New improved intuition.library version from the Kickstart 3.1

[wawrzon]

Oh, so he does hold a license on intuition? I do not think so, but if you know better, let me know.

so far i see he only distributes patches to the intuition and the other libraries, which i think is legal, since he doesnt provide download to the binaries themselves, isnt it? sources are not open but that doesnt mean you must not rework reverse  engineered asm  guess.

now, i think it would of course be more productive if he provided bug report and you had fixed the bug yourself (if confirmed) in the next update.

on the other hand im not very found of cosmos tone of voice i must admit, especially when being polite might result in actual cooperation.

[wawrzon]

I would believe you are right if these are only patches. I don't even ask where owners of any other model than the one the patch depends on take the ROM file from, but that's probably not my problem anyhow.

i have downloaded the intuition and exec library archives here:
http://leblogdecosmos.blogspot.fr/p/coding.html

and the lhas contain *.pch files. i did not try to apply them but it looks positively like patches.

what concerns where the rom files are coming from there are rom and remus utilities to assemble and disassemble regular rom images from your hardware kickstart. thats how it is done too, i have done it myself on my my main a4000 system. the number of module versions contained in hardware kickstarts is rather limited even if sometimes hardware specific, so you only need few versions of patches. it was handled like this in all official and inofficial but though not illegal patches and "boing balls" for amiga system, you can collect from internet. could not find anything to nitpick on myself.

[wawrzon]

Not for the BoingBags I contributed to, I ensure you. The stuff there was compiled/assembled from official sources. Which is also a considerably more robust approach.

i trust you, but since the sources of amiga kickstarts and system libraries are not open we are left with no alternatives as to refrain to patches to keep it legal. its been some time since i fiddled with my a4k setup and, i must say, come up with a very stable improved custom kickstart including power windows functionality, so i dont remember what patches exactly i have applied, still afair the main ones were already included in doobrey's romsplit/remus archives.

i can assure you i have properly read out the roms of my a4k to create that kickstart if you insist;). of course i would prefer all that annoying hackery was unnecessary, the code was open and there was no necessity to reinvent the wheel from the scratch, just to keep it going like in case of aros, but alas it is not the case. i dont think the fans, customers and (be it bedroom) coders are to blame for this situation. on the contrary, from my observations the community behaves sometimes even over-loyal in comparison to rather limited support it can count on from various sources and for various reasons.

[wawrzon]

who cares if it even got worse, which i dont see happening. alone the availability of patches, that if carefully chosen leads to vastly improved os from a user perspective proves it right.
if sources along with proper documentation went public it could only improve on blindly and uncoordinated patching bits and pieces. open sourcing would probably at least provide a chance that it gets actively and competently maintained, as aros is. remember, before you became part of the amiga os team at its time you were one of these third party contributors, and neither before nor after proprietary nature of the system prevented it from design flaws and messy programming.

if you see open source as equivalent of coding anarchy btw, you can still build upon it and fork it to an "official distribution", be it closed source, like morphos does with parts of aros code.

however all this is void talk, since there is no chance in hell any sources were going open one way or the other.

[wawrzon]

I don't really think so. I believe if you'd know whom to ask and what to ask for, it should be very well possible to obtain them if you'd want them. Of course, this requires approaching people politely and having a reputation as software engineer (not as hacker), so I would assume that Cosmos is out.  

But anyhow, it's not my problem.  

I, however, believe they are. There are always methods to interact and approach the right people to get what you want. Not as open source, for certain. The guerilla type approach of course does not work. It is pretty much a matter of thrust.

maybe, maybe not. and frankly i dont think that there is anything left as alternative to what you call a guerilla type approach. since that is probably what you, maybe rightfully, consider aros development practices to be. except perhaps in morphos camp, i cant tell how organized that is. but observing the os4 development, it has definitely become guerilla playground by the looks of it. i think, that outsourcing practically the whole development to more or less skilled volunteers, because only a limited number and quality is actually available did not improve on the situation. from my initial even if brief experience as user and what i recall over the years reading forums i  cant defeat an impression my heavily guerilla style patched amiga was more dependable that the official os4 alternatives..

[wawrzon]

Or to have someone that pays for the work.  

That kind of rock where you get actual money for your work as a software engineer, and that kind of rock where clients get a contract for software maintenance, and a guarantee for stability and performance.

Look, I don't know how you make a living, but I myself have to work for it.

Thomas. We know you are a serious developer, but you cannot be serious here. For twenty years none could be found to competently maintain and finance amiga, be it understood as the os or hardware or whatever. The situation is not getting any better i am sorry. We are not talking of better choices. We are out of alternatives. Closed or open source will not make better maintenance possible anymore. It will just allow to preserve the code and allow still for an ocassional bug or fix. There is nothing to quarrel about. Serious development has ceased here.

