Huge collection of Atari 8-bit software on BD-R

[barnieg]

Just to clarify if you are the copyright owner you can re-license your software as proprietary but you can't prevent the existing code that's out there from being GPL and if necessary forked. Dual licensing is sometimes a good way of funding development.

 

AspeQt looks like it has multiple contributors from my brief look at the project therefore copyright assignment would be required to provide a proprietary version. Also its GPL 2 only? therefore a fork couldn't be moved to GPL 3

 

 

I know all about GNU GPL licensing but I will ask you a simple question, how would you feel if I took the AspeQt source code and turned into a proprietary software (there is nothing to prevent me from doing so in the GPL license) and sell it for whatever amount I wanted to,

[atari8warez]

@barnieg Thanks for clearing that up for me, I must admit I must have missed one critical (for me) aspect of the GPL licensing and it is the section where it says anyone can sell the code at whatever price they wish. That is where I disagree with GPL (for reasons that I am not really in mood to discuss in length), but that's me and I've seen that I have no right to prevent anybody from doing whatever they want with the code. So I think it is time for me to reconsider my future efforts and come up with a different game plan, or simply scratch AspeQt from my options list and write my own PE from scratch. I admit I have learnt a lot from the open-source code thanks to Fatih Aygun (the original author), it was as fun as it was educational, but it may just be time to move on.

[atari8warez]

you can indeed fork the code and do what you want with it according to the license. I sincerely hope you do. Since I already have the source, I'll just post it back if you remove it under the same license and someone else will pickup development. maybe add back apetime and such...

 

Empty threats....

 

It's not a matter of threatening anybody, it's just a personal decision that I have to make when it comes whether I should allow my personal time and effort to be used for commercial gain by someone who has nothing to do with the project in the first place (and I don't necessarily mean the OP of this thread). You can do whatever you wish with the existing code and hope that someone will pick it up for further development, all the best luck to you.

Edited November 15, 2013 by atari8warez

[barnieg]

It would be a shame if you felt you had to abandon your efforts with AspeQt, I think open source projects are good for the retro communities as it means that knowledge is not locked away. Market forces tend to prevent overcharging for GPL projects. Going forward if you did start a new project maybe dual licensing would suit your needs better? Doing this you could also include extra features in the "premium" version.

 

 

@barnieg Thanks for clearing that up for me, I must admit I must have missed one critical (for me) aspect of the GPL licensing and it is the section where it says anyone can sell the code at whatever price they wish. That is where I disagree with GPL (for reasons that I am not really in mood to discuss in length), but that's me and I've seen that I have no right to prevent anybody from doing whatever they want with the code. So I think it is time for me to reconsider my future efforts and come up with a different game plan, or simply scratch AspeQt from my options list and write my own PE from scratch. I admit I have learnt a lot from the open-source code thanks to Fatih Aygun (the original author), it was as fun as it was educational, but it may just be time to move on.

Edited November 15, 2013 by barnieg

[Kyle22]

This:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=171154329196&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123

 

is an ebay link to a fake, fraudulent SDX that I don't approve of in any way. Neither does Mike, and I'm sure that drac030 and those guys don't approve either.

 

 

I am part of the original Fine Tooned engineering (FTe), and APPLAUD and APPRECIATE drac030, trub, and those guys effort, but, this ebay guy is some kind of a jerk. Please read my original post about him, how he admits to me about taking advantage of newbies.

[AtariGeezer]

My collection is no longer up for distribution. I have listened to the advice in this thread, and find it too complicated a deal to be involved in. Not what I intended when I started it. Finding, getting and organizing the software was a pretty huge job and took me a long time. I thought I had asked a reasonable fee to distribute it, but there is no reason to expect me to invest further effort into it if I am not allowed to charge anything to recoup my investment. I will not violate others rights who developed this software. Until I can secure their permission, I dont have anything to share. This is really the last I will post about it. Moderator please lock this thread. I'm done.

Why not just make a Torrent and make it freely available to download?

BitTorrent is what I use to seed Antic & Analog Mags/Disks...

