Imagine something simple . . .

All sorts of amusements and nonsense unrelated to xTalk
User avatar
OpenXTalkPaul
Posts: 1485
Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2021 4:19 pm
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

B) old hardware isn't our platform
Why not? Linux is great for old hardware. I run a Plex Media server on a 2007 Core2Quad, it's pretty solid. OK maybe not so much 1980s old, but there's actually a community of people who still make things in the original xTalk HyperCard.
1. To support old hardware means you have to bloat the project, which means each new developer you attract to the project has to download a bunch of old garbage before they can even build a working executable.

2. You have to test builds on old hardware which takes time away from moving forward or fixing bugs for the hardware people are actually using. It might be months before you get anyone to even tell you that something is wrong on some old machine, then hours of trying to find out why, only to come to the conclusion "Oh yeah, that won't work on that machine at all." I've been through this before, the person I worked with made sure our stuff worked on old machines and that costs us features, time, and quality to show off on new machines. And the last time it BROKE things so bad I lost a year of work and just put the project on the shelf for good.

3. Where's our support from Linux users? I reached out to 740,000 of them and got 1 reply.
Of three flavors of Linux IDE on archive.org only 222 total views over 3 months.
That number equates to 0.03% of the entire reddit linux community.
If we compare to 2.2 million linux users its 0.001%
They've had 8 years to get a free license....where are they?

4. Where's our support or input from "old hardware" people?

55% of internet access is from mobile devices, and 42% is from desktop, that's probably my own stats too, but I don't try to reply to these long-ass discussions on my phone.
There would be no need for religious debates if people simply accepted reality.
I have tried doing some mobile DAW recording, but it's minimally useful at best. I do have an iPad (with iPencil) and an old Nexus 7 tablet too. I actually did some app builds for Android using my Rhythm Grid custom Data Grid (which I WAS working on a Widget based replacement for that, which I intend to get back to at some point), that was pretty OK for making beats while standing in line somewhere. I wouldn't do image editing on a phone (tablet sure). I couldn't see myself coding on a phone.
The average mobile user acesses 9 apps per day and 30 apps per week on thier mobile device.
In 2021, the number of mobile devices operating worldwide stood at almost 15 billion, up from just over 14 billion in the previous year. The number of mobile devices is expected to reach 18.22 billion by 2025, an increase of 4.2 billion devices compared to 2020 levels.
I mostly do mobile apps that are basically just mobile formatted websites running inside an app webview (Facebook for example). That's likely all included as part of that stat, so not sure if that's good for gauging anything.
That is the new paradigm. Single purpose apps on mobile devices in a webpage by the vendor of the users choice at the cost/no cost that works for the user for the moment that they need it. Not $500 for a software suite sitting on your home computer during your two hour commute to and from work and the eight hours a day you spend away from the computer and three hours you're on Netflix.
I can tell you there's a helluva lot of desktops, rooms full, being used around the clock at my "day job".
Technology Reduces Employment in the Printing Industry
Employment in printing and related support activities has been on the decline since the late 1990s.
Visit that link, see the chart.

Anectdotal History Lesson:
Back in 1988 I worked for a major producer of magazines, People, Heavy Metal, New Yorker, all the stupid soap opera junk at the grocery check out counter, those garbage sales circulars that fill your mailbox. We had a 30 foot wide satellite dish for beaming data to Texas for cheap printing. They had 2 Macs I wanted desperately to get my hands on. They had only one guy working in that Mac department so one $10,000 set up sat idle 99% of every single day.
I left the company telling the people I worked closely with "You'll all be out of work soon."

Six months later I ran into a guy I worked with and asked how things were going, he said they bought a bunch of computers and layed off 60 people. Strippers, compositors, layout, photo retouchers. The company I was working for when I ran into him has been reduced from 100+ employess to 4, their massive factory location is for rent while they occupy the same room barely bigger than my kitchen that they set up their computers in back in 1990.
The company I worked with before those two was leveled and turned into condominiums because computers replaced everything we did there. I worked for six different graphics companies during the 1990s. One of them remains. The last printing company I worked for was bouncing paychecks across 17 states for months, I had to call the state attorney general on them.

That's just one industry I knew was changing when other people said "No it's not".
A decade ago I was arguing that Mac game developers should accept Unity and game engines like it as the new paradigm, they said "no way! C++ or nothin'!"

