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WebSite Information => Comments, Suggestions & Questions => Topic started by: Martin Iturbide on February 20, 2014, 03:23:58 pm

Title: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Martin Iturbide on February 20, 2014, 03:23:58 pm
Dear Community Members.

Last year I started to clean up the OS2World Bounty System and created a Single Common Fund.

The basic rules of the Common Fund are listed on its page. (http://www.os2world.com/bounty-system/sponsor-a-bounty/87-os2world/bounty-system/bounty-system-open/19579-os2world-common-fund)

This year I will really like to make that money productive in something that will benefit the community.
Even that I can dream about all the stuff that we are missing and we want, like having more drivers, cloning WPS, etc, etc...  but sadly I was not able to find the developers to do that.

For the moment I only have one real proposal:

Proposal 1: Use the common fund to kickstart SWT/Eclipse port to OS/2-eCS platform.
I had a chat with Silvan (from Bitwise works GmbH - his team has ported Qt, OpenJDK and Mozilla) and told me that even that the current funds are not enough to complete the SWT/Eclipse port it will be a good kickstarter for this project.

So I have a real proposal of what can be done with the OS2World Common Fund this 2014. With this money and the donations from the community we can support this project.

Open for Proposals
I'm open for other proposals on how to use this money, but I need that the proposals are backed by the developers that can do it.

For example: If someone says, lets use this for something else, it need to know or had contact with someone that can actually code it and that agrees to the terms of the OS2World Common fund.

So:
1) Let me know if you agreed to Proposal #1
2) Let me know any other Proposal.

I hope in one month to request the OS2World Board to fund a project based on what we discuss here.

Regards
 

Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Martin Iturbide on February 20, 2014, 05:54:57 pm
...and by the way, the OS2World Common Fund is open for more donations:

http://www.os2world.com/bounty-system/.... (http://www.os2world.com/bounty-system/87-os2world/bounty-system/bounty-system-open/19579-os2world-common-fund)
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on February 20, 2014, 10:24:42 pm
I've already messaged you on the IRC that Pavel Shtemenko is able to make FreeBSD drivers work on OS/2, like network interface controller drivers and video drivers.
Also a useful "device loop" feature may be implemented -- a way to mount a file as a storage device, that may be used by usual mechanisms like IFS and NetDrive -- very useful in virtualization task.
I don't know if the current fund is enough for these tasks, you'd better talk to him. SNAP resurrection is really needed, and may be achieved (ati, matrox and intel video drivers have gone opensource).

Also I need to state that Qt5 port is needed, as is JDK (better Sun) 1.7.
Qt5 will open the door to the modern software (also qtwebkit) and development tools.
OpenJDK 1.7 will make all the JetBrains IDEs run on OS/2 (all of them is written in Java). Read more @ http://jetbrains.com
These ports may be done by bww GmbH

Also, personally, I would like a Node.js and a bitcoin port. I think Node.js port may be done by bww GmbH and bitcoin may be done by Paul.

And, of course, the dream of all of us is GIMP. Paul Smedley has once started to work on an odinized GTK+.
My personal wish again -- RawTherapee
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Pete on February 21, 2014, 12:45:45 am
Hi All

I've already messaged you on the IRC that Pavel Shtemenko is able to make FreeBSD drivers work on OS/2, like network interface controller drivers and video drivers.


Having a laptop with *no* connectivity - no wired or wireless nic driver - the above gets my vote if it includes a driver for the Dell 1510 Wireless-N device. This is actually a Broadcom device, I think it is part of the BCM43xx series which seem to be fitted to quite a lot of laptops as an alternative to Intel devices.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that Mensys have a license to develop SNAP.


Regards

Pete

Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: guzzi on February 21, 2014, 01:15:49 am
Martin,
You already did a drivers poll, why not do a poll for this? First ask for a list of suggestions, then use that list for a poll.
Personally, as Boris mentioned, an update QT5, update of JAVA would keep current software available. Then again, software is no use when we cant run the OS on modern hardware.An updated SNAP would be great, but then again, panorama works ok on most systems (not on mine). WLAN drivers are important. USB 3, UEFI (for the time legacy support will be dropped by HW manufactures) are interesting too. I would like to see a Skype compatible application with if possible webcam support too.
Problem with QT5 and JAVA is that dmik is just one man. And firefox isn't ready yet) Beta 2 works well sofar)
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Martin Iturbide on February 21, 2014, 02:57:10 pm
Please notice that this is not a competition, the OS2World Board will take the final decision based on what information and proposals can I get from this discussions. Also, we may have some development priorities for the community, but we need to choose a project that has possibilities to became a reality with a developer(s) involved.

Thanks for the ideas, I have them listed here:

- Port network FreeBSD driver to OS/2 - Pavel Shtemenko - Not contacted about this.
- Port video FreeBSD driver to OS/2 - Pavel Shtemenko - Not contacted about this.
- Qt 5 Port update - Bitwise works - Not contacted about this.
- OpenJDK 1.7 Update - Bitwise works - Not contacted about this.
- USB 3 - Lars Erdmann - Not contacted about this.
- Node.js port - No developer
- Bitcon port - No developer
- Broadcom Wifi BCM43xx series driver - No developer
- UEFI - No Developer

This are ideas, no proposals yet. A proposal is that a developer had discussed the idea and considers that the "OS2World Common Fund" will benefit them to have progress in a goal.

