41–50 of 61 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but the problem is that they have used a third-party library where they cannot legally release because they simply don't have the rights to it. Just release everything else. Someone can write their own library for that or maybe even find a replacement in the open-source world.
As if it was just that easy to remove all part of third party code ... For example removing a physic engine from a game is pretty much "impossible".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but the problem is that they have used a third-party library where they cannot legally release because they simply don't have the rights to it. Just release everything else. Someone can write their own library for that or maybe even find a replacement in the open-source world.
Unless it's something wildly popular, to a first approximation, no one is going to go to the effort to get a discontinued game or other software into a usable state given missing libraries, build systems, developer docs, etc. And, as parent noted, it's still quite a bit of work to open source proprietary code even if a company has a genuine interest in doing so. I have first-hand knowledge of situations where a compa…
There are examples of niche things being resurrected by players. Niche MMOs have from scratch servers, niche consoles have complete emulators, etc. Saying "no one is going to go to the effort" is not accurate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not necessarily misguided. Geeks love to cut up other geeks. As the recipient of a fair bit of that stuff, over the years, it has hardened my resolve to: A) Do a top-notch job on all my code; regardless of whether or not anyone else will ever see it it; and 2) Not pass public negative judgement, in a specific way, on others' code (unless, of course, I am planning to use it). Positive judgement is all good. I wil…
> bad quality of your code from N years ago > Do a top-notch job on all my code If you're like most above-average programmers, you constantly evolve. Your code from N years ago should look worse than the code you write today, otherwise you're not really improving are you? So you completely missed the initial point made by FartyMcFarter, that old code looks worse than what you write today and people might judge you fo…
>> Geeks love to cut up other geeks.
I'll just leave that out there, then...
On the software side, it would be nice of the developers to do so, no harm to them and a great benefit to those still using the program. Now on the hardware side[0] there's a mismatch in incentives: an otherwise functioning piece of hardware is unable to perform certain tasks (some that even were advertised at the time of purchase) due to changes in the software or it not being compatible to updates elsewhere in the…
No harm, perhaps, but likely considerable expense (in time and labor, which are not free).
Still, doing so is a public good, and I support the idea when feasible.
Here is the problem though: let's assume that the developer really wants to release the source code , but the problem is that they have used a third-party library where they cannot legally release because they simply don't have the rights to it. This complicates open-sourcing that software (this is already proven from time-to-time, for example the OpenJDK Java runtime needs to and has changed third-party components l…
https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM
The DOOM source code was released without sound support due to this:
> The bad news: this code only compiles and runs on linux. We couldn't release the dos code because of a copyrighted sound library we used (wow, was that a mistake -- I write my own sound code now), and I honestly don't even know what happened to the port that microsoft did to windows.
This isn't always a true dichotomy. Any code is better than none, you don't have to release all of it to make a difference (especially if the closed-source library is provided as a shared object). The code could be provided in a non-functionning state, it would already be a lot more helpful than binary patching while relying on disassemblers. A closed-source library can be worked around (stripping functionality), replaced, re-implemented, linked against a blob, reverse-engineered, etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless it's something wildly popular, to a first approximation, no one is going to go to the effort to get a discontinued game or other software into a usable state given missing libraries, build systems, developer docs, etc. And, as parent noted, it's still quite a bit of work to open source proprietary code even if a company has a genuine interest in doing so. I have first-hand knowledge of situations where a compa…
I take issue with your first sentence here. There are examples of niche things being resurrected by players. Niche MMOs have from scratch servers, niche consoles have complete emulators, etc. Saying "no one is going to go to the effort" is not accurate.
Here is the problem though: let's assume that the developer really wants to release the source code , but the problem is that they have used a third-party library where they cannot legally release because they simply don't have the rights to it. This complicates open-sourcing that software (this is already proven from time-to-time, for example the OpenJDK Java runtime needs to and has changed third-party components l…
Here is the problem though: let's assume that the developer really wants to release the source code , but the problem is that they have used a third-party library where they cannot legally release because they simply don't have the rights to it. This complicates open-sourcing that software (this is already proven from time-to-time, for example the OpenJDK Java runtime needs to and has changed third-party components l…
That might be quite a blocker for closed-source commercial apps that are distributed to the user. On the other hand in-house apps and web apps usually don't suffer this problem from what I've seen. Most of the time open source libraries are strongly preferred and even if not, the closed sourced licenses for dependencies can easily be obtained by the intended user oftentimes. (At least frontend dependencies need to be…
The biggest barrier to releasing our applications as open source are organizational. It would take a number of approvals to do so and our developers would have to review the code first. We have a small development team with a large backlog of work; it’s hard to argue that they should spend time to do this instead of a higher priority task.
Here is the problem though: let's assume that the developer really wants to release the source code , but the problem is that they have used a third-party library where they cannot legally release because they simply don't have the rights to it. This complicates open-sourcing that software (this is already proven from time-to-time, for example the OpenJDK Java runtime needs to and has changed third-party components l…
Related: In the past, after Microsoft was forced to release Hyper-V linux driver source code under GPL, someone noticed 'naughty phrase' in magic number that Hyper-V used, which is '0xB16B00B5' or 'BIG BOOBS', Microsoft apologized afterwards [0]
[0]: http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/microsoft-code-co...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not necessarily misguided. Geeks love to cut up other geeks. As the recipient of a fair bit of that stuff, over the years, it has hardened my resolve to: A) Do a top-notch job on all my code; regardless of whether or not anyone else will ever see it it; and 2) Not pass public negative judgement, in a specific way, on others' code (unless, of course, I am planning to use it). Positive judgement is all good. I wil…
> bad quality of your code from N years ago > Do a top-notch job on all my code If you're like most above-average programmers, you constantly evolve. Your code from N years ago should look worse than the code you write today, otherwise you're not really improving are you? So you completely missed the initial point made by FartyMcFarter, that old code looks worse than what you write today and people might judge you fo…