[Kyle22]

I agree. Please seed it for us, just don't charge money for something you didn't write.The Pirate Bay, KickAssTorrents, any place like that would be good.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Kyle22

[Dragon375]

Nahhh.. if it starts a war on here, what good would come from me dedicating pc resources to seeding? I just dont care for the politics and people that are so damn worried that I might actually get a dollar or two that I just dont really want to be bothered to do it. It's not just that I want to make a profit, I offered to do it where it didnt end up COSTING me to share it. Bit-Torrent is fine and all that, but who pays my utility bills when I have to leave my PC on for weeks on end to seed something that nobody feels I should get a thank-you for? I didnt start this thread to insult the people that are currently developing for the A8, it was mostly to make sure some of the older stuff lived on. I have already invested my time in getting a lot of the old archives that were once alive on the net, I dont want to make this into a lifelong crusade. Like I said earlier, I have had some of this stuff for over 20 years already. Maybe in another 10-15 years (when it really isnt available anywhere anymore), then I wont get made out to be such an ungrateful bastard if I share it. Till then, I wont.

[+Gemintronic]

Nahhh.. if it starts a war on here, what good would come from me dedicating pc resources to seeding? I just dont care for the politics and people that are so damn worried that I might actually get a dollar or two that I just dont really want to be bothered to do it. It's not just that I want to make a profit, I offered to do it where it didnt end up COSTING me to share it. Bit-Torrent is fine and all that, but who pays my utility bills when I have to leave my PC on for weeks on end to seed something that nobody feels I should get a thank-you for? I didnt start this thread to insult the people that are currently developing for the A8, it was mostly to make sure some of the older stuff lived on. I have already invested my time in getting a lot of the old archives that were once alive on the net, I dont want to make this into a lifelong crusade. Like I said earlier, I have had some of this stuff for over 20 years already. Maybe in another 10-15 years (when it really isnt available anywhere anymore), then I wont get made out to be such an ungrateful bastard if I share it. Till then, I wont.

 

I'm a relative outsider and usually partially off-topic. Nevertheless, I still think gathering the truly public domain works and charging for media/distribution is a worthy idea.

[AtariGeezer]

So if time and resources are a factor, how long would it take to burn 100-200 BD-R's???

Given that some will fail and another trip or more to the store to get more blanks...

[TheNameOfTheGame]

 

but who pays my utility bills when I have to leave my PC on for weeks on end to seed something that nobody feels I should get a thank-you for

 

Umm, someone already offered to provide ftp access...you could upload it there and someone else could seed?

 

 

 

then I wont get made out to be such an ungrateful bastard if I share it. Till then, I wont.

 

Uhhhh, so share it? No one has any objections to sharing it. It is when you hope to profit from it that there is objections.

[atari8warez]

Nahhh.. if it starts a war on here, what good would come from me dedicating pc resources to seeding? I just dont care for the politics and people that are so damn worried that I might actually get a dollar or two that I just dont really want to be bothered to do it. It's not just that I want to make a profit, I offered to do it where it didnt end up COSTING me to share it. Bit-Torrent is fine and all that, but who pays my utility bills when I have to leave my PC on for weeks on end to seed something that nobody feels I should get a thank-you for? I didnt start this thread to insult the people that are currently developing for the A8, it was mostly to make sure some of the older stuff lived on. I have already invested my time in getting a lot of the old archives that were once alive on the net, I dont want to make this into a lifelong crusade. Like I said earlier, I have had some of this stuff for over 20 years already. Maybe in another 10-15 years (when it really isnt available anywhere anymore), then I wont get made out to be such an ungrateful bastard if I share it. Till then, I wont.

 

I can seed it for you if you want. I have over 300GB bandwidth a month and can allocate about 200GB for the torrent. I have a server running 24/7 so cost is no problem. If we can find a second seed that should be more than enough i guess.

Edited November 15, 2013 by atari8warez

[atari8warez]

This:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=171154329196&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123

 

is an ebay link to a fake, fraudulent SDX that I don't approve of in any way. Neither does Mike, and I'm sure that drac030 and those guys don't approve either.

 

 

I am part of the original Fine Tooned engineering (FTe), and APPLAUD and APPRECIATE drac030, trub, and those guys effort, but, this ebay guy is some kind of a jerk. Please read my original post about him, how he admits to me about taking advantage of newbies.

 

This is not only copyright abuse but also fraud, how can anyone blame authors who try to protect their hard work when this kind of activity is going on... The seller disabled the "Ask Seller a Question" feature because he knows he's gonna get a few critical remarks and all of his auctions are private. When I see an auction like this one I make a point of reporting it to eBay, I am not sure if they do anything about it but doesn't hurt to try.