I need a little bit more discussed ideas and with the developer involved, and knowing that the developer wants to do it and that to common fund will actually help him to deliver the goal.

1) Please try to contact the developer and let me/us know if he really have interest.

2) On the Bitwise software, Silvan told me that he have interest to start SWT Eclipse port to OS/2-eCS with the help of this common fund. But this money can also be used instead to put priority on OpenJDK or Qt5 updates. I prefer to use the money to kickstart new project, but I will like to open more discussion about this. It is better to kickstart SWT/Eclipse port, or to update OpenJDK and Qt ? or possible make separate efforts to raise money for OpenJDK and Qt updates (which I will support for sure). ?

Regards
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Martin Iturbide on February 21, 2014, 03:26:17 pm
Sorry to ignore the Skype idea. There is no open source clone of skype and skype protocol is complete private. A skype or a software that connects to skype without paying the royalties is not possible (AFAIK). Other VideoConference software may be interesting, but we require developers willing to do it.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Alex Taylor on February 21, 2014, 05:26:14 pm
If we can get webcam support fully working then there are alternatives to Skype... probably the most promising is WebRTC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC) (now part of HTML5). I'm aware of two or three different WebRTC+WebM teleconferencing systems either already available or under development.

There's also Google Hangouts, which works with Flash (which we do have) plus the aforementioned webcam support.

And I suppose it's possible that Skype under Odin might be a theoretical possibility, with some dedicated development at least.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Pete on February 22, 2014, 12:02:19 am
Hi Alex

Having just got the Acer Crystal Eye webcam working in my Acer Travelmate 5320 laptop I suspect other usb attached webcams can be made to work - with a little help from USB 2.0 Extended Control Driver for OS/2 (and eComStation) and the author, Wim Brul.

Download the USB 2.0 Extended Control Driver for OS/2 (and eComStation) from http://home.hccnet.nl/w.m.brul/usbprobe/index.html
Unzip into a directory and follow the instructions in the docs to install the driver correctly.

The problem then is that unless your webcam is one of those of this page http://home.hccnet.nl/w.m.brul/usbvideo/index.html there is no software to use with your webcam.

I emailed Wim asking about software and he kindly built the necessary software, basic but working. He needed the log obtained by running USBDock with the /bin parameter.

So, a big THANK YOU to Wim for the USB 2.0 Extended Control Driver for OS/2 (and eComStation) and his invaluable help.


Regards

Pete

Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on February 22, 2014, 12:56:01 pm
- UEFI - No Developer

The only way to implement UEFI support is to rewrite the whole booting process AFAIR.
And the only opportunity is the Phoenix team -- Mensys does not have enough resources to implement this, and there are a lot of enhancements in OS/4 kernel source code making developing new features much easier.

But that seems to conflict with the
Quote
OS2World will only sponsor projects that are open source, free software and/or that the results and code will be public to the OS/2 community
rule.



I've just talked to Pavel Shtemenko and the situation is undefined. Due to the situation in Ukraine, he is not sure if he can accept the offer this month, but he will be sure (yes or no) in March, and if yes, he will have enough time to do the work.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on March 06, 2014, 06:48:15 pm
I'm pretty sure that no one but me needs Node.js for OS/2, but I contacted bww bitwise works GmbH and they're able to make a full port of Node.js, and the money raised by OS/2 World is enough to complete it, fully.. Misunderstanding.

So,
Quote
- Node.js port - No developer
statement should be changed to
Quote
- Node.js port - Bitwise works - Contacted about this.
. :D

 ;D
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 14, 2014, 01:53:23 pm
Hi Boris.

Can you explain a little more about why a Node.js port will be interesting. I had been reading about it, but I still need to know what is the potencial for this platform. For example, which applications we will be able to run on the platform.

I understand that Node.js (http://nodejs.org/) is a platform to build network applications, but which will be the relevant applications that can be ported once we have Node.js under OS2-eCS?

Regards
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on March 14, 2014, 03:41:43 pm
I doubt Node.js will be interesting for somebody but me, but if you ask, here are some answers to your questions.

This is a JS interpreter with some extensions, so treat it like a "different PHP", so you will be able to run all scripts (without the neediness to port it) on OS/2.
Examples of using Node.js https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Projects,-Applications,-and-Companies-Using-Node

It is intended to work as a server, but there is also a node-webkit (https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit‎) framework, which allows to build desktop applications with HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit/wiki/List-of-apps-and-companies-using-node-webkit
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Martin Iturbide on March 14, 2014, 04:34:08 pm
Hi. I was checking one desktop application that was built with Node.js and node-webkit framework, which was very interesting for playing movies. That made me wonder if Node.js will be a good idea under this platform but with the node-webkit framework to have more desktop apps.

I'm checking the list: https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit/wiki/List-of-apps-and-companies-using-node-webkit
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on March 16, 2014, 05:29:14 pm
Martin, Node.js is also a requirement for Twister the decentralized P2P open-source analogue of Twitter (http://twister.net.co/).
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on March 17, 2014, 01:39:17 am
This is a very young technology, and begin to support it right now would be a good step ahead of the curve.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Martin Iturbide on April 24, 2014, 04:34:54 am
Hi.

I just want to notify that I only have one bid for the "OS2World Common Fund 2014". 
bww bitwise works GmbH presented a proposal to use the common fund to kickstart the project, but more funding will be required to complete the project.