Now Unity stock sells for $158 a share, they control 80% of the independent game development market, and they just bought another company for $1.8 Billion. The guy at Unity who remembered my long rants told me "We should never have started out supporting Mac developers, they didn't accept us, when we released for Windows those developers embraced us and we made our first million dollars" They are valued at $2.8 billion now.

Meanwhile that Mac game developer community has been reduced to a Discord server where nothing they say will ever reach the world wide web, you can't Google it. The guy who founded that site has retreated to a Facebook community that is stuck in an loop circle jerking around a $100 4mhz Mattel computer that sold less than 8,000 units. They could be bringing there nostalgia to modern platforms, but nope, they are stuck in a compulsion to fixate on junk hardware they overpaid for on eBay.

That guy used to say "Don't be so aggressive."

The same nearsighteness those printing people had, and those Mac game developers had is the same nearsightednss Livecode had and the same nearsighteness I see here.

14 years ago I had an iChat conversation with Kevin Miller, I made suggestions that you see every single time you open the IDE. Then I walked away because I could see clear as crystal that Livecode wasn't going to catch on become widely adopted for anything. That mattered to me at the time.

Now it matters to me that OpenXTalk, hangs on, at least as well as BASIC has hung on for fifty years.
We lack that Christmas morning new computer smell wow factor that drives people back to BASIC.
We need to adopt the new paradigm and own it, as well as we can, so people say "Wow, I can do that?"

LC is going to beat us to the punch by a year or two anyway.
I just have to sit back and wait and say "I told you so."
User avatar
OpenXTalkPaul
Posts: 1485
Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2021 4:19 pm
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

xAction wrote: Tue Nov 16, 2021 12:07 am It's not about getting rich, it's about getting the funding to pay people to get some work done, write tutorials, documentation.

Nobody is getting rich at Blender, but they have beenpaying people to develop it for 20 years.

It went from this

Blender1999.png

To this

Apple is now funding Blender development joining many big names
I was telling people at Apple to do that 20 years ago and wondered why they didn't just turn it into the Final Cut Pro of 3D. I do all my video editing in Blender. The guy I was talking to about Blender left Apple for Xbox.

You can track their growth here in nice charts.
I'm pretty sure the Blender isn't a web app, at least not yet.
The more you know
Blend4Web CE is a free and fully-featured solution which allows you to create open source 3D web applications.
The whole point of giving the blender game engine people $100,000, from just one source, was to get them ready for web 3.0 so the people who gave them money could make even more money.

Godot went from a scrap of source code in 2014, to 12% of the independent game development market in 6 years.
See how long you can scroll on youtube before you run out of godot tutorials MILLIONS of views.

In 2021 the global game development market is worth $180 Billion.
That's jobs, food on the table, taxes, for funding education, paving roads, free vaccines.
That's money for developers to develop things people can use and reuse for decades instead of buying plastic garbage to fill their empty suburban lives.

The only reason OpenXTalk exists is because Livecode failed to gain support.
What's going to exist if we fail to gain support?
https://www.blend4web.com/en/downloads/
That is NOT a web app version of Blender, it's a 1.5+GB SDK for desktops for building 3D web apps, I guess that run using WebGL. But it is open source so maybe we could use some of the code? I don't know.

I'm all for OXT getting to the same point of widespread use as Blender (or InkScape, LibreOffice, GIMP, etc. etc.). Not sure how to do that. I'd be cool with OXT getting to the point that PyGame is! Hell, I'd be happy to just get the remodeled IDE first release out at this point (I'm still working on it constantly).

Bill Atkinson once said xTalk (HyperCard) "is a solution looking for a problem". The problem that it solved got solved again (with a different scripting language) when Tim Berners-Lee came along with his NCSA Mosaic web thing while Apple/Claris was busy playing around with interactive movies.

Now days there's a LOT more competition in that space then there was back then. There's been a bunch of xTalk attempts at making xTalk happen in-browser, including ongoing efforts by LC, but even before RunRev existed (LiveCard? Roadster?)
xAction
Posts: 282
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2021 1:40 pm
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by xAction »

That is NOT a web app version of Blender, it's a 1.5+GB SDK for desktops for building 3D web apps, I guess that run using WebGL. But it is open source so maybe we could use some of the code? I don't know.
The point is that it builds web apps based on Blender tech.I gave up even downloading it, their servers are so slow and they want $990 for a pro version of software you can't even find a demo of.

