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OS/2 - Technical => Applications => Topic started by: miturbide on 2010.02.01, 15:16:09



Title: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: miturbide on 2010.02.01, 15:16:09
Hi

Do you know guys if GenMac is Open Source?

It has a Netlabs page but I was unable to find any reference to a CVS/SVN or source code file.

The "Browse Source Code" option on this page "http://trac.netlabs.org/genmac/" asks for password.

Regards.


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: rwklein on 2010.02.01, 16:44:38
Check some of the threads here:
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.org.netlabs.genmac.user

Roderick Klein


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: DougB on 2010.02.01, 20:00:06
Some effort was put into trying to get GENMAC open sourced, or even closed sourced, but available to selected people. All of that went through Thorolf Godawa, who managed to become the front man for Willibald Meyer. The answer from Willibald is, apparently "No, it is not worth my time to do that. Find another solution". Of course, it was more than a year after Willibald quit working on GENMAC before anybody had the courtesy to inform the user community about that decision.

We, the users, are now attempting to expand the capabilities of GENMAC. In spite of being told that it is impossible to do, we are slowly adding devices to the supported category, using the "UNSUPPORTED" mode of GENMAC, and updating a few supported devices. You will  find the GENMU package at ftp://genmac@os2voice.org (use "UNSUPPORTED", without the quotes, as the password) along with GENMU-TEST  which contains UNTESTED drivers for a couple of devices (although one has now been added to the GENMU package). However, it is apparent that this project will be severely limited by the capabilities of the current GENMAC base. That means that SOMEBODY had better start developing NIC drivers, or eCS will be as dead as Microsoft, and IBM, want it to be.


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2010.02.01, 20:05:14
Why won't he open source it? Is he using someone else's code?

Could we not conceivably use the NDIS wrapper from Linux as a starting point for ours?

I've got a netbook with a VIA USB VNT6656 WiFi adapter that I'd love to have working in eCS. VIA has the Linux Driver Source available even..


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: Blonde Guy on 2010.02.02, 02:21:35
Brendan Oakley told me that UniAud would make a good start for any Linux driver. But doesn't Linux have support for network cards compiled into the kernel, not as separate drivers?


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2010.02.02, 03:11:27
You can go either way. The way I did it for my VIA networking USB dongle was to get the source from VIA, compile, and insmod the .ko file (kernel object?)

This will cause the module to run at boot time.


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: DougB on 2010.02.02, 05:54:25
Quote
Why won't he open source it? Is he using someone else's code?

There was some hint that suggested that that may be the case, or that something was somewhat questionable if somebody decided to push the patent thing. Nothing definite though. Then, recently, there was a suggestion that Willibald may not be well enough to do anything as mundane as work on software development. Nothing definite there either. Hopefully, if that is the case, he will recover.

I don't know the details of writing modern NIC drivers, but it seems to me that we may have a base to start from. The Realtek 8139 driver was written specifically for OS/2, and it works well. I suspect that it could be used as a base for many other drivers, as long as the technical data can be obtained from the manufacturers to be able to control the hardware. I would think that the software interface doesn't need to change much. The main problem would likely be to find someone who can, and is willing to, do the development. I am also not sure where the source would be found.


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: melf on 2010.02.02, 09:38:52
Who wrote the "generic prism driver"? A wifi-driver ,the last version known to me was genprism.2.0RC4 and it really never became public but was floating around and was/still is? searchable on the net. It worked very well.

Now I'm checking the genprism.os2 file, there is a name, Jens Glathe, driver copyright.

Further search: he is mentioned on os2warp.be "for his continues effort to support WiFi under OS/2, and for device driver in-depth details" and seems to have been connected to Orinoco according to another posting on os2world.


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: miturbide on 2010.02.03, 23:36:01
Hi, thanks for your reply.

About Willibald Meyer, is he un-accessible ? is it hard to deal with him to request that he open source GenMac ? anybody has an experience with him ?



Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2010.02.03, 23:44:34
If he is ill, perhaps a team of people could be gathered who could carry out the work for him until he recovers. It is a shame to have a project with this kind of potential slip away :(


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: chennecke on 2010.02.04, 00:28:59
From what I've been told, the following applies:

- Willibald's physician told him that if he continued to work so much, he wouldn't live much longer.

- According to Thorolf, his position is that there's nobody with the necessary skill set to continue the project and that the project will be obsolete anyway since driver architecture has changed.


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: Sigurd on 2010.02.04, 10:25:54
@ Christian:

Thank you very much for giving these informations - even if they are so bad for Willibald, hope he will recover - to all the others. It may help some to understand that it is not Thorolf who is responsible for the end of this project. Without him we may have had no information about it at all.

And , by the way, while trying to get the Intel 5100/5200/5300 WLAN Adapter via UNSUPPORTED mode to run, Thorolf tried his best to help me and others, without shouting this from the rooftops....

Unfortunately we did not get a usable result.

I appreciate Doug Bissets way with the GENMU files, even though I guess one has to look for another way than GENMAC to support "modern" hardware.

But - as it seems to me - the focus of the eComStation developement is the ability to run it in a virtual machine, once with Virtualbox, now in addition with VMWare - as far as I was able to realize this is because of a costumers (insurance company) needs.

As a private end user I (for me!) have to state that I realized while installing eCS in Virtualbox in Windows 7 Pro 64 bit - that I do not need eCs anymore in this environment. I think Ed Durrant's idea of a small Linux starting a virtual machine (invisible) and then eCS in it was a good one....

And it is a pitty that concentrating on one hardwarebase with a "reference system" did not make it. It is almost one year ago that we had this discussion, but ... yeah.  Okay - I bought a 4 year old "Netbook" (JVC 941) , dissambeld it (as allways  ;)  ) upgraded RAM from 256 MB to 2 GB (Oohh! I have to correct me, today arrived the additional 1 GB form the US, allthough the BIOS says there are 2016 MB of RAM the Netbook shows diplay errors right after the BIOS is passed - I remember - it may be because of the shared memory Grafic chipset... Have to investigate....at least I have 1.25 GB RAM if it is not working with 2...), HDD from a 4.200 40GB to a 5.400 160 GB and installed eCS Silver on it - LAN, WLAN, USB, Sound, Video (SNAP), internal DVD burner (!) - almost everything seems to work fine, and it has got such a nice display, haven't seen one like this on modern netbooks. Still have to figure some things out (Powermanagment works but then no sound and vice versa, PCMCIA) but this is it.

Would be nice to have support for modern chipsets LAN / WLAN though!




 



Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: EugeneGorbunoff on 2010.02.04, 11:33:46
No plans to migrate eComStation inside Virtual machine. This will kill the market and the developers.
It's necessary continue the development of native drivers and applications.

http://ecomstation.ru/download/conferences/WSE2009/WSE2009-ESWay.pdf


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: rwklein on 2010.02.04, 15:14:07
Genmac is not a dead end in that perspective. We can run in unsupported mode. So far we can run 12 NIC's thank to the work of Doug. After 2.0 Steve Levine and I could look what could be done to Genmac to make it work better. No promise here. We also have some touch with developers that can make native drivers (that is OS/2 NDIS drivers).
Take a look at OS2warp.be and the GOMI NDIS drivers. I'm BTW in touch with this developer.

Roderick Klein
Mensys


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: miturbide on 2010.02.04, 15:21:02
I belive that GenMAC will be dead if it is not turned open source. If you don't have a change to update the code and keep improving it it is just more abandoware to add to the list.

On the other side, if someone else tell me that had the full source code and can work on that to legally create newer versions, that will be a light at the end of the tunnel.


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: rwklein on 2010.02.04, 16:19:34
I belive that GenMAC will be dead if it is not turned open source. If you don't have a change to update the code and keep improving it it is just more abandoware to add to the list.

On the other side, if someone else tell me that had the full source code and can work on that to legally create newer versions, that will be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Its something the OS/2 community must realy start to understand. And that is that not in all cases not having source code means a product has to be dead. Look at ACPI. I demonstrated ACPI on my Thinkpad T60 in SMP mode doing full suspend resume from S3 sleepstate! Maybe an additional driver can be written to the current Genmac driver. I don't know!