I'm open to hear the comments and question of the community.

Please let me know your comments.

Regards.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: onlineuser2 on April 25, 2014, 11:42:41 pm
I understand well that we need too many solutions: for developing, for
uptodate hardware, for everydayuse, based on resources available. We
need solutions at hand, not dreams.

In my opinion, if no news about is coming on, I should pay attention to find out a
way  for wireless support.

regards
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Martin Iturbide on June 01, 2014, 07:11:07 pm
Hi

I have another bid for using this funds. Pavel Shtemenko proposed an Network/Wifi BSD driver port project.
The idea is to port the Network/Wifi BSD driver.

The basic idea of this project is:

Stage 1 or Bounty 1:
1. Base network driver
2. Ported from FreeBSD some of DevHlp (this part can also be used for BSD Video driver port too (ATI-NVIDIA) in the future)
3. FreeBSD driver (compiled from source)

Goals: PCI RTL816x driver working
Time: 1.5 Months
Cost: USD $ 1.200.

Stage 2 or Bounty 2:
4. Security subsystem
5. Other Wifi adapters ported
6. Suspend/LowPower support (with ACPI 3.18)

Goals:
- Security system,
- other Wifi adapters (Any WiFi driver which FreeBSD 7.x has to support.r like Atheros WiFi  , some other one)
- Suspend/Low power supported.
Time: 1 Month
Cost: USD $ 800.

Conditions:
- All source code produced most be open source (BSD license)
- The Common Fund  (http://www.os2world.com/bounty-system/87-os2world/bounty-system/bounty-system-open/19579-os2world-common-fund)and Bounty Rules (http://www.os2world.com/bounty-system/the-rules) apply to it.
- Development will be done in the open at sourceforge or github.
- Source code from IBM's DDK can not be used in the project, since it have a restrictive license that does not allow to share the source code or derivate works.
- The driver most works on Warp 4.52 and eComstation 2.1 with their respective kernels.
- He can not accept Paypal, we are trying to see if we can get another alternative.
- Payment will be done after completing each stage.

The idea of this is making it an open development and the source code will be open source for everyone to use.  Since this is an open community and the idea is to have an open conversation about this, please do not send me e-mails in private. Give me you feedback on this forum.

Please state what do you think about this offer.

Regards
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on June 01, 2014, 08:11:51 pm
Please state what do you think about this offer.

I support this fully.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on June 01, 2014, 08:16:50 pm
Stage 2 or Bounty 2:
4. Security subsystem

I was a bit confused with what exactly that means, so I've asked Pasha in Russian what exactly the mentioned security subsystem is.

I've got a reply this means the support of passworded (WEP, WPA, WPA2) Wi-Fi networks.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on June 01, 2014, 08:42:01 pm
Stage 2 or Bounty 2:
4. Security subsystem

I was a bit confused with what exactly that means, so I've asked Pasha in Russian what exactly the mentioned security subsystem is.

I've got a reply this means the support of passworded (WEP, WPA, WPA2) Wi-Fi networks.

And yes, that probably means porting wpa-supplicant once more time (for no reason).
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Roderick Klein on June 01, 2014, 10:32:58 pm
Hi

I have another bid for using this funds. Pavel Shtemenko proposed an Network/Wifi BSD driver port project.
The idea is to port the Network/Wifi BSD driver.

The basic idea of this project is:

Stage 1 or Bounty 1:
1. Base network driver
2. Ported from FreeBSD some of DevHlp (this part can also be used for BSD Video driver port too (ATI-NVIDIA) in the future)
3. FreeBSD driver (compiled from source)

Goals: PCI RTL816x driver working
Time: 1.5 Months
Cost: USD $ 1.200.

Stage 2 or Bounty 2:
4. Security subsystem
5. Other Wifi adapters ported
6. Suspend/LowPower support (with ACPI 3.18)

Goals:
- Security system,
- other Wifi adapters (Any WiFi driver which FreeBSD 7.x has to support.r like Atheros WiFi  , some other one)
- Suspend/Low power supported.
Time: 1 Month
Cost: USD $ 800.

Conditions:
- All source code produced most be open source (BSD license)
- The Common Fund  (http://www.os2world.com/bounty-system/87-os2world/bounty-system/bounty-system-open/19579-os2world-common-fund)and Bounty Rules (http://www.os2world.com/bounty-system/the-rules) apply to it.
- Development will be done in the open at sourceforge or github.
- Source code from IBM's DDK can not be used in the project, since it have a restrictive license that does not allow to share the source code or derivate works.
- The driver most works on Warp 4.52 and eComstation 2.1 with their respective kernels.
- He can not accept Paypal, we are trying to see if we can get another alternative.
- Payment will be done after completing each stage.

The idea of this is making it an open development and the source code will be open source for everyone to use.  Since this is an open community and the idea is to have an open conversation about this, please do not send me e-mails in private. Give me you feedback on this forum.

Please state what do you think about this offer.

Regards

I am a bit puzzled by this proposal ?!

Why work on such a skeleton if we already have something that such as Multimac. Its not to port FreeBSD drivers but it is to port Linux drivers:
http://svn.ecomstation.nl/multimac/browser/trunk

The stage 1 of the bounty:
Ported from FreeBSD some of DevHlp (this part can also be used for BSD Video driver port too (ATI-NVIDIA) in the future)
http://svn.ecomstation.nl/multimac/browser/trunk/Porting.txt

While its true it requires a DDK to work on this. How is that going to work the video drivers ?!

