1) I moved to using git for all my software a while ago after previously using Perforce, neither of these ran on RISC OS at the time, so everything has been checked in and out from a Windows or Linux box on to a shared directory accessible to RISC OS. Sources are in c and h directories and
other file types are in the form of filename,xxx as crated by either
Lanman or Sunfish.
2) I've already used GitHub for some non RISC OS projects, and know how to use if for merges. There is also GitLab, I've not looked at that yet, although I should do as I've signed up for access ROOL's locally hosted repository.
The main problem with either of those at the moment is the the RISC OS version of git can't do SSL yet, so wont be able to access them directly,
and I ultimately want to allow a RISC OS end to end solution.
3) I could just slap a GPLv2 licence on everything, but does anyone have experience of other open source licences which may be more suitable?
Stand-alone applications aren't such a big problem, but things like
TimerMod which people may want to use in other applications, may need more thought.
I'm thinking of open sourcing some of my RISC OS software such as
TimerMod. As I see it there are three questions, which I'd appreciate
your thoughts on.
1) How to handle RISC OS file types
2) Where to host
3) What licence to use
In more detail
1) I moved to using git for all my software a while ago after previously using Perforce, neither of these ran on RISC OS at the time, so
everything has been checked in and out from a Windows or Linux box on to
a shared directory accessible to RISC OS. Sources are in c and h
directories and other file types are in the form of filename,xxx as
crated by either Lanman or Sunfish.
There is now a RISC OS port of git which stores RISC OS files without
type extensions, and applies the filetypes on checkout. I've not started using this yet, given that the port doesn't do ssh, so still requires a shared directory.
2) I've already used GitHub for some non RISC OS projects, and know how
to use if for merges. There is also GitLab, I've not looked at that yet, although I should do as I've signed up for access ROOL's locally hosted repository.
The main problem with either of those at the moment is the the RISC OS version of git can't do SSL yet, so wont be able to access them
directly, and I ultimately want to allow a RISC OS end to end solution.
3) I could just slap a GPLv2 licence on everything, but does anyone have experience of other open source licences which may be more suitable? Stand-alone applications aren't such a big problem, but things like
TimerMod which people may want to use in other applications, may need
more thought.
On Sunday, 14 June 2020 13:40:16 UTC+1, druck wrote:
I'm thinking of open sourcing some of my RISC OS software such as
TimerMod. As I see it there are three questions, which I'd appreciate
your thoughts on.
1) How to handle RISC OS file types
NFS-style encoding is the only way to go, really.
This form is also supported by the InfoZip tools (`zip` and `unzip`) and
can be used to construct RISC OS file information from the filesystem, and vice-versa.
3) What licence to use
BSD or MIT, is my preference.
IF you want to host on a public git repository, and would like people to
be able to check out the code, and build it, git's a fine choice.
GitHub seems to be more popular. I use GitLab, self hosted, for all my
RISC OS and non-RISC OS things. They're equally useful and workable.
There are differences in presentation and each has their own quirks. Then there's BitBucket. I've only found a couple of RISC OS things on
BitBucket, and having had experience with using it at previous jobs, I shy away, myself.
The main problem with either of those at the moment is the the RISC OS version of git can't do SSL yet, so wont be able to access them
directly, and I ultimately want to allow a RISC OS end to end solution.
Strictly that's a problem that is aside from the issue of making it open source. Eventually someone will address that beyond what's already
present. But, the point is that both GitLab and GitHub (and BitBucket,
and others) will allow you to download a copy of the source. I've worked with open source projects that despite using git, and having a front end
for Pull requests/merge requests, still insist on diffs by mailing list
for review. So it's hardly uncommon for that to happen. PLUS, both
GitLab and GitHub offer in browser editors so that people can make changes and create branches without actually downloading the source, etc.
It used to be the case that you could only have a few 'private'
repositories on GitLab and GitHub, but I believe that GitLab allowed unlimited, and after MS bought GitHub, they did the same, some time last
year if I remember right. (my history may be off there, but I'm pretty
sure they both offer private). So you can always start out using the repositories in private to get the feel for things, and then open them up later if you wish.
For selfhosting, GitHub offer GitHub enterprise, but I believe that's expensive and probably not a sane option for an individual. GitLab, on
the other hand, offer the community edition - which I think is what you
see on RISC OS Open's site, and is what I run for myself. ISTR you could also selfhost through AWS marketplace if that was your thing. I run selfhosted myself because I would prefer to keep my things local to me,
and I have sufficient server space to do so - I suspect that most people don't, and the cloud hosted servers are sufficient.
GPL is not a nice license for reuse, unless you want to force people to
buy into your ideology. To me, that's not free. IMO. BSD or MIT,
depending on your preference are far freer license, without hinderance for reuse (and without a great big manifesto behind it). Or there's the zlib license which is more wordy, but about as suitable.
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