Roderick Klein
Mensys


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: miturbide on 2010.02.04, 20:57:53
Roderick, I disagreed with you. The project "Will" be dead if it is not open sourced. Possible today it works, but currently there is no chance to continue to develop it.  There is no chance to improve it for future changes. If the source code is not available and if the source code remains in a drawer, there is no future for GenMac.

Something that the community must really start to understand is that we need to think in the long term, not just worring what today works thinking it will stay that way forever.


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: rwklein on 2010.02.04, 23:40:18
Let me phrase my answer differently. Its not always needed to have source code. While its certainly the most preferred way to work.

We are selling eCS to 2 companies that have an OS/2 application. This appliation is used on a lot of systems.
The driver that is used with this application looks for a interface card on a hard coded address bus number
One of our people has created a REXX script to patch the driver. So it does work.
This was done doign a disassembly of the driver. Please note this is different point of view of distributing patches kernels. As in this case the customer is aware of this sollution and using it.

And in the ODIn repository there should be the source code for the WIN32K.SYS driver that Knut made.
This hooks into the OS2 kernel in memory. It patches it in memory. It patches the loader that is inside the OS2KRNL.

ACPI also patches the kernel to make SMP work in suspend an resume mode. Also it patches the OEMHLP services in memory.

All done without kernel source code. Thats the whole point if source code is not around lets see what other sollutions there are. If you can't get source code, grab the kernel debugger grab some sym files and see you in hacking wallaha :-)

As for Genmac I would prefer to have the source code. But to mention that the driver is dead. I would like to have more hard facts on the table then just the statement the product is dead. Again having source code would be ideal! However that is not the case right now. Then lets see

A) What can be done right now. And Doug Bisset deserves a round of applaus to collect NIC's that work in unsupported mode with Genmac.

B) What prevents other NIC driver from working with Genmac. Maybe an additional driver next to Genmac could be written. I have no clue... Especialy this last thing might be impossible.
I want to know more what makes Genmac not work spefically. Lets see how we can help our selves. I don't have time but has anybody every loaded Genmac in unsupported mode on a machine which a NIC driver does not work ? You can enable full debug in MPTS.

I understood some newer NIC drivers make unsupported calls. Well lets find out what does calls are.


Roderick Klein
Mensys


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: miturbide on 2010.02.05, 03:17:56
Hi Roderick

You are right, but you don't share or understand (?) my open source vision.

I don't want to diminish anybody's work hacking some software to make it work. I think that any effort to run other unsupported network cards by any way possible with GenMac is good. If you know how to hack it keep doing it, it is good for today.

But looking into the future, any eCS-OS2 software built on this days, any hack made to the kernel or to any other application that does not share the source code, it has the higheest probabilities to turn into the abandoware of the future.

If the developer turn it open source under an OSS license, if they share the source code, it will be harder for the software to turn into abandoware. Even if the original rights of the software get bought by a company (ex: mySQL spin offs) or even if the developer die.

Sure, hacking software to make it work it is good, but it is way better to go the open source way.

GenMac is not dead, it "WILL" be dead if it don't get open sourced. Once day it will be hard to hack it, one day it will not work on newer hardware. That is my vision. Hacking is good, Open Source is better.

Again, hacking GenMac to test unsupported cards it is good, I even going to try it (once I manage how to install eCS on a i5 Machine that I had)

Changing subjects, I support OSFree because one day it will be so hard and expensive to patch eComStation (since it is not open source) that no one on earth will be able to hack it to make it work on newer hardware (without virtual machines ;).  A long term open source OS/2 replacement is what we need because of that. To have access to update the code directly without patching. I don't like or share the short-term idea of "we can patch eComStation until the end of time". Now you can "Patch" but you can't "Update".

