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[Rant] Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one tableANN.lu
Posted on 20-Mar-2004 15:38 GMT by oGALAXYo16 comments
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I would like to promote my idea how we all could benefit from this. I have made a nice large comment on MorphZone yesterday with an idea how we can improve the community and present ourselves better in the public. Later on I was thinking a bit deeper about how many duplicate work we are doing too because of no real organization. We are alienating ourselves as a community because of some silly ideals and we do damage ourselves with it.

I have peeked over to the AROS code for a while and saw that there are quite a lot of nice Open Source (and Free Software) projects maintained in their 'contribute' repository but after all it's just AROS who largely benefit from this. Not the rest.

I would like to give an example here (Directory Opus 4). In the past there were 3-4 different attempts to continue working on Directory Opus 4. Trying to fix the code, improve it and release new versions. Imo this is a very very nice idea and the right idea too but nobody is really helped that way besides those whose target system is supported only with that. This means people start to grab the software and make individual forks of it and some of the people don't feel the need or urge to forward the changes to the maintainer so we all can benefit from it. There are usually 3-4 attempts of one Software to be forked and worked on, which causes a lot of maintainance and problems on the long run.

I would therefore like to ask whether we can get along somehow and start hosting good Open Source (and Free Software) projects on serious locations such as SourceForge or Savvanah and start working on it in a normal way. That is make sure it works on AROS, MorphOS and AmigaOS4. So whenever something gets changed, we all benefit from it. Unfortunately this means that we should start to learn to co-operate here and not hide the changes we made like it was something secret or magic. We need to learn that we have to give back something to those who gave us all this great Open Source software we benefit from. And we do benefit largely from it. But it's really sad to see all the fragmentation showing up. All the little cut out projects where people start hacking on, then losing interests, then someone else splits the project etc. We need to organize ourselves much better here and start pumping that stuff on the right locations and work nicely on it.

A neutral repository where we can work on the stuff like GNOME and KDE does, they have one big CVS repository where they have pumped all the Open Source stuff on and where people who are interested start working on it. Working in a way so everyone can benefit from it - not just AROS. When we commit changes to say Dopus4 then we should all benefit from it.

I know with Dopus4 that's just one example there are other examples as well... I think you got the message here.

I have been talking with some AROS developers and they heartly welcome this. It's not just for them, it's also for us and for me personally I don't care where the location of the software is as long as we can work together on it so improvements can be shared between all Amiga compatible systems.

Feedback is welcome here. Please make sure you read my comment and reply on MorphZone specially my second reply there (last paragraph). I know there are some attempts to reach something similar already. There are a lot of fine developers who have similar stuff in mind. But we should really start to organize more and not duplicate the work.

greetings,

oGALAXYo

Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 1 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Jupp3 on 20-Mar-2004 14:52 GMT
>That is make sure it works on AROS, MorphOS and AmigaOS4.

And why not Classic Amiga aswell, as long as it makes any sense (software runs at "acceptable" speed)
Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 2 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by oGALAXYo on 20-Mar-2004 14:53 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (Jupp3):
Of course classic Amiga as well.
Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 3 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Joe "Floid" Kanowitz on 20-Mar-2004 15:46 GMT
When it comes to 'moving forward' with Open Source, there are really two pieces to making a project functional:

-Developers. You don't necessarily need many of these, it all depends on project scope; you do need some sort of managerial core, because software is not a Wikipedia.

-Communication. There are projects that survive in 'secret' (XFree86 being most notable, perhaps?), but those make life more difficult than necessary. The easier it is for users to check on the status of things (to find out "why did it do that?," or "why did they do that?"), and the easier it is for the mythical 'curious developers' to stumble in and contribute, the faster the project will move, and the less time will be 'wasted.' [Even flamefests can end up contributing to the bulk of knowledge... When they're a matter of record, they only have to be argued once, and can then be called by reference. ;)]

Moving to SourceForge helps so much - and really only exactly so much - as it improves the searchability/archival of communication, up to and including things like commit logs in CVS. (It's a lot easier to track down a simple 'what changed here?' issue in CVSWeb than in a 30MB tarball. Similarly, it's a lot easier for other developers to benefit from your sources if it's obvious what's in them, though license conflicts preclude that for most "normal people.")

We wouldn't be having so many dumb arguments about "Mai bugs" if the efforts of every team's attempts to solve the issue(s) were a matter of record. Hell, we might know what the issue(s) actually were/are. It's the "openness" outside of the actual code that lets people share a consensus reality and go on to do useful things; the openness of the code itself is just a prerequisite to that.

