Was tun wir jetzt?

    Vielleicht ist es ein bisschen schneller, dies zu diskutieren, aber Frank Fischer's Ableben Erzeugt Fragen. John Howard und ich habe diskutiert, was wird nun geschehen Geos? Was sind Ihre Gedanken? Besitz/Open source? Wir dürfen nicht vergessen, dass es Franks Familie, die entscheidet, ist, wir glauben nicht, sie Breadbox verwalten möchten.


    Sorry für mein schlechtes Google-Deutsch.
    Hans

    Hej Hans,

    it's really hard to think about the future of Geos this early. Frank kept our favorite OS alive and he gave us at least small hope, that Geos would go ahead in becoming developed. Now this small hope seems to disappear...
    But you are right: We have to think about it.
    My second idea today was, that all developers should continue their work, especially Falk, who has some fantastic ideas with Geos.
    And somebody (you or John or ...) has to take the leadership in planning and coordinating the next steps.
    I am really rather sad about Frank's death.
    But Geos must go on.

    Wilfried

    I hope, his family is free to give it free for Outsourcing.
    This should be done a lot of years ago.
    I think, Geos has no other chance to exist the next 10 years.
    Otherwise it is still living only on our own CP's.

    Greetings Frank K.

    Geos + Lenovo Ideapad 5 = Aufbruch in eine neue Galaxie

    to read about Frank's death and first of all I wold like to express my sincere condolences to his family.

    Furthermore I hope this isn't the end of the GEOS story at all. But for me it's hard to imagine, that Ensemble can be made open-source. This is because GEOS is a complex pice of software that always contains 3rd party code (eg. rendering engine or spell checker) that can't be distributed. Therefore I would be really happy, if we will see a FREEWARE version of the Ensemble Suite and SDK, that is allowed to be redistributed (maybe for non-commercial and educational use only). This would at least save projects like R-Basic...

    Thomas

    Yes, you are right Thomas, the software contains many copyrighted parts. Gene Andersson checked this over ten years ago. The single most problematic part was the font system. I think he tried to replace it with an open source system, however, he gave up, as I think he found it to be too complex. There are other parts, too as you point out which are maybe easier to replace.

    Breadbox was owned by Frank as the only owner. Now Frank's family have to decide to what to do with Breadbox. John (Howard) have a hunch that they are not interested to continue running Breadbox as a business, but we are not sure. If they will not be interested, I guess it will be John and I who have to propose what to do.

    In any case, to continue to provide Geos, it will require the family to continue to run Breadbox, or someone to transfer (buy) Breadbox from Frank's family and continue to run it or to start a new legal body (company or foundation) which will do the same thing.

    We will see the outcome.

    Hans

    Dear Hans,

    Zitat von hanslse

    In any case, to continue to provide Geos, it will require the family to continue to run Breadbox

    I think it isn't necessary to continue to run Breadbox to continue the business *around* GEOS. IMHO just the service to keep it running (maintain emulators to be capable of running GEOS - not reverse) and maybe to develop/maintain small applications is the business today - but not selling ENSEMBLE. Therefore releasing something like GeoPublish 4.1.3 before winding up Breadbox, would be an important milestone to keep the GEOS business up.

    Thomas

    Hans,

    the font system is no big problem according to my information.
    Today the situation is an another than ten years ago. I have discussed that with Frank when GEOS32 was still in the discussion.

    In my opinion Breadbox has no future as a company or foundation, also with the Android project not. Neither as a company, nor as a foundation Breadbox will be able to hold GEOS alive or to lead in a future.
    This can do only an open, free, communnity supported GEOS.

    But it is not necessary to bring GEOS to opensource:

    Short version:

    There is the possibility to found an international association (Klub, Verein) whose members can receive access to the Source for advancements and similar. The association could sell e.g. the Android-App to finance servers etc.

    Geos would have to become free software, so that also free programmers and communities cooperate in GEOS. Up to now many were interested, however, have turned away because they do not want to work for propritary software.

    I think, e.g., of the Dosemu team inclusive, perhaps, Georg Potthast, other Linuxer, or also earlier GEOS programmers, ReactOS and others round the world..

