@Fairdinkem

Sources of Timberwolf are absolutely unuseful.

Timberwolf needs a XULRunner wrapper to run.

That wrapper make browser interact with XULRunner engine and made it became a complete executable keeping it running on AmigaOS.

Friedens kept for themselves the XULlRunner wrapper as they claim wrapper is their own copyrighted work.

I wonder what else the duo brothers could do with these copyrighted wrapper sources as they are based on PowerPC and AmigaOS code, so it is unuseful on any other platform than Amiga.

Sometimes behaviour of developers puzzles me beyond any comprehension.

Last edited by Raffaele on 15-Sep-2016 at 12:41 PM.
Last edited by Raffaele on 15-Sep-2016 at 12:39 PM.

_________________
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@Raffaele

As I recall, they had planned to release build documentation at some point after their source code drop.

http://www.amigans.net/modules/xforum/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7095&forum=3
Quote:

Build instructions will be added later.

I've been too distracted with other things to know if that happened or not.

_________________
All glory to the Hypnotoad!

Fixing the JS engine in webkit for Odyssey would be a much smaller job than trying to integrate the latest Firefox code into the Timberwolf port and make it work.

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@Raffaele


The Friedens obviously aren't the programming Gods they claimed to be....or at least not as talented/skilled as they lead some here to believe.

If they were, they would have delivered a functional browser instead of the mess that is Timberwolf, so I wouldn't put too much stock into their claims about their XULRunner wrapper and what it can do. I'm sure the wrapper is a hot mess too.

What I find even more interesting are the alternatives to Timberwolf developed without any financial incentive which have progressed further and faster than Timberwolf ever did, and they're more feature rich than Timberwolf at this point.

In this case I think the Frieden's ambitions overstretched their talent or maybe it was their greed that outstretched their talent/skill......

Last edited by ferrels on 15-Sep-2016 at 10:43 PM.
Last edited by ferrels on 15-Sep-2016 at 10:41 PM.

too bad as Timberwolf was running great for me before OS4.1 FE came out .
For those of us that donated in good faith for the bounty the current situation is very disappointing

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@Raffaele

Quote:

@Fairdinkem Sources of Timberwolf are absolutely unuseful. Timberwolf needs a XULRunner wrapper to run. That wrapper make browser interact with XULRunner engine and made it became a complete executable keeping it running on AmigaOS. Friedens kept for themselves the XULlRunner wrapper as they claim wrapper is their own copyrighted work. I wonder what else the duo brothers could do with these copyrighted wrapper sources as they are based on PowerPC and AmigaOS code, so it is unuseful on any other platform than Amiga. Sometimes behaviour of developers puzzles me beyond any comprehension.

interesting story. not that i didnt suspected that all along, but i ve obviously got overwhelmed with unexpected positive expectations at the time and thought that "open sourcing" may even be a genuine move, for that moment.. i have even applauded on it.. good to know what the actual issue was. how convincing. would probably never check back on this, considering this was deadmeat anyway.

@ferrels

As a friend to the Friedens i find your statement offensive. Hans-Joerg and Thomas never claimed to be gods, and they took on a bounty that ultimately costed a lot more then the bounty reward brought in.

I do know that NO ONE else managed to even get close to a port of Firefox, remember the Amizilla project ? And as no-one was able to they stepped in because we release a modern day browser is needed.

Yes Timberwolf has issue's and nobody is denying that, but there is only so much a programmer can do in 24hours.

The people behind Odessey aren't the same people doing the OS are they ? I assume you all prefer OS4.1 to be worked on aswell ?

Anyway, the FULL TW sourcecode was released whatever some people might say, and if it wasn't just asking would be enough to get the 'missing' parts if there were any. Until today i didn't see a lot of programmers who can do 'better' step in and advance it, and i'm quite sure that also means something.

Written in my personal name btw.






Quote:

ferrels wrote: @Raffaele The Friedens obviously aren't the programming Gods they claimed to be....or at least not as talented/skilled as they lead some here to believe. If they were, they would have delivered a functional browser instead of the mess that is Timberwolf, so I wouldn't put too much stock into their claims about their XULRunner wrapper and what it can do. I'm sure the wrapper is a hot mess too. What I find even more interesting are the alternatives to Timberwolf developed without any financial incentive which have progressed further and faster than Timberwolf ever did, and they're more feature rich than Timberwolf at this point. In this case I think the Frieden's ambitions overstretched their talent or maybe it was their greed that outstretched their talent/skill......