---

If the projects in question already have Googleable and archived mailing lists and CVSWebs set up, the most you can hope for is slightly more visibility among the Linux kids, which is nice -- strength in numbers and all that -- but won't really effect "progress" at all.

---

Also worth noting that a lot of these projects seem locked in trying to get themselves to the point where they can pull off the glasnost and keep the momentum going (versus, say, all those Sourceforge projects that start out with plenty of chatter but never produce any code) ... but IMHO, either you've got people in your core who are going to code or you don't, either way.
Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 4 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by 3seas on 20-Mar-2004 22:38 GMT
Given enough time, the community will evolove around AROS.

The whole concept of a community is to have a basis on something real.

The preceived fallout is due to a lack of real, where real is evolving in AROS.

Genesi is a hardware company that has a default free OS included, called MorphOS.

Amiga is proving to everybody that even the name followers can't keep track of who to follow...

The idea of trying to combine so called remaining communities is rather crazy, as the vanishing of the obsolete should be followed by a vanishing of its community....... not a drag down transfer to something that doesn't need the drag...

Fresh perspective is best in the development of a new community.

People weren't attracted to the Amiga cause it was preceived to be the next step from the C64, but rather because of its unique advanced (at that time) properties.

people need to make their own decission, having their own reasons to do something different. Should that result in adding to the AROS community, then so be it.

But I don't want to have to explain to a proprietary Amiga supporter why AROS needs to be FOSS, nor do I care to hear their reasons as to why AROS needs to be converted to proprietary (and that includes Bill Buck... :)

If a community is falling apart, its because its foundation is deteriorating and that is not a deterioration you want to spread to something else that is not deteriorating. ---- nor do you want to have something growing to be taxed by something deteriorating... so as to try to keep the deterioration alive...

LET that which is deteriorating do so..... ALL BY ITSELF!!!
Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 5 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by 3seas on 20-Mar-2004 22:48 GMT
Oh, BTW..... The AROS CVS is not publicly opened ... so be sure to thank Amiga Inc for that....
Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 6 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by oGALAXYo on 20-Mar-2004 23:04 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (3seas):
How is this related to the call up of more organization and not duplicating work such as porting and improving DOpus etc. ?

That's somethign we developers have in our hand and everyone who is still clear in his mind and like to participate should do this. There is a difference between AROS source and CONTRIB sources and I don't see the point to hide them from the public.

This was just an example anyways. Until now everyone should have figured out that we need to organize and improve better here so we can work better on the open source stuff and make it usable for any Amiga compatible architecture.

I am a bit pissed off about the people outside who have their head stuck up their arse. If people would better spent their time in doing something more constructive than jumping from one court announce editorial to another (which fills Phoenbooks full of bullshit) then we would be a good step further.

There are a lot of us who are willing to work together in improving the open source stuff. Think about this. If we split out the contrib stuff in a more public way so we can access it, fix it, improve it and make it work on AROS AND MorphOS AND AmigaOS then we will benefit from it. We the users and developers benefit from it since we maintain just one code of this stuff and not 20. It will even give you the AROS people the positibilty to concentrate on more important stuff and this will also create the posibility other stuff (even not found in AROS) can be used and maintained somehow so we all can benefit from it. This was not just about AROS or something. It was a general thing with all the open source stuff found outside that gets forked 20 times and nobody willing to put his changes back so even others can benefit from it. Which is quite an abusive behaviour.

And here a sentence about those who permanently block this process of better organization, teamwork, giving back to the community. These are mostly nondevelopers people who have nothing better to do in their poor life rather than painting a black picture about their little freakish world. Full of shit, full of frustration, full of clueless nothing. We shouldn't fool or step back from our efforts changing something on the Amiga just because they tell us so. They can simply fuck the hell off and go where the sun never shines. These people should better spent reading a good book about howto code some tiny shit rather than moving like gypsies from flame article to another and make the situation even shittier than it really is.

I am not here to re-create the community. I am here to ask a simple question if we (those who are seriously interested) could organize a bit better for the benefit of ourselves and others.

greetings,

oGALAXYo
Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 7 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Matt Parsons on 20-Mar-2004 23:08 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (oGALAXYo):
openamiga.org?
Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 8 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by oGALAXYo on 20-Mar-2004 23:24 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (Matt Parsons):
openamiga.org wants to set a minimum Standards for all these three architectures. I don't want to set standards. I would better have a more centralized CVS repository where we can work on the stuff and release new versions from time to time. And every new project that people adopt should be placed there with a few maintainers per each module and then have other people (developers) or themselves fix and improve the stuff. Not everyone needs to work on the Software but if they find some bugs they can report it and we can easily fix it and have new releases with fixes pulled out every now and then.