I'll just use Blender Game Engine, who are the ones who just got the $100,000 donation to build apps for Web3.0.
Who knows maybe they'll put Blender in a browser too.
There's been a bunch of xTalk attempts at making xTalk happen in-browser,
See my upcoming PM...scratch that, PMs aren't working so see this thread.
User avatar
richmond62
Posts: 2621
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:03 am
Location: Bulgaria
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by richmond62 »

LC is going to beat us to the punch by a year or two anyway.
I just have to sit back and wait and say "I told you so."
I am not convinced about that.

We'll just have to wait and see.

LC must be dancing on a tightrope right now
re money, new employees and so on.
https://richmondmathewson.owlstown.net/
User avatar
richmond62
Posts: 2621
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:03 am
Location: Bulgaria
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by richmond62 »

You're so out of touch Richmond.
No, I am not: I know full well that Apple, Microsoft and Canonical have dumped 32-bit machines
and software quite some time ago.

My 2018 Mac Mini I am typing this on runs MacOS 12.1 beta, and you'd be hard put to run anything 32-bit on that!

But I am also aware that a large part of the world still depends on 32-bit machines and is likely to go on doing
that for a considerable time.

As OpenXTalk is NOT a commercial venture

[Oh, and on that topic, how can supporters donate funds to it?]

I wonder if it necessarily has to chase LiveCode and its "ever upward" way of doing things,
instead of supplying a programming environment "for the rest of us"?

I am, however, "in touch" with teachers in countries that are not in the forefront of computer development and have
utterly crap GDPs and almost invisible funds for education. And Education really is my God. So when someone from Haiti
contacts me and states that they have just managed to get their hands on 25 Pentium IV machines, a load of old
cathode-ray VDUs, but no operating system and no adequate way to get things going so they can get teachers and pupils
making things to run on those machines, I am not going to "go all poncy" about the fact that they are horribly outdated:
I am going to do my level best to help them squeeze the things right down to the last drop.
https://richmondmathewson.owlstown.net/
User avatar
richmond62
Posts: 2621
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:03 am
Location: Bulgaria
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by richmond62 »

support old hardware
Could be "as simple" as re-branding LiveCode 7 or 8 and bunging it "out there" as 'OpenXTalk for 32 bit machines.'

AND, as I seem to remember LC 7 was just before LiveCode went through a major refactoring exercise and went from
"static" stacks to ones generated on the fly, I wonder if, somewhere, there is access to the source code of older
versions of LiveCode.
https://richmondmathewson.owlstown.net/
xAction
Posts: 282
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2021 1:40 pm
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by xAction »

LiveCode 7 and 8 have been available, for free, for the better part of 7 years.
Why haven't they been adopted?

Because developers moved en masse to the web. and or they develop with standards that are in demand.

Where do they learn their skills? Online
Where do they go to ask questions about what they are learning/developing? Online
Where are their customers? Online
Where do they post their code so employers can review their skillset? Online

If people need software for old computers: It's already been programmed.
There's been decades of software made already for those computers.
User avatar
richmond62
Posts: 2621
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:03 am
Location: Bulgaria
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by richmond62 »

If people need software for old computers: It's already been programmed.
There's been decades of software made already for those computers.
By and large that's true.

However, at EFL conferences I am always being asked by teachers where they can get their hands on
software such as LiveCode to develop in-house standalones for content delivery and reinforcement.

Last year in a discussion with teachers from the Balkans, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia and Armenia they
explained that their schools (government schools) were equipped with 'old crap' running Windows Vista
or XP with no support software for their teaching at all. At that point I was able to point them to the LiveCode
download page: now that is not quite so easy.

The people who ask these questions are normally over-worked and under-paid teachers who have come out of
their "caves" blinking into the sunlight, who have had little or no internet access, little or no motivation to get
on with stuff in the CALL area, and want a package which they can use on their machine at home or at school over a cup
of coffee. From your point of view, xAction, they are probably 10 years behind; but they are not in a state to be
updated, they are in a state where they want to make simple desktop stuff for the kids they teach back in
Uzbekistan.
https://richmondmathewson.owlstown.net/
xAction
Posts: 282
Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2021 1:40 pm
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by xAction »

The old software is still there we don't have to do anything about it. Doesn't need to be rebranded or anything, it's free and its open source until the heat death of the universe or global warming kills us all.