@SimplePPC

that is a little simple... people donated for a useable browser and not for some lines of code that are worth nothing

the friedens even restricted the sources to 4.X making it very unpropable to find someone to take the task to complete it. When done on power2people the money would have never given to them at this point of time, bounty means you take a task and get money for completing it, you are not paid for time. i cannot judge how good or bad the programming skills of the friedens are, at least this project is not a good advertisement for them. And restricting use to OS 4.X and holding back sources (if that is legal or not) is not making them looking better either. This again shows that amigabounty is a bad platform for bounties and people should look carefully where they donate and if the programmer taking it is trustworthy.

Anyway I think our platform is not big enough for more than one up-to-date browser. Browser are changing all the time so porting it one time is not helping at all. In this sense if we have one common browser that is supported and updated by a group of programmers is the more realistic future.

Last edited by OlafS25 on 16-Sep-2016 at 09:57 AM.

@OlafS25

@All

Hans-joerg asked me to post this here.. and for the record i completely agree with it.


@all
The story of the supposedly copyrighted/redacted XULRunner is fabricated, completely false, and at that, not even very logical. In other words, the person is talking bullshit. There is no code withheld, the entire source code of Timberwolf has been released, you can rebuild it with the code in the repository. XULRunner is a small utility that can run an XUL based application, but usually, there is a binary ("Timberwolf" in this case) that takes that over that functionality. XULRunner was the first thing that ever built and ran a simple little calculator, but since then, it hasn't been updated since it is not required. Not that it isn't included, you should be able to also build XULRunner from the source code, if you wanted to. You don't need it. How often when you run Timberwolf did you have to run anything else BUT Timberwolf? See. Bollocks.

We have released the source as a gesture towards the Amiga community. No ulterior motives, no hidden agenda, nothing. It was meant to enable someone else to continue it, since none of us was able and willing to do it. There was no clause attached to it that prevented it from being ported to other platforms either, neither MorphOS nor AROS.

We have never claimed to be a programming God, that's bullshit as well, but then, most sane people already guessed that. What I suspect, though, is that people here are trying to hide their own inability to compile or understand the code by inventing wild stories about missing components or intentionally withheld source code.

If you need help building it, contact me. It's been a while since I had even a passing glance on it, and I might not be able to quote the correct command lines anymore, but I will do whatever I can to help. I don't care if you try it on MorphOS or AROS, on AmigaOS 3, AmigaOS 4.x or whatever. Obiviously, the code was written for AmigaOS 4.x, using AmigaOS 4.x features, so getting it to work on other platforms requires work, but at the least the AmigaOS 4.x parts can work as a template.

The source code of Timberwolf isn't messy at all. It's a big project, and a lot of the code is historically grown. For the most part, it works fine. There are a few issues, and someone with a bit of programming knowledge could eventually fix them. Anyone claiming the code is a mess has no idea what he is talking about.

As to whether the project was "too ambitious", no it wasn't. We delivered a working beta of a browser, for a bounty that had lain dormant for ten years, and even though some people attempted it, nobody even got close to having something workable. Thom and me managed to not only get a binary, but get a binary that actually, for the most part, works.

This has been the work of about two years. We got around 6000 Euros from the bounty. If you think that is greed, so be it, I call it dedication; there has been countless hours invested into it and the result is better than you think or make it appear.

No, you haven't "paid for a working browser". You have paid for the beta (with "you" being the people that donated, not the people that are complaining loudly here about bullshit conspiracy theories). I wish we could have done more, but as is usual, it didn't work out. You have to eat, you know, and there is only 24 hours in a day. If you think that working in the Amiga market is out of greed, well, you are obviously not aware of the realities of it.

We had someone from the Mozilla foundation go over the source code, and if there was anything missing, he would have complained about it, but they were satisfied with what they saw. So I wonder who you are to think you know better.

To reiterate, any claim that there is something withheld is wrong.

About this community, I am happy to say that the communities I frequent now are a much brighter and less baleful place than this. There is always going to be conflict, and "camps" form everywhere, but at the very least the atmosphere and general handling is way more friendly and civilized than what is thrown around here. I used to love my Amiga, used to spent hours and hours with it, even when I was working on it all day I kept on working on it even when I was "off" work. But that time is over, Amiga is my work now and only that.

@SimplePPC

" There was no clause attached to it that prevented it from being ported to other platforms either, neither MorphOS nor AROS. "

what is this?

"* Since this code was originally developed under an AmigaOS related bounty, any derived
* version of this file may only be used on an official AmigaOS system."

not restricted? That must be new now

The Friedens were certainly not only victims in the past like they seem to think

if they have dropped the restriction then fine

Regarding bounty for a "beta" browser, were the people donating aware of it? But as I wrote, more than one up-to-date browser is not realistic today anyway. Firefox is (or will) bring a new modernized browser in near future and I assume that then (latest) the old sources Timberwolf is based on will be useless finally.

