Layers.library V45 on the aminet

[OlafS3]

Isn't that another way of saying it's not a solution? Anyhow. It's not really that I'll stop anyone from contributing, I'm even happy to answer questions if I can. Please understand that I have limited time and limited possibilities to contribute.

No it is not... it only shows that many of the few that are left are stubborn und unwilling to invest in something new even if it might offer future

[OlafS3]

As often, this is really a matter of perspective. Especially on "future". Look, I probably should not open up this discussion, but if I really seriously consider what the future should be - at least as far as computing is concerned - then it is not Amiga. It's a nice hobby, for sure, but it's not the future of computing. It is the past of computing.

Future means for me a OS that is in development, new users and perhaps reach a stage where it becomes interesting for small companies. We will never get the big million dollar games or be mainstream again. But even a niche can be interesting. Time will tell.

[OlafS3]

Even 10 years ago Amiga was pretty poor shape, 20 years ago they should have done things different, 14 year ago they wasted too match time with OS3.5 and OS3.9, they should moved to PowerPC sooner. 10 years ago Appel moved to Intel, and PowerPC desktop market shrunk. While PowerPC is not dead its not what it used to be.

Even 14 years ago PPC was predictable a dead-end. They should have moved to the dark side (=X86) then.

[OlafS3]

Predictable ? Well some did not agree with this predictions.

PowerPC back in 1998 was doing about the same in the benchmarks as the Intel chips.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMac_G3

MacOS9 / IMac G3 perty muth saved appel from bankrupcy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2rXhKncGRU&list=PLozRe3PHsxkUzla6CtOex3mCwPZs6UtSD#

Power Mac G5 came out in 2003, and was the one thing that made Appel look to Intel, if I remember correct it was late, this way Appel went with to Intel.

It was predictable because money rules the world and big numbers decide in the chip industry. At that time the PC market was already far ahead in volume and investment. G5 is not bad, I think a little power hungry and I do not know if it was competitive on price but as long as the software runs on one core it was and even is not bad but nevertheless it would have been a better choice to use X86 or have at least a option to change ISA if necessary.

[OlafS3]

It means that somebody must maintain it if there is a demand. Quite obvious? Isn't it that I said multiple times that I'll try to look for a solution? Hacking up the software to infinity is not a solution because it leaves an unmaintainable junk of garbadge. Now tell me again I won't look for solution.

Simple question... who maintains it now or will maintain it?

[OlafS3]

He could sue you for breach of contract if you didn't pay out. If you own nothing and have no income then being sued is not a major problem.



You still misunderstand, it wouldn't stop you getting caught. It only covers your expenses if you were caught. Generally it's only going to cover civil law rather than criminal law (where you end up in prison).

As far as I know patches are legal as long as you do not distribute a modified version of the original. The aminet is full of those. I also do not really see the problem, people are not forced to use them and as Thomas said noone is developing on the platform anymore (except that he wants to make some bugfixes). From a technical point of view he is certainly right but it is basically a abandoned platform. I think both sides have shared their opinion and we should stop that topic here and return to the topic of the thread.

[OlafS3]

That is the problem, you're fracturing the user base.
 cosmos isn't just fixing bugs, he's changing fundamental behaviour as he sees fit. This will make software work differently. If someone does come along and starts writing applications for the amiga then it's going to be a nightmare to make sure it's compatible with all the different hacks.
 
 Getting people on the same page was one of the reasons for OS3.5 & 3.9 in the first place.

Fixing bugs is ok, making it faster is ok, adding new functions is already a little problematic, changing behaviour of existing functions is very problematic indeed. It makes testing much more difficult. Perhaps Cosmos and others should do their own shared libraries?

On the other hand, you cannot do anything against it and people are responsible for themselves. People know that Patches are risky and make everything less compatible (or at least can).

[OlafS3]

There is no official way, whoever wants to do something with AmigaOS for m68k are free to do so, offering patches like Cosmos is doing is perfectly legal and I prefer that people like you stop pretending that it is not. You say you will try to clean up things and do it the proper way - well, then quit talking about it already, and do it, and then show the community what you have managed. You have had 15 years already, dont expect us to quietly sit here doing nothing, we are all getting old and gray while you are "trying". You have been told many times, over and over, that the community prefers open source. You have made it clear that you are scared of open sourcing AmigaOS components, you do not trust the community, you look at us as unworthy and uncapable. What a shame that you are such a wuss. You have also made it clear that you are no longer developing, only maybe fixing a bug here and there if you feel like it. You are not advocating a protocol for development, that is a protocol for stand still.

The community prefers open source? Really? Where is the help regarding Aros 68k? I read lots of excuses why not helping but noone jumping in.

