Castle considering open sourcing RISC OS - RISC OS News, Software and Information

Castle considering open sourcing RISC OS

Published: 15th Aug 2006, 01:45:30GMT Source: drobe.co.uk
By the Drobe news desk

Page 1 of 1

So close yet so far whisper sources [Updated]

The developers of RISC OS 5 are prepared to open source 'elements' of the operating system, acccording to a report in Archive magazine today. Castle boss Jack Lillingston reportedly told Archive editor Paul Beverley on-the-record that the company is "very seriously considering making RISC OS open source".

Jack went on to say that Castle will expect "a small royalty" per use in order to fund an engineer to maintain a central source code tree, although this would be a matter of 'a few pence'. Castle would then become consultants for organisations that wish to investigate and employ RISC OS 5 - Paul reports that Castle rely on writing software for RISC OS-powered STBs these days, rather than shipping Iyonixes and other kit.

The revelation is seen as a surprising u-turn given Castle's previous stance against open sourcing RISC OS; they were even upset at RISCOS Ltd open sourcing parts of the printing system. However, just a few weeks ago, Castle director Peter Wild spoke out with his personal opinion that RISC OS 5 'must be open sourced to survive'. Peter is also selling his electronics company's shareholding in Castle.

In this month's editorial, seen by drobe.co.uk as Archive went to press, Paul wrote: "What is it about me and predictions? What did I say last month? 'Don't get too excited because Jack Lillingston and John Ballance have always been implacably opposed to releasing RISC OS as open-source.' And what did Jack say to me today? 'We're very seriously considering making RISC OS open-source'.

Indications
"If they do decide to go that way, and the indications are getting stronger by the minute, then I'd say it's very good news for the RISC OS community.

"There is still a lot of very positive feeling towards RISC OS, but what we don't have is vast resources to do the development. So, if we can club together and share our developments of RISC OS instead of each company selfishly fighting to keep things in house, it will be better for all of us."

Jack's comments came as Paul interviewed Castle to get their response to an opinion article printed recently in a rival magazine linked to VirtualAcorn. The piece trashed Castle, alledging, "One has to wonder what is going on at Castle. The company has lost its full time developers and all the support staff, and is now operating out of a complex that rents offices by the week. That doesn't sound too promising does it? Is [Peter Wild's] share in Castle up for sale now because it's shortly going to be worthless?"

Minefield
Meanwhile informed sources told drobe.co.uk say that some 20 organisations and third parties have contributed to RISC OS since its birth in the early 1990s, with each component understood to be distributed under a closed license. For instance, a Taiwanese set top box manufacturing giant, rumoured to be MSI, is understood to have licensed the RISC OS 3.7 source code from Acorn, with changes and developments fed back into NC OS - the forefather of Pace's RISC OS 5. Several other organisations, besides Pace Micro, licensed the OS before and after the dismantling of Acorn in 1998.

It's also understood that ANT Plc contributed components to RISC OS, such as ShareFS, a memory management module, and various networking applications. These programs, and many others, were licensed to Acorn and later RISCOS Ltd under binary-only agreements, although the source code may have been supplied for reference. Sources claim that although Acorn, Pace and now Castle may have the source code to these components in their vaults, they do not necessarily own them nor have the right to re-license them.

Supporters of open sourcing RISC OS believe that even if some key components are made available, such as the RISC OS 5 Unicode font manager, then the platform as a whole will benefit. But a well placed contact said opening the source code to RISC OS would be too much of a legal minefield, and that it is written into the licensing paperwork that the operating system remains firmly closed and restricted.

He said: "In my view, Castle don't actually have the right to open source the OS. Acorn and Pace were given code by other parties to bring RISC OS up to standard, but with the intention for it to stay closed source for commercial reasons.

"Open sourcing it without considering the impact this will cause to other companies using the operating system is pretty crap."

Castle were unavailable for comment.