Next to that I do not know what is ment to implement "security  subsystem"?
Is that the API for a something like WPA supplicant and and XWLAN widget ?

Apart from that I do not know how mature the current version of the software is. The Multimac skeleton David has written has already provided support for the current Realtek gigabit and Intel gigabit driver. New drivers for Broadcom wired are in the pipeline. While the Mutlimac project has still not provided a wireless driver why with such little human resources reinvent the wheel again if we already have Multimac. And of course its going to take time to get the bugs out of the code...

Roderick

Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on June 01, 2014, 10:56:47 pm
Why work on such a skeleton if we already have something that such as Multimac. Its not to port FreeBSD drivers but it is to port Linux drivers:
http://svn.ecomstation.nl/multimac/browser/trunk
David has written has already provided support for the current Realtek gigabit and Intel gigabit driver. New drivers for Broadcom wired are in the pipeline. While the Mutlimac project has still not provided a wireless driver why with such little human resources reinvent the wheel again if we already have Multimac. And of course its going to take time to get the bugs out of the code...

Well...

The mentioned NIC drivers are not usable in a 1000 Mbps network because they fail in a short amount of time. Also, how much time have been already spent on Multimac and how many chips do now work reasonably?

I've missed also, is Multimac going to provide ATI and NVIDIA video drivers for all the chips that are supported by FreeBSD video drivers? I think it's not.

While its true it requires a DDK to work on this.

Huh? Martin talks about the source code included in the DDK. Please, read:

- Source code from IBM's DDK can not be used in the project

The source code provided with the DDK is not going to be used.

Next to that I do not know what is ment to implement "security  subsystem"?
Is that the API for a something like WPA supplicant and and XWLAN widget ?

Yes, "something like".

Apart from that I do not know how mature the current version of the software is.

What's the difference? Pasha has never got a coin for that, so what do you expect?

There already is a working alpha of Unimac, but it has never got published (that's exactly what "alpha" means).
walking_x, known as the author of QSINIT and as a former participant of Phoenix the OS/4 development team, uses an old version of Unimac Pasha has authored a long time ago.

How is that going to work the video drivers ?!

Sorry, I don't understand. Can you please rephrase yourself?
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on June 01, 2014, 11:20:30 pm
I've consulted with Pasha a bit, and here's the thing:

Pasha's project aims to write a FreeBSD drivers wrapper. It means that there's no need to port each driver to OS/2 at the source level.
When Multimac aims to ease rewriting of each Linux driver (decrease the amount of places that should be rewritten to make it work), the subject project aims to run the given FreeBSD driver in OS/2 environment.

It means that in case of Multimac a Linux driver should be rewritten in 16-bit C, but in case of Unimac a FreeBSD driver should be just compiled with Watcom C compiler (anyway some work should be done, just because BSD drivers are compiled with gcc not Watcom). One wrapper for each device driver class.

It means also that it will be possible to run NVIDIA video drivers, which are partly supplyed in binary form (a static library).

Pasha has also told me that he doesn't need DDK at all.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Roderick Klein on June 01, 2014, 11:25:55 pm
Of the 1 GB drivers are not useable on a LAN then open a bug. I think its better then to completely reinvent the wheel with a new driver skeleton.
So far Mulitimac provided a proper working Gigabit Realtek and Intel driver. And it has also provided updated driver.
The Nvidia driver was also updated.

No Multimac will not provide this video support. But how will this project do that without the DDK as vast portions of the DDK are needed to my knowledge to get it done.
Or is this somehow going to be a GRADD plugin ? Some more details would certainly be interesting.

Its not the point that Pasha got paid for it. Its the question what makes sense.
Reinvent the wheel or use Multimac driver skeleton ?

What I ment with the video driver stuff. How would it work ? How does it hook in the video sub system ? A new screen01.sys etc ?


Roderick
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on June 01, 2014, 11:50:13 pm
Of the 1 GB drivers are not useable on a LAN then open a bug. I think its better then to completely reinvent the wheel with a new driver skeleton.
So far Mulitimac provided a proper working Gigabit Realtek and Intel driver. And it has also provided updated driver.
The Nvidia driver was also updated.

Please contact with Pasha, he has got a lot stuff to say.

No Multimac will not provide this video support.

Uh-huh. So what's there with "reinventing the wheel"?

But how will this project do that without the DDK as vast portions of the DDK are needed to my knowledge to get it done.
Or is this somehow going to be a GRADD plugin ? Some more details would certainly be interesting.

Well, maybe, not enough knowledge. How exactly is Pasha going to write a GRADD driver you will know if he gets hired.

The driver source code provided with DDK is 16-bit. We're talking about 32-bit code.

What I ment with the video driver stuff. How would it work ? How does it hook in the video sub system ? A new screen01.sys etc ?
Reinvent the wheel or use Multimac driver skeleton ?

Lol you are mixing lots of stuff really hard.

It has nothing to do with a new screen01.sys.

Unimac is very different compared to Multimac. An ideological mistake had been made in it: in case of Multimac, every driver must be modified to work with OS/2 subsystems, while Pasha's going to emulate FreeBSD subsystems, so the only thing left is to make a given driver compile and run; no need to modify the driver's logic and its interfacing code.