I don't want to diminish anybody's work on eComStation, Mensys is doing a great job on supporting users to make eCS run in today's hardware, but what is the long-term strategy? ("we can patch eComStation until the end of time")

We need a long-term strategy that provide tranquility on using the platform and ensure that it can be further developed. So, relaying on the IBM code we will have a future? no way. We need to slowly replace every single component of OS/2 and eComStation with open source replacements to have vendor/developer independence.

Regards

Martin Iturbide
OS2World.com


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: RobertM on 2010.02.05, 04:50:18
Who wrote the "generic prism driver"? A wifi-driver ,the last version known to me was genprism.2.0RC4 and it really never became public but was floating around and was/still is? searchable on the net. It worked very well.

Now I'm checking the genprism.os2 file, there is a name, Jens Glathe, driver copyright.

Further search: he is mentioned on os2warp.be "for his continues effort to support WiFi under OS/2, and for device driver in-depth details" and seems to have been connected to Orinoco according to another posting on os2world.

And IBM... I have seen this copyright as well for GenPrism:

"Generic PRISM drivers are copyright Jens Glathe and International Business Machines Corp. (IBM)."

So perhaps he made them under contract to IBM... or made them and licensed them to IBM - or something. I dont know. Apparently various of the IBM WiFi stuff related to that driver (and WiFi State stuff) was based off his work.

No idea where that leaves us...


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: rwklein on 2010.02.05, 10:28:47
I share your vision on open source. Hence the fact that Mensys purchased the source code of Gpf REXX and as times permits is looking to see what is possible to get access to the Sundial applications. In some occasions its not possible to release the source code of an application. We are busy updating the DDK code for USB stack for example.

The strategy is to replace as much components as possible, for example Samba. The kernel is a different story at this moment we don't have a replacement. So I agree with open source. But it seems Willibald does not want to open source, but lets wait and see. In the mean time I'm looking for different strategies asap.


Roderick


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: Sigurd on 2010.02.05, 12:47:41
Hi,

I appreciate all the things done by mensys for eCS, but there should be a strategy for these problems:

- modern JAVA Port
- modern FLash Port
- supporting modern WLAN Chipsets
- supporting modern LAN Chipsets
- supporting modern Video Hardware (Panorama is not bad but not really usable - no second monitor support, consumes to much power.... )
- support for AHCI
- working ACPI
...

and I fear that this targets might be to many, once I look at the changes since 2005... And more and more problems are rising (IPv6, UMTS, more than 4GB RAM, bigger HDD...)




Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: rwklein on 2010.02.05, 13:17:31
Hello Sigurd.

Java is being worked. Not coding but there are some more developments taking place. I can't say anything.

Flash is being worked on. Its the last 10 to 15% or so to get it to stable product. Then we can stay in sync with Flash.

For network chipsets 3 part strategy
A) As Doug Bisset is doing unsupported mode.
B) See what can be done with some good technicall stuff on the table
C) I'm in touch with 1 developer see if he can do something here.

Panorama is what is it. I have explained this a lot of times that Scitech had a lot of problems getting chipset information. Thats why we have choosen the VESA route. Its not to say that Panorama can not be enhanced. But when you use the VESA interface it does give limiattions. There should still be room for speed improvement.

When it comes to ACPI Pasha has released a version of ACPI that enables APIC support from the moment the PSD load. Just a foodnote that ACPI on Linux also needed years to mature as about 2 to 3 years ago it was a nightmare as well. So from that point of view we are playing catchup. We have a lot of problems with this APIC mode.

Bigger HDD is also on the agenda and I'm contact with somebody on this topic.

I expect to see some new drivers popup in public for USB support based on the DDK code from IBM.
UMTS is not on radar screen right now and IP6 not as well. Its not going to be realy required as there are going to be truck loads of methods to support IP 4 clients. Because the world is still running IP 4 as wel speak.
4 GB of ram, more the kernel can not support. But it should also not blew up on it.

Roderick


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: Sigurd on 2010.02.05, 13:33:35
Hello Roderick,

thanks for the answers, I hope you will be able to manage this.