Update at 13:55 19/8/2006
This article originally reported rumours of claims that Tematic staff were owed money by Castle, with access to the RISC OS source code being a possible means of repayment. Castle have informed Drobe that this is not the case, and no money is owed to them. Ex-Tematic staff are said to have had access to portions of RISC OS as contractors.

Ex-Tematic staffer Andrew Hodgkinson said: "Speaking for myself, Castle don't owe me anything. Having to shut down part of a business is never an easy decision to take or an easy thing to do, but to the best of my knowledge Tematic ws shut down in an entirely honourable fashion."

Drobe is happy to clarify this point.

Links
Castle Iyonix website
Archive magazine website - subscribe today. The latest issue is in the post today hot off the printers, and should be in subscribers' hands by the end of the week. Pint-sized Archive is also to undergo a face-lift to mark the start of the magazine's 20th volume

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rmac 15/8/06 7:17AM	It is interesting how someone can hold a licensing arrangement and not use it actively while at the same time deny others who could use it. I understand the commercial nature of things but when they have utilised part of it you would think that they would contribute it to the whole, especially if it isn't a threat to their commercial operations.
highlandcattle 15/8/06 8:53AM	This is all very interesting. And I really hope it all pays off for castle!!
nx 15/8/06 8:57AM	I look forward to seeing how ROL react to this. Certainly, RO4 Select has more features and bug fixes than RO5 (IMO) but now that RO5 could be open sourced and attract increased development it would be a serious threat to ROL's survival. Interesting times we live in. nx
sa110 (+1.0) 15/8/06 9:23AM	Surely CTL cannot open source RISC OS, without getting the approval of all current license holders. Afterall open sourcing RISC OS could pull the rug from underneath the feet of the current license holders.
CKH2 15/8/06 9:56AM	Excellent news for Virtual Acorn as the licence fee will become 'pence' rather than the high fee currently charged by RISCOS Ltd., making the Virtual RiscPC software much cheaper with no less profit.
bucksboy 15/8/06 10:07AM	*In reply to sa110:* I note the article refers to open-sourcing 'elements' of RISC OS: presumably those over which Castle holds complete and untrammelled licensing responsibility? George
krisa (+1.0) 15/8/06 10:10AM	Couldn't certain areas of RISC OS be open-sourced, and others left in binary-only form? For example: if they can't get permission to distribute ShareFS source straight away, that doesn't stop it being available in assembled-module form. I'm sure that just starting to open RISC OS would create a productive tidal wave - any modules with lost or unavailable sourcecode could be replaced with other people's versions anyway. In some cases, it may help remove the "dross" - old legacy code that was in need of replacing anyway. Congrats to Castle for making a very bold move. Chris' (unnamed) "well-placed contact" sounds like a glass-half-empty sort of person.
druck (+9.4) 15/8/06 10:12AM	There is a huge amount of naivety about the open source movement, not necessary by the direct contributors, but by others who hold it up as some sort of panacea – believing and as soon as you make something open source flocks of developers suddenly appear out of nowhere and have an infinite amount of time to work on it. Certain open source projects targeted at a large markets where there are over priced and entrenched commercial rivals such as for a clone of UNIX and web servers are amazingly successful, but for there are tens of thousands of smaller projects which wilt and die through lack of interest or lack of co-operation and leadership. The notion that RISC OS will be transformed by open source is about as realistic as the fairly tail "The Shoemaker and the Elves" – leave the RISC OS source code out over night, and you won’t find the wish list magically implemented in the morning. Equally there is a misunderstanding of the way the closed source software industry works. Its not all wicked commercial enterprises tightly clasping their closed sources whispering "my precious" like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. There is a lot of co-operation between suppliers of various parts of the OS and application stack, and they are willing to contribute code to each other in order to implement features that give them a commercial advantage over their rivals. They will not be always willing to make such contributions to an open source OS (or allow one to become open source) as this can give away key information to those rivals. Contracts may even specify API details aren't provided to other users of the OS. Taking something that's the product of decades of closed source development and contributions from 3rd parties and making it