Its not the point that Pasha got paid for it. Its the question what makes sense.

It seems you misunderstand.

I always thought that making an open source! hardware-accelerated video driver with 3D support is what makes sense. I'm quite disappointed that a person from Mensys disagrees with me and wants to roll back to multimac...

Again: BSD drivers are made able to run on OS/2, so everything that was working on BSD system, will work on OS/2.

P. S. Ah, and, where are the sources?
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: pasha on June 02, 2014, 12:07:00 am
Of the 1 GB drivers are not useable on a LAN then open a bug. I think its better then to completely reinvent the wheel with a new driver skeleton.
So far Mulitimac provided a proper working Gigabit Realtek and Intel driver. And it has also provided updated driver.
The Nvidia driver was also updated.

No Multimac will not provide this video support. But how will this project do that without the DDK as vast portions of the DDK are needed to my knowledge to get it done.
Or is this somehow going to be a GRADD plugin ? Some more details would certainly be interesting.

Its not the point that Pasha got paid for it. Its the question what makes sense.
Reinvent the wheel or use Multimac driver skeleton ?

What I ment with the video driver stuff. How would it work ? How does it hook in the video sub system ? A new screen01.sys etc ?

 About 1Gb LAN:
1Gb Realtek 816x has bug. But HW has this bug. Therefore, you can not fix the driver for RTL816x. If 1Gb Intel not work with 1Gb LAN, here you can fix it, because the problem in your driver(Multimac). About nVidia LAN I have' information now.

About DDK:
  I have no need in DDK: all of my drivers are 32-bit. DDK drivers are 16-bit. I need the Toolkit only, and not the whole of it, but os2386.lib only. And this is solvable too: I can rewrite the library. So everything I need is Open Watcom.

About: Reinvent the wheel or use Multimac driver skeleton ?
 My Unimac is 32 bit. Your Multimac is 16 bit. My Unimac features hardware autodetection. Yours does not. Adding support of new hardware to Unimac means compiling the driver's source with wcc32, plus adding some IDs to the supported hardware table. Adding support of new hardware to Multimac means complete rewrite of the original source in 16-bit C, and then redebugging it again, but in OS/2.  Roderick, are you sure, that reinventing the wheel, I do not you.

About video driver:
 Video driver will be in GRADD model. With hardware autodetection as usual.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Roderick Klein on June 02, 2014, 12:19:26 am
Then put in the bugtracker where it belongs. If Pasha has a lot to say.

"Well, maybe, not enough knowledge. How exactly is Pasha going to write a GRADD driver you will know if he gets hired."
You know if something can offer something in the future is the argument to not use Multimac it should be made more clearly in the offer.
Not after you hire somebody.

Thats why I ask. And without further details how this driver frame work can provide video support without DDK/GRADD support I would like to know how this works and I asked.

Boris wrote:
"I always thought that making an open source! hardware-accelerated video driver with 3D support is what makes sense. I'm quite disappointed that a person from Mensys disagrees with me and wants to roll back to multimac..."

I am not against accelerated drivers. But I certainly do not see the benefit of 3D accelerated drivers for PM.

Apart from that David has been working on Multimac more updates can be expected in the next few weeks. Less rewrites on the code from Linux shoudl be needed.
But if Pasha needs 2 months to write the 8169 driver and then move to Wifi driver and then implement security.

Then the scope of this project should also describe how that video support might be provided. The scope if the project is to write a Wifi driver.
And without further details how the video support would be done. This is reinventing the wheel...

And if Pasha has so much information to tell then let him put that in tickets to enhance Multimac.

Roderick 
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on June 02, 2014, 12:42:01 am
This is reinventing the wheel...

Are you insane?

Multimac:

Unimac:

Reinventing the wheel? Seriously?

Do you understand what exactly do you compare?
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Martin Iturbide on June 02, 2014, 04:03:06 am
Hi

I think this discussion is good to open up the alternative to the community and workout some details.

Roderick, I think that the real issue is that Mensys/XEU haven't produced Wifi drivers with MultiMac. And the main driver request of the community was to have Wifi driver (according to a poll (http://www.os2world.com/polls/hardware/drivers-request)). Remember that people of this community was just sick of waiting for broken promises, or hearing "confidential" information of the things to came that never showed up.  This is why Pavel's offer may be tempting.

The real discussion should be, Does Mensys, XEU, Roderick, David, Steven, Lewis's new company or anybody have plans to create Wifi drivers for eCS-OS2?

Please Roderick, stop sending me emails in private about this subject, the idea is to have open discussion, you have this forum to put your explanations. I'm not the one that you have to convince for supporting this or not. 

The only fact is that I have two serious proposals for the OS2World common Fund for 2014.

1) Kickstart Eclipse SWT port
2) Network/Wifi BSD driver port. 

This are the two things that I have, if anybody had other proposal (not ideas, a proposal with developers on board) please let me know.

Regards
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Dave Yeo on June 02, 2014, 05:00:47 am

The only fact is that I have two serious proposals for the OS2World common Fund for 2014.

1) Kickstart Eclipse SWT port
2) Network/Wifi BSD driver port. 

