I would spend
many hours helping people understand it, explaining why
It's odd, but I've released a number of classic computer-related programs
under the GNU license and have never had any stupid questions like this.
I do sometimes get interesting questions from people who know what they
are doing and who want to do something totally different with it.
I've been running a mail-order software company selling development tools
for embedded systems (of my own creation) for over 20 years. In the early
years, I distributed source code, and I would estimate that a full 80% of
the technical support revolved around issues relating to people who didn't
"know what they are doing" trying to make changes to my tools, and
expecting me to show them how, and to fix it when they made horrible
messes of it.
On top of that, published source to my C compiler was ripped off in at least two
instances and used to create competing commercial products by companies
which were beyond my ability to persue.
So I don't have the same "warm and fuzzy" feeling about releasing source
code that you.
I used to
release source code to nearly all of my stuff, but not any more.
I just don't need the hassles.
You have just lost any respect I may have had for you.
Well .. after that response, I guess the feeling is mutual. Clearly you have
never tried to make a living in the software business. And your earlier crack
about "having" to invent your own image format because you don't have
access to my source (when the existing format is fully documented) only
reinforces this impression.
In the case of ImageDisk, it happens to be written with the PC version of
my own C development system - It uses video and other libraries which
are unique to my tools, and will not compile without changes under GNU C,
Turbo-C, Microsoft-C or any windows/linux system ... In short the source
code isn't going to be very useful to many people and I am not ready to
begin the process of spreadng the program across platforms.
If you look back on the early ImageDisk postings, you will find that I stated
that I would release the source code when I felt it was mature enough, but
I'm not ready to do that yet, as I am still finding things (like 4-drive support)
that need to be addressed, and I also want to spend a fair bit of time and
effort in bringing what began as a "weekend hack" project to a professional
level before general availability (anyone who has looked at any of my other
released source code should know that I have fairly high standards in the
quality of the material I publish) - For people who just "gotta" have the
source,
I made the offer today to release it individually - but a general public release
will have to wait until it is close enough to "finished" that I feel
comfortable
in doing so. Until then, I will retain control of the development.
You will note however that I have fully documented the image file format,
and I have provided tools to move raw binary images to and from .IMD
format - this is my attempt to insure that nobody has any "risk" in putting
disks in ImageDisk - you will always be free to convert the data to any
other format you wish, and I believe I have provided the information
necessary to do so.
If this isn't good enough the for the classic community, then I guess this
has all been a mistake.
--
dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools:
www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