Something like this I had in mind. I don't mind working on the AROS contrib stuff myself and even putting more stuff inside there and improve it over time. But the AROS build system isn't satisfying for the needs of other arches such as MorphOS or AmigaOS since the contrib makefiles want to build the entire contrib subdir rather than indvidual modules.

But this is a general problem not just in AROS, AWeb is a good example of own organization which is imo a good one (even if the progress is slow, they at least progress), same with other things but we know:

"Aha, I want to work on AWeb, let's go there to their page, contribute some stuff and everyone benefits"

or

"Aha, I want to work on AROS, let's go there and help them to improve their project"

BUT

"Aha, I want to work on Dopus4. I have some fixes for MorphOS here... but fuck, where should I put them ? There are 3 projects of it and AROS itself has also one version in their contrib subdir"

Now which version can be declared as the version with future ? You understand what I am saying here ? We need to organize these things better. See AROS for example converted all the ASM stuff for DOpus 4.12 into C but the other DOpus versions the DOpus research project doesn't they only improved the C code but left the ASM one. So it's hard compiling a native MorphOS version out of it. It would have been a huge benefit if they would have adopted the MorphOS ASM to C changes so the process of having all the ASM junk removed is done already. But the DOpus research project somehow is dead. Now someone else continues working on it but who ? And is that person aware of the ASM to C changes made by AROS which can be a huge benefit and guarantees native compile. Is that person who forked it now organized right now I heard about a DOpus 4.2 version but it's only available on a yahoo page or email dunno exactly. We spread and split ourselves here. A bit more organization could help.
Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 9 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by 3seas on 21-Mar-2004 00:11 GMT
Its really quite simple.

by letting things evolve as they are, or will, the momentum or lack of on any partucilar platform will carry naturally to its conclusion and inherently towards the point of your goal.

If a particluar platform dies, then its not part of the equasion any longer and by default of such you reach one step closer to just what you are asking for.

If a particluar platform increases its support (human body count) base then its increasing gravity will draw more focus.... hence also helping to reach the goal by default.

from a developer POV, its really all just about what type of CVS system is being used on any project and how open it is. And that is up to the individual projects.

Also, consider branching of projects... the going in two different enough directions.... as a way to explore new possibilities. Where open source (FOSS) can later be taken from the different branches to perhaps get something summed better..

Dragonfly BSD is perhaps an example of taking FreeBSD in a different direction.And I do believe it will have some benefits over FreeBSD where FreeBSD might be a better choice in some cases or vice versa.

Ultimately its up to the type of CVS a project uses and I don't see how anyone can force projects to conform to what you want.

I understand what you are wanting, and its really nothing to do with so called communities, but rather developer environment familiarity and openness.
Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 10 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by 3seas on 21-Mar-2004 00:34 GMT
let me suggest this:

If you want some FOSS project to be in a familiar and open development machine, then put it there even if it means branching.

May the popular branch grow....
Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 11 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous Orc on 21-Mar-2004 09:35 GMT
if the source code is open and able to be put under a form of known licence then you can simply do one of 2 things

1) just open up a sf.net project. go ahead! other folks will join in the fun!

2) set up your own web site, with CVSWeb and various other tools...FTP, RSync etc etc so other folks can help...this is more applicable if the software isnt able to be fully defined by a known sf.net licence.
Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 12 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by oGALAXYo on 21-Mar-2004 09:56 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Anonymous Orc):
I know how it works. It's not that I don't know howto do it. The problem is to convince others to do the same.
Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 13 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Amon_Re on 21-Mar-2004 10:01 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (oGALAXYo):
Galaxy, i've been playing with such idea's in the past, and i'll be getting a server stacked away at an ISP sooner or later, i would be more then willing to setup a CVS server on that machine.

The only thing stopping me atm is financing the whole deal, but it should be up no later then this summer. (Sooner if i can get hold of sponsoring for another site that's not related to computing)

Drop me a mail at ochal at kefren dot be

Cheers
Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 14 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 21-Mar-2004 11:18 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (3seas):
> Oh, BTW..... The AROS CVS is not publicly opened ... so be sure to thank Amiga Inc for that....

The source code of AROS is publicly opened, just download it (in case you are trying to suggest that Amiga wants to keep it locked up). It's just CVS-style access that requires a password.
Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 15 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Sven Drieling on 22-Mar-2004 12:04 GMT
http://www.geekgadgets.org/ ?
Attempt to get AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS on one table : Comment 16 of 16ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 23-Mar-2004 12:47 GMT
In reply to Comment 15 (Sven Drieling):
We must use the backend system of ScummVM...
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