You can go donate to Archive.org right now so those files remain on the internet. They have a 2 for 1 donation special going.
User avatar
richmond62
Posts: 2621
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:03 am
Location: Bulgaria
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by richmond62 »

The old software is still there we don't have to do anything about it.
In one way that is very true, although it could give the false impression that LiveCode in some way support it.
https://richmondmathewson.owlstown.net/
User avatar
OpenXTalkPaul
Posts: 1485
Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2021 4:19 pm
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

B) old hardware isn't our platform
Why not? Linux is great for old hardware. I run a Plex Media server on a 2007 Core2Quad, it's pretty solid. OK maybe not so much 1980s old, but there's actually a community of people who still make things in the original xTalk HyperCard.

1. To support old hardware means you have to bloat the project, which means each new developer you attract to the project has to download a bunch of old garbage before they can even build a working executable.
It already is/does, the code base dates back 30 years to MetaCard on UNIX in the early 90s.
2. You have to test builds on old hardware which takes time away from moving forward or fixing bugs for the hardware people are actually using. It might be months before you get anyone to even tell you that something is wrong on some old machine, then hours of trying to find out why, only to come to the conclusion "Oh yeah, that won't work on that machine at all." I've been through this before, the person I worked with made sure our stuff worked on old machines and that costs us features, time, and quality to show off on new machines. And the last time it BROKE things so bad I lost a year of work and just put the project on the shelf for good.
Probably why I don't think LC has really put in a good effort to support Linux users, which isn't going to attract Linux users.
But I'm not buying into the whole forced obsolescence thing, That's what is really driving me away from Apple Inc. and towards Linux/FreBSD. If you have hardware that's 15 years old but still runs faster than a Raspberry Pi, and could do what you would need an RPi for, then why put the (slightly physically larger) 15yr old board in a landfill?
I'm a tinkerer, with hardware too, over the summer I built a "set top" box housings for several old dead laptop I had collecting dust in my garage, one of them is 2nd Gen Core i7 with Nvidia Graphics (made after the notoriously bad batches), it's great for streaming media and retro gaming fun on an HD TV, stuff you might use a brand new RPi for.

That's where I'm coming from. I actually like it a lot that I can build an standalone app in OXT on my newest laptop and have it run on my old Core2Quad server with an older OS just fine! I'm not talking about supporting an OS from the 1990s, but the current 9v. engines support macOS 10.9 (so minimum 64bit) which is about 8 years old, Win 32/Win64, Linux 32/64, using mostly fairly standard OS APIs so I'm not sure how much supporting those things will keep it tied down. Obviously major hardware/OS shifts (such as Apple Silicon / Mac Catalyst ) can make that more of a pain, but that pain comes no matter what.

HOWEVER, if we could get the Engine binaries, and I mean JUST the Script Engines (not the Engine, Externals for speech/PDF printing/cam/etc., Extensions, Docs, IDE whole ball of wax) to compile from simple MAKE files, that would be GREAT! Also getting the revSecurity External to use LibreSSL and compile from MAKE file would be good too.
3. Where's our support from Linux users? I reached out to 740,000 of them and got 1 reply.
Of three flavors of Linux IDE on archive.org only 222 total views over 3 months.
That number equates to 0.03% of the entire reddit linux community.
If we compare to 2.2 million linux users its 0.001%
They've had 8 years to get a free license....where are they?
Well the ONLY other person who has quietly pushed changes to OXT on GitHub, is a Linux guy. I mean the same could be said on all platforms... where is our Mac People? Where is our Win 10/11 people?
55% of internet access is from mobile devices, and 42% is from desktop, that's probably my own stats too, but I don't try to reply to these long-ass discussions on my phone.
There would be no need for religious debates if people simply accepted reality.
Religion? I don't do religion. Reality is currently Desktop and Mobile currently each have things that they're more suited to. Reality is that you can't accurately cull all that much information from a stat such as that one. For example, is Chrome OS counted as a desktop or mobile? How many people are using their phone purely for reading/shopping on websites vs. creating any content inside a browser? I'm usually using my phone AND a desktop/laptop simultaneously.
I have tried doing some mobile DAW recording, but it's minimally useful at best. I do have an iPad (with iPencil) and an old Nexus 7 tablet too. I actually did some app builds for Android using my Rhythm Grid custom Data Grid (which I WAS working on a Widget based replacement for that, which I intend to get back to at some point), that was pretty OK for making beats while standing in line somewhere. I wouldn't do image editing on a phone (tablet sure). I couldn't see myself coding on a phone.
The average mobile user acesses 9 apps per day and 30 apps per week on thier mobile device
.
Which apps? Email, WebBrowser, FaceBook, Instagram, Twitter, some other social media, Banking App, Shopping App, Alarm Clock, Calendar? Oops that's 10! Mostly web views running in an app frame, so probably mostly JavaScript is what you're up against there. I do like mobility, and the ability to make mobile apps. What I don't like is the restrictive gate keepers / App Store requirements and forced obsolescence.