Sigurd


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: ivan on 2010.02.05, 15:16:19
Has anyone looked at porting NDISWRAPPER from linux?
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/ndiswrapper/index.php?title=Main_Page (http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/ndiswrapper/index.php?title=Main_Page)

It might short circuit some of the work.


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: miturbide on 2010.02.07, 00:44:59
I share your vision on open source. Hence the fact that Mensys purchased the source code of Gpf REXX and as times permits is looking to see what is possible to get access to the Sundial applications. In some occasions its not possible to release the source code of an application. We are busy updating the DDK code for USB stack for example.

Roderick, Please notice that "Open Source" means that the source code must be released under one of the Open Source approved licenses. Here are the licenses.http://www.opensource.org/licenses (http://www.opensource.org/licenses). Please read the Open Source Definition, there are 10 criteria than open source need to comply.  (http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd)

So I have more questions about you answer:


- Did Mensys released the Gpf REXX source code under a OSI approved license?
- Can Mensys release the source code of DDK code for USB stack under a OSI approved license?
- Is Mensys going to open source Sundial applications under a OSI approved license if Mensys gets an agreement ?

The strategy is to replace as much components as possible...

The question is, replace components with Open Source software or with other close source software ?

I urge Mensys to have a long term, real, public and fully open source strategy for eComStation.

You may keep selling the binaries, sell support or had special paying customer, it will still be a business but you will gain to have a future without dependencies.

Why we can't get newer eCS users and developers, many people will say problems with drivers, hardware compatibility, the GUI, lack of applications, etc, etc. But the main reasons behind all is that users and developers sees a risk. If tomorrow IBM doesn't want to renew the OEM agreement with Serenity, it is all over. That is a risk that exists and we need to mitigate and I don't see any strategy on that direction. That's why it is important to support project like OSFree.


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: rwklein on 2010.02.07, 15:56:48
In some occasions its not possible to release certain source code. The reason for this is because some code comes from the DDK. Right now I'm already happy that people are working to update the current source code.
Next to that Timur Tabi, about 7 years ago, did everything he could to get the IBM DDK under an open source license. The orginal IBM DDK license prohibits this. This is why Daniela only a few years ago open source here driver because she had rewritten and removed all the IBM code This rewriting takes time. So the DDK is a difficult one.
So the USB stack updates can't be released as GPL code.

On the topic of Gpfrexx I need to get back to that after the release of eCS 2.0 and check if the code can be released, based on what the developer we agreed with. Because just like with the some of the Sundial Applications it all depends if the original authors will allow open sourcing the code. Or if they also have previous agreements with other vendors.  It could very well happen that, depending on all the contracts Sundial Systems has signed in the paste we can not even get to see the source code of certain apps... But it needs to be looked on case by case basis when it comes to Sundial Systems.

As far as I can recall ACPI also has portions of the DDK included. Especially the Panorama driver is based on DDK code. So same limitations apply. Rewriting all the code is a lot of work.

So we already use open source stuff where possible. But it comes to making a balance between getting something done, as a new USB stack. The DDK approach is taken. And the open source code stuff just has to be pushed to the background in some cases. As in this case rewritten the DDK with our code is to much work.

Don't count it on that quickly Martin that if source code is around people will start to work on stuff. Just look on Uniaud (sadly it grinded to a halt), ODIN (4 years nothing was done it) and Xworkplace (most  updates done for eCS). Most of the work done on that code gets done because its somehow eCS related this code.

So yes Mensys already has a open source approach where possible. But the resources are not there to make everything open source. Because a lot of source code needs to rewritten.

Roderick Klein
Mensys


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: miturbide on 2010.02.07, 17:42:45
Roderick

1) I had the feeling that you are trying to make the "Spin Doctor" move on me.  If we are discussing open source software, why you bring up three Mensys projects that are not open source, Gpf REXX, USB stack and Sundial applications are close source. Mensys may had the good intentions, but you don't know for sure if you can open them. (Open Source vaporware).  So, If I complain about eComStation and Open Source software, you replied to me "...we are already working on more close source software to include them" (?)

