QL Commercial Software Preservation

[vanpeebles]

The QL demo version is on Dilwyns site

[Outsoft]

We always seem to have this same old argument - remember that I am the only person in the whole of the QL community who set out a few years ago specifically wanting to create a QL software preservation project and the QL Wiki, re-investing the few sales of QL items I get into the project, for minimal (or no) commercial return.

Although thankfully, I have a handful of helpers now, the amount of work to be done is huge and very few people ever come forward to offer to help update the Wiki, preserve software, or track down copyright holders. Even the massive SBASIC/SuperBASIC Reference Manual has now been made into an online version ready for the community to adopt and update - although apart from 2 people, no-one has come forward to ask about updating it or even rectifying the layout!.

I remain the only real QL trader in existence, and in fact the retro computing business is my only source of income. However, I constantly seem to be badgered by QLers who insist that everything I have preserved should be shoved onto a website somewhere so that all QLers 'can benefit' ie simply download what they want for free without a thought about copyright. I have preserved 100s of titles over the past 3-4 years, and spent many hours and ££££s collecting, preserving and getting working on modern systems.

Sorry I am not willing to simply hand that over - it makes no commercial sense whatsoever.

So again, I re-iterate:

The preserved stuff has several arms:

a) Where we can we track down the copyright holder and obtain their permission for software to be re-released either commercially or as freeware. Unfortunately, it always seems to be left to me to track them down and most are not easy to find!

b) We preserve the software and they are stored on dropbox for security

c) If people have originals of the software which no longer works, then we offer them the possibility of obtaining a working copy.

As for removal of copy protection - in most cases I have no idea who removed the protection and what good is a protected piece of software which simply does not work on modern systems or even the original QLs due to failure of microdrive cartridges. A lot of software was actually released as a later free update without copy protection where companies realised that people wanted disk based versions!

If I am in breach of copyright over (c) then fair enough - I could simply remove the page and people won't be able to obtain working copies of their software and the QL will simply die completely. However, I am willing to take the commercial risk over those limited number of titles on my website, particularly since looking at the list on my site, the majority of titles did not have copy protecton anyway or I have the rights to publish!

As for what you do with the rest of the software that is preserved where copyright holders have either just disappeared (or do not respond to letters and emails), or have denied distribution completely, I have no idea what to do. I do not have time to spend chasing up copyright holders.

If someone wants to take the commercial risk and set up some sort of site similar to World of Spectrum which basically ignores copyright and takes a risk, then that is up to them - feel free to start your own preservation project. But, if you do that you have to ensure that commercially available titles are NOT included (that is where the huge argument arose a couple of years ago over one Spanish site who knew some titles were still available to purchase commercially but simply ignored it completely and added them to their site).

On the other hand, if you want to turn your hand to helping track down and contact copyright holders to obtain their legitimate consent, then feel free - there are 100s of people to find....

I'm one ot it

And we are trying to preserve ALL KIND of SW: Commercial, PD (most of all RARE Italian Stuff), all that we have or found on eBay and all over the world.

Radastan help us with some precious and rare Cracked version, then from my italian restoration I've found many Italian cracked (and original) versions of the same stuff of Rich that works better on 128k systems and Rom MGI (our Italian Rom).

I've sent today to Rich a full explanation of the collaborators on this project because he have the copyright of many Commercial SW.

Rich help us sending the MD VER of many of my Original Md stuff that don't work (or I can't preserve at 100%).

We are also make and test (with Daniele Terdina) a new mDump version (2.0) that will check and re-pass the bad sectors of the MD's and then compare the images for retrying to load the bad sector only.

We are trying to to all MD dumps possible for preserve the ORIGINAL MD as no more other (than Rich) have done in the past.

Next we will make a new QL site:

https://www.facebook.com/QL.QuantumTech ... ef=profile

http://www.quantum.altervista.org

Where put only the Shareware stuff but we will advice of all other stuff too (download not possible).

All will be checked by Rich that knows all about that.

In my opinion for preserve all I prefer to get in touch with all stuff and next ask to Rich what to do.

The work that are doing Rich for re release stuff in original art state is very impressive and I hope It will continue to do it.

