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Messages - Mentore

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1
Hi Jan-Erik
Would he agree to that someone sign a NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement)
and either let that person remove the code or himself if we'd scramble money to do it?

At a later stage it would be interesting if Gpf Rexx could work with ooRexx 5.x

I think I contacted the author long time ago. If memory serves me correctly, the issue was that the source code of GpfRexx contains the scramble procedure of any work created with that tool. That will mean that you can de-compile any software created GpfRexx if the author releases the source code. I think he does not want to have any kind of problems with that.

Maybe with a NDA, if someone gets the source code, to open source it will be required not to include that scramble procedure and maybe change the software in a way that the scramble code is customized by any software author.

Regards

During our mail exchange, Mr. Clerin was thinking about releasing the source code to the public, after removing all the cryptographic parts that might allow someone to decompile GPF REXX built programs. Afterwards, he decided to just lend me a personal license to replace my original lost one and a generic OS/2 license, so that there was no need for him to get up and running an OS/2 environment which he didn't have anymore.

This is what I was able to get, and I don't think he really wants to go deeper that way. But if someone is willing to ask him, maybe we could write him a petition with an NDA to continue GPF REXX development and maybe change the REXX core used, removing the registration code, or something similar. I'm thinking a mixed style license could do the job (of course no GPL, and this means that no open source software would be attached to the software or we'd have to disclose all the source code).

Mentore

2
Hello Mentore.

Thanks for that. So, it means that "GpfRexx" is now "AS IS" Freeware, with no support from it's author (logically). That's good.

I have that the last version is this one:
- https://hobbesarchive.com/Home/Download?path=/Hobbes/pub/os2/dev/proglang/rexx/GpfRexx_1-2c.zip

Let me know any correction.

Thanks

Hi Martin,
AFAIK the release on Hobbes is the latest one. I have a mess in my personal software archive, which is scattered in three PCs and heavily unorganized, so I can't really confirm it's complete - still I can't find real differences in the archives I possess, so I guess that's complete.

I encourage you all to try this interesting piece of software.

Mentore

3
Hiya all, something good to let you know.
Recently I found I lost my registration key for the excellent GPF REXX programming IDE for OS/2 (https://ecsoft2.org/node/1322).
I decided to contact Jean-Baptiste Clerin, the developer, asking him to help me with this problem and after a few emails we agreed on this:
even if the product is no more of interest to him, he can't release it as open source because he would have to remove some cryptographic algorythm (didn't go too deep in details) and so some peculiar aspects of the program would be lost. Even so, he answered me he didn't have the time to work on it and also he got rid of his OS/2 environment, so open sourcing it was a no-no.

The solution? Creating a registration key for me and a generic-user registration key for everyone of us who wants to try the software!

Here it is:
V 1.2 (Pro)
License To: OS/2 User
License Id: 45-78-40718
Key: 50C2-9096-0C04-89B4-20DB-B246-2F1F-49E1

I'm in the process of re-installing all my OS/2 important software on a new ArcaOS VM so I'll have to work a lot. I intend to fire it up ASAP to work on some OS/2 native software. In the meantime, feel free to use the generic key as you see fit.

Mentore

4
Programming / Re: Boost 1.87 - assembler problems
« on: March 25, 2025, 11:29:57 pm »
Perhaps copy make_i386_sysv_elf_gas.S to make_i386_sysv_aout_gas.S, change the cmake.lists file or whatever file is needed to adjust to assemble make_i386_sysv_aout_gas.S instead of make_i386_sysv_elf_gas.S and hopefully can just remove the unknown pseudo-ops to get it to assemble. Might have to change the .section types too, forget the specifics right now.

Thanks Dave. I'll try something tomorrow (it's 11 pm here)... Boost would help me a lot in porting some interesting software like lilypond and other things.

Mentore

5
Programming / Boost 1.87 - assembler problems
« on: March 25, 2025, 01:45:02 pm »
Hello all, I'm trying to port the entire Boost library system.
Working with the CMake version helped me getting rid of the horrible B2 (bootstrap) build chain which I tried to port but with a lot of headaches.

I'm fixing little problems during compilation, but got stuck in some assembler section:

make gives me

make_i386_sysv_elf_gas.S:34: Error: unknown pseudo-op: `.hidden'

I'm currently using GCC 14.20, but as.exe is the "original" one on OS/2 since the 9.2.0 release of GCC.
It seems the assembler is the culprit, by searching in some other forums.
Am I correct in assuming that by default the "as" assembler is used? Or is it WASM?

I'll keep trying, but some suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Mentore

6
General Discussion / Re: Brainstorm: What is Next with OS/2 ?
« on: March 21, 2025, 08:29:27 am »
Hello.
As long as we can't fix the memory issues (4GB border), everything else is more or less useless. And I doubt we ever get this one fixed.

I guess that just as USB 3 or UEFI was a blocker to run OS/2, I guess this is our new blocker. Not a blocker to run OS/2 on hardware, but to have modern software compiled on it.

Regards

Looking at all the troubles Dave Yeo and Paul Smedley are going through to port Qt 5/6 and Dooble / Otter / other browsers, yes, this is one of the key points we likely will not be able to address.
So two solutions come to mind: open up a niche (not ours) with specific interest, or try to push again for the kernel (at least) source.
Which, likely, is impossible to achieve.

Mentore

7
General Discussion / Re: Brainstorm: What is Next with OS/2 ?
« on: March 20, 2025, 07:59:18 am »
Hello

Yes, again, the typical thread for brainstorming about the future of OS/2 and ArcaOS.