    Then Breadbox could remain ' Home of GEOS' as headquarter and homepage of the GEOS-Association.

    I will take a look at what parts was copyrighted when Geos came, I guess I can fint it in the Geoworks manuals. Then we can make a list. Secondly, I think Geos have to have some kind of legal entity to "defend" the product, if it would be like FreeDOS, which just have a trade mark, or how it will be done is a question for the future depending in what Frank's family decide.

    BR,
    Hans

    Hi,

    can Geos be turned into Freeware?
    Let's take a look at BBE with all apps removed (except for the preferences):

    • approx. 80-90% are licensed from Geoworks
    • the remaining part has been incorporated into Geos by Breadbox (new libraries, new drivers, extensions, bugfixes, ...)

    So:

    • Does the license from Geoworks allow releasing it as FreeWare at all?
    • Not all the Geoworks-stuff from is from Geoworks as e.g. some parts are only licensed, e.g. the spell-checker (Houghton Mifflin), the font-renderer (Nimbus), some fonts (URW). I'm also not sure about the motif-UI (might be licensed from Open Software Foundation (OSF) which is now part of "The Open Group")... what are the license-terms here?
    • Not all the Breadbox-stuff from is from Breadbox, e.g. the soundblaster-drivers are from Dirk Lausecker (with some help from Jens-Michael Groß)... what are the license-terms here?

    Jörg

    There are two rules in life:
    1. Never give out all of the information.

    Some more details:

    • After Geoworks licensed the spell-checker, Houghton Mifflin spun off its software-department in 1996. The new company was called "Infosoft", but renamed itself to "Inso" pretty soon. And in 2002 Inso went bankrupt and got dissolved. Hence I haven't got a clue who now owns the rights for the spell-checking-stuff...
    • URW went bankrupt in 1995. There's a new company called URW++ that owns most of the trademarks, rights, licenses from URW, but not all.
    • Not sure who's responsible for the Nimbus Q font engine: According to several webpages that rasterizer stems from a company called "The Company" (located in Boston, MA, USA): http://www.fontbureau.com/mikeparker/ . No clue what had happened to that company. However NewDeal claimed that the font engine was licensed from the "Digital Typeface Corporation (DTC)": http://www.saunalahti.fi/erakko/newdealtuki/ts/220.html . Even though that US-based company was active in 1991, it was out of business at least in 1998 (most likely earlier).

    According to the conversation on this webpage, there's also a PKZIP-library included in Geos:
    http://www.verycomputer.com/114_6ecc2615ab91d39b_2.htm

    There are two rules in life:
    1. Never give out all of the information.

    Zitat von jpolzfuss

    URW went bankrupt in 1995. There's a new company called URW++ that owns most of the trademarks, rights, licenses from URW, but not all.

    URW ist 1995 Pleite gegangen, es gab keinen Rechtsnachfolger. Seitdem sind deren Fonts "herrenlos", frei.

    URW++ hat m. W. nichts von URW übernommen, weil kein Rechtssubjekt existierte, von dem URW++ etwas hätte übernehmen können.

    Etliche der alten URW-Fonts hat sich URW++ "angeeignet" und mit neuer Bezeichnung (z.B. Nimbus Sans L statt Nimbus Sans, Nimbus Roman L statt Nimbus Roman) als eigene herausgegeben.

    Ich hatte das vor Jahren schon mal recherchiert, auch hier in Hamburg, aber die damaligen Quellen nicht notiert.

    Zitat von geobart

    Hast du dafür eine Quelle/Link?

    Auf https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/URW steht: "URW++ übernahm im Weiteren viele der Rechte (Urheberrechte, Marken) der alten URW, ist jedoch nicht ihre Rechtsnachfolgerin."
    In diesem PDF klingt es ähnlich: https://www.urwpp.de/fileadmin/Cont…-Geschichte.pdf : "März 1995. URW++ gründet sich. Vier ehemalige Leitende mit ihren Teams kaufen alle Produkte und Rechte der alten URW und gründen direkt nebenan URW++."

    There are two rules in life:
    1. Never give out all of the information.