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2020-06-05 15:41

JCH

Registered: Aug 2008
Posts: 200

SID Factory II

Laxity and I have decided to go BETA with SID Factory II to let all curious SID composers also have a go at this cross-platform SID editor.

We have a Facebook group that you are welcome to join. There's also a nifty user manual there. If you're not on Facebook, this thread should serve as another place where we can share questions, ideas, music, bugs, new builds, additional files, etc.

Please note that although SID Factory II is quite stable and more than capable of editing SID tunes at this point, it is still missing a few essential things such as e.g. sub tunes. We have a solid ToDo and will post new builds here as they become available.

The first official BETA build: SIDFactoryII_20200604.zip

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2020-08-13 11:24

Laxity

Registered: Aug 2005
Posts: 459

The source code was made available yesterday morning.

Let me explain myself a bit as to why I didn't release the source code with the first release. As so many other things, it was based on a bad assumption, or disposition I should say. I wasn't expecting an uproar about it, because this is a niche application within a niche of our community. I was clearly wrong, as it seems several of you had strong feelings about this. My bad.

At this point I actually kind of regret having released anything before the editor was at a stage where internal data structures, code quality and capabilities are where I want them, but done is done.

One thing to speak in my favor, I hope, is that I've never done anything related to GPL and so have absolutely no experience with the procedures involved. I did get a bit emotional about the strong arming, sighing and prejudice about my intentions, but again, that's my mess and something I have to deal with.

So there it is.. The source is available, even if it's a mess in parts and has parts that are embarrassingly badly engineered. I got eager to get things working, and cut corners :) I feel a bit like I've put out my dirty underwear for show.

If any of you are having a look and find something that isn't quite up to par in terms of GPL, I'd appreciate any help that might fix it.

2020-08-13 12:52

Frantic

Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1648

@Laxity: That last post of yours, plus actually releasing the source, was exactly the right thing to do I think. Cool! Looks like an interesting editor, and I also appreciate that you've made it cross-platform! If anyone thinks the orderliness and structure of the code doesn't live up to some kind of standard, that's their problem.

2020-08-13 13:17

Laxity

Registered: Aug 2005
Posts: 459

100% vanity. :)

2020-08-13 13:40

cadaver

Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1160

Excellent, even on a cursory glance it's a hell of a lot better engineered than GT2. Also a bit more complex :)

2020-08-13 13:56

tlr

Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1790

Quoting Laxity

The source code was made available yesterday morning.

Let me explain myself a bit as to why I didn't release the source code with the first release. As so many other things, it was based on a bad assumption, or disposition I should say. I wasn't expecting an uproar about it, because this is a niche application within a niche of our community. I was clearly wrong, as it seems several of you had strong feelings about this. My bad.

Some of the feelings stem from people just wanting to compile it for their favourite platform and some are about principle.
Cross platform music editors are very popular from what I see. I guess it's because someone without having a c64 can make sid music without too high a threshold.

Quoting Laxity

One thing to speak in my favor, I hope, is that I've never done anything related to GPL and so have absolutely no experience with the procedures involved. I did get a bit emotional about the strong arming, sighing and prejudice about my intentions, but again, that's my mess and something I have to deal with.

I don't think the strong voices really were about your intentions. It's just the matter of principle. If it uses GPLd works inside, the source is to be shared and if someone waits too long it often gets forgotten in the end. You did the right thing!

Quoting Laxity

So there it is.. The source is available, even if it's a mess in parts and has parts that are embarrassingly badly engineered. I got eager to get things working, and cut corners :) I feel a bit like I've put out my dirty underwear for show.

Nah, that's going to be fine.

It looks to be a very fine program indeed! :)

2020-08-13 14:47

chatGPZ

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11386

@Laxity: Thumbs up! I can understand your reservations against showing the premature source - but really, this is not a problem in practise. Anyone looking at it knows that feeling :) "release early, release often" is the common way to do it :)

That said, there are a few things to consider regarding GPL

- you have put a GPL v3 license in the source package. you should *really* make sure this is actually what you want, and what the implications are (its quite different to the v2 in some regards). i can't explain this in a few words, but you should find more than enough info about GPL v2 vs GPL v3 on the net. (VICE and ReSID use v2 for that matter, with the "or later version" option)

- If you dont intend to change ReSID yourself, you should at least put a GPL v2 into the resid directories (actually, put the respective licenses into all the libs you are using). This avoids complications in the future.

- The source seems a bit "naked" to me. Depending on which GPL version you choose, you will have to provide everything required to build from source (that includes project files etc). also binary blobs like the driver .prg files can be a problem, those may require source too (with v3 i think this is a must, but it would be really nice in any case).

- Last not least, please add the license and contact info to your binary releases. That was actually one of the major reasons for me to even bring up the topic - when those things are missing, its usually a sign of someone trying to hide the fact he is using GPLd software.

I'd also suggest putting the source into a public repository, because that makes some things much easier. Totally your own choice, of course.

So - is anyone already looking into creating makefiles for linux? If noone else does, i will look into that, perhaps this weekend.

2020-08-13 15:30

Laxity

Registered: Aug 2005
Posts: 459

Thanks :)

I guess I can change it to v2 still, right?

What I did was look at what Cadaver provided with Goat, so I thought that was good enough for Jazz (except I got the license text from the interwebs). Contact info in form of physical address or email sufficient?

Driver sources aren’t required to run the software, and is more like a plugin. Drivers will be included later too. I guess from the next build we might have it where it makes sense. I would be surprised if that is a requirement, but hey - I know nothing about this stuff.

Would be great if you tried building for Linux. If you need any assistance, please let me know.

Thanks for the help so far.

2020-08-13 15:47

chatGPZ

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11386

Quote:

I guess I can change it to v2 still, right?

If you want to get really anal about it... technically the one you released is now GPL v3 licensed. BUT - since you are the only author, you can always re-license it (This becomes a lot more difficult once you accept contributions from other ppl). So yes, you can do it :)

Quote:

Contact info in form of physical address or email sufficient?

email, or even a website with a contact form, is fine.

Quote:

Driver sources aren’t required to run the software, and is more like a plugin. Drivers will be included later too. I guess from the next build we might have it where it makes sense. I would be surprised if that is a requirement, but hey - I know nothing about this stuff.

This topic can become *really* difficult, i have usually solved it in the past by simply providing all source :) This "plugin" debate is something ppl in the community have been arguing about quite a bit in the past - the general consensus seems to be that: when your host program and the plugins are the only existing combination (the plugins can be used in exactly one host programs), this is no different to linking them into the binary, with all implications (ie GPL "infection"). But i'm not a lawyer.... it's something to consider however. This restriction exists so you cant "break" GPL by just compiling all GPL code into "plugins" and load it dynamically into your program.

2020-08-13 15:51

iAN CooG

Registered: May 2002
Posts: 3193

> I feel a bit like I've put out my dirty underwear for show.

Oh don't worry, there is a niche market for that kind of fetish too. :D

2020-08-13 16:16

tlr

Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 1790

Quoting Groepaz

- The source seems a bit "naked" to me. Depending on which GPL version you choose, you will have to provide everything required to build from source (that includes project files etc). also binary blobs like the driver .prg files can be a problem, those may require source too (with v3 i think this is a must, but it would be really nice in any case).

The .prg binaries are in a grey area IMO. Is there really always source for included firmware? e.g microcode, CPU management engine, WIFI chipset code, etc...
That said, it would be really nice to have source for that as well. :)

Quoting Groepaz