ImageDisk project is canceled

Lots of EXACTLY the kind of crap I don't need snipped... Mouse, You are free to criticise as much as you like - you appear to have a talent for it. But keep in mind that there is such a thing as "constructive criticism" and then there's the other kind. So lets back up a little: There's a need to backup the software for classic systems. After observing a fair bit of "criticism" in the list regarding the unsuitability of the methods available, I decided to do something about it. To date I have created ImageDisk, several transfer program for dealing with systems which cannot be imaged with a PC controller, and updated several of my PC based simulators to support these schemes. In all cases, I have openly documented the format of the archived images - something I think is FAR more important than the program source code - the whole point of ImageDisk was to get the data into a format which could be manipulated and extracted by other means if necessary (and I expect it will be at some point in the future). I'd estimate that I have put well over a hundred hours into the ImageDisk project - add to that the time taken on the other imaging programs, and the time I've spent building the image archive, and I would be well over what I could afford if I were paying for my own time. I have been sharing the results of this effort as I see fit, and asking nothing in return. Up until two days ago, I was under the impression that these efforts were generally appreciated and of use to people. Now all of a sudden I am being blasted with complaints from a few very vocal list members about my not providing source code. I immediately addressed this - I offered to make the code available on a per- request basis until I am ready to make a public release, however much of what you did not include in the quotes, was statements about how wonderful GPL is, why my code MUST be released under GPL to be useful to the sender of that message, and how all of my attempts to explain why I disagree with this are "non-sequiter". Before I go further, let me make one thing perfectly clear: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nothing I write will *EVER* be released under FSF's GPL - because I DON'T AGREE with the GPL - this is my opinion and right - get over it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But I continue to be harped at because I have not released the sources under GPL - with each correspondance the message gets stronger - It started with my being advised that my actions would cause an individual to "HAVE to create his own format", and today that same member has notified me that I am causing harm to classic computing, and being responsible for valuable data not being preserved. I see these increasing rants as being an attempt to browbeat me into GPLing the sources, not as constructive criticism. For the record, NOBODY took me up on my "per request" offer for the source code.I did make the mistake of using the term "NDA" as a simple means of indicating that I would not want source code so requested to be redistributed, and since then every correspondance from one individual has mentioned "fear of legal action" if even an "Idea" from my program were to leak into his own work, and oh by the way, GPL would remove this fear. My attempt to explain that this is not the purpose of my positioning and assurances that this would not happen, and that he would not be required to sign anything have fallen on deaf ears. It's been made very clear that it's "GPL or nothing", so we end up with nothing. For the record: I didn't care a rats-ass about the "ideas" in ImageDisk - there's nothing overly tricky or proprietary in there. The only real value in the program was the fact that the storage format is openly documented. In case this has not been obvious, I hearby release the ImageDisk image file format into the public domain. At this point, it appears that nothing I can do (short of GPLing the sources which ain't gonna happen) to make you happy - However, since we are not "criticising" the other members of the list who have not created imaging software, lets just say that: ImageDisk is gone off the table - it never happened. With that out of the way, we can put aside our petty differences and get back to the important issues relating to the archiving of software for classic systems such as: criticising TeleDisk criticising Catweasel criticising the limitations of physical media storage criticising ... -- 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