be quite well integrated with the OS (for example application management through application.library)

see above comments.


This is correct to the best of my knowledge   :-D

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Anyway, this is all hypothetical until either AROS matures enough to be used as a main operating system, or OS4 arrives.

This I'll agree with you on. And is a good place to end the disscussion.

Still, I like what Bill and Rachel said :-D

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Now a BoingBall as apart of AROS' logo, OTOH, would be kinda nifty to see, IMO. ;-)

We'd all love to see the Boing Ball in AROS's logo... but unless Gensi are right, there's not much hope of that :-(

-Edit- Yeah, AROS has no need of the AmigaOS sources, except to speed up a port to the 68K maybe... :-/

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Edited by Argo: Reposting Flame

Please don't feed or repost other users flames/b]


That wasn't called for.  :-(

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Hmm, so Genesi are allowed to spout crap here, but Amiga Inc. aren't?  

Genesi made a Hypathetical statment... HMetal
 was was just being nasty.

-Edit- Anyway, I don't want to continue this. It's just flame bait.

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Argo wrote:
Yes, it is. After one little message too.

Let's get back to discussing the virtues of Open Source projects, such as the Amizilla Prize and such.

I think that OpenOffice is more important than Amizilla, but I guess much much harder to do...  :-(

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Dr_Righteous wrote:

Tickly wrote:

Nobody thinks 68k is the future. :-D

If somehow someone could come up with a 1GHz+ 68060, I'd go with that over anything else!

Facinating thought... A quick look at the Pentium III documentation show that the microcode* can be updated by the BIOS during the POST...
hmmm, my brain starts to wander... Some with expereince in PentiumIII microcode code could, I'm sure recode the PIII to become 68k compatible... of course there is the endieness issue :-? (which could be worked out, though I imagine at a performace price).
If the PIII can be microcode updated on the fly... maybe the Athlon64 could be too!!! :-D

BTW, if anyone did write a 68k compatible microcode update for a 1Ghz PIII, I'd by it from them in a flash!!! :-o

*Microcode is the lowest low level programming language of the CPU... the CPU instructions are coded in Microcode, and one can alter the CPU's instruction set by Coding the Microcode.