Re: Octal / Dynamic BGM / Indrema

[Steve Mosher]

On Mon, 27 Nov 2000, David O'Toole wrote:
> I don't know too much about the Indrema, although it seems like it could 
> be a cult hit if people realize they can make their own games and such. 
> Sort of an
> amiga-rebirth I guess?

        It's blowing my mind, because the hardware and OS are familiar.
Not only can I write games for it, but I know how to write games for it.

> A mod format that also supports pro-quality sound effects and software 
> synthesis would indeed be pretty cool. Depending on the requirements of 
> the song I have no doubt that a 600MHZ wouldn't be much of a problem. 
> Unless you're doing a lot of reverb or filtering in the 
> not-that-efficient Buzz on Windows, it still uses only a small part of 
> the old 333MHZ I used to run it on. So this could be cool.

        That's good, I just hope it runs smoothly while running a 3D
engine also ;). I don't think there will be any problems here, really. If
so, I could lay off the heavier machines.

> At the present time, Octal is GPL'ed. With reference to the library 
> issue, sometime late 1999 I discussed GPL vs LGPL with Richard Stallman, 
> and his opinion there was that he didn't see how making Octal LGPL would 
> help free software. I can see that using the GPL would only be a problem 
> for closed-source projects. Now, as I understand this, use of the GPL 
> restricts direct linking between GPL and closed-source code. If Octal 
> were a separate server program running as a daemon on the Indrema, and 
> if changes to Octal were never made without full disclosure of those 
> changes, this might not be a problem. For instance, those closed-source 
> games can run on Linux even though the Linux kernel is GPL'ed (because 
> of the exception for libraries provided as part of the OS.)

        At first I thought, "a seperate daemon, that's a pain," but when I
tried to pinpoint specifically why it wouldn't be as good as having the
player inline, I realized I'd probably be forking the player _anyhow_. So
that's quite alright.

> Plugins/machines are a different story. These link directly with Octal 
> and run in-line with it (that is, in the same thread) so I'm not sure 
> where this stands. In addition, there is no provision for cross-version 
> bin-compat with respect to the plugins in OX_API. Again, I'm not sure 
> why a game would be using a far-out patented audio algorithm, so I doubt 
> this will be a real problem.

        Machines shouldn't pose a serious problem, since they'd be running
inline with Octal, and not the game. At the very least, writing a machine
is far simpler than writing a mod player =).

> To sum up, I don't know :-). Has there been any discussion of licensing 
> topics on the indrema lists? What's the opinion there ?

        Oh, there's been plenty of licensing discussion on the list, but
as it's a big list, actual discussion on the matter is heavily clouded by
er, 'sentimental thought' which makes the matter entirely unscientific. I
think I have a good idea where everything stands now, though. If I do end
up working on the project I'm hoping for, I'll happily work on the Dynamic
BGM/SFX daemon and the port to the Indrema.

        Thanks, I'll let you know about any new insights.

-- 
Steve