Thomas has said that people should either do their own library or at least not change the existing API. That sounds reasonable to me.

[OlafS3]

First or all, that is a huge IF, and secondly, no, it is no more a nightmare than what we have had the last 20 years now.
 


In that respect they were total failures

Perhaps there are reasons why standards are defined, don´t you think? Microsoft f.e. develops new .NET versions but it is still compatible to prior versions. Developers would jump on their heads if they would "patch" the API all the time. I do not want to compare the situation but it makes sense not to change existing API (even if you think to have good reasons for it) because it might lead to strange errors that are difficult to find for the software developers (who has not installed the patch). "If" you change the API then either add something or do your own library.

[OlafS3]

>The community prefers open source? Really? Where is the help regarding Aros 68k? I read lots of excuses why not helping but noone jumping in.

I'm interested in working on the proper AmigaOS, not some half-baked clone of it. Probably others feel the same way. Why spend years coding all the missing functionality into AROS just to get us to the point we are already at with OS3.9?

>There are three branches of AmigaOs where you could contribute. Os 4.0, Morphos and Aros. Now, please take your pick.

OS4 and MOS are not open source, and their developers probably wouldn't welcome unsolicited binary patches. So I'm not sure how people are supposed to contribute to them.

>Or you can also try to talk to owners whether releases are possible, a forth possibility. As you can see from the very theme of this thread, I did this and I succeeded. For one library. Apparently, you're still demanding more. It's a slow going, what exactly do you expect?

It might be possible to get sources to a few components by this method, and I certainly do appreciate the effort you are making, but it is never going to lead to full sources for the whole OS. The only realistic method for achieving this is a H&P bounty for the release of OS3.9 sources.

It is NOT a halfbaked clone how you call it. I say you have never really used my distribution and are just throwing phrases. And to be honest I do not care about classic hardware anymore and will not push in that direction anymore. Be happy with your 3.9 (or whatelse)...

[OlafS3]

>But then make it less half-baked by contributing to it.

I don't see the point of rewriting ReAction, Installer and all the rest from scratch when I already have them...I don't really have time to do that and write applications too. Even if I did, there's no reason to think they would get put into AROS, as it seems fairly clear that they are MUI zealots, standards be damned. Plus even a complete reimplementation would still be just a reimplementation, not the real thing.

>You need to talk to the people and offer your service. The result will not be open source, though. You'll probably need to sign a NDA or some other form of contract.  Or only if you *also* invest the same amount of work. Yes, it is *really* that simple.

Why would anyone want to do unpaid work on a piece of closed-source commercial software which is still being sold!? In the case of OS4 I don't even have a machine that will run it (not having a spare $5000 or so lying around), so it's out of the question. And as you point out, the result still would not be open source.

>I'm just saying that your demand is quite unrealistic.  
>But again, if you want something somebody else spend a lot of time and sweat in building, you shouldn't expect to get this for free.

I'm not demanding anything, what am I expecting to get for free? I have pointed out some of what's missing from AROS which keeps me on OS3.9, from a user perspective. I'm not demanding anyone else implement this, it seems obvious after 15 years that it won't be implemented. They're wondering why people don't want to use AROS, and I'm giving them the answer. As simple as that. Surely I have the right to say why I don't use something without having to volunteer years of unpaid labour on a piece of software I don't even like. By that logic, if I say why I don't like Windows, I have to go do unpaid work for Microsoft.

>Well, then set this up if you think this is going to work. I don't know how much you're going to pay for that, but if you can pay out Animo and/or H&P, and the developers that contributed to 3.9, that may also work.

I wouldn't be able to contribute much but I would certainly put some money towards such a bounty. I don't know whether I would be the best one to negotiate with them on the community's behalf though. I'd rather such an important bounty be managed by someone who has already a proven track record of managing bounties, if that's at all possible.

More on topic, I can confirm the incompatibility of Birdie with the new layers.library. Do you know which of the two components is to blame?

I do not understand again what you are saying. As long as we talk about Aros 68k (and this thread is about 68k) you do NOT need to reimplement installer because you simple copy it in C and it works. And on the same way you can add ClassAct (I have not tested Reaction because it is not free). And you can add MUi 38, the same way, and BGUI and ... that is how I created my distribution. Aros 68k on its base (minus Desktop) is reimplementation of a core 3.1. installation including Roms and AHI, CybergraphX 3, Intuition, Gadtools, dos.library and so on. You can easily replace Zune, you can use another desktop, you can do almost everything with it. It is not devil, not "ugly" how you called it. I do not understand your attitude and why you do not react on other comments. You said everything is missing and I asked you to name a few of what is missing. I still await the answer.

