Consequences of the AmigaOS 3.1 source code "leak", one year after?

[Pentad]

Given the delicate situation, this is unlikely, and not even desirable.The Os requires a maintainer, not a bunch of hackers. Unfortunately, it is not exactly going to improve the situation by idling, as it currently happens.

Thomas, I have to disagree with you here. :-) I think the best thing that could have happened to the Amiga is if the OS had been open sourced early on.  People could have forked it and then worked on whatever parts they wanted. Those changes then could be ported back into the main tree if deemed valuable.

I would even argue that had this occurred early on the Amiga might be in a better position today as there was far more interest in it years ago. Open sourcing the AmigaOS could have been an engine of change that sparked both software and hardware. There was a lot of interest in the late 90s and early 2000s when it was still considered viable.  The Amiga community was the most valuable asset the machine had.

However, open sourcing the code now is just too late. You are not going to draw anyone into the community now just because the OS is now open.  I can understand keeping your code locked up if you are doing development but just letting it stagnate for so long seems narcissistic. Sadly, it seems to be a recurring theme in the Amiga's history.

Just my opinion though...
-P

[eliyahu]

Thomas, I have to disagree with you here. :-) I think the best thing that could have happened to the Amiga is if the OS had been open sourced early on.  People could have forked it and then worked on whatever parts they wanted. Those changes then could be ported back into the main tree if deemed valuable.

I would even argue that had this occurred early on the Amiga might be in a better position today as there was far more interest in it years ago. Open sourcing the AmigaOS could have been an engine of change that sparked both software and hardware. There was a lot of interest in the late 90s and early 2000s when it was still considered viable.  The Amiga community was the most valuable asset the machine had.

AROS has been around since the mid-90s. doesn't that sort of deflate the argument a little? AROS is open-source, and as much as i like it, it hasn't exactly set the world on fire. in fact it's still 3rd in popularity in the amiga world behind the other two closed-source options.

However, open sourcing the code now is just too late. You are not going to draw anyone into the community now just because the OS is now open.  I can understand keeping your code locked up if you are doing development but just letting it stagnate for so long seems narcissistic. Sadly, it seems to be a recurring theme in the Amiga's history.

it isn't stagnant at all. it has been continually developed -- albeit not at the pace most of us would prefer -- by H&P and hyperion for more than a decade now.

-- eliyahu

[kolla]

I ask again - with binaries floating around that were built using the leaked sources - why are the legal owners not doing anything? Maybe it is because not even they care anymore.

[Rotzloeffel]

Pff... the OS was made by a bunch of hackers and is currently maintained by a bunch of hackers, such as yourself.

LoL, you compare Cosmos as a Hacker with Thomas as a developper :roflmao:

[kolla]

in fact it's still 3rd in popularity in the amiga world behind the other two closed-source options.

Based on what numbers exactly?

[kolla]

LoL, you compare Cosmos as a Hacker with Thomas as a developper :roflmao:

I did not mention Cosmos. Thomas has stated many times that he thinks _all_ open source projects are done by a bunch of hackers and not developers. In his view, there is no such thing as open source developers, developers are people who are hired to do closed source projects.

[eliyahu]

@kolla

you're right; that's a fair point. i don't have any solid data to confirm that. i guess i assume that based on interest level on the common forums, third-party software development, number of developers, and interest level at the amiga meetings/shows i have attended. so it's just a subjective feeling. for all we know AROS could be massively popular and just have very quiet users.

-- eliyahu

[kolla]

I have visited friends and colleagues who wanted me over because of issues they had with some game on WinUAE, and it turned out were using the built in AROS kickstart, which works for quite a few games and demos, but certainly not all. Do such people count as AROS users?

[billt]

(Careful: there could be legal strings attached to answering this question, so you might consider your options when posting answers here)

Too bad the good answers will be scared off...

[kolla]

Code: [Select]

$ grep Commodore boingbag3.9-3\&4/boingbags3\&4.readme
Cloanto. Likewise, the intended/tested Kickstarts are Commodore/Village
BindDrivers               38.2       ->  42.1               Commodore
Clock                     40.1       ->  42.1               Commodore
iffparse.library          40.1       ->  42.2               Commodore
Sort                      37.3       ->  42.1               Commodore
Wait                      37.3       ->  42.1               Commodore
Film24 monitor driver                    40.1               Commodore
led.image                                42.2               Commodore
MacPaint datatype                        42.1               Commodore
narrator.device                          37.8               Commodore
PCX datatype                             42.1               Commodore
Say                                      38.5               Commodore


[Pat the Cat]

So wait, by Pat's logic, if you distribute someone's copyrighted source code, you are in infringement, but if you distribute the binaries (compiled or 'translated'), you are okay?  I mean the copyright is on the pre-compiled TEXT according to him.  

That would pretty much change everything on how software copyright works.  Hell if that logic works, people download compressed (translated into computer 1s and 0s) music and movies that should also not be considered copyright infringement, right?

Not a personal attack, just wondering because if there is a translation clause out there, you could actually argue the difference and maybe push for a more sane copyright on the binaries.  Afterall, binaries do become useless after so long, while source code could be tweaked and updated to work with newer ssystems.