[Dragon375]

I agree with reporting that scum. I do not agree with bringing it into this thread as though I am guilty of the same. I did not represent this collection as "my work" even though I do have a couple programs I wrote in there, Profit? Nahh, didnt want that either. Just trying to recoup the cost of the media, the wear and tear on my equipment to dupe it, and my effort doing the whole shipping and handling bit. Instead I get grief because you think I would make a profit. Not the kinda people I usually break my neck to help if ya know what I mean. You were alive yesterday and you will be alive tomorrow, the possession of this collection will not change that. I have heard too much about how I dont own this data. Hell, I know that. But the plain simple fact is.. I already have a copy, and so would a few others if this thread wouldnt have turned nasty. I thought better of the A8 community than this. This is not the only place I can go to share it. I could probably even setup my own A8 site. Maybe I will maybe I wont. I'm just not going to worry about sharing it if people think that gathering it all up and saving it all these years is worth nothing. I did it because the A8 was my first real computer and it still keeps me happy to this day. So, like I asked the moderator, please lock this thread. There's nothing more to say.

[+wood_jl]

 

I know all about GNU GPL licensing but I will ask you a simple question, how would you feel if I took the AspeQt source code and turned into a proprietary software (there is nothing to prevent me from doing so in the GPL license) and sell it for whatever amount I wanted to, and stop developing the free open-source version.

 

To answer this question - quite simply - most people would then use APE (Atari Peripheral Emulator). I'm thinking you probably know that answer already, and are just playing "dumb." Or, maybe you're not playing. No matter; the response is the same.

[+wood_jl]

atari8warez,

 

Nobody is worried about your threats. You can't close anything. AspeQt is distributed under the GPL. You can't take away my rights.

 

Damn straight! Call out the shit-talkers when it is appropriate to do so!

[+wood_jl]

....or simply scratch AspeQt from my options list ......

Please do so. It would serve AspeQt (and the Atari community) well if you were to do so.

[+wood_jl]

I must ask - EXACTLY WHAT great contribution has atari8warez made to this project, other than assigning his name to "current maintainer" of the project on Sourceforge? I'm skeptical, but I'm willing to be entertained with *specifically* what improvements he's made, building on top of other people's work (obviously).

[AtariGeezer]

This is not the only place I can go to share it. I could probably even setup my own A8 site. Maybe I will maybe I wont. I'm just not going to worry about sharing it if people think that gathering it all up and saving it all these years is worth nothing.

Starting to sound like all you really care about is making a profit!

"If I can't sell it to these guys, I'll try else where"...

 

A "True Atarian" Shares

[atari8warez]

I agree with reporting that scum. I do not agree with bringing it into this thread as though I am guilty of the same. I did not represent this collection as "my work" even though I do have a couple programs I wrote in there, Profit? Nahh, didnt want that either. Just trying to recoup the cost of the media, the wear and tear on my equipment to dupe it, and my effort doing the whole shipping and handling bit. Instead I get grief because you think I would make a profit. Not the kinda people I usually break my neck to help if ya know what I mean. You were alive yesterday and you will be alive tomorrow, the possession of this collection will not change that. I have heard too much about how I dont own this data. Hell, I know that. But the plain simple fact is.. I already have a copy, and so would a few others if this thread wouldnt have turned nasty. I thought better of the A8 community than this. This is not the only place I can go to share it. I could probably even setup my own A8 site. Maybe I will maybe I wont. I'm just not going to worry about sharing it if people think that gathering it all up and saving it all these years is worth nothing. I did it because the A8 was my first real computer and it still keeps me happy to this day. So, like I asked the moderator, please lock this thread. There's nothing more to say.

 

Don't worry nobody is saying that you were scamming anybody or ripping off someone's work. All we are saying is that share it as you wish but not for profit.

[ThumpNugget]

This is not the only place I can go to share it. I could probably even setup my own A8 site. Maybe I will maybe I wont. I'm just not going to worry about sharing it if people think that gathering it all up and saving it all these years is worth nothing. I did it because the A8 was my first real computer and it still keeps me happy to this day. So, like I asked the moderator, please lock this thread. There's nothing more to say.

 

Following on Geezers comments... You have 20+ gigs of atari material because countless others made an effort over the years to make it available for you to freely click and download.

[Mclaneinc]

I agree with thumps point but its an awkward one over all, the factor of different in dev time is obviously crucial, no one wants current dev games being sold for cash and I fully support that unless its the devs etc getting the cash!

