Escrow?

There are quite a few closed source applications that are really nice in RISC OS. Whilst these products are still being developed/sold it’s not viable to make them open source.
However would it be possible for ROOL to hold the source code in case any of it becomes abandonware?
I appreciate there would have to be some kind of legal framework required for this.
Or perhaps we could setup a third party company “RISC OS Commercial Holdings” or something like that?

I think before talking of escrow and legal messes, one needs first to work on the mindset of the developers to show them that open source is a good way to finish a project. Just because it isn’t making loads of cash (ho ho), one gets bored of it, or indeed one chooses to move to another platform….that doesn’t necessarily mean the software dies – people are still using Ovation a quarter century later! ;-)

one needs first to work on the mindset of the developers to show them that open source is a good way to finish a project

Pluto (my email and news reader of choice) is a good example of where this has worked well! It had been stagnant for quite a while, but once Jonathan was persuaded to release the source code and access to it, it has taken on a new lease of life, thanks to Martin Avison and Rob Sprowson. I’ll be honest, Jonathan didn’t take much persuading, but others may not either – I guess we often don’t try until it’s too late!

This is a good idea IMHO. The fact that RISC OS was once much more widely used (and developed-for) in the past has left behind a number of powerful and well-featured apps – Ovation is a good example, also its contemporary, Impression. Impression’s great stablemate Artworks is still with us thanks to Martin Wuerthner, and I have no problem paying for upgrades for the latter. I regularly use Clares’ Rhapsody 4 for music typesetting: it isn’t as full-featured as Sibelius but it meets my modest requirements* perfectly. Unfortunately the version which was 32-bitted for the Iyonix doesn’t work on anything later than ARMv5, so I run the 26-bit version under RPCEmu 4.02 on a PC. The other aspect of this matter is ‘anno domini’: none of us are getting any younger, and that presumably goes for the platform’s developers as well. It would be nice to think that RISC OS and its applications will outlive the present generation of users; ROOL caters for the former, but no similar repository is in place for the latter. I for one would be prepared to contribute towards a bounty aiming to create such a facility.
(*As a non-sight reading member of a choir, I learn the score by setting it, converting the MIDI file to MP3 and having my phone/computer play it back to me until I get it by heart!)

However would it be possible for ROOL to hold the source code in case any of it becomes abandonware?

That’s an idea. I did that a long time ago for some of my closed source software. Another guy, in another country, did have my source code. I called that the “Community promise”. The idea was that if I die, the other guy could give the source code to a new maintainer.

That’s really something that ROOL could do (and use for some closed source components and apps they have).

Another guy, in another country, did have my source code. […] The idea was that if I die, the other guy could give the source code to a new maintainer.

That’s certainly an interesting idea, however the potential problem that I can see is in keeping this other person in sync with the latest revision of the source.
Plus, potential “issues” of releasing the source publicly without sanitising it (all of the source on this site has been sanitised).

I have told my mother to give my computers over to a friend to pick through and dump the source codes on my site. Said friend is intended to remain anonymous, just to post a message on my blog saying “grumpy old fart has kicked the bucket”, or something really scathing if I do something dumb like electrocute myself. Then to just list archives of the “work in progress” of my various projects.
Whether of not this actually happens, I don’t know. It may be that mom just chucks all this “crap with wires attached” in the bin. It might be that we both die and nobody will know what to do. I suppose I’m getting old enough I ought to think of depressing stuff like making a will…? I dunno. Who’s supposed to handle that anyway?

So, yes, it’s a good idea to have source codes held with somebody else if they are not already “open”. Moreso in case of survivable catastrophe (earthquake, tornado, Martians…) that they are someplace else so can be recovered in time…

Over the years I’ve seen a few variations of “does anyone have a copy of X or the source code to Y?” posted on these forums. It seems that software lasts longer than the servers that host it. PackMan is a good idea; the software is hosted by ROOL and will presumably therefore continue to be available as long as ROOL exists (and if in the future RISC OS was to move to a different organisation then presumably the PackMan repository could move too).

With that said, I wonder whether it might be beneficial for PackMan to also offer a “download source code” feature. I can imagine a case where a compiled version of an open-source app is available in PackMan but its official site is no longer available. Any thoughts on this?

Plus, potential “issues” of releasing the source publicly without sanitising it

The other guy didn’t have the right to make a public release of the source code.
Its only responsibility was to give the source code to a new developer. If possible.
Just in case :)

One important thing to remember is to not be limiting. You may grant certain rights to a named individual and name a back up person, in case the first predeceases you, but circumstances change. I’d suggest stating something along the lines of asking the executors to pass on all rights to a suitable person (You could suggest a person). You can then suggest what the person who the rights have passed to should do, but don’t make it a condition.
To try and cope with possible scenarios my lease has many clauses, one is along the lines: If the person appointed to resolve a dispute isn’t able to do so by reason of insanity…
Thinking along the same lines I wonder if anyone will ever leave some money to ROOL. Though I’d suggest not to actually specify ROOL (Suggest ROOL) just in case things change. ROOL might not exist in its current legal form in say 15 years time.
This reminds me I need to update my will. Currently if my wife and all my descendants predecease me (unlikely) my money goes to a charity that has changed its names twice and is now a Limited liability charitable company. I think it would still go to them but it might need court approval.
On a related point I think quite a lot of Dave Holden’s old stock may have been scrapped. Some of the new items seem to now be being offered for sale. Last I heard they never did find his will which was thought to exist.

