AutoPatcher 5.0 Info & Open Source Poll

By akaladis
in Software created by our members

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Should AutoPatcher 5.0 be Open Source?  

140 members have voted

  1. 1. Should AutoPatcher 5.0 be Open Source?

    • Yep!
      91
    • No!
      45
    • What's open source?
      4

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Grand Master

Steven

Posted
Posted

I see zero advantage of opening up the source for people. Raptor has done a terrific job of working on this project, releasiing your source basically will let everyone create some clone of your unique product!

Don't do it. Protect Your Baby! :no:

Grand Master

nwBen

Posted
Posted
I see zero advantage of opening up the source for people. Raptor has done a terrific job of working on this project, releasiing your source basically will let everyone create some clone of your unique product!

Don't do it. Protect Your Baby! :no:

584911872[/snapback]

Agreed :yes:

Mentor

LispyGlitter2

Posted
Posted
I see zero advantage of opening up the source for people. Raptor has done a terrific job of working on this project, releasiing your source basically will let everyone create some clone of your unique product!

Don't do it. Protect Your Baby! :no:

584911872[/snapback]

Yeah, I'm feeling conflicted on making it Open Source. There's too much riding on your guys' success so far, and it's only going to get better if you continue coding it YOUR way, maybe bring in two more people to help with the work load. I just dont' see how making it open would be less work for you, because in the end, you'll have to oversee all the "iomprovements" anyway, which will take time that coudl have been less if you had just done it yourself. While I am usually pro-open source, I'm going to have to disagree on making AP open...you guys have put too much work into this program to possibly make a bad mistake just as soon as you guys are taking off and peopel other than neowinians are noticing.

Veteran

calidude

Posted
Posted

I really can't think of any advantages of making AP open source either. You guys spend countless hours every week, month, day, etc. making AutoPatcher what it is today, and we wouldn't be here without your efforts. I also agree with the thought of bringing in at least one or two other well versed members who are experienced coders to help with the work load (not me though, I don't know any C++ or VBasic at all); but other than that I say keep it closed.

Rookie

gieltje

Posted
Posted

I have been in the open source community for quite some time now, and it works like a charm.

Sure there will be people ripping of other peoples stuff but that is a part of opensource. They can do what they want with it as long as the keep credit (use GPLv2).

But the mayor advantage is that everyone can help, as long as you guide it the right way the chances of getting riped by some ###### are slim.

In open source you should not be afraid to let people make forks of your software, let them see what they can do and learn from it.

For the rest, I realy hope you go open source!

Contributor

smith0166

Posted
Posted

Make it opensource.

More people working on it would give more options/ideas.

Especially for the database editor.

If not fully opensource then release some of it to specific developers that can help with the development.

I am a VB programmer but do not know XML. The code would help me in learning XML and could provide enough information to develop a database editor.

S

Grand Master

Japlabot

Posted
Posted (edited)

Yes, two reasons:

It will allow people that want to get a taste of a programming a great application a chance to learn from your skills

It will qualify you for Sourceforge hosting, instead of having to use torrents everytime you want to make a release.

There might be a downside, like companies that want to use AP rebadging it completely to make it look like that the guy who rebadged it, wrote the whole thing for the company internelly. He would take all the credit and potentially cheat you of donations from the company that ripped it off.

On the other hand, there might be developers out there that might want to port the engine to Windows NT (Oh man that would be so awesome for when you need something that runs on old hardware, SP7 would be so overdue since there have been so many patches since SP6a) or Windows 9x. Someone might even port the engine to Linux as a more scalable engine to replace yum, apt-get or emerge that are only availible for some distributions, someone might port AP engine to work will all distributions.

Edited by Quick Reply
Apprentice

oftentired

Posted
Posted
All-In-One solution

You will be able to update any locale or version of Windows just by downloading the appropriate modules and running one file.

By this do you mean that updates for Windows 9x will also be possible or will it remain an XP kernel only autopatcher?

Grand Master

Japlabot

Posted
Posted
Yes, autopatcher will be able to detect win98 and Me. I just how they are not old enough to use different API calls :p

And please dont ask for 95 & NT4 support :)

Antonis

584933045[/snapback]

I said NT4 support if it was open-source, But I honestly wouldn't expect you or FlishFun to put effort into it, someone like me would do it instead.

Grand Master

akaladis Veteran

Posted
  • Author
  • Veteran
Posted

OK, time for an update :)

1. AutoPatcher will continue as a closed-source project, despite the obvious interest in open source, mainly because of the following PM from

th3 pla6u3:

Subject: AutoPatcher's Source

I wondring if i can get this or somethign. The reason being is because a couple of frends and I wanted to make a proggy called AutoApper or soemthign. I would be glad to hsot things for you or something. The only reason I need the source is because I wanted to chage the interface of it. It would look tacky if it had auto patter on it insted of autoapper or something. ,I need to change the Pics an Naems in it if you havent figered that out yet,  I no how to mod the Db file. My aim s/n is [removed]., and my email is [removed]. Please contact me to gvie me teh source. Thaks

Matthew

So in other words, he wanted to create his own breed...

I don't mean to be rude by posting this out in public, but i believe it will help you understand why i decided to keep the source closed.

2. Develpment on AutoPatcher 5.0 is coming along nicely (actually, it's better than i thought)

The main program is now working fine (all the things seen in the first post about AutoPatche 5.0). Module-related procedures have been finished (even security measures). Unattended tier 2 is done (tiny window during installation). Actually, there's only a small list of things left to do...

3. ToDo list...

a. Write the resizing procedures

b. Disable X on titlebar during installation

c. Add a few more commandline arguments

d. General optimization

Stay tuned :)

Antonis

Grand Master

akaladis Veteran

Posted
  • Author
  • Veteran
Posted

Btw, I have added support for all versions of Windows from 95 onwards. However, for 95/98/NT4 you will have to install VB6SP6 Runtime files (here) as well as Windows Script 5.6 (here), because they don't ship with them :(

/Raptor

Grand Master

akaladis Veteran

Posted
  • Author
  • Veteran
Posted

Preview

If you want to see a preview of AutoPatcher 5.0 (with a couple of test modules), download the AutoPatcher 5.0 Test Package

Contents

1. AutoPatcher 5.0 (still under development)

2. AutoPatcher 5.0 Module Editor (in \tools folder - still needs a lot of work)

3. AutoPatcher 5.0 Module Installer (in \modules folder)

4. A few sample (test) modules.

/Raptor

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