@Chris_Y

> The only potential problem is that Genesi might not like it, but I very much doubt that such an emulator would be illegal

If it were possible to fight this case, IBM would've done it in the 1980s. The whole IBM PC-compatible market was started by companies reverse-engineering IBM's BIOS without permission. It is what Dell is built on.

I know I keep on, but the legality argument is absurd. And if we are all to get on there's no point in anyone spreading false information. There is no legal argument here.

Chris

@Bobsonsirjonny

Hmm... Just noticed that I'm nearly 30 and staying in my mum's house (for the night) Not sure the other things strictly apply.

I can either continue this argument, go to bed, or bomb it back up the M4 before the stereotype sticks!

@Chris_Y

What *genesi* thinks about a MOSemu is absolutely void and pointless. Even *if* the MOS team (that are the only ones who can say something about MOS) would dislike it (which is unlikely), that would not count. It's all okay as long as you wrap *publically* documented API calls to another API. Even reverse enegneering to obtain the API structures are legal in most countries.

For your other speculatons about MOS library calls, well... You haven't too deep MOS insights I assume.

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I think that MOS emu would be nice but would do some harm allso, point of comercial software developement. (we know how much it has been lately ;) )

Why develop comercial software to mos anymore develop it to amiga os and it will work in MOS allso.

@Zylesea

Yes, you're right - I don't give a toss about MorphOS which is why I wrapped my thoughts in a "I don't know what I'm talking about" clause.

My interest in MOS is strictly limited to software that is available for MOS but not available for any other flavour of AmigaOS.

As such software is limited, and I would only be interested in a subset of it, my opinion on any MOSEmu is probably not worth the tiny amount of disk space it consumes.

I am mostly commenting from a purely academic pov. I also vowed to keep out of any threads that looked vaguely like flame-fests from their titles or from the rapidly accelerating number of posts, especially ones relating to MOS or x86, but it seems I can't even trust myself to do that.

Goodnight.

Chris

Last edited by Chris_Y on 25-Sep-2006 at 11:45 PM.

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@Chris_Y

I hope you don't think I was having a go by quoting you in my post. Like most, I just want this issue cleared up and put to bed. I'll leave it with this summary. Things that have been reverse-engineered by a 3rd party without permission:

The IBM PC BIOS
The Windows API
The BeOS API
The Amiga 3.x API
Presumably most of Unix
Windows networking
Windows filesystems
MS Exchange connectivity
MS Office document format
The Amiga custom chips
Almost all other emulation software
Graphics drivers for nVidia and ATI cards
Other drivers for graphics cards, sound cards, network cards, music players, motherboards, scanners, printers, input devices, TV cards and more.

If anyone needs any more evidence, I can't help!

Chris

@Chip
Quote:

We are not "cutting interoperability at everywhere possible".

You are forget, that it's me who already programmed for both systems in depth, not you. And even if you did, please allow me to have my own opinion, thank you.

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@Bobsonsirjonny

Quote:

I mean most of them are lonely old ####s - possibly fat and 30 and still living with their mum.

Sounds like a description of the type of geeks that are usually hanging around at computer shows.

Last edited by polka. on 26-Sep-2006 at 09:35 AM.

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@Chris_Y
Quote:

if I'm not mistaken, the way libraries work is the same as on OS3.x, and there are few libraries/functions above what OS3.1 contained

You are mistaken.

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"When a bridge is not enough, build a Viaduct!"
"Strip the Amiga community of speculation and we can fit every forum on a 720k floppy" (by resle)

@clebin

Quote:

I forgot to mention the connector for Evolution that lets you connect it to your MS Exchange server - one of jewels in Microsoft's crown. No less a company than Novell make that. Again, it was reverse-engineered.

Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I *think* that it was partly based upon details Microsoft released.

The actual Outlook Exchange protocol isn't the same protocol that Evolution's Exchange connector uses - the latter uses MAILDAV over HTTP via the Exchange server extensions.