One important thing to remember is to not be limiting.

This.

I ask only my friend anonymously dump the sources as-is on my site. Let’s face it, this would happen when I am dead so any continuance of my software is surely better than all sorts of strings attached to which there’s only so far a person will go before “stuff this” will be their response.

With that said, I wonder whether it might be beneficial for PackMan to also offer a “download source code” feature. I can imagine a case where a compiled version of an open-source app is available in PackMan but its official site is no longer available. Any thoughts on this?

I’m surprised it doesn’t already, considering the requirements for dealing with the GPL.

I ask only my friend anonymously dump the sources as-is on my site.

The question then becomes – how long will your site last once your bank account closes?

Potentially the Internet Archive would be a good place to have your code sent after you die – it looks like they archive pretty much anything nowadays, not just websites that they’ve crawled. Archiving source code to software is surely much better than archiving the binaries, which is all they’d normally get for closed-source products.

Either that or use one of the popular free project hosting sites like sourceforge or github. You could start using the site while you’re still alive, but with the projects marked as private, and then when you die you just need to make sure someone is able to log in and make them public. Plus it gives you protection against any loss of your local sources/backups.

The question then becomes – how long will your site last once your bank account closes?

As long as just one person is able to grab a copy of the files, the longevity of my site is no longer of consequence – the source is no longer stuck on my harddisc but is “out there somewhere”. If that person then wants to dump it on pastebin or mirrorcreator, they can. I won’t be coming after them (I’ll be dead!), my mother – should she survive me – won’t know what any of that means and besides my source codes are the rubbish I spent too long working on when I should have been outside taming the brambles.¹

Which reminds me, I wrote some small thingies for CJE; if we’re going to have a somewhat morbid discussion, I guess it makes sense that I should archive that stuff and drop a copy on Chris “just in case”…

¹ On the other hand, it’s not exactly as if I’ve created anything of importance. :-)

Every creation is of importance.
And everything can be lost.

I have some WikiReaders (help me maintain my Forth skills).
Impossible to find the latest Wikipedia archives for it. No more seeds for these files.

Even with Internet, even for free software and even before 10 years, it’s very easy to loose something.

Every creation is of importance. And everything can be lost.

soles occidere et redire possunt;
nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.

And, to be optimistic, a good thing too or the clutter would drown everything.

Yep, but we talk of code here. It could last (a bit) longer (than us)… especially since a lot of work must be done.

Every creation is of importance.
And everything can be lost.

Whoo. That’s too deep for a brain-rest Sunday.

Problem is… there is so much being created these days that it is all too easy for things to disappear under a deluge of mediocrity.
Have you ever searched for things on Google that you know exists! only for no matches to be found? Have you ever tried to find something obscure you wanted on any App Store?

It is always tragic when the thing you want disappears (I’ve already been through this with the demise of GeoCities), however everything is born into this world, and eventually everything dies. That is the natural order of things.

Gavin probably said that better in his three lines, but…私はラテン理解していません! :-P

Potentially the Internet Archive would be a good place to have your code sent after you die – it looks like they archive pretty much anything nowadays, not just websites that they’ve crawled. Archiving source code to software is surely much better than archiving the binaries, which is all they’d normally get for closed-source products.

I believe I read that there is software archived there that won’t be published until some time in the future – something related to Android applications, I think. It may be possible to arrange for archives to be held until a later time but I haven’t checked. Maybe it’s only possible by special arrangement.

With that said, I wonder whether it might be beneficial for PackMan to also offer a “download source code” feature. I can imagine a case where a compiled version of an open-source app is available in PackMan but its official site is no longer available. Any thoughts on this?

A download source button is on my list of things to do for PackMan. It’s slightly complicated by the different ways the source is handled in the various packaging sites. Unfortunately I’m not getting time to do anything about it at the moment.

I’m surprised it doesn’t already, considering the requirements for dealing with the GPL.

The sites that provide the packages has to have the source available for the GPL, and all the sites I know of do this.

I’m late to this thread, but Rick,

Have you ever searched for things on Google that you know exists! only for no matches to be found?

Yes! I knew I couldn’t be the only one who thought that about Google (and let’s be honest most of the other search engines)! I think it’s partly a dumbing down and fuzziness of the use of keywords now and partly because they just refuse to rank some sites now. I know they had to overhaul how they ranked stuff due to the ubiquitous keyword spamming but I do wonder how much of it is down to prioritizing what’s profitable now. I have a feeling they try and profile users and tailor results based on that as well, but I could be wrong. It’s not helpful though.

+1 for Internet Archive by the way.