open source, is not a light undertaking, and a potential legal mine field. Sun had to spend thousands of man years of development resources re-writing parts of Solaris before it was in a state where it could be released under an open licence. RISC OS would also require a significant effort to make the entire OS open source, which would be another diversion of our limited resources away from where its needed, which is application development. Realistically if RISC OS 5 was open sourced, there would only be interest in small parts of it, so it would be better just to make these parts available. I suspect most interest would be in copying the existing Select features such as icon cut & paste in to the window manager, and making the Unicode font manager available for RISC OS 4.X. Things that should have been done by co-operation between Castle & RISCOS Ltd years ago, but show no signs of ever happening. That would be both achievable and a real benefit to all RISC OS users. As for all the grandiose plans of major restructuring of the OS, a lack of resources and focus is likely to make these peter out with in a year or so. Although undoubtedly there will be someone plugging away to make it a "perfect OS" years after the last user has departed through lack of any application development.
MikeCarter 15/8/06 10:14AM	So who are the licence holders?
VirtualAcorn (+1.5) 15/8/06 10:40AM	Archive and RISCWorld (strangely the name of the magazine being quoted wasn't mentioned in this article) are not rival magazines. Indeed RISCWorld was set up specifically not to be a rival to Archive. One is published monthly in printed format, the other bi-monthly on CD. The two magazines actually co-oeprate quite closely, as an example the Archive On Line mailing list is set up for subscribers to either Archive or RISCWorld. Further to this, APDL, the publishers of RISCWorld, also manufacture the Archive CD.
SimonC (+1.0) 15/8/06 10:44AM	With luck, it could mean some progress could be made, but it sounds more likely that Castle have simply had enough of RISC OS development, and may just be the death throes.
hubersn 15/8/06 11:20AM	The unanswered question for me is the following: it might well be that relicencing of parts of RISC OS is not easy or even not allowed (I heard much the same from a variety of people). But is there a need to relicence? The real question is whether there is a restriction on the group of people allowed to see and change the source. One could think of various "pseudo open source" arrangements like Castle operating a CVS server, people who want to have access have to apply and are given the status of a Castle employee. Also, licencing could be the same as it is now, with vastly reduced prices. As Jack put it: "a small royalty". I doubt that the licencing restrictions on most of RISC OS would preclude an arrangement like this.
hEgelia (+4.1) 15/8/06 11:25AM	Just a thought; Could the mysterious RISC OS Open Ltd be behind Castle's sudden 'change of heart' regarding the legal status of RISC OS 5? I particularly like to quote the following lines from the article: "In a further twist in the story, there are rumours that RISC OS Open Ltd, a new company backed by ex-Tematic and Pace staff, are to be given access to the RISC OS 5 source code from Castle. The engineers are believed to be owed cash from their time at Tematic, and the hand over of RISC OS source code could be one form of payment open to them." Furthermore I like to agree with druck about the 'open source fairy tale' - the wellspread success stories of Firefox and Linux have probably contributed to such a misplaced belief. However, on balance I believe open sourcing various parts of the OS may give it a better chance of enjoying development than the current state of affairs allows. Therefore I hope they proceed with it and all parties, not just end-users, may share any benefits coming from this move. Contrary to what some people may think, simply open sourcing a software project does not necessarily mean no money can be made from it anymore. Perhaps this move may even force the likes of Castle and ROL to cooperate more. Keeping my fingers crossed...
simo 15/8/06 12:27PM	I think open-sourcing RISC OS and possibly a "pence" license fee would tempt me back to the fold, assuming that the VirtualRPC-SE or or -SA prices would plummit when you take the RO4 fee out - although aren't they ROL licenses, not Castle - or is that just the Adjust versions? Mind you, there's still not a Linux version is there? Not sure how Castle opening RO5 would affect ROL's Select/Adjust, being based on RO4. I would expect the first thing after going open would be someone would develop RO5 HAL's for the A9/RPC/VA and completely kill Select/Adjust. I wonder if a GPL or BSD license would be favoured, or some made-up thing so Castle could maintain control. Hey we could even see Xara Xtreme ported back to RISC OS! That said, with a lack of new hardware (A9 is nothing wonderfully new, and Castle has no XScales after their current stock) even an open OS couldn't last much longer via emulation, I wonder if anyone would have enough interest to port an open RISC OS to x86?