If someone want to help us in the preservation can contact me: we hare more than 1000 md's to dump and a lot of Disks too and I will check all over the world every day

Best ragards to all.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

I think you are doing a great job. All the QL software I bought, is now free...

I would to see new software.

[Outsoft]

Hi,

I think you are doing a great job. All the QL software I bought, is now free...

I would to see new software.

Thanks Derek.

You know that we are making seriuous thing here in Italy and try to create a very big dumps (must on MD'S) for historical future preservation.

Best regards.

[RWAP]

ANNOUNCEMENT

Following some further very negative feedback about this project from various quarters, I have decided to take a back step from this project for the time being.

I have spent over £2,000 on software over the past few years, in order to collect and preserve a wide range of Sinclair QL software. I have also spent many long hours getting the software preserved and up and running, as well as making huge efforts to track down and contact the copyright holders.

The project has been very successful:
- Over 1200 commercial Sinclair QL titles identified
- Over 430 titles preserved and tested as fully working
- At least another 120 titles partly preserved
- Permission obtained to re-release 120 titles as freeware since the start of the project (unfortunately some of these are missing in action. 60 of these titles have been added to the SInclair QL Homepage since 2014.
- A further 81 titles have been identified as already having been released as freeware.
- At least 350 titles are missing in action or corrupt

Unfortunately, the project has received a large amount of criticism from various quarters for not making everything that has been collected over the years freely available for download. I do not have the time and energy to defend this position and therefore I shall not be making any further efforts to track down and contact the copyright holders.

I have compiled a spreadsheet which sets out the current position of each software title. At tbe moment, the spreadsheet (in Microsoft Excel format) still needs quite a bit of cleaning and updating. but can be viewed [url=
https://www.dropbox.com/s/84m3eizdplf9f ... .xlsx?dl=0]on dropbox[/url]

If anyone is interested in continuing with this then I would suggest the following way forward:
a) Identify missing copyright holders and authors
b) If you can help with any of the missing in action (MIA) or corrupt freeware titles, then send them to Dilwyn to add to the Sinclair QL Homepage.
c) If you have copies of any of the other corrupt / MIA / protected software, then preserve them yourself.

To be clear - I will NOT be releasing the copies of software which I have spent time and effort acquiring without the consent of the copyright holders (except to provide a working copy if anyone has an original non-working copy).

[Outsoft]

ANNOUNCEMENT

Following some further very negative feedback about this project from various quarters, I have decided to take a back step from this project for the time being.

I have spent over £2,000 on software over the past few years, in order to collect and preserve a wide range of Sinclair QL software. I have also spent many long hours getting the software preserved and up and running, as well as making huge efforts to track down and contact the copyright holders.

The project has been very successful:
- Over 1200 commercial Sinclair QL titles identified
- Over 430 titles preserved and tested as fully working
- At least another 120 titles partly preserved
- Permission obtained to re-release 120 titles as freeware since the start of the project (unfortunately some of these are missing in action. 60 of these titles have been added to the SInclair QL Homepage since 2014.
- A further 81 titles have been identified as already having been released as freeware.
- At least 350 titles are missing in action or corrupt

Unfortunately, the project has received a large amount of criticism from various quarters for not making everything that has been collected over the years freely available for download. I do not have the time and energy to defend this position and therefore I shall not be making any further efforts to track down and contact the copyright holders.

I have compiled a spreadsheet which sets out the current position of each software title. At tbe moment, the spreadsheet (in Microsoft Excel format) still needs quite a bit of cleaning and updating. but can be viewed [url=
https://www.dropbox.com/s/84m3eizdplf9f ... .xlsx?dl=0]on dropbox[/url]

If anyone is interested in continuing with this then I would suggest the following way forward:
a) Identify missing copyright holders and authors
b) If you can help with any of the missing in action (MIA) or corrupt freeware titles, then send them to Dilwyn to add to the Sinclair QL Homepage.
c) If you have copies of any of the other corrupt / MIA / protected software, then preserve them yourself.

To be clear - I will NOT be releasing the copies of software which I have spent time and effort acquiring without the consent of the copyright holders (except to provide a working copy if anyone has an original non-working copy).

Don't stop Rich please...the Spanish guys I've just stopped and the case is closed.

You know that we are doing a great job: please don't stop...

Go on with your great BOXES: I want it and I think many here too...