[OlafS3]

>there were some successful larger aros bounties (open sourcing poseidon usb stack) and two or three other bigger bounties (dopus magellan and odyssey), all organized by people whom you are arguing against, olaf as example. the bounties were successful because the people in question actually did something instead of bragging and demanding. and remember magellan bounty has not been met. the owners agreed to lesser amount. and now you are talking abut the bounty for whole operating system. it will not be another ten thousand dollar bounty im sure. if it was i might have been interested few years ago when there might have been enough people to support it. anyways if you want to risk money parked on some account for years, go for it and try, but judging by this thread alone there isnt much interest anymore.

I very much doubt they would want >$10000 at this point, considering they have left the Amiga market. I'm not "arguing against" anyone, simply having a discussion, much less "bragging and demanding". So explain what have I bragged about or demanded from anyone?

>takes much more time than just posting in forums, which is what people are primarly interested in so why really bother.

Yeah, right, that's all I do, go look on Aminet or my site then before making such stupid statements.

>why fork? you can just contribute the missing classes and mui and reaction programs will work fine side by side like they do on aos, or are you demanding to remove the feature of mui compatibility altogether losing this functionality, because you hate it?

It shouldn't be included in any AmigaOS replacement as it has never been a part of AmigaOS. If people want to download it they can, no one is stopping them.

regarding H&P from last contacts I had Mr. Haage is not interested in anything amiga-related anymore. And if the legal situation around 3.5/3.9 is similar complicated than in other amiga-related products it would be complicated to get it free (including problems with AmigaInc. and propably Hyperion who see themselves as the official successor). And you would propably need approvals of all contributors who are propably partly difficult to find and even if have no source codes anymore. That is what I experienced when I tried to contact former amiga programmers. It is all a long time ago.

And regarding MUI (or in case of Aros Zune), there are much more MUI programs than Reaction programs and Classact works in Aros (propably even Reaction but I have not tested that).

"pretending it's somehow equivalent to the official AmigaOS though."

I have explained it, Aros 68k (if you replace the Desktop) is Amiga, Aros is basically 3.1. API + additional Features/Patches. You do not use the nightly on Aros (they are just for testing) but the distributions. You do not like Aros because the devs prefer MUI to Reaction as GUI toolkit? You can add classact, you can add Triton, you can add BGUI, you can propably add Reaction too. You do not need to reimplement installer because you just copy the file.

Examples of GUI toolkits:
http://www.aros-platform.de/html/gui_toolkit.html

Examples of Raytracers running in it:
http://www.aros-platform.de/html/raytracing.html

partly free available, partly included

I do not understand your aversion to Aros, at least for the 68k version. X86 or ARM are different because you can only include software that is reimplemented/compiled for it and that requires sources that are often not available.

[OlafS3]

A very old OS no less, not to mention the fact that 68020+fast mem can do better than AmigaOS (a new, from scratch, incompatible OS, of course). I wish this whole AmigaOS thing would just go away, but no, we're stuck with it


I'd say: 'Don't let the party poopers spoil your day.'

are we really? Most software already runs on Aros 68k, as long as you do not really need certain patches you do not need it anymore. I have amigaforever installed and only use it for testing anymore. Ah and I use the roms in my internal test distribution in Whdload.

[OlafS3]

Not what I meant. The owners of said software obviously decide what they do and don't do with their property, and I'm not complaining about that. What I am complaining about is that we're stuck with AOS on our 68k Amigas, while something much better is possible, where we're also not tied to AOS anymore (including Aros). I'm not specifically not talking about other old software.

What classic hardware do you use? 68020? 68030?

If people would at least help testing and send logs to Toni Wilen there would be a higher chance that Aros 68k (and expecially the Roms) would be improved. If only Wawa does something it is hardly motivating Toni Wilen to do something on it. If something is missing report it or set up a bounty for it, if there is enough interest there is a chance that somebody cares for it. Complaining about the situation is not enough...

Ok I understood you wrong, you do not want anything amiga-related. I think you are on the wrong forum now :-)

[OlafS3]

Not what I meant. The owners of said software obviously decide what they do and don't do with their property, and I'm not complaining about that. What I am complaining about is that we're stuck with AOS on our 68k Amigas, while something much better is possible, where we're also not tied to AOS anymore (including Aros). I'm specifically not talking about other old software.


Yes, Aros is an AOS derivative after all, and it would be nice to be able to get rid of that completely, because 68k can do better than AOS and Aros.

Get rid of anything amiga-related?

I think I read there was Unix on 68k revived, use that. But for me personally it would not make sense, I can use it on X86 already.

You "could" modernize AmigaOS (or any other related OS) but then you risk that no software runs on it anymore. Then you have a kind of BeOS with zero software, what sense would it make? A "proof of concept"?