Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!funic!nic!vinsci From: vinsci@nic.funet.fi (Leonard Norrgard) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: Information on Amiga Technical Reference Seri Message-ID: Date: 13 Jun 91 22:34:52 GMT References: <3036@public.BTR.COM> Sender: vinsci@nic.funet.fi (Leonard Norrgard) Organization: Soft Service, Inc. Lines: 48 In-Reply-To: valentin@btr.BTR.COM's message of 12 Jun 91 09:05:17 GMT In article <3036@public.BTR.COM> valentin@btr.BTR.COM (Valentin Pepelea valentin@btr.com) writes: In article <22342@cbmvax.commodore.com> andy@cbmvax.commodore.com (Andy Finkel) writes: > >>The intent of publishing source code isn't so people can make better >>versions, although it might be a neat school project :) Ever have >>a question like, "Does RectFill() use QBlit()?" Well, the answer can >>be found in the code (or you can bug folks on the net with the question... :) > >Would this argument work with the authors of Populus or Lemmings or >SimCity ? I'm curious about each of their techniques and simulation >models. Having the source code would help improve my gameplay. >Plus, there's probably a few tweaks I could add that would improve those >games a bit. Having the source code of these games is not a necessity to understand how to play, but having the source code to the OS can cut down sharply on the learning curve of how to use some functions. Quite a few companies provide the OS sources to their custommers; Commodore would not be an exception. Any real-time OS for embedded systems is supplied in source code form, including Vrtx, pSOS, OS/9, and others. Ever wondered how come these companies are not afraid of having their work plagiarized? The answer is quite simple, copyrights. Valentin Add VMS from Digital to the list. Now the difference with their source code is that it is clean and readable. Something I've not yet heard about CBM's (cf. the code in the RKM's). If you want the source to VMS, talk to Digital. The last time I checked the entire operating system was available on micro fiche (about 400 of them...). So what do you need it for? Doing to the right thing in systems programming! Of course, here another difference comes up, in that VMS is actually *documented*. Nice, very clean descriptions of each OS/library function, and that documentation was written by *technical writers*, not by the OS designers such as the autodocs are (I suppose, since they are extracted from the OS source code, right?) Now, style isn't everything. Publishing your not all too nice source code is OK. What *may* scare CBM is clones of the OS. Now it has already happened to the PC BIOS, Apples ROMS, and no doubt we will see Amiga clones in the future (provided Amigas continue to be successful). Reverse engineering is of course much simpler if you have source, but: HIDING THE SOURCE DOESN'T PROTECT YOUR OS FROM BEING CLONED. IT SURE DOES HURT YOUR APPLICATION DEVELOPERS. -- Leonard