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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2855 |
Closed-source scene tools
This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, being tickled every now and then.
So, why exactly do we get excellent tools once in a while, but which happen to be closed-source (and often for a specific OS, but that's only a side-issue), subject to inevitable bit-rot once their creators invariably lose interest or worse, among other problems?
My personal head canon says it's likely a combination of
1) being embarrassed of dirty code
2) not wanting other people to take snippets of code (and possibly pass them off as their own)
3) not wanting other people to modify the program to suit their needs (and possibly distribute it)
4) "I'll take my knowledge to the grave, suckers"
List is probably incomplete, but anyways, would like to hear yours' opinions on this. =) |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2855 |
Quoting spider-j
Quoting KrillAnyways, do you also directly understand Bitfire's source code when looking at it?
No of course not. But still his general "style" is closer to what I'm used to what makes it way easier to work through.
I see. But what makes my loader code somewhat less readable is perhaps the fact that it is a multi-platform project (C-64, C-128, Plus/4, might add PET at some point) and highly configurable.
This makes for a lot of pseudo-code-like macro action. =)
It's not representative of my style of C-64 only coding. (The respective drive-side portions are, though, but they also have some config-induced macro shit.)
Quoting spider-jSo these thoughts maybe shouldn't hinder you to release your sources. Indeed they shouldn't. Most people never really look at the source, until they must for some reason or other. Most important is that it works, precious snowflake developer egos be damned. :D
Quoting spider-jOh, and I thought the focus of the topic was more on the "why keep stuff closed source?" side in general (extending your initial 4 points) than on the specifically "speaking about C64 crossdev PC tools" side :-) Have you not noticed "tools" right in the thread title, and "often for a specific OS" in the OP body? ;) |
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spider-j
Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 449 |
Quoting Krilland "often for a specific OS" in the OP body? ;)
Okay, I see that probably refers to the OS linux users don't dare to speak / write out in public ;-P
User send me his some of his C# / .NET sources [EDIT: of his *tools*!] once and I must admit I could not make much sense of it, beeing completely driven by events attached to Windows forms. After I saw that I could understand why he didn't put the sourcecode out. Although from what I understood you can actually achieve a similar "form driven" style when using Mono.
So his argument was like: nobody would want to port that anyway and the project is kind of "finished" – nothing to add. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2855 |
Quoting spider-jQuoting Krilland "often for a specific OS" in the OP body? ;)
Okay, I see that probably refers to the OS linux users don't dare to speak / write out in public ;-P Sure, in practice it's Windows, but the main point is "some other OS". =)
(I do have the big 3 here, but Linux is the daily driver.)
Quoting spider-jSo his argument was like: nobody would want to port that anyway and the project is kind of "finished" – nothing to add. No program but the most trivial is bug-free. :)
And at some point it will be much easier to port it to whatever Microsoft will come up with next rather than setting up some virtual machine or whatnot just for that tool. =) |
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tlr
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1727 |
Quoting KrillAnd at some point it will be much easier to port it to whatever Microsoft will come up with next rather than setting up some virtual machine or whatnot just for that tool. =)
There is always the Python support in Excel. :)
Maybe they've run out of NIH? |
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TheRyk
Registered: Mar 2009
Posts: 2088 |
Quoting Krill...
1) being embarrassed of dirty code
2) not wanting other people to take snippets of code (and possibly pass them off as their own)
3) not wanting other people to modify the program to suit their needs (and possibly distribute it)
4) "I'll take my knowledge to the grave, suckers"
List is probably incomplete, but anyways, would like to hear yours' opinions on this. =)
To begin with, my humble native C64 stuff (I don't do other platform stuff) ain't "excellent" at all, but there are a few things people would like me to publish the source of, along with some comprehensible comments.
Otherwise, guilty as charged...
... in 1) especially some years ago I was often well aware that in spite of all optimizing, some stuff remained spaghetti and still was full of redundant stuff. And apart from that, even I sometimes don't understand my own comments if stuff is old or was coded and (not) commented after +10 drinks.