bucksboy (+1.0) 15/8/06 12:58PM	Unfortunately I tend to agree with SimonC's comment, that this could signal Castle's final loss of interest in RO development, and by extension, RO hardware development. Since they produce the only fully-developed RO ARM computer to appear since Acorn's demise, this, if true, is concerning.
flibble (+1.0) 15/8/06 12:59PM	*In reply to simo:* A license fee wouldn't be enforceable with any of the traditional open-source licenses such as GPL or BSD http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php For those commenting that open sourcing it won't necessarily sort out all the problems or be perfect what's the alternative? If the article is correct and Castle no longer have their engineers and with ROL output of Select completely absent for years, what is there to lose?
flypig 15/8/06 1:28PM	The one thing that worries me about RISC OS (and I'm sure this would have been one of the reasons many people left the platform, before the release of the Iyonix/A9) is whether there will be any further development of both the OS and the hardware to run it on. If open sourcing RO makes it more likely that Castle and others will be able to get OEM work (as suggested by Peter Wild) then it would presumably be a positive development. But whether or not open sourcing drives more development, from the desktop perspective it does at least mean that the OS cannot disappear suddenly if the owning company (like Castle or ROL) disappear, as almost happened with Acorn. Moreover, it opens the possibility for RO to be made to work on any of the many interesting ARM devices that are already out there, which would be great. So I'm with flibble on this. Open sourcing won't necessarily solve all of RO's problems, but there may not be a great deal to lose. The only possible danger is that there might be massive branching, and maybe this could be controlled by Castle/ROL? I think it could well be a very positive thing from the users' perspective.
markee174 15/8/06 2:01PM	fibble: You can dual license code under a commercial and GPL license so that most commercial clients would have to use the commercial version. This is what MySQL do very successfully.
wuerthne 15/8/06 2:11PM	*In reply to simo:* I am mystified by your comment regarding Xara Xtreme. What does that have to do with RISC OS being open source? If you want to port Xara LX to RISC OS you are welcome to start any day. Incidentally, XaraLX is most of Xtreme, except unreleasable third-party closed source code components - which may sound like a familiar problem and brings us back on topic .
flibble 15/8/06 2:31PM	*In reply to markee174:* "so that most commercial clients would have to use the commercial version", if it's dual licensed there's nothing you could do to stop a commercial client using the GPLd version (or any other license that follows the open-source definition http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php).
markee174 (+1.5) 15/8/06 2:34PM	fibble: Not if you GPL your code. But if you want to keep it commercial you would want the commercial license. GPL license is very different from DSD license. The term Open-sourced is so vague as to be meaningless really.
SimonC (+1.5) 15/8/06 2:36PM	*In reply to flibble:* Commercial clients are probably not going to be want to held to the GPL restrictions on what it does to their stuff. The commercial license will probably give fewer restrictions, but will cost. I think all we really want is an indication that there is going to be a future, whoever and however it's developed. based entirely on assumptions, I've no idea how MySQL do it.
Jaffa 15/8/06 2:46PM	Support is also a motivator for taking a commercial licence: your open source licenced version will be only supported by the community, but by selling support alongside your commercial-licenced version[1] you can add value for your clients. Copyright attribution becomes an important factor here, though: for Castle (say) to sell a closed source version and maintain an open source version, anyone submitting code to the open source one would in practice have to transfer the copyright to Castle for them to do with as they wish. Once it's open sourced, though, it can never be closed again: even if future development only happens in the closed branch, the open version can live on. [1] Of course, you can still sell support and services without having a closed source version.
sa110 15/8/06 3:01PM	But wouldn't an open source version, minus the bits that can't be open sourced just create yet another version of RISC OS for the few remaining developers to contend with?
