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There has been some confusion about the messages I sent out. Since some questions come up again and again, maybe I should try to answer these in FAQ form.

$VER: Amiga Community Source project FAQ 1.1 (04.01.99) 

Q: What do you hope to achieve?
A: Lots of things, but it can be summed up like this: better support for
   the Amiga, now and in the future.

Q: Are you connected to some Amiga organization?
A: This action was not related to any organization. However, 
   if an organization (such as Team Amiga or the ICOA) picks 
   it up, I would welcome that. Ideally this grows into an Open 
   Source-like movement, such as what exists for Linux (Linux exists
   because of open source) - but completely aimed at the Amiga. If 
   such a thing were to happen, we would need far more than just 
   uploaded sources to Aminet: we would need revision control systems,
   and source repositories. I cannot provide such a thing, but maybe 
   an organization such as the ones mentioned above could. It is up 
   to them though.

Q: I'm still working on program "X"! What's the deal?
A: I obviously prefer actively developed software to abandoned 
   software with source!

Q: My source is copyrighted by someone else.
Q: My source is still commercially viable (either on Amiga or another platform).
A: It was never my intention to try to talk anyone out of giving up their 
   copyrights or ownership of their sources. Obviously, many sources cannot
   be released. However, at least as much source has been abandoned by its 
   author and is now gathering dust. That was the source I was hoping to 
   get released.
   
Q: Why isn't program "X" included in the list of things I wrote?
A: Either it was uploaded under a different name (email address, actually),
   or it wasn't on Aminet sets 1-7, or it was in one of the directories 
   mods/, pix/, or docs/.
   
Q: But I only uploaded a font/keymap/catalog/etc.!?
Q: But I included source!?
A: The mail creation script wasn't all that smart. My apologies if you 
   were targetted incorrectly.

Q: Couldn't you have been a bit smarter in kicking out addresses?
A: There were over 9000 messages. There was no way I could have 
   checked them all by hand.
   
Q: Why did I get multiple messages?
A: There was a bug in the mail creation algorithm: it didn't deal 
   correctly with case sensitivity. Either that, or you have multiple
   email addresses.

Q: Is this just aimed at C/C++ programmers?
A: No! Obviously some things will be very hard to port (assembly...),
   and some languages may not be available on new Amigas, but people
   may still want to improve your program on current Amigas, and who 
   knows, given enough demand other languages may get ported to new 
   systems as well.

Q: I don't care about future machines!
Q: I intend to port myself to future machines!
A: Porting software to next generation machines is just one possibility.
   Sources can be used for a number of things:
 
   It will be able to remove bugs, add features, etc.
   It will be able to port those programs to newer OSes (OS 3.5), and 
   different CPUs (such as PowerPC). If the next generation Amiga has 
   an OS that is similar to the current one (and currently this is unknown),
   it will be possible to quickly port lots of software to it. Source can be
   recompiled under AROS, giving that platform a boost as well.
Hans Guijt

 

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