Roadshow for 68K -Needs your support!

[buzz]

I would think the majority of people these days use an adsl router, so amitcp can do the job ok. Back when roadshow was first announced, I would have been interesting perhaps in purchasing it perhaps, although I did already buy miami (far too much money!).

If it was to become open source, then I would contribute to a fund for that though for example. This would guarantee availability for the future, and allow people to improve on it if they desire. Guess that's not possible contractually for you, but just to say where my feelings are.

Seems there are plenty who are interested though, so I hope it goes well.

[buzz]

Yes, join forces, put aside old difference and nickpickings, set up a working group for implementing an open and modern TCP stack for all Amiga plattforms.

Just to be blunt, how much would be enough for you to hand out Roadshow sources?

I second this, but in Amiga (stupid) land, things like this never happen, which is part of the reason I moved on in many ways. It's not always the case of course, there are a handful of decent open source cross amiga platform apps, but tis not the norm

[buzz]

Could be worse. If I were completely free to make the software open, I could just dump the thing and leave it to its own devices. My suspicion is that it would stay largely untouched and unloved. The whole premise that once a package is open sourced great things are inevitably going to happen to it is too optimistic.

Sure open sourcing doesn't guarantee anything, but I don't see this being "untouched". I'm pretty sure AROS would like to incorporate it, and I can see 68k users getting involved too. For me personally, I find that I end up working on applications that I use that are open source, or at least contributing back something.

As you are unable to do this anyway, it's probably not worth discussing though right?

[buzz]

Or spend some effort on porting your own TCP/IP stack. If Holger Kruse and yours truly could do it, so can anybody else. Here's how:

Not sure I have the interest in such a project "from scratch" nor the time (and I have no doubt my level of Amiga coding is not up to yours!). Also seems a shame to keep re-inventing the wheel, due to licensing and the death on previous projects. I suppose a project like this would be good to learn the ins and outs of tcp/ip though.

[buzz]

Saying that it's a shame to reinvent the wheel when the last guy who made a wheel isn't going to make any more wheels inevitably leads to the cart breaking down. It may be possible to borrow or steal another wheel, but this will only get you so far. At some point somebody will have to make more wheels. And the best reason for reinventing the wheel has always been: to make more wheels.

Not sure this analogy works for me, but I think the point is there may well be people who would contribute to an existing piece of software, who wouldn't have the time to make something from scratch anyway. That's at least how I see it.

[buzz]

I dont get it, why so many people think open sourcing will save the world. It works well on platforms with large communities of developers and users but its not our current situation. Olaf is around for ages, take care, Raidshow works great as part of OS4, will work great as 68k tcp/ip stack, there are people who would like to purchase it.

So whats kolla's (and few others) problem?

Scuse anyone else for sharing opinions then on a "forum". I don't see how discussing the open source stuff affects you really. Even if it went that way you would get your roadshow.

I'm currently working on a large project with only 2 main developers. sure we could do with more, but we manage. the code has been written over the last 8 years by many more people, so these days we are looking after it mostly, and working on improvements for a next point release. other people chip in with documentation, skins, and other things. This can and does work - especially with software like this that people still want to use.

[buzz]

I suspect that this is just the tone of the community these days. Talk, talk, talk rather than do, do, do. It's so much easier to spin stories, to vent frustration in writing than to get out of the car, kick the tires, bend down into the mud and change the flat. You'll get dirty either way, but only one way will get the car moving again.

Maybe I've read this differently, but I've not seen the discussion as any bitterness. Plenty of devs have left the Amiga of course, but there are some left. As a hobby machine, with people with jobs and families, I guess you can't expect people to be hacking away in their bedrooms for endless hours on the next amiga release that a handful of people will run. It still happens but in smaller numbers.

I'm pretty sure myself and others in the discussion as well as talking, have also done plenty.

[buzz]

But what really strikes me badly on the belly is that some are crying to make Roadshow open source.
Who of you has got the knowledge that Olaf has in order to improve or apply bug-fixes to Roadshow?
If it goes open source I would speculate that it sooner than later has got so many bugs that it is not useable anymore!
If writing a TCP/IP stack is really that easy, why do you care about Roadshow at all? Write your own!
I admit that I don't have Olaf's know-how (for me it seems as if he is coming from an other star) and because of this I cannot write my own TCP/IP stack nor would I find the time to read about the essentials in first place.

It has been suggested as a possible model, no-one is crying I assure you. Due to the software license this doesn't seem possible anyway, but I don't see a problem in discussing various options.

 Your speculation doesn't make sense to me. You can still fix up code without understanding every single aspect about it (and learn as you go). No-one but olaf has suggested writing a tcp/ip stack is easy ;-) I wouldn't put it on my easy list.

[buzz]

Wanna try my Gentoo/m68k distro? It's all open source, runs on Amigas, is IPv6 enabled and all, just don't expect any support! :roflmao:

Did you build it on cheezy ? ;-) (I'm assuming its binaries right? no way I'm compiling x.org / kde on my amiga )

[buzz]

I think that speed is pretty impressive for an a600! (and for the other machines). I used to have my a500 connected via PLIP and that is much slower (and before that SLIP.. eek)

[buzz]

I recently moved 3 TBytes in thirty seconds when I replaced the two drives in my NAS ;-)

How did you manage that ? Faster than any HD's i've ever heard of.

[buzz]

Yes, but they are not so fast as to move 3TB in 30 seconds. However I've reread and I think this is geek humour. he "moved" 3tb by moving the disks. hoho

[buzz]

another argument against closed source on amiga. as soon as a developer of an essential element gets demotivated or limited by agreements the work must begin from the start. it is deadly in this tiny community. the only luck is we have got alternatives for about to everything.

there has been lots of stuff about not wanting to release as open due to quality control, documentation etc. but actually, if it had just been dumped on sourceforge, its quite probable by now the community, would have cleaned it up, made some documentation and a website etc.

can only hope something is done with this before we are in retirement homes ;-)

[buzz]

Well, my outlook on this is pessimistic. If it really were that easy, we'd have a lot more projects on sourceforge.net (or Google code, whatever) than is currently the case. Fact is, hardly anybody who went through the hassle of learning Amiga software development is still doing it, and the state of the platform being as it is, few people want to learn it.

Many open source amiga apps have become successful, been ported across multiple amiga platforms, and still get a little tlc even if not actively developed. however if you take the attitude there is no point, and don't do it, then of course, nothing will improve.

it's your project and your choice. but I think you are wrong regarding this. I actively work on multiple open source projects. it was the fact i could pick up and hack the code that got me started on them.

[buzz]

There is an Apache module I need for my web server.  While I have programming in my background, I do not have the time to tinker with the inner workings of Apache to learn how this module works or to recreate it.  The author is uninterested in updating his patch, and only a handful of Linux distros have maintained this module.  And those distros are useless to my Solaris installations.

doesnt sound like you are arguing against my case. whether or not the code was open, the original author has lost interest. at least someone can still maintain it if they want. if it had been closed, then tough and the situation would be even worse. the fact  you don't have the time is neither here nor there. you could if you really wanted to update the code, as could someone else. if it was something I needed, i would personally make the time to sort it, and I would feel that by being open it had benefited me as I was able to continue to use it.

what module btw ?