flibble 15/8/06 3:02PM	*In reply to markee174:* If Castle were to grant me code under the BSD license (I presume the DSD was a typo) I would still be able to do what I wished with it without paying them a fee. Read the license here, [Link: www.opensource.org] Dual licensing allows people to choose which of the two licenses to be bound by, it would not allow Castle to say, use this one when I tell you, or this other one when I tell you. The other 57 licenses listed here http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ would also not allow Castle to charge a license fee. What is suggested above in the article is a commercial software model which uses public contributions, in which the code is viewable but contributors have no guaranteed rights to it, it is not an open source model. Microsoft has released the source code to several programs under terms similar to this. If Castle want to Open Source RISC OS, they should. If they want to keep it commercial, they should. But by confusing the two whilst making up 'Yet another license' will confuse and limit contributions, the 'Open Source' community [1] is very vocal and will have no issues vilifying Castle if Castle were to claim their commercial license was 'Open Source'. Whereas that very community is the one you wish to engage if you want to leverage their huge skills base [2]. [1] The FSF, OSI, OSDN, Sourceforge, Slashdot etc etc etc. [2] I know of several former RISC OS programmers that currently work on Open Source projects that could be temtped back in to the fold if RISC OS were to be open sourced.
Jaffa 15/8/06 3:05PM	Personally, I don't care if there's another version of RISC OS to contend with. If it's regularly developed, openly; moving forward and easy/cheap for users to migrate to it'll become the "standard" version very quickly. If the options are two stagnant branches, or two stagnant branches and a developed one; I know which choice I'd go for. To prevent multiple forks, proper community and leadership which listens and responds constructively will be required. No, it won't be as big as Linux, but looking to see the problems and successes there will be helpful in setting up an open RISC OS.
flibble 15/8/06 3:11PM	*In reply to SimonC:* MySQL sell support services related to their product, and fully certified versions that large enterprises need to make the their risk management people happy. *In reply to sa110:* In theory it might solve some of the compatability issues, if freely redistributable versions of some of the code that is different between versions 4 and 5 was available as a softload on the other, programmers could write to one API and all versions would be able to run their code.
markee174 (+4.2) 15/8/06 5:18PM	fibble: If Castle release the code under A BSD license you can do whatever you want with it. You could use huge swathes in your program and never even mention it. BSD licenses only work as commercial entities if there is a large consultancy business ontop (as with say Samba) or you have commercial companies funding it as with many of the Apache foundation projects. If the license is under GPL you would have to release your code under a GPL license if you used a single line of it. So in practise many companies would prefer to have a commercial license on it. That would be the revenue source, along with support. That is why many commercial companies in the OS sector release code under a dual license.
flibble 15/8/06 5:52PM	*In reply to markee174:* Your last post is entirely correct with regards for licensing. But it's worth remembering tha a GPL license hasn't prevented Linux becoming probably the most popular embedded OS out there (even though there might be more suitable choices), and it has no commercial version for those that want to avoid the GPL. This is because although the GPL requires changes to the kernel to be made available under the GPL, the applications, where most companies work exists (in the embedded market) do not have to be licensed under the GPL. Lots of commercial companies are willing to put up with submitting the few hundred lines of changes they made to the kernel for free in exchange for not having to pay a license on each of the thousands of units they ship. It's difficult to argue for a pure open source RISC OS without saying "what's in it for Castle" It's difficult to argue for a non pure open source RISC OS without saying "what's in it for the contributors"
markee174 15/8/06 6:05PM	fibble: I don't understand your point. Open Source is a meanless term because it means potentially lots of different things depending on license type. Castle would release their code under a GPL license to address the issues raised by Peter Wild and to try to create a much bigger target market of which they could take a slice with support and commercial licensing. I cannot see Castle releasing it under a BSD or Apache style license. They do this because it makes better business sense than keeping the code closed - no other reason.
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