Not quite what I wrote. Compiling directly on the unlawfully derived, but released to the public domain, is a no-no, if you want to distribute the final article. You wrote (compiled or 'translated').

Translating, then compiling, different matter. Very hard to prove direct copyright infringement. Some USA States courts you could still be in trouble.

One other thing I noticed, Cloanto claimed all IP made by CBM up to 1993. 3.1 was released (and still being developed) in 1994. So I really will have to write those letters and ask the various claimants to put up evidence of a claim to the source, or at least indicate the route of their claim, from CBM to themselves.

So far, seen nothing, I think all parties assumed the source was destroyed already when they reached their current arrangements. Or, possibly, when CBM was first broken up, the solvency people sold the copyright to the code to an unknown individual or agency. I guess I'd have to check with them for that.

(sigh)

[kolla]

So far, seen nothing, I think all parties assumed the source was destroyed already when they reached their current arrangements.

Huh, I am curious... where have you been since 1994? It has been quite well established knowledge that the sources have been around all the time.

[Rotzloeffel]

Thomas has stated many times that he thinks _all_ open source projects are done by a bunch of hackers and not developers.

Ahh, so I missunderstood ! Sorry!

Thanks for clarification !

[guest11527]

Did Microsoft blackmail the original rights owner into handing over the Windows rights for free?

Do you now the business practise of microsoft? I believe they pretty much blackmailed manufacturers of PCs to stop delivering systems with any other operating system, such as Os/2. Like it or not, this is buisiness, and I don't think the word "blackmail" is correct.

The settlement agreement - which details exactly what they got - is publicly available.

Do you have a source available?

None of these components "went" to H&P, the authors sold H&P a non-exclusive  license to distribute them with 3.9. These licenses automatically expired after 10 years, which means all the rights have gone back to the original authors years ago anyway.

Sorry, but contracts were individually negotiated. You certainly do not know my contract, and the contracts were pretty convoluted. As far as completely independent components are concerned, i.e. third party contributions - you are likely correct, except for the time span. For my contributions, the time span is two years. For system component upgrades, however, the situation is much more complicated because you cannot separate the upgrade from the original component, even though the contract tried to do that in some convoluted sense I do not remember exactly. Thus, in particular, *I do not own* the Amiga Shell even though I made contributions to it for 3.9. I neither *own* layers.library.

The only parts of 3.9 H&P ever owned were the stuff they wrote inhouse: The new installer, a few prefs programs (IIRC) and documentation.

That might not be totally correct. As said above, you certainly do not know my contract.

As long as it is "for the Amiga", people really don't care about proper licensing. Not too much of a surprise IMHO, given that most of us were socialised by crackers and the warez scene...

The problem is: You do need to care if you want to make it available public in any particular way. And no, I was never part of "warez" or "kool koderz" in any way.

[guest11527]

IThomas has stated many times that he thinks _all_ open source projects are done by a bunch of hackers and not developers. In his view, there is no such thing as open source developers, developers are people who are hired to do closed source projects.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying exactly what I said above: "AmigaOs needs a maintainer, not a bunch of hackers". And that's exactly going to happen if you open source it.

Look at Linux: It's a nice operating system for developers. It's a poor operating system for end users. The average open source guy develops for his particular needs, and not for the need of the user - which means that anything that is of utter importance for creating a working software infrastructure is ignored: Stability of software interfaces.

The GNU/Linux system - and I do not talk about the kernel interface in particular - changes on a daily basis. If you get a binary from yesterday, you do not know whether it will continue to run today because somebody surely played with the interface of some system library somewhere.

This is not acceptable for an end user product - breaking legacy software isn not an option, and even less so in the Amiga environment which only has legacy software.

Examples? Ok, here are two: Years ago, there was a nice XMMS plugin to play Amiga "chip" tunes through an UAE interface layer. XMMS changed the plugin interface when porting to Audacity for no apparent reason, and the player broke. I took great effort to port it to the "new and improved" Audacity interface then - for my own needs - just to find out that the open source "hackerz" changed the interface *right again*. Why? There was no reason to - it worked the way it was.

Examples? Just got a new SCSI2SD hardware here, with some linux software to install it. System is a pretty stable ("rotten"?) Debian system. Does the software work out of the box? Of course not! It misses "libudev.0", except that Debian runs (since ages) libudev.1, the next version, with a different interface. Why was that breakage necessary? Was it really necessary to create "just another incompatible" interface for udev?

If open source coders had some discipline in keeping their software interfaces stable, linux could be a much better system - but that is not the development goal of open source. The customer is not the user. The customer is the coder.

Now, consider what that means for the Amiga "market"? It means - already - a lot of frustration due to a lot of incompatible software floating around, and a software infrastructure that consists entirely on legacy software.

This sounds like a plan for utter failure for me. If you want open source, nothing beats Linux. I'm using it myself, works for me. But that's a different market with different goals, and that should not be confused with the Amiga ecosystem, which is something entirely different. I *cannot go along* and change the interface of "layers" just for the fun of it, and break old code. It's a big no-no.

[kolla]

Nice rant about how much distaste you have for Linux, now provide examples of how brilliant closed source products are