 

However the collector in me wants to see the old stuff just in case so I can weed out any goodies to post I'm sure Atari Frog has the same mindset as me.

 

But as thump says there's all that material out there because countless people on here INCLUDING me made our collections available in later life to people to make great archived material out there. There's bits I've done in that archive and on your list BUT I want them OUT THERE as they are, my old hacks are rubbish compared to the stuff of today, my coding skills are rubbish but hey, I enjoyed doing them and its a little bit of history from me for me to see and if it makes another person happy I'm over the moon.

 

We all had bits that were no where else ever but we put them out for every one to enjoy.

 

So yes, thump is spot on, its all out there because we all put it out there, sure you want to recover costs for media and postage, hell I'd even donate a little bit if you put it on FTP for all to see, it won't make you rich but it might cover the electric used to do the send.

 

Give it a thought..

[flashjazzcat]

Profit? Nahh, didnt want that either. Just trying to recoup the cost of the media, the wear and tear on my equipment to dupe it, and my effort doing the whole shipping and handling bit. Instead I get grief because you think I would make a profit.

...not trying to get rich off this, but do want to make a few bucks.

So - which is it?

 

Note that for my part, I don't adhere to any GPL licence (the content on my website is described as "donationware") - I just rely on people to be fair. While at no point have said "please remove my stuff", I did seek to take issue with the unapologetic retorts when you were pulled up about not seeking permission to distribute software which might still be under active development. All you had to say was "OK - sorry for not checking first - is it OK to leave the stuff in, or do you want it removed?". That would have been the end of it. However, because (as we're frequently reminded) the collection was "a lot of work", my voiced concerns are apparently judged as unreasonable. And by post twelve, you're the wounded party, saying you didn't expect "this kind of behaviour", "grief", etc, etc. You also - after three years - seemed ignorant of the provenance of the software in question.

 

I might be an idealist, but I cannot imagine sticking (for example) Aspeqt, Candle's XEX loader, or a copy of SpartaDOS X on a disk and giving it away - let alone charging for it - without at least making some attempt at contacting the authors first. I even ask Drac030 - for instance - before including one of his utilities on a free-to-download toolkit disk, lest the author takes umbrage at his work showing up unannounced on some other website. Maybe he wouldn't mind, but I don't want to assume that that is the case. Clearly such good manners have fallen out of fashion. Better to act first, then say "But hey - it took me ages to copy this stuff" when challenged. Some people get mildly pissed off in such circumstances. I'm not sure what's so difficult to understand about that.

 

Now that it's out in the open: do what you like as far as I'm concerned. A simple email or PM would have been easier.

[atari8warez]

$20 for a BluRay disc shipped is about $4-$8 in profit if the burn doesnt fail. If a disc doesnt burn correctly then the profit will essentially be 0.

 

 

That's not quite true. The cost for the disk plus the jewel case is less than $2. Considering he charges the shipping cost on top of $20, that's $18 profit per disk. Sell 100 disks, that's $1800 profit for simply copying and selling someone else's work. This is hardly called a service to the community or recouping the costs... I offered to seed a torrent of the disk but heard nothing back, intentions are obvious...

Edited November 15, 2013 by atari8warez

[dragos]

Lets say I agree with you (which we can pretend, I guess) His electricity costs money, right? I mean, he isn't riding a bicycle generator to power his computer (that we know of). To get to the post office, which to be fair, we have no idea how far that is for him, there are some people in very rural areas, I hear they even get electricity without the aforementioned bicycles. So he has to pay for gas, right? What does he do for a living? well, not terribly relevant, but asking a few bucks (and VERY FEW, if you ask me) for spending your "free" time doing something that it looks like is only going to get you yelled at, doesn't seem so bad.

 

I understand that some of this stuff was released and the original authors asked not one cent for it. I hear you, I get it, no need to harp on it. but the fact of the matter is, if you released it for free already, how does it hurt you that some guy might make a few bucks off of it? you know what, in actuality, he isn't making a few bucks off of your work in particular, if we break it down, he is making tenths or hundredths or hell, maybe even thousandths of a cent off of it, because if you average out the content to the cost, that's the reality of it.

 

Then, after receiving alot of grief, the poor guys says he will remove things if the authors are wound so tight they cant possibly handle "giving away" a fraction of a penny to someone, and he gets attacked by people who released things under a license they clearly do not even begin to understand.

 

So no, he didn't respond to you. Shocking, I know.