On Dec of 2023 I sent the attached wish list document to Lewis based on past discussions.

Today ArcaOS is running on UEFI and finally has some language localizations like German, Spanish, and Russian.

It seems to me that the top requirements from the perspective of the OS are still:
1) Modern web browser
2) Wifi Driver.

What do you think it is missing or what had changed from 2023's wishlist to today?

On the other hand, what else can it be interesting to do as a community?

Regards

Being both a developer and an user, I can see from both sides.
Yes, we need drivers and yes, we need a modern web browser.
For these targets to be, eherm, targeted, we need developers.

It seems to me that on OS/2 we have gone back to the '80s era, when there was no software and you had to build it yourself. This is pretty bad-looking from a common user's point of view: we are really used to the plain and simple "I need some software to do XY, I search on the 'net for XY, I find the software, I install it, I'm more or less satisfied, case closed". This is not really the case on OS/2.

So something good to do would be to nurture a little more our shrinking developers' community.
I'm really afraid this would be a HUGE task, but I feel this should be some starting point to try and obtain something more from this old beloved beast.

Mentore

8
Applications / Re: LarsenCommander - new test version
« on: February 24, 2025, 08:52:54 am »
I've just released v1.09.00. See https://sourceforge.net/projects/lcmd-git/files/


Hi Andi, I'm about to test it  right now. I'm heavily using LC, since I'm so used to the old Norton Commander interface. I also would like to ask you if it's possible to add an "Open With" option on files.
Since I use it really much when I develop or port OS/2 software, something like that would be of great help in order to let me, say, open a source code file with an appropriate editor like VisualSlickEdit, EPM, plain old E, FTE, or maybe a more complex IDE like VisualAge or OpenWatcom.
Was that already on your mind?
In any case, thanks for your good work on this file manager, I feel really at home using it.

Mentore

9
Applications / Re: hobbesarchive.com FTP
« on: February 14, 2025, 08:32:19 am »
So how does one upload to Hobbes?

I just downloaded cadaver and tried to connect to hobbesarchive.com and was not successful.

On the top of the page you should see an "Upload" item. Just click on it and you will be presented a form to input relevant data and upload the file. It is almost 100% identical to the old Hobbes upload form (just lacks the .txt file you'd attach to the compressed file on the original Hobbes site).

Mentore

10
Applications / Re: XWP v1.0.17
« on: February 05, 2025, 09:11:32 am »

XWorkplace v1.0.17 is now available.


Thanks Rich, I just downloaded it.
By the way, it seems your SSL certificate is out of date...

Mentore

11
Programming / Re: [gcc] libgomp?
« on: January 23, 2025, 08:16:25 am »
libgomp is AFAIK a library for optimizing multithreading programs. That's certainly not an easy port to do.

Yes, you're right. On some forum the issue is discussed but it's a really gray area: it would at least need a really long configuration process, and I'm almost sure it would have to be rewritten for the most part with the OS/2 thread API.
Most probably the best solution for PortableGL is removing the parts requiring libGomp or substitute them with the OS/2 API equivalent. I'll try to understand the next steps.

Mentore

12
Programming / Re: [gcc] libgomp?
« on: January 21, 2025, 10:55:57 pm »
IIRC, PortableGL is header only and libgomp is only needed for some examples.

Hi Jochen, yes you're right in both. But I'm still wondering how come we don't have libGomp in OS/2 GCC, I feel this could be useful. I also tried something but seems building it separatedly is kind of a huge beast to tame. Will have a deeper look tomorrow (it's 11 PM here now).

Mentore

13
Programming / [gcc] libgomp?
« on: January 20, 2025, 02:32:31 pm »
Hi everyone,
trying to port another OpenGL renderer (PortableGL) which seems promising, but complains I lack libgomp.
From what I saw, libgomp should be part of GCC but I seem unable to reach for it - GCC falls back to searching it in the OS/2 toolkit, which means it's not in the GCC tree.

Can someone help me finding it? We could do with a more modern OpenGL library (albeit incomplete).
Mentore

14
Programming / Re: DOSBox-x - infinite loop in configure/make
« on: January 17, 2025, 10:08:22 am »
Cool, so the latest dosbox-x works fine on Arca then?

Hey J,
currently I haven't still tried again with Dosbox-x. As Dave said, there are many other problems with it so this is just one of them (and only on my VM, I'm fairly sure Dave has his PC's clock running fine).

I'm in the process of reorganizing all the source code I have on my personal Github repository, together with some sponsoring information to keep going with OS/2 related software (ports and native).

Mentore

15
Programming / Re: DOSBox-x - infinite loop in configure/make
« on: January 15, 2025, 03:15:51 pm »
Hello all,
I'm having a real PITA trying to port DosBox-x under OS/2 with the latest tool (Gcc 9.2.0, the rest is up-to-date with ANPM netlabs repo).
-- snip --

Hi everyone, I finally found the problem! Thought it would be useful to know.
Fact is, make checks wether configure script is more recent than configure.ac and - in case - it recreates the configure script calling --recheck on config.status. BUT: I didn't notice thay my VM was setting a fixed system date at october 24, so every time I rebuilt the script it would still be older than configure.ac... Thus the loop.

I've issued a DATE command to reset time and now I'm compiling an Atari 800 emulator on SDL. Gonna let you know what's happening and maybe even give another try to Dosbox-x.

Mentore

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