Honestly, I think you are looking for something you aren't going to be able to get from me, not that I wouldn't want to be able to deliver it. I'm not at all against an xTalk engine that can do everything that can be done inside a web browser, nor am I against mobile apps (or better yet a mobile IDE, at least for tablets, which is totally doable). It's just that all of that is not likely to happen (any more than it already does) from me acting mostly alone. And the more time I spend talking about this the less time I spend working on that first step of separation from the old thing that still isn't complete.
User avatar
astu
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Nov 26, 2021 7:34 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by astu »

Hello together

I have read through your discourse here calmly. And I must say, there are a few good approaches, but also one or the other, sorry if I put it that way, bullshit.

Take a look at the community. Why did they get involved with Livecode? And why was there a big outcry when they shut down open source?

In my case it was quite simple. I was looking for a free(!) language with which I could use my hobby, or my ability to understand logical processes not to lie idle. I found Livecode ideal for this. Easy to learn, easy to understand. That's what I wanted, plus the benefit of being able to write for different platforms at the same time and test the function without having to do a lot of compiling. For me as a Windows user, who also tinkers with RPi and Android. Simply ideal. Under Delphi this was wishful thinking or not possible at all.

The only thing that has always bothered me is that some functions are only available in the paid versions. And I hope that this will change in oXT, which is why I want to support the project.

The reasoning that in the future everything will only shift towards web 0.whatever version and cloud. I used to work in IT support for an industrial services company. Some of the machines there were still controlled by Pentium II computers with Win2000(!) in 2019. So much for the topic of old hardware no longer needs to be supported. In 2018, the programs used were equipped with a graphical interface for the first time... In addition, there are still people who need to work locally or offline and even want it! These still need the desktop paradigm. And what good is the best web app if I have a network failure?

The LC makers want to earn money. Their good right, I think. They have put brainpower into it, then why not draw a benefit from it. But the fact that they have also so upended the community, who have also invested there, albeit more time than money, that is another issue.

I find oTX therefore not wrong. As open source, the possibility is limitless.
Yes, maybe it is still a "cheap copy" of the LC9 community version. But it will evolve with time.

To discuss now if you should stay with an outdated community version or if you should do the work to make a phoenix out of it and develop something new out of it is as unnecessary as a pimple on your butt.

LC has shot down the OpenSource version only recently. For the fact that you are already working on an OpenXTalk based on this version, you are on the right way. And if that gets around, then OpenXTalk can also become something. One should not underestimate the OpenSource community. It starts slowly there, but once it has taken off, then it can become a high-flyer.

Paul and all the others who have taken on this issue deserve my respect. They are not only thinking about themselves but also about the community.

Who knows what will happen with oTX.... I can't say because my crystal ball is broken. But I am curious about the further development of this project.

just my 2 Pence
GitHub: https://github.com/Hoerwi

Image
User avatar
richmond62
Posts: 2621
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:03 am
Location: Bulgaria
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by richmond62 »

some functions are only available in the paid versions
Very few.

The only one that might be useful is the ability to lock one's work with a password so the
code is inaccessible, BUT, as far as I understand things, were that to be introduced in OXT
it would break the Opne Source licence.
https://richmondmathewson.owlstown.net/
FourthWorld
Posts: 280
Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2021 4:37 pm
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by FourthWorld »

richmond62 wrote: Sat Nov 27, 2021 8:02 am The only one that might be useful is the ability to lock one's work with a password so the
code is inaccessible, BUT, as far as I understand things, were that to be introduced in OXT
it would break the Opne Source licence.
FOSS licenses only require that source be made available to users of the software.