This are the two things that I have, if anybody had other proposal (not ideas, a proposal with developers on board) please let me know.
At some point Bitwise is going to run out of funding for the Firefox port, dmik has put a lot of time in understanding the code, which is a huge mess so I'd suggest it as another use for the fund. 31ESR is already in testing and we're just starting testing 24ESR and 31ESR is going to be harder as all the OS/2 code is gone.
Having 3D accelerated video drivers is also important for the future, if only for webgl in Firefox. This is going to get more important as NPAPI plugin support is going to be removed at some point so no more flash or other plugins, instead the browser will be doing everything including 3D stuff. Even playing videos works much better if accelerated and who knows what future web applications will show up.
I really don't know how useful an eclipse/swt port would be.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on June 02, 2014, 06:15:00 am
the main driver request of the community was to have Wifi driver (according to a poll (http://www.os2world.com/polls/hardware/drivers-request)).  This is why Pavel's offer may be tempting.

Network/Wifi BSD driver port. 

Hi Martin,

Although you're talking mostly about wireless network support (and I understand why (http://www.os2world.com/polls/hardware/drivers-request)), I would like to clearly outline to the community, you and everyone, that accepting Pasha's proposal would also kickstart the whole BSD drivers porting thing, because the main wrapper subsystem would be written and debugged. Then not only NIC drivers, but other hardware class drivers like video, audio, usb 3, etc, may be ported.

A small digression. You talk about open discussions, and you say that you want the information about proposals to be open to the community, so I think it is okay for me to publish and talk about this.

As I have already said, the main wrapper subsystem should be ready first. It is obvious that it should be debugged on some real task, i. e. make some BSD driver interoperate with OS/2 subsystems, which means that an "interface" from the BSD driver to them should be created. And the only Pasha's condition is that the first such an "interface" must be the NIC drivers one. For whatever reason. So in the first stage you pay some initial amount of money and you get a working wrapper subsystem with some amount of working NIC drivers.

And then we have options.

The amount of money collected by the Fund is enough to complete another task (which costs less than the first one, because the "main wrapper" is ready already):

So the community, I think, has the right to decide porting which types of drivers the Fund's money should be spent on.

(I have some preferences on this question, but I won't vote (cuz I have no moral right I'm sure, cuz I have never donated a cent to the Fund.))

I'm writing this just to outline that there's another option: the video drivers could be ported instead of wireless NIC (wired NIC drivers must be ported before any of these anyway).

P. S. I just have a feeling that you, Martin, or someone else from OS2World has silently, w/o any public discussion, decided to give the priority to the wlan drivers, while having another option, that could be more interesting to the Community.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: pasha on June 02, 2014, 06:34:24 am

The only fact is that I have two serious proposals for the OS2World common Fund for 2014.

1) Kickstart Eclipse SWT port
2) Network/Wifi BSD driver port. 

This are the two things that I have, if anybody had other proposal (not ideas, a proposal with developers on board) please let me know.
At some point Bitwise is going to run out of funding for the Firefox port, dmik has put a lot of time in understanding the code, which is a huge mess so I'd suggest it as another use for the fund. 31ESR is already in testing and we're just starting testing 24ESR and 31ESR is going to be harder as all the OS/2 code is gone.
Having 3D accelerated video drivers is also important for the future, if only for webgl in Firefox. This is going to get more important as NPAPI plugin support is going to be removed at some point so no more flash or other plugins, instead the browser will be doing everything including 3D stuff. Even playing videos works much better if accelerated and who knows what future web applications will show up.
I really don't know how useful an eclipse/swt port would be.

  Video drivers can support all, that linux/bsd can support in this driver. There are some problem. OS/2 PM can not support all of features. But this problem can solved.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: pasha on June 02, 2014, 10:43:23 am
Hi

I think this discussion is good to open up the alternative to the community and workout some details.

Roderick, I think that the real issue is that Mensys/XEU haven't produced Wifi drivers with MultiMac. And the main driver request of the community was to have Wifi driver (according to a poll (http://www.os2world.com/polls/hardware/drivers-request)). Remember that people of this community was just sick of waiting for broken promises, or hearing "confidential" information of the things to came that never showed up.  This is why Pavel's offer may be tempting.

The real discussion should be, Does Mensys, XEU, Roderick, David, Steven, Lewis's new company or anybody have plans to create Wifi drivers for eCS-OS2?

Please Roderick, stop sending me emails in private about this subject, the idea is to have open discussion, you have this forum to put your explanations. I'm not the one that you have to convince for supporting this or not. 

The only fact is that I have two serious proposals for the OS2World common Fund for 2014.

1) Kickstart Eclipse SWT port
2) Network/Wifi BSD driver port. 

This are the two things that I have, if anybody had other proposal (not ideas, a proposal with developers on board) please let me know.

Regards

Martin, you described all except one. Why do I want to do right now is driver.   I'm still free from work and if it is this will work - I presume for it all the rest of postponing If not then I go and then have the result will be executed when the project is unknown.   if I'm going to work somewhere outside, I did not interested in your money. We have at least $ 1500 for programer at Month. But here need go to the house and programming to Windows or Linux. For discuss you have time to 4 june. Then I go to any programmers firms. I very like eat and beer :)
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: OS4User on June 02, 2014, 09:27:51 pm
At some point Bitwise is going to run out of funding for the Firefox port, dmik has put a lot of time in understanding the code, which is a huge mess so I'd suggest it as another use for the fund.