... combined with 3) Actually this is stupid, as sharing is caring. However, in the few cases I was asked for sources, I sometimes denied for the reason I still had vague plans to optimize stuff myself before, not just to feel less embarrassed (1) but also some stupid emotional connection, seeing the code as my baby. As I said, stupid, for often, the plans of working on it again myself didn't work out for years, and meanwhile someone else could have used and improved the stuff so I could take it from my to-do-pile :) |
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Fungus
Registered: Sep 2002
Posts: 629 |
For once I stayed on topic mostly, yes I was speaking of tools for PC that are on github, not for C64 at all though.
But my feelings also extend to whatever platform I'm working on. I don't see any difference. |
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Raistlin
Registered: Mar 2007
Posts: 575 |
Quote: For once I stayed on topic mostly, yes I was speaking of tools for PC that are on github, not for C64 at all though.
But my feelings also extend to whatever platform I'm working on. I don't see any difference.
This. Open source everything IMO. Not just about the platforms. |
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spider-j
Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 449 |
Quoting KrillNo program but the most trivial is bug-free. :)
And at some point it will be much easier to port it to whatever Microsoft will come up with next rather than setting up some virtual machine or whatnot just for that tool. =)
I guess it goes like this (from the coders perspective): I want a quick solution to problem X. I code a little tool with the least effort. If it is important to others it will be superseeded anyway soon, if not and it turns out to be important to me only then there is no use of sharing the source.
Back again to I = spider I (eieiei) assume it also has to do with how "big" your tool is. At least from what I can tell it seems the bigger the project the more likely it is that it will be
1.) ported to more platforms by the coder itself
2.) released as source code.
Looking the other way around: I did release some "mini" tools as source and even tried* to provide at least a win binary. Mac is a completely different story because I don't even know if you can compile anything for Mac without having an dev account (?) *shrug*
*often times I really don't know for sure if my win binaries do run on a real windows, because I just test then in WINE.
Taking https://github.com/jansalleine/diffscgen as an example I guess noone other than me has ever used it – and of course even less likely looked at the source. So I feel I could have released it as linux binary only and nobody would care. The decision to release source instead of binary only is more because it's the "natural" linux way. If I were using Windows I may think different.
Of course I could be totally wrong with my assumptions. But I do think that those assumptions play a big role in why people decide not to bother about other platforms or releasing the source. Because they feel what they are doing has very little value to others anyway. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2855 |
Quoting spider-jBecause they feel what they are doing has very little value to others anyway. Then again, if you deem your tool release-worthy, then why not simply release the source along with it.
(Oh, and you can compile stuff on MacOS perfectly fine without a dev account. At least i could last time i tried.) |
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spider-j
Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 449 |
Quoting KrillThen again, if you deem your tool release-worthy, then why not simply release the source along with it.
Depends on what "release-worthy" means to you personally. If it's a case like I described it's probably "I don't think many will use it, but it maybe of use for $someone so I'll just upload". And then you just release in the way what your OS' "standard" way is. Meaning: when you're using Windows you will most likely just release a binary and when you're using Linux you will most likely just release the source.
(OT: good to know about Mac. I'm so far away from those proprietary OSes that I just don't know what to do if I can't just gcc in the terminal. I half assed tried to read into Mac stuff and very soon stumbled into this: you need dev-kit-xyz from apple and register to compile stuff. My motivation for sure was not big enough*.)
and back on topic with refering to *: I think it will be the same if you're used to just put binaries out – you're just not motivated to release as source, because you feel then you'd eventually have to provide solutions how to build. Even on linux I sometimes think: when it's more complicated than just gcc or simple make (only utilising well supported shell commands and gcc or g++ max) then it's really tedious work to write a readme that lists all prerequisites.
So in that case as a linux user, you'll probably release it as source anyway. But if you're on Windows. Probably not. |
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