If you need help...I will be always here for you...

Don't worry about that!!!

We will ever work on the preservation project!!!

P.S.: I've spent MORE than 2000£ in these 2 years for preserve QL stuff

P.S.S.: we preserve more than 450 titles (tested and dumped from original sources) in less than...1 year and we were only...2 (me and Max) so we will continue for you and for all that are working on it like Detlef, Dilwyn and all others.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bz4v8whvjds1s ... a.txt?dl=0

we will go on!

[RWAP]

Don't stop Rich please...the Spanish guys I've just stopped and the case is closed.

You know that we are doing a great job: please don't stop...

Go on with your great BOXES: I want it and I think many here too...

If you need help...I will be always here for you...

Don't worry about that BAD GUYS!!!

We will ever work on the preservation project!!!

P.S.: I've spent MORE than 2000£ in these 2 years for preserve QL stuff

P.S.S.: we preserve more than 450 titles (tested and dumped from original sources) in less than...1 year and we were only...2 (me and Max) so we will continue for you and for all that are working on it like Detlef, Dilwyn and all others.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bz4v8whvjds1s ... a.txt?dl=0

we will NEVER stop for that guys...don't worry about that! And...If they will told again LIES...I will battle...as usual!

If I have time to do anything with the stuff I have preserved then I might do so.

The point is that if the community want a community project, then they have to run it - not rely on one person to do everything.

Because of my health, my time is best spent on things which pay the bills and for which I receive thanks and recognition.

I started the QL Commercial Software preservation project on my own many years ago out of a desire to try and keep the QL going. It was never designed to breach anyone's copyright by ignoring rights and just hosting software which was still available to purchase from various QL traders so that anyone can have free access to it.

As it turned out I am probably the last remaining QL trader (Jochen and Sector Software are still about, but neither actively promote their products because sales dried up and other commitments to time).

On the other hand, I have launched two community projects:
- The SBASIC/SuperBASIC Reference Manual online (only one person has shown any interest in this, helping to perform the large amount of reformatting required to make the manual usable)
- The QL Wiki which exists to help promote the QL and provide much better information than can be found on wikipedia. Again there are a very limited number of contributors and much of the feedback has been "there are no details about xxx"

Looking back, I am sure many people would recognise that I have gone above and beyond the call to help the QL community keep going but unfortunately, that community remains strongly divided and the majority are unwilling to contribute to anything.

For those who do not know my history of involvement in the QL Community:
- I started with the QL in 1984
- I started RWAP Software in 1986, writimg reviews, testing and fixing bugs in many software titles which were then commercially available
- I have written and contributed numerous programs to Quanta and the public domain libraries over the years (many were collaborations with other authors)
- I have written and published my own commercial software titles and the SBASIC/SuperBASIC Reference Manual
- When there had been no QL membranes available to purchase for many years, I instigated a new production run of replacements at great financial risk (although supported by Quanta)
- I have assisted Quanta itself through re-writing their constitution, and selling items on their behalf to raise funds.
- I have provided a large amount of advice and assistance to QL users through the QL-user mailing list and various forums.
- In 2007 I launched the QL Wiki and started the software preservation project which has achieved the many results above.
- In 2014, I managed to obtain the consent of enough copyright holders to launch a series of QL box-sets of software to help celebrate the QL's 30th anniversary
- In 2016 I released the massive SBASIC / SuperBASIC Reference Manual (over 1000 pages of programming information) as a HTML community project


The question then is what has been everyone else's contribution to the QL community ???

[vanpeebles]

Rich, if we cut you in half, it would say QL on the insides like a stick of candy rock

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi Rich,

I am sorry to hear your change in view of the QL Software.

I for one, commend your actions and I doubt no one else would have the commitment that you have to dedicate time and expense to improve the QL Software environment.

But it is a fact of life, some people do not and will not pay or support anything and expect anything for free.

New software development will take longer if it is a hobbyist approach. There only seems one programmer who wants to do this work for free.

Really sad how the QL community has lost good programmers to other platforms.

[RWAP]

I was just wondering whether anyone had made any progress in contacting copyright holders to ask them to release more software as freeware or public domain?

I know Simone has continued with tracking down, obtaining and preserving copies of more software, but what is missing now is the approach towards copyright holders...