À (At) 8:16 -0500 27/01/02, mark d smith <markds_at_mac.com> écrivait (wrote) :
>Thanks for all the info Paul. I'm relativelay new to Newton (1.5 years)
>so until now I didn't really understand the problems involved in
>writing an "NCU-like client" for MacOS X.
NCU plays the server, BTW.
>I tried the UnixNPI route but couldn't make/compile the executable from
>the download. (Aside, a tip on this would be great. I keep getting an
>error about gcc (can't remember what exactly)) (I've got a symlink to
>my USBSerial adapter at /dev/newton (/dev/tty.keyUSA19181.1) so I think
>it will work if I can get it to build.)
>
>
>The things is...
>
>...if UnixNPI works and there are so many problems with a "carbon
>version of NCU", why not make a Cocoa interface for UnixNPI and maybe
>work on extending the functionality ?
Well, here are some reasons.
* First, UnixNPI is currently 669 lines of code
(newtmnp.c 439
newtmnp.h 25
unixnpi.c 205)
which is sufficient for MNP Serial-only load package operation.
The DCL was 12 K lines last time I counted. It's not a big project,
but nevertheless, you have some work to provide before you could do a
backup as the DCL provides it. So I think that "extending the
functionality" is not a 10 minutes operation.
* Second (the answer to why not merge both projects)
UnixNPI is released under the GPL
The DCL is to be released under the Reflexive License.
They are copy-left but incompatible licenses.
I won't discuss once again against the GPL, just let me summarize: I
don't like the GPL, I don't like the GNU project, I don't like
software that are hard to compile or a supposedly supported target
(apparently, you seem to enjoy it as well), and I don't like to waste
my time with poorly written code or documentation. Since nobody pays
me for it or forces me to do it (unlike using WFC in the university),
I won't work on any GPL project. Since I spent time to draft an open
source license which imposes some stuff that I find essential (such
as a documentation or basic comments), the open source project I
start will be released under it when possible.
* Third, when I say that AppleTalk (well, ADSP) isn't apparently
possible under OpenSTEP, I don't mean within Carbon. It's not
possible with any language/framework except in the MacOS emulator
(Classic). A cocoa project won't help either.
The only thing that UnixNPI does and that the DCL doesn't is MNP
compression (without the Communication ToolBox). I mean, the only
important thing. I have contacted Philz to ask him if he could
release his code (which is in UnixNPI) under a reflexive-compatible
license. (he apparently re-appeared in December). If he doesn't
answer, I'll use some public domain x86 assembler code for DOS I
found on the web to implement my own MNP compression stuff (I haven't
been able to find any decent documentation I could work from, any
hint is welcome), and then UnixNPI's only interest would be to be
GPL'd, C only (the DCL is written in C++) and small.
>Trying to learn Cocoa myself but I really am starting from scratch so
>much as I'd like to work on this, I really don't think its a realistic
>solution for the community. There must be somebody out there who could
>do this though ?
Again, I'm not sure this is legally possible, i.e. Philz, Richard,
Victor and Chayim rights won't be violated. But if they don't care,
feel free to adapt anything that could help Newton & MacOS X users.
Good luck for solving the DES challenge problem.
Paul
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