2) About the DDK, are you planning to depend on the IBM DDK forever? because if you don't have a plan of replace that components that's the direction eCS is going. Or we are using the "Let's see whats destiny had for us" plan.

3) About Uniaud, Odin, Xworkplace, newview, if those applications weren't open source, possible you would not have it on eCS today in the first place. Mensys/Serenity won't be able to customize or update them.

So yes Mensys already has a open source approach where possible. But the resources are not there to make everything open source. Because a lot of source code needs to rewritten.

That's good, but where is the strategy?  I don't count on anything quickly, but I don't see a long-term strategy from Mensys in going the open source way.

Is that simple. My concern is that a close source OS has a risk, specially OS/2.  And I don't see an strategy from Mensys/Serenity to solve that risk. 

  • Do you need help building that strategy ?
  • Where is the plan to get close to that Utopia ?
  • Do Mensys believe in Open Source and dream/wish to have fully Open Source eComstation, even that it can possible be an Utopia ?

Or Mensys think that a full Open Source OS will be a bad business ?


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: rwklein on 2010.02.07, 18:37:54
We will certainly look what can be open sourced and what not. For example as it turns out Mesa spreedsheets is not owned by Sundial Systems but it was previously owned by Athena cooperation. We will certainly open source what we can open source. Portions of the Flash updates should be flowing back into the public ODIN repository, need to check. Lack of time to run after that. Also the source code of the OS/2 Open Office port is in the SUN SVN repository.

From what I remeber from Randell Flint (having talked to him on the phone before he died) there database application DBexpert has een owned by so many people (companies) its most likely not even possible.

About the DDK the human resources are to limited to rewrite the DDK. If I need to choose between fixing USB drivers and updating the DDK so it can be done, the choose is made quickly.  The USB stack needs updating and make your pick what to spend the human resources on. The current USB is running to its edge of what it can deliver.

We don't see eCS as a open source project as bad. But the fact is when I look at the community work I have done over the last 10 years for me one thing is clear. I would love to get help building this strategy for an open source eCS strategy. I have had many discussions with many people over the years. But I don't need strategies right now. What I need are people that can help coding projects and do research. Then I can talk about strategies.

In that retrospect the community seems good and playing railway engineers making plans. But to few people willing to help out to build the railwayline self. Thats people that put dig the ground, put the sleepers on the soil and mount the track. (In this case people that simply write code) Thats what the community needs and thats where I spent my time on to get people to work on stuff. I disclosed a list of items in my presentation to work on past eCS 2.0. So your offer to build a strategy is welcome. But I also need more people to execute this strategy.

I hope to finally tomorrow finish my write up for OS/2 VOICE as finally a new newsletter can go out the door.
That will partly hook into this discussion

Roderick Klein
Mensys


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: miturbide on 2010.02.07, 19:15:56
Again Roderick, you are applying the "Spin Doctor" move on me. Now you switch saying that we had great strategies but we don't execute. Sorry but I found that offensive to the community, since many eCS-OS2 open source developers does not profit for their software and do not have time availability to make its development a full-time job.

From the other side Mensys profits from eComStation and if they want to maintain their customer base they need to show an strategy, not only good intentions.

Where is Mensys long-term strategy for eComStation?  Please Copy and Paste the link here from the Mensys/Serenity official web page.


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: miturbide on 2010.02.08, 15:15:10
--reply test.-  ??? ???


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: Sigurd on 2010.02.08, 17:53:51
Hm,

I can not reach page 2 of this thread, even with the usual work around.

 ???


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: miturbide on 2010.02.08, 19:13:20
I can see the 2nd page from the usual work arround (http://www.os2world.com/forum). I was testing out since i been told that this message can not be replied.


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: Fahrvenugen on 2010.02.08, 19:54:57
Hi,

Thought I'd throw in my $0.02.

For me, when I consider the subject of open source stuff for OS/2 / eCS, I admit that in an ideal world I'd love to see lots of it open sourced.  However I also recognize that what we have is a closed-source operating system.  And as long as we have a closed-source OS as the base, we'll be limited to what is open source and what is not.