Last edited by OlafS25 on 16-Sep-2016 at 10:52 AM.
Last edited by OlafS25 on 16-Sep-2016 at 10:51 AM.

@SimplePPC

hmm. thx for posting this statement. explains a standpoint that seems legit to me. at least for the most part.

from my recollection the project has been worked on as an own initiative of the programmers and then proposed to the community as a bounty. the bounty is rather vague about the terms of fulfillment:
http://www.amigabounty.net/?function=viewproject&projectid=44
however it doesnt explicitely mention that the proimary requirement is only a beta state. on the other hand the work invested is likely well worth the money, by usual standards it is a rather laughable recompensation, one has to admit, but such is the situation here, partly due to a number of curious decissions around the platform.

things that annoyed me about this is that timberwolf was announced as some kind great solution, bringing advanced technology to the platform, which effectively didnt happen. this was hyped up, while with odyssey there was a simpler and better feasible alternative, that as it seems acttually replaces timberwolf today, being to a degree still maintained on most platforms. if at the time the timberwolf project was resigned on, the programmers could concentrate on contributing to the os, but obviously it was their ambition to work on this anyway. so i cant understand how the pub lic is to be blamed for this.

also withholding the sources for a long time, even if not being the case currently made this project obsolete. im not saying that if it was open earlier or to begin with, it would have been sustained, but chances are that some experienced people may have got involved. im not sure if its only inability that prevents such people to look through the sources today or even try to compile them. instead it seems that it is simple not worth to bother.

@thread

It blows my mind that the Friedens spent all the time they did on Timberwolf to let it decay like they have, and for Solie and the AmigaOS development team and A-eon to spend there time focusing on things like Rhinghio and tabs for shell rather than further the development of a real world class leading web browser something the Amiga platform be it AmigaOS, MorphOS or Aros desperately needs now more than ever.

If this is the attitude of the Friedens and it reflects the values of Hyperion I shake my head in disbelief. I hope A-eon and the Amiga community see the value that Timberwolf represents.

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@ferrels


>"The Friedens obviously aren't the programming Gods they claimed to be....or at least not as talented/skilled as they lead some here to believe."

Did you analyzed the code they produce to make Timberwolf or is it pure speculation?
Kamelito

@Fairdinkem

Timberwolf is based on many years old sources now, Firefox (and other browsers) are rapidly changing, because of that you would need a programmer (or better a group of programmer) who constantly update it. The developer resources are rather limited today. Also the use of Timberwolf was restricted to AmigaOS and as some wrote who looked in the sources it is difficult to port because tightly connected to 4.X.

There is a up-to-date browser that is adapted to Amiga and all sources are free... OWB

I assume that OWB also will stay the standard browser on MorphOS so there is a chance different developers will try to keep it up-to-date. That is best we realistic can hope for.

@SimplePPC

Hi,
if you are in touch with Friedens, could you ask them for build instructions, please ?
Apparently, they said that it will be added
"Build instructions will be added later."


They stated that
"you can rebuild it with the code in the repository."

but I didn't succeed when I tried :

http://www.amigans.net/modules/xforum/viewtopic.php?post_id=99643#forumpost99643

Is somebody tried from the repository ?

Thank you

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@Fairdinkem

Quote:

I hope A-eon and the Amiga community see the value that Timberwolf represents.

i fear that thats exactly the problem, that the sources do not represent any particular value to anybody anymore, at least that is, how it looks like, and therefore none has used them for anything.

there is an advanced browser for morphos/os4/aros, namely odyssey, as indicated by olaf, and even there we struggle with the problem of the current javascript engine for big endian systems. a problem quite trivial in comparison to porting again a whole browser.

@Fairdinkem

Quote:

If this is the attitude of the Friedens and it reflects the values of Hyperion I shake my head in disbelief. I hope A-eon and the Amiga community see the value that Timberwolf represents.

It is not, it is merely a consequence of not having enough time.
The code is up for grabs, so any one can continue the work, any one with the skills that is, I for one, does not have those skills, I would bet, that most of the whiners doesn't either.

_________________

@Yssing

Quote:

I for one, does not have those skills, I would bet, that most of the whiners doesn't either.

yeah. but that isnt any valid argument. even though im probably much less skilled than you (its hard to be less skilled tham me) id probably look at the sources, but im rather concerned with trying to squash some issues aros has on 68k, and if not that id rather try to contibute to chris' netsurf with 68k in mind as i already had it building, just did not come over to do anything with it.

the key issue is a will to contribute. if sources are open people may try to work on some small parts of something themselves, even if rewievs by the experienced people may be neccessary.

Last edited by wawa on 16-Sep-2016 at 02:21 PM.
Last edited by wawa on 16-Sep-2016 at 02:21 PM.

Still waiting from the Amizilla bounty to reward...