Encryption, of even scripts, can be important to security.

At rest, what is the practical difference between compiled object code and an encrypted script?

And in a world filled with powerful tools for process analysis, everything operating in RAM is decrypted anyway, in any app, made with any language.

Why LiveCode Ltd did not allow for the enhanced security of their scripts is for them to describe, but security prohibition is not a feature of the GPL.
User avatar
astu
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Nov 26, 2021 7:34 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by astu »

richmond62 wrote: Sat Nov 27, 2021 8:02 am
some functions are only available in the paid versions
Very few.
There are a few more that would be interesting to me, for example.
including most of the mergXXXXX that are only available from the Indy, QR code scanner function, etc... that's quite a lot of what you have withheld from the community.
GitHub: https://github.com/Hoerwi

Image
User avatar
richmond62
Posts: 2621
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:03 am
Location: Bulgaria
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by richmond62 »

Some of those mergXXXXX things were made by individuals who work outwith LiveCode and
were paid for their contributions, and maybe are being paid royalties on sales of commercial
LiveCode.
https://richmondmathewson.owlstown.net/
User avatar
astu
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Nov 26, 2021 7:34 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by astu »

richmond62 wrote: Sat Nov 27, 2021 9:33 am Some of those mergXXXXX things were made by individuals who work outwith LiveCode and
were paid for their contributions, and maybe are being paid royalties on sales of commercial
LiveCode.
yes, there is nothing wrong with that. It is also to be begrudged to them. But I still remember darkly that e.g. the AV functions were once available in the community and then suddenly only in the Indy...

But there is nothing against it, if someone sits down and rewrites these functions as OpenSource for openXTalk... Rewrites! not copied!
GitHub: https://github.com/Hoerwi

Image
User avatar
richmond62
Posts: 2621
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:03 am
Location: Bulgaria
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by richmond62 »

Once upon a time
the AV functions
revolved around Quicktime on Macintosh and Windows, and were a non-starter on Linux.

Now that Quicktime has gone the way of all flesh so have the AV functions that once
depended upon it.
https://richmondmathewson.owlstown.net/
User avatar
OpenXTalkPaul
Posts: 1485
Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2021 4:19 pm
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

richmond62 wrote: Sat Nov 27, 2021 8:02 am
some functions are only available in the paid versions
Very few.

The only one that might be useful is the ability to lock one's work with a password so the
code is inaccessible, BUT, as far as I understand things, were that to be introduced in OXT
it would break the Opne Source licence.
LC Mark likes to point out that they take the "Wordpress Interpretation" on the "Virality " of the license, which is a fancy way of saying anything you make with the GPL should also be open source, which is a good thing, it's the reason I'm working on it.

Now if that stack/script work could also be functionally on another XTalk engine that's not based on LCC, SuperCard, StackSmith, WyldCard, WebCard for examples, then I would think then stack/xtalk script wouldn't be bound to that GPL, at least that's the way I understand that, just as a stack made with the commercial version (which I had for a year before they did this shift) is not bound to be open source by the GPL3 License.
User avatar
OpenXTalkPaul
Posts: 1485
Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2021 4:19 pm
Contact:

Re: Imagine something simple . . .

Post by OpenXTalkPaul »

richmond62 wrote: Sat Nov 27, 2021 2:18 pm Once upon a time
the AV functions
revolved around Quicktime on Macintosh and Windows, and were a non-starter on Linux.

Now that Quicktime has gone the way of all flesh so have the AV functions that once
depended upon it.
The MergeAV externals in the commercial editions do some of what used to be done with QTKit, or Trevor Devore''s Enhanced QT external, but MergeAV used the more modern AVKit/AVFoundation API's (some of my Builder libraries use the AVAudio parts of that too).

But it is Apple only, macOS, iOS, etc.

So yeah, the newer community versions are missing functionality ( and some are just outdated) that was available (via QT or not) to the Community users. For another example of things that also went in that direction along the way, the included Text-to-Speech where the old externals have been replaced by commercial-only builder extensions (although there's at least 2 community alternative Builder libraries, incl. the NSSpeech Library by me ;) ).
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests