Didn't I say exactly that? Whatever...
Yes you did, as if it was a novetly, something you have discovered just recently.
Thus, which type of goal do you have in mind? AmigaOs being separated into a pile of unmaintainable junk?
Is that not what it is today already? The goal I have in mind is just that people can be allowed to do with it whatever they see fit without having all kinds of threats and slander thrown at them.
Look at the arbitrary discipline of your average Amiga hacker, look at Cosmos. That's exactly the type of problem I do not want - people picking up the code, making changes without even asking, releasing stuff they should have coordinated.
I have no problem with that, over time, quality stands on its own merits, that is exactly how it works for example with Linux.
If the AmigaOs community would be somewhat more coordinated, disciplined and well-behaived, all fine. But it's in general a very unfriendly environment for stable software. No, I *do not* want five incompatible shells, ten incompable workbenches and six incompatible icon libraries because coder A doesn't like the style of coder B or is even too lazy to write a report.
What you describe, we already have in AmigaOS, 3.5 and 3.9 introduced a whole lot of incompatibility, OS4 is even worse in that regard. Features of both Workbench and shell has come, vanished, reappeared etc. And all this within "official AmigaOS".
The problem is that quality is not allowed to win, again and again the "official developers" have messed things up and created lots of trouble. Trouble that could have been avoided if development could have happened in the open so that _all_ developers and users could have a saying in what what solution we want, in what direction we want to see the OS advance.
Linux and the Linux kernel development are pretty resistent against such problems, at least most the time. That's because a good deal of the people that work in this environment are professionals that know how good software is written, and that it sometimes requires unfriendly decisions. Still, if I get a "no" for a patch I want to make to a well-maintained source like the kernel, I take it as a "no", and I can only say for myself that I probably do not yet understand the problem well enough to realize why my solution wasn't correct.
Noone stops anyone from forking the Linux kernel and it happens all the time, distributions typically has a whole lot of their own kernel patches that they maintain, the different architectures developers have sets of patches they maintain as they slowly get them merged into main. Those professionals you write about used to be a bunch of happy amateurs too at some point, they were allowed to learn and advance and Linux evolved into what it is today. Just like you are now learning by submitting kernel patches. I have maintained a whole bunch of linux kernel patches for myself (and for the company I work for) up through the times, to deal with things I care about in the kernel (ipv6 autoconf, alsa, drivers for various arcaic hardware etc). Same with software on Linux and BSD.
In Amiga-land, it is apparently already asking for too much if you request a bug report before a patch is made.
Yes, when most developers ignore such requests, have bouncing email addresses etc. In real world it is quite common to create patches and distribute them, because sometimes getting proper solutions upstream takes time. Why should this be different on Amiga?
So what's your expectation of how well that's going to work? Mine is "not at all" because even if I would say "No, please do not make this modification because..." people like Cosmos would do it anyhow.
Yes, and why is that a problem? The freedom to tweak and mess around as much as you like is _exactly_ what should happen.
The features I see in his intuition patches are pretty bad ideas, but I don't even want to discuss because it's pointless to discuss with people like him - you don't reach them, so I don't even bother.
And noone would be forced to use his code, anyone can chose what to use themselves. With code out in the open, you don't even have to discuss with him, anyone can look at the code and there will be concensus about what makes sense and what doesn't. Also people have different needs, for some uses one solution makes a heck lot more sense than "the official" - this is why there in "Linux land" exists so much diversity.
So why would I want even more trouble by giving away sources? I *do* give away sources to people that are professional enough, and to whom I can talk. That worked well in the past, and it will continue to work well. Thus, if you are interested in the stuff I wrote, have an idea what you want to change, come, explain your ideas, if we agree, you get the source. Yes, really. All provided no legal constraints involved.
What do you mean "no legal constraints"?
Yes, it sounds arrogant, I know. But believe me, with a couple of years of software development behind me, at least I learned a bit about what works and what does not, and Open Source can work, in the right environment, with the right people, and a good project management. We don't have that here, and you see that everyday under your nose. What else does it take than this thread to prove it?
There is no difference to open source and closed source when it comes to "the right environment, with the right people, and a good project management" - that goes for any project. Do you have any idea how many Cosmoses there are around in the FOSS world? A LOT! And some of them are backed by Companies with agendas. Just watch the current systemd turmoil. Still it works, because people have options.
Because of legal nonsense and the hostile attitude among certain developers, the Amiga community was never even given the chance. Luckily at least some people realized this so AROS was born.