*breathes* That was entirely too much MS speak for me. I'm going for a lie down.

@Chip

Quote:

He was talking about mosemu. Interesting you bring up os4emu when the legality cames into picture...

He thinks that MOSemu would bring some sort of ilegality *as* does OS4Emu, otherwise what would be his point, and he *did* arised the OS4Emu legality...

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@clebin

Not at all, just in a ranting mood.

@all

Ranting mood over, bailing out of this thread now.

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@clebin

Your examples are good, but you've got a couple that aren't totally true :)

Unix wasn't reverse engineered. If you read the BSD history, Unix was a fairly incomplete OS that UCB tacked a lot of things onto - TCP/IP, different filesystems, editors, etc. The original Unix was free, you just had to pay for the tape. UCB distributed their extensions as the BSD. In the later years, the amount of code that was commercially licensed amounted to something like 4 files - owned by AT&T. The first free full BSD had these 4 files rewritten, so reverse engineering wasn't an issue - the source was there!

nVidia graphics drivers haven't been reverse engineered for X11 purposes. There is a 2D driver that is based upon contributed code and specifications from nVidia in the late 90s. As such, nVidia Xorg drivers are very much stuck in a 2D world. The OpenBeOS team have reverse engineered something in order to produce a working 3D driver for a subset (not the recent ones) of cards. ATI have, though.

As I understand it, wasn't AROS a reimplementation of the API the headers & autodocs specified? Same with Wine/Windows API. Does an implementation of something to perform what the API describes reverse engineering, or a reimplementation?

Oddly enough, the last example you give about the volume of cards with drivers for them - actually, you'd be surprised at how many vendors are perfectly happy to release the documentation for their chipsets. The SBLive was a contributed driver by Creative. Bt848/878 is the most ubiquitous chipset for TV cards, and the docs are open for that. Intel donate the drivers for their network cards.

I think a large number of things that people assume are reverse engineered, actually aren't!

@Chain-Q

Quote:

that it's me who already programmed for both systems in depth, not you.

Strange, and you were the one who had no clue about how does the stack works on PPC (not me), but please do personal insulting next time in PM and I'll answer there. I know you prefer doing this on public, but I would like to keep it "in house". Thank you for your cooperation.

ok guys..

mosemu = illegal
os4emu = legal..

you just want mosemu to run sputnik

@mr.calibra

Neither is illegal, period.

@Chip

He also is the one who's ported a compiler to both systems.

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@nine

I was talking more about the breadth of driver types rather than the volume. I know for instance, that I've just bought a laptop with Intel GMA 950 graphics, put Ubuntu on it (still getting into it, but so far I'm impressed) and it uses Intel's own open-source driver.

I can't imagine that projects like Samba, Wine or Evolution don't contain elements which have been reverse-engineered though, whatever they're largely based on. For instance, someone analysing packets from Exchange or Windows to see what's in them - that must've happened at some point and influenced the code that was produced.

That was an interesting post, and it showed up some gaps in my knowledge which I'll try and follow up on - thanks,

Chris

@mr.calibra

The usual calibre of comments.. Why not post something more useful?


@thread

I'm a OS4 user and DON'T want MOSEmu for OS4.
Fine if MorphOS (some) users feel the need for OS4Emu. I guess most just want it for
taunting purposes anyway.

Don't know why anyone would put so much time into such a useless software?!?
Code real applications instead. It's not that hard to do both MOS & OS4 versions
of a software. If it is, so what? Keep the software on its platform. A similar will
appear on the other sooner or later anyway.

Last edited by Samwel on 27-Sep-2006 at 11:52 AM.
Last edited by Samwel on 27-Sep-2006 at 01:10 AM.

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@Bobsonsirjonny

The war is necessary to some...

You cannot escape your destiny.. You must fight MOS Vader again... Or else the Emperor has allready won...

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Everything you say will be misquoted and used against you..
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@AMiGR

Quote:

He also is the one who's ported a compiler to both systems.