I would support this idea too  -   without proper browser,  os/2 has no chance to survive
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: guzzi on June 02, 2014, 10:45:44 pm
At some point Bitwise is going to run out of funding for the Firefox port, dmik has put a lot of time in understanding the code, which is a huge mess so I'd suggest it as another use for the fund.

I would support this idea too  -   without proper browser,  os/2 has no chance to survive

I second that idea too.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Andy Willis on June 02, 2014, 10:47:32 pm
At some point Bitwise is going to run out of funding for the Firefox port, dmik has put a lot of time in understanding the code, which is a huge mess so I'd suggest it as another use for the fund.

I would support this idea too  -   without proper browser,  os/2 has no chance to survive
Another option is to Port QT5 and use one of the webkit browsers... less work probably in the long term and more options available too.  FIrefox seems to be doing its best to marginalize itself.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: pasha on June 03, 2014, 12:08:41 am
At some point Bitwise is going to run out of funding for the Firefox port, dmik has put a lot of time in understanding the code, which is a huge mess so I'd suggest it as another use for the fund.

I would support this idea too  -   without proper browser,  os/2 has no chance to survive

Any browser can not work if driver for netcard is missing :)
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Oxyd on June 03, 2014, 01:26:22 am
At some point Bitwise is going to run out of funding for the Firefox port, dmik has put a lot of time in understanding the code, which is a huge mess so I'd suggest it as another use for the fund.

I would support this idea too  -   without proper browser,  os/2 has no chance to survive
Another option is to Port QT5 and use one of the webkit browsers... less work probably in the long term and more options available too.  FIrefox seems to be doing its best to marginalize itself.
To run (QT5, java etc) software on the modern hardware, we need driver infrastructure -- net/wifi, video with HW OpenGL support and hardware acceleration, USB3 and maybe Bluetooth!
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Dave Yeo on June 03, 2014, 04:42:27 am
At some point Bitwise is going to run out of funding for the Firefox port, dmik has put a lot of time in understanding the code, which is a huge mess so I'd suggest it as another use for the fund.

I would support this idea too  -   without proper browser,  os/2 has no chance to survive
Another option is to Port QT5 and use one of the webkit browsers... less work probably in the long term and more options available too.  FIrefox seems to be doing its best to marginalize itself.

How good is the QT5 version of webkit compared to the Apple version or others?
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Neil Waldhauer on June 03, 2014, 04:49:46 am
I don't favor funding any of the proposals at this time.

A new WiFi driver would be nice, but anyone can have WiFi by plugging in an Intel 5100 and using Doug B's excellent extensions to GenMac.
I'd actually use eclipse, but I can get by without it. We already have lots of excellent programmers editors on OS/2.

I like funding the bww Firefox as outlined by Dave Yeo. I wish we could pay bww to hire another programmer.
Pasha's driver framework is tempting, but only if we can hire him for a couple of years while we get the bugs worked out. Alas, the common fund is too small for that.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Dave Yeo on June 03, 2014, 05:12:22 am
At some point Bitwise is going to run out of funding for the Firefox port, dmik has put a lot of time in understanding the code, which is a huge mess so I'd suggest it as another use for the fund.

I would support this idea too  -   without proper browser,  os/2 has no chance to survive

Any browser can not work if driver for netcard is missing :)
I'm replying without need for a netcard though everyone else in the house is dependent on my netcard and get pissed off when it stops working due to IRQ weirdness. It would be nice to have a driver that worked and kept working for more then a couple of days.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on June 03, 2014, 05:28:05 am
We already have lots of excellent programmers editors on OS/2.

I doubt that. Can you please name some?

Pasha's driver framework is tempting, but only if we can hire him for a couple of years while we get the bugs worked out.

It may be so (I will ask) he will support his drivers later for free in his spare time; please keep in mind that he was developing OS/4 alongside with other talented programmers for years for free in his spare time.

The main work to produce the first release is what takes that much time so the decision to try to get the Fund's money to be able to work on this full day for a couple of month was made.

I'm really confused that such a great offer doesn't get supported unanimously by the community, and there are many people against it.

Please also remember that Dmik's time costs more, and before we make any decisions, it would be better to calculate what will we get in each case:
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Andi B. on June 03, 2014, 08:45:32 am
One question - was Pavel the developer of ACPI before David took over? Or do anyone know who it was?
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on June 03, 2014, 11:29:33 am
One question - was Pavel the developer of ACPI before David took over? Or do anyone know who it was?

Yes, Pasha was also developing ACPI until version 3.18.

He also is the author of NTFS.IFS. He says he would be glad to continue working on NTFS.IFS and add the support of writing data, but Mensys does not allow this.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: dbanet on June 03, 2014, 11:32:28 am
If someone is suddenly in doubt if Pasha is able to complete the work, then I remind you that the Fund's money would be transeffered to Pasha only after completing each stage.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Sigurd Fastenrath on June 03, 2014, 01:56:45 pm
If someone is suddenly in doubt if Pasha is able to complete the work, then I remind you that the Fund's money would be transeffered to Pasha only after completing each stage.

In my opinion: I would like to suggest the best to do is to wait until there are more informations about the new OS/2 company that is in the pipeline. Unless there is no further information about this project it is useless to discuss in wich way the community - or what is left of it - might support this or that project. First one needs to know the Roadmap and Agenda of the new OS/2 company.

