[Coco] VCC Status …

[James Ross]

> Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2015 17:53:54 -0400
> Subject: Re: [Coco] Donkey Kong Remixed
> CC: ooogalapasooo at aol.com (Bill Pierce)

Hi Bill, Ahh… good! You’re the author of the page at CoCopedia describing the 1.4.3 version of VCC w/ the DW4/Becker improvements. 

I read that page w/ a lot of interest. Especially the 4 paragraphs of the introduction. I have not been using the 1.4.3 version to play w/ VCC because since I don’t have a real CoCo3 I thought I would put off learning about DW4… 

Glad you chimed in here, perhaps we should change the title of this thread to “VCC Status …” 

First of all I don’t mean to be making a big deal over this. Let me first say, whoever has control over this software code, has the right to do whatever they want – w/o explanations to anyone – it’s a free country. So I apologize in advance if it seems like I am being annoying, I hope I am not. Or demanding, I am not -- I am just curious trying to find information. 

I get the impression that a good portion of people on this list might use VCC from time to time, even if they have a real CoCo3 – and as a community would benefit in knowing what the fate of VCC is. It is a very nice emulator. I would think everyone would like to see it maintained and improved on. 

> James, the original author of Vcc WAS going to release it open source but disappeared before doing so. 

When you hit Help | About in VCC it shows “Copyright 2010 by Joseph Forgione”

So Joseph Forgione is who we are talking about? He is the one that can NOT be contacted?

Is he the original owner and author, or just the original owner of the Copyright? 

Because according to Stephen H. Fischer, in another thread recently on this list, the owner and author are not the same person. And according to him the owner is looking for somebody to work on it. (But apparently the owner does not want to open source it?). And the owner is actually contactable since Stephen says – “I have yet to even consider telling the "OWNER"” -- so apparently also the owner does not want to be known?  Why the secrecy as to whom the owner is, if it’s not the person whose name is on the Copyright? That whole notion seems mysterious and strange.

So is Stephen right, or wrong about this? 

> Several of us were in contact with him when he stated this and he had implied he was going to release it in the next month or two... and never did. It's feared his health turned for the worse and that's why he disappeared.

That is very SAD to hear. We would all hope the best to him and if he is still with us, wish him well. 

Did the author of the 1.4.3 improvements receive the code directly from Joseph Forgione? And still has a copy of the code w/ the 1.4.3 improvements?  Does that person agree w/ Stephen? What is the view of that person about releasing the software? 

Who was the person(s) that last had contact w/ Joseph Forgione and is a copy of that email still available?  That’s all that would be needed to legally cover a person if they were to go ahead and release it under a GPL v3 License … just add the explanation in a readme (w/ a copy of those communications, explained and spelled out) and put the 2010 Copyright of Joseph Forgione on all the source files + any author contributions copyrights + the GPL notice below that. 

In my opinion there is NO difference in releasing the BINARY like it is being released now, and not the source when it comes to breaking the Copyright on it.  Especially if we are talking about an conscience thing. 

The idea there is a legal owner out there that does not want to make their intentions known about this software – i.e. Is it commercial? Is it freeware? What is it??? No official Website on it? That seems strange to me. 

Bill, or anyone else, that want to chime in here – I would venture to guess I am not the only one who is curious about this.  I think others on this list would be too.  If this gets us nowhere, then I will not pursue this anymore.  

> The original source is written in Microsoft Visual C++ (win95) and DirectX 8. To convert it to any form of modern programming language would be a feat in itself, but could probably be done by someone with knowledge of such conversions.

> On the other hand, there are several open source 6809 CPU emulations around and if you look, I'm pretty sure you can find enough on the GIME to emulate it (JV, VCC and Mess did).

> The problem is that no one with that kind of programming knowledge seems to be interested in writting a cross-platform Coco 3 (or Coco 2) emulator.

> Probably the best bet is to get on the "Mess Dev Team" and fix the very buggy Coco emulations there which CAN be compiled for most platforms. Every release seems to introduce a new bug.

I will comment on MESS and some other ideas later Bill ... 

Thanks, James

> Bill Pierce