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Re: Possibility of open-sourcing GS/OS
josephoswaldgg@hotmail.com wrote:
I agree with other posters that there is basically zero chance that any
of the (relatively few?) people at Apple today who remember the Apple
II would make any effort at all to open source the GS/OS. There is
absolutely *zero* gain for Apple to make any effort. The battle for
"Apple II forever" was lost a long time ago. Who knows if the source
even exists at Apple anymore?
Exactly--I'd be quite surprised.
Even *if* you could get a clone of the GS/OS running, the 65816 is a
dead end. 16 MB address space? Man, check your calendar. You need 32
bits of address today. Preferably 64. Anybody who would want to deliver
an app on a 32-bit GS/OS or something is already writing it in Java or
for Linux or Cocoa or Windows, each of which runs on *tons* more
machines than there are IIgs's in the world, which is *tons* more than
any IIgs-2005-remix someone might make in a basement. The Apple II
folks are happy where they are; if they were interested in *anything*
new to take its place, they would have found it already.
Also an excellent point, missed by many.
In any case, now that I've rained on your parade, almost everything you
would could do with a GS/OS "update" could just as easily be done by
hacking a GS emulator, or by disassembling GS/OS on your own and
patching in whatever improvements you might want to make. That's more
the Apple II style anyway.
Source is overrated. You need someone who *understands* the source and
is willing to work on it. Anybody who would understand GS/OS source
could just as easily participate in such hacking without the source.
I'm reminded of an experience I had in the late 1980's, when my
company was heavily into Unix development, and talking with the
Chinese about a Chinese-language Unix.
We found that AT&T had approached them a few years (System V) earlier
about making such a version. The local university had a couple of
graduate students who had disassembled parts of Unix and patched it
to add 16-bit character support, which worked quite well. In fact, it
was exposure to this illegal "patch" version that had drawn AT&T's
attention to the potential of the Chinese market.
The Chinese turned down AT&T's offer to give them legal source in return
for a localized Unix, because they (correctly) reasoned that having the
source would open up lots of possibilities for enhancements that would
distract them from the simple "patch" they had learned to do!
They could patch a new version of Unix for China in a couple of weeks,
and they knew that if they had the source they would spend months
trying to get a version out! ;-)
Maybe there's something to that stereotype of Chinese wisdom...
Hacking like this is tremendous fun, and I've even had fun recently
with open-sourced Lisp Machine code, which is an even deader machine
than the IIgs. But realistically, I know that releasing that code will
be an entertaining diversion for a few crazy folks like me, and make
not the slightest noticeable difference otherwise. No real innovation
is being prevented by Apple keeping the GS/OS source locked up. Just
have fun with what you've got and don't wait for daydreams to come true.
Right on! I and others have expressed similar thoughts, but
never better!
-michael
Music synthesis for 8-bit Apple II's!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/
"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it is seriously underused."