[wawrzon]

Then, in the end, it does not matter whether the sources are released or not as long as somebody cares. Currently, they are closed, and I frankly say that nobody cares, at least not for the 68K branch. Sad enough. There are enough things that could be done if there would be a way to do that without actually causing irritiation by anyone.

but as soon as nobody cares anymore, then its usually too late and the sources will not be released anymore. the project is then abandoned for good.

we know very well that whoever claims to own the sources do not care for 68k. why should that ever change? but maybe its better this way, since none can be completely sure about the legal status of this ip. clean start is imho better to steer clear of the whole torrent of intriques that has plagued the platform.

[wawrzon]

he was referring to workbook.

what concerns thors involvemwnt with aros, alas its seems definitely better for various reasons he stays out of it. he still might be consulted in need. that should be enough.

[wawrzon]

@olaf

thats exactly the sort of legal constraints that are most likely intentionally put on people, probably without them noticing till its too late. probably thats the reason too so many contributors must have left completely afraid to switch to the alternatives.

@thor

cosmos is not exactly the representative for everyone who is interested in improving on amiga systems. on the contrary his position is rather known as orthodox and must not be used as example of what would happen if amiga software was open sourced, especially that exactly his approach would then not be necessary anymore.

also i think after some consideration there must be a place for everyone, one just needs to find an appropriate task for the given skills and character. it just takes some effort to align with others..

[wawrzon]

all fine and good but who these enemies of amiga may be?

[wawrzon]

Fortunately for me as user of the AmigaOS 3: No one is allowed to break the functionality of Intuition, because that what I would expect if once it would become unmaintained Open-Source...

why do you think that breaking backwards compatibility with some os element would be more accepted by community if it was open source? i feel quite the opposite. as long as it is closed source community has to live with design decisions of a small group, whether they are competent or not. open source involvement discussion and users feedback, i expect the decisions taken would be a good trade of between progress and compatibility, given in contrary to linux amiga depends on a pool of applications that cannot be adopted to random api changes. and even if it happened, someone would fork it for compatibility. as example see aros v0 and v1 and deadwoods work bringing v1 advantages to v0 on trunk where possible.

@matthey

+1

[wawrzon]

I see both sides of the argument

welcome back.

[wawrzon]

No. Worse. Actually, most of the stuff should be *removed* from the ROM.

im not exactly in accordance with this statement. yes, a lot of stuff might be moved between rom and disk, but dont forget amiga kickstart plays the role of bios initializing devices available at boot time and sicnce the setups are more various as the genuine it will be the question of flexibility and convenience to have drivers to access at least usb if not sata directly in rom. this as example, since i did that.

The only way to *solve* the problem is to make a clean-room implementation of the AmgiaOs code in first place. Yes, AROS does that. Thus, why not contribute there? Clean room implementation means: Person A will reverse engineer, will provide knowledge (but no code) to person B, who reimplements the interface as found from person A. To my very knowledge, this is a valid and legal approach to my very knowledge (but, IANAL). Actually, intuition interfaces are fully documented, thus not such a big deal. And if you want to ask people about internals, hey, you know where to look for.

exactly.

One way or another, I think it is a completely superfluous undertaking, only fragmenting AmigaOs further, without actually offering the chance to resolve any single problem the platform has.

not in my eyes, but if so, then its not the community fault. chances were there, for both sides, the enterprises and the consumers. if there was communication it could even actually take off for both. there wasnt. the community takes its path. sorry for those who missed the opportunity.

[wawrzon]

Main purpose of AROS/m68k kickstart really was just to have enough for launching games and demos with WinUAE, and for that it has come a long way.

that, and also aros has its own dynamics of development that happen mostly on x86. no wonder, 68k is maintained since not such a long time. it has its advantages, that features of the major platforms become eventually available on 68k, and it has disadvantages since 68k doesnt enjoy so much focus. but generally one gets along with the other, the aros modules improve on the genuine fuctionality while as i observe the developers care very much for backwards compatibility and it has greatly improved since 68k branch become active.

there is still a number of unimplemented features and there is a number of lacking speed optimizations, such as c2p conversions that must take place on planar displays because aros internally handles gfx as chunky afair.

this all will hardly improve if none gets engaged and everybody waits with hands in their pockets. the majority of aros devs is inerested to implement amiga system on fast up to date hardware, which is a reasonable goal, wouldnt try to convince them otherwise. for 68k it was a tradeoff from the start with. so if you want to have regular progress on amiga 68k compatible patform you must contribute to lobby of aros 68k active testers, users and devs. thats it.

[wawrzon]

I don't think they planned to port it back, or they would have done 68k first.

the aros team might not initially consider it a priority but it has advantages to x86 platform as well, researching and improving compatibility, directly comparing behavior and performance of critical parts and so on. from my rather regular contact with aros devs about it and i know they usually care, only they are also limited on time. unfortunately i know only of olaf reporting back to them on 68k subjects. if more people got involved or at least gave it some time and attention it could take off a little, still it looks like ppc emu on uae gets even more attention. not exactly encouraging.