Take for example the DDK as has been discussed.  The DDK is available, and is a great resource for developing new device drivers or enhancing current device drivers to extend their capability for new hardware.  Code in the DDK allows us to have a system which will boot and run on a lot of hardware that is available.

However for reasons already explained the DDK (and any code which comes via DDK sources) *can't be* open sourced.  To re-write DDK code would take a lot of work.

So the question in my mind is:  Do I want an operating system that will run on the hardware I have using updated drivers, regardless if the code that brought about those drivers is open source or not?  Do I want portions of the OS updated to allow it to run on modern hardware (such as ACPI), even if the updates are closed-source?  Or do I want to wait, for potentially years and years, and  potentially never to appear open source replacements?

True, I'd love it if all this stuff could be open sourced.  However  with the current base we're working from, that's not going to happen soon. 

I don't want to detract from the open source stuff we currently have - I applaud the people who have gone to the effort to provide us with this.  However for the immediate time being, I have a job to do.  I have systems where I rely on OS/2  / eCS and I need them to just work.  If I can keep those systems running with open source drivers and apps, then great!  However considering OS/2 / eCS is a closed source operating system, if I need to use a closed source driver or application to keep those systems running then I'm fine with that too.  Its all a matter of balance.

If I cared about everything being fully open source I'd likely switch to something like Linux or BSD.  However that's not the reason I chose a particular OS for a particular task.  My choice is more based on whether or not the system is the best fit solution for the the job that I need it to do.  Yes I'm idealistic and would love to see even more stuff open sourced, but I also recognize that I have a job that I need to do.

Thanks




Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: miturbide on 2010.02.09, 18:07:49
Hi Fahrvenugen

Your point of view is also good.

So the question in my mind is:  Do I want an operating system that will run on the hardware I have using updated drivers, regardless if the code that brought about those drivers is open source or not?  Do I want portions of the OS updated to allow it to run on modern hardware (such as ACPI), even if the updates are closed-source?  Or do I want to wait, for potentially years and years, and  potentially never to appear open source replacements?

Sure, we want today and now to have all the drivers. And as I told before Roderick, I don't want to diminish the work of anybody working on eCS software (open source or closed). But the doubt remains, what about the future ?

What future can we have if we keep developing software that had dependencies. We currently had a dependencies on IBM and they had stopped OS/2 improvement long time ago. We have dependencies on some developers that created close source programs, and had stopped their development without any way to continue their projects.  Creating today more close source software is falling into the same methodology after 4 to 6 years when the developer quits, retired, or die. 

That's my concern.


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: miturbide on 2010.02.09, 19:15:03
Hi

I had talked to Roderick on the phone and he explained to me the Mensys strategy with eComStation. I got some response to my questions like it or not.

I can not comment, since I can distort Roderick's conversation from my own point of view and thinking.

I will keep insisting on having an open source future for ecs-OS2 and support every Open Source effort on this platform.  so, from my side I'm closing this discussion, you are welcome to comment if you like.


Title: Re: Is GenMAC Open Source?
Post by: rwklein on 2010.02.09, 19:50:29
Yes I talked to Martin on Skype. I will put it like this. Getting everything on eCS open source (to replace for example the PMSHELL or OS2KRNL) is something that will not happen anytime soon.

We as Mensys would love to have source code since fixing things would be a lot easier, but thats not going to happen.
What is possible it replace components like what has happened with Samba to run next to IBM peer client.

We have human resources to develop drivers and applications. But such a large scale project as rewriting the IBM DDK is not on our priority. For the simple reason a lot of device drivers need to written/updated. And lot of these needs we are addressing.

To find human resources to rewrite the DDK, there not there. If anybody wants to volenteer let me know.
This would be one of the big steps so Mensys could fully open source stuff like ACPI and other drivers we have.
Because of lot of stuff depends on the DDK.

For the next 5 to 10 years we except that x86  CPU support will remain in the CPU. That long we can keep OS/2 running natively (eComStation) and there are lot of options. After that we can use a mini kind of hardware layer with a virtual machine. If there is not an option.



Roderick Klein
Mensys