My personal thoughts:

-> NEGATIV: well, the "old" (before David took over) ACPI was - in my opinion - really a waste of years, money and knowledge, as it never worked reliable - to say it clear - it was crap. Indeed it i.e. burned up one of my internal graphic chips in a Laptop. From what I have heard the Software was not well (to be honest) documented nor programmed. It was the main reason why eComStation failed. For Years.

-> NEUTRAL: what I assumed before has come to reality: eComStation IS dead (unfortunately).  :(  The only positive effect is that Developers like David and others might be willing to contribute to the new company - as far as I understand what I have read correctly, as I am not involved in this.

-> POSITIV: from what I have read and understand, almost all of those wich (from those wich are left) have a deeper knowledge of Programming, OS/2 and Project Management - will partitcipate in some way with the new OS/2 company. That gives a light at the end of the horizon, and in my opinion the last and only chance for OS/2 to be around at least for some more years.

So my suggestion is: Waiting for the Roadmap of the new OS/2 Company and concentrate all the remaining power and money into this new project, everything else will lead to nowhere....

Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Martin Iturbide on June 03, 2014, 02:36:15 pm

Quote
Martin, you described all except one. Why do I want to do right now is driver.   I'm still free from work and if it is this will work - I presume for it all the rest of postponing If not then I go and then have the result will be executed when the project is unknown.   if I'm going to work somewhere outside, I did not interested in your money. We have at least $ 1500 for programer at Month. But here need go to the house and programming to Windows or Linux. For discuss you have time to 4 june. Then I go to any programmers firms. I very like eat and beer :)

Hi Pavel

Sadly, OS2World can not make the decision on that time frame, we are discussing it but we can not reach an agreement for that day. Currently the OS2World head is on medical rest and he is an important part on this discussion. I personally don't want you to loose any job opportunity and I'm not going to lie to you saying "give me more time", or "just wait a little more".  I understand your need to for an stable job, and if June 4 is a critic milestone for you, I don't want to be blamed that you lost an opportunity because waiting for us.

Regards.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Neil Waldhauer on June 03, 2014, 03:00:56 pm
I do not want to undervalue the suggestion to develop an open-source framework for BSD drivers. The developers of OS/4, the new OS/2 loader and many other wonderful new things have the same weakness. Although their software is excellent and they have made huge contributions, their work does not reach a larger audience.

This is because of the crucial lack of support. End users such as myself need several things for success.

1. Clear description of the software, what it does, and documentation of the system requirements
2. An easy installation method
3. Documentation, tools and methods to troubleshoot when things go wrong
4. A bug tracking system to report bugs that is monitored and replies are made
5. Fixes for bugs and enhancements to make end users successful
6. Periodic re-releases of software that collect the bug fixes and enhancements
7. Announcements of software releases with description from item #1
8. A forum to discuss bugs and end-user questions that is monitored by someone who can answer questions.

These items do not have to be done by the programmer, but they do have to be done to make software a success.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Martin Iturbide on June 03, 2014, 03:20:26 pm
Very good feedback Neil and I agreed with this.

On this area...
5. Fixes for bugs and enhancements to make end users successful
6. Periodic re-releases of software that collect the bug fixes and enhancements

I agreed with it, but we needs to remember that the developer needs a constant flow of money to do that. We can no expect lifetime warranty and support for a one time donation. There has to be something in the middle to define this and try to find a way for projects to have a periodic fund raising to do this. (OpenBSD (http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/14/01/15/1719244/openbsd-looking-at-funding-shortfall-in-2014) does this from time to time)

But this are such good points... I'm even writing them down on my journal :)   
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Sergey Posokhov on June 03, 2014, 03:23:02 pm
I agree too.
Quote
Clear description of the software, what it does, and documentation of the system requirements
I still want to create Softpedia for OS/2 (http://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,385.msg3398.html) because Qt ports to OS/2 suffers from the same "item #1"! (and my small utilites too).
Quote
A bug tracking system to report bugs that is monitored and replies are made
Netlabs would help.
Quote
A forum to discuss bugs and end-user questions that is monitored by someone who can answer questions.
Softpedia-like project could has links from every page. The best forums are www.os2.org and www.os2world.com of course.

I hope I will collect the required amount of money but domain owner has disappeared two years ago...
Yes, Pasha was the developer of ACPI driver until version 3.18.

Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Andy Willis on June 04, 2014, 12:10:04 am
At some point Bitwise is going to run out of funding for the Firefox port, dmik has put a lot of time in understanding the code, which is a huge mess so I'd suggest it as another use for the fund.

I would support this idea too  -   without proper browser,  os/2 has no chance to survive
Another option is to Port QT5 and use one of the webkit browsers... less work probably in the long term and more options available too.  FIrefox seems to be doing its best to marginalize itself.

How good is the QT5 version of webkit compared to the Apple version or others?
I really have no idea, I have heard some banter of the idea of using the webkit but figured that it would be better to do that with QT5 than QT4 if it was going to be done so put forth the notion.
Title: Re: OS2World Common Fund 2014 - Open for Proposals
Post by: Silvan Scherrer on August 13, 2014, 12:06:39 pm
Hi all,

just a small update here.
bww bitwise works GmbH has started to work on SWT. For progress see https://github.com/bitwiseworks/eclipse.platform.swt

regards
Silvan