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[RWAPSoftware]

In a message dated 15/03/2004 17:03:12 GMT Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Hi, a short visit to this list, since I've been asked for a comment on a similar subject. As some of you know, I'm working on a software that has the realistic potential to provide - Native ethernet for Q40/Q60 - Driver for Nasta's unfinished ethernet extension (QL/GC/SGC...) - Native connectivity to TCP/IP equipped printers (alternative to USB?) - Graphical POP3+SMTP email client - Reliable file up- and download by network or serial - Webserver - TCP/IP stack, PPP, SLIP - Free of charge - Fully open source Peter, this is an excellent project and I would like to offer my backing to see it reach the light of day.  It is surprising just how much work some people are willing to do for free !! Since I'm originally a hardware rather than a software guy, you can imagine how tough it was for me. How much money is my effort worth? I don't know. But if someone asked me for commercial use of this, I wouldn't even consider to let him have it for £ 2000 - it's too far away from paying my time. I'd like to do the opposite: I'd like to make my work available free of charge, the core as part of a free QL operating system, the applications as free software. Amount of money to spend: £ 0.00 Are you saying that if Quanta offered you £1000 to make this project more widely available by making it part of SMSQ/e, you would turn them down.    I am sorry, but this sounds very much like cutting off your nose to spite your face.  After all, £1000 is nothing to be sneered at and a lot more than nothing, which is what you currently propose.   I realise that there is no love lost over SMSQ/e, but the fact is that there is a vast majority of users out there who currently use SMSQ/e and are not going to switch to the Q40 / Q60 plus QDOS Classic just to make use of this project.   In what way would you lose out exactly if the project were to be able to run under SMSQ/e as well as QDOS Classic (after all, I wonder how many Q40/Q60 users use QDOS Classic at the moment - I know of at least one person who cannot even set it up on their Q60).     If nothing in the QL scene changes, my project will continue slowly at my own chosen speed, and the only platform to run on might be QDOS Classic, for the simple reason that it is the only free QL operating system on the Q60. If Minerva is eventually released as a free operating system for the Q60 (Pheobus), will we ever see this project ported to become part of Minerva and therefore available to the wider QL community - after all, there are several emulators as well as machines which also use Minerva... Time for an offer: I could possibly be persuaded to try and integrate my drivers into SMSQ/E for the whole range of QL style machines, by a simple act of wisdom: Place SMSQ/E under the GPL. (I have no problem to accept modifications to allow QPC remain commercial.) I doubt that this will ever happen alas - though, you never know.  We do not want to go into the age long discussion all over again as to whether SMSQ/e should be made GPL or not and open up lots of old wounds. I should add that I personally don't give a dime about post-Tony-Tebby SMSQ/E anymore. I can live with some QDOS Classic tinkering or let go the QL completely. But there are a few folks that keep asking me, and it's for them that I make this offer. Now shoot at me or give it a serious consideration - your choice. Arnould Nazarian wrote: >A few years ago (some might remember) I had a short discussion with the >author of that arachne browser http://browser.arachne.cz >The program is written in C only. An idea of pricing was 8000 USD, but >IIRC he wrote to me that this amount could be lowered to 2000 USD if >there were some royalties foreseen. I may go and visit him in Prague next >summer to speak with him. I have partially ported the textmode browser RETAWQ until I got stuck with a C68 related problem. Fast, small, even a "Q" in the name. How about that, maybe with an integrated picture viewer? Cost: See above. All the best Peter   I am sorry, but I think it is extremely sad that the QL community is fighting to survive in an almost non-existant market place and yet, developers are still willing to make their software available to an even smaller portion of that market by restricting the operating systems on which it will work.   We should be working together to make the QL and its operating system as good as we can, taking the best things from SMSQ/e, QDOS Classic and Minerva to make one operating system which meets everyone's wishes.    To put it in context.  At the moment, it sounds like there are only 3 wheel manufacturers in the world and if you want a new set of tyres, you have three choices:   1) Buy the same tyres as last time 2) Buy some improved tyres which grip the road much better and perform much better and hope that these tyres will somehow fit your existing wheels. 3) Buy a new car with its own proprietary wheels and tyres.   Is it any wonder that so many people are abandoning the QL -- Rich Mellor RWAP Services 35 Chantry Croft, Kinsley, Pontefract, West Yorkshire, WF9 5JH TEL: 01977 610509 Visit our website at URL:http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk Stuck with ordinary dial up internet connection ?? 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