A set of major changes in SkyOS is now complete. The entire GUI subsystem was rewritten to support desktop composing including flicker free drawing, double buffering, full alpha transparency, plugable composing effects, etc. Secondly, PE support has been dropped completely, and all libraries, applications, drivers, and the kernel are now ELF binaries. Thirdly, everything is now compiled with GCC 4.1.1 and the latest binutils. And last, but personally definitely not least: SkyOS now has support for BeOS people files. Other than the above, a lot of bugs were fixed as well.
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Member since:2005-08-07
If I'm not mistaken, GregV isn't a member of the SkyOS development team and I have read somewhere that if you want the source of the Gpled apps included in SkyOS, you just have to ask to robert.
On a side note (this is speculation), if I correctly understand what "Factory" is, the sources for all ported applications should be included in the SkyOS system as "Factory" should allow you to build them.
(Robert, I think that you never explained what Factory really does, you know...:D)
On the other hand, with my very very very limited understanding of the legal GPL terms, I believe that you don't have to release the sources of GPL apps that you don't release publicly/that you use only internally...
And as the beta programm can be (arguably) considered as an in house use of the GPL software, the SkyOS shouldn't have legally to release the sources for the GPL apps before the first official SkyOS public release (but they said they would for anybody who would ask, which is nice of 'em).
Please notice that I'm no part of the SkyOS Team, so please, don't flame them...you are welcomed to bash me though 
Cheers,
Lakedaemon
Member since:2005-07-30
Member since:2005-07-30
As far as I see this factory thing is a kind of like portage on Gentoo or more correctly apt-source on Debian.
But the sources should be available in a more convinient form.
This is slightly off-topic but I think the SkyOS team doesn't give the open source apps their due in SkyOS. The majority of the usable apps are open source. SkyOS is really just the kernel and libraries.
Member since:2005-06-30
Member since:2005-07-06
Yeah, as Lakedeamon pointed out, I am not a member of the Development Team (I havn't been on a SkyOS-run team since the 4-alphas).
Now, to answer your question:
What does this mean?
What do you think it means? When SkyOS FINAL is released people can download the source to the modified versions.
As far as my understanding of the GPL goes: Robert doesn't have to release the sources of the modified applications until the final version of the program is released. Also, concerning the "internal" release, maybe thats why Robert has people *join* the beta programme, so they become part of the SkyOS internal community... dunno just a thought...
Edit:
If you read THE POST BELOW MINE Chris Marshall clears things up... Lazy zealots :/
Edited 2006-07-13 04:32
Member since:
2005-07-30
One of the worst things about SkyOS is that they *HAVE NOT* released the sources for the GPLed programs they have modified (for example Firefox ot GTK+).
See this : http://www.skyos.org/board/viewtopic.php?t=20802
There is a statement in GregV's comment:
"When the final version of SkyOS is complete (aka SkyOS 5) the source of all modified applications will be downloadable, at least to those who own the system."
What does this mean? This is a clear violation of the GPL. The current versions of SkyOS ship with GPLed Apps so their source should be available *NOW* to the customers of SkyOS.
Edited 2006-07-12 10:18