Kept Alive by Open Source - Page 2

How Old Tech Becomes Open Source

Some old technologies simply are open sourced, and others are reverse engineered.

In the case of DECnet for Linux, Caulfield explained that only the specifications for (an early version of) DECnet Phase IV were ever open sourced. According to Caulfield, Phase V is still a closely guarded secret.

The publicly disclosed DECnet Phase IV specifications are actually hosted on the DECnet for Linux page with permission from HP, according to the project site.

"I reverse-engineered some application protocols (phone and mail) though," Caufield explained. "I also reverse engineered LAT {Local Area Terminal}, which is not actually part of DECnet, but used in the same sort of environments."

In the case of the AROS Amiga Project, no component of the original Amiga was ever open sourced. "We also try to avoid decompiling the original code, but work from the specs (AutoDocs, manuals, experience)," Digulla explained.

With the Stella Atari project, Anthony noted that the original documentation to the TIA (the main graphics chip in the 2600) has been on the Internet for quite some time.

"I don't know where it originally came from, but it's my understanding that it was created by reverse-engineering the 2600 system," Anthony explained. "This document is mostly complete, but there are new additions being made all the time, as we find new things about the 2600 that were never documented -- or documented incorrectly."

Open Sourcing Legacy Technology

Old, often unwanted technology seems to get open sourced all the time by vendors of all stripes. Sometimes that technology gets picked up and thrives, as is the case with the Blender3D Project, which picked up where a failed commercial venture left off.

The widely successful Mozilla browser project was created as an open sourcing of technology in 1998, which likely would have ended up in the dustbin of tech history were it not for the open source model.

In other cases, the open sourced technology simply ends up in project limbo. Burton Group analyst Gary Hein said there is a kind of cardinal rule in open source that software companies shouldn't dump legacy projects on the open source community.

"If the company doesn't want the project, why should the community spend time and effort?" Hein asked. "Second, and I've seen this at Novell and Sun, it may be very difficult to release old technology as an open source project. There is a cost involved in getting the source ready for the open source community, such as scrubbing comments, checking for licensed IP, reviewing contracts with anyone that has licensed the source prior, etc.

"In many cases, ISVs will be reluctant to invest a few 100K into getting a project ready to abandon"

The Last Best Hope

So why do it? Why does the open source community support old technology? Why is open source such a fertile ground for resurrecting and supporting "old" technologies?

According to the Stella Project's Anthony, one of the main reasons is the amount of work involved. In Stella's case, writing a new 2600 game or correctly emulating the system is a huge task. Emulators also share common components, so quite a bit of an emulator can be written by borrowing from another, which is less likely to happen in a non open-source environment.

"It takes a lot of passion to do so, especially when the hours are long and the monetary reward almost non-existent," Anthony said. "In many cases, it wouldn't be financially feasible to work on these things, so it's left to enthusiasts to do so purely for personal satisfaction -- the very definition of open source."

Amiga's Digulla noted that one of the reasons the open source model resuscitates old technology is because the technology is no longer interesting for the commercial market, as customers are now used to the current stuff.

"This means that the only people who are interested in such technologies must love them, which brings us right to the die-hard fans," Digulla said. "People who love these things so much that they are willing to invest all this time into it."

According to DECnet's Caulfield, it's all about enthusiasts and geeks, the people who like the stuff and like coding for it.

"Also it's the open source itch being scratched," he said. "I have some VAXes with no IP stack and I want to make them talk to my Linux boxes."

Open source is likely the last best hope for many older technologies and likely the only way the itch can be scratched.

"Open source may be the last place deprecated commercial software and other technologies will survive," Hein said. "Scratching the itch -- per Eric S. Raymond's Cathedral & the Bazaar -- isn't always about innovation, but is in some cases about pragmatic needs to support legacy systems."