I can always try asking Brad for permission to use them, now that he is no longer selling the Aquarium app. The 'cartoon' style Winstep weather icons are from Stardock, for instance.

More fish!

http://blaezer.deviantart.com/art/Collection-of-32-Fish-3-Bonus-for-XWidget-322887623

The source of these other fish is unknown to me and they may be from the same location.


I have a thing about fish.

Steampunk and fish, what a combination!

Unfortunately, after several attempts, it seems I cannot get a reply from Brad.

Not sure if he is deliberately ignoring me, but, at this point and after asking Island Dog at Wincustomize to pass on my request to him as a last resort - without a response from either of them after 4 days - it certainly looks that way.

It's a pity because those fish animations are indeed something extraordinary and it's a shame to see them fade away into oblivion, especially now that Stardock's Desktop Aquarium is no longer being sold.

Anyway, in my message to him I also mentioned you and your amazing work - one never knows.

That is most kind.

Trouble is with one-man efforts that the developer will always become distracted at some point in the products lifetime, we see it time and time again.

I like the concept of abandonware as it gives some sort of morale right to use the abandoned resources. At least it makes you feel better at purloining someone's work

I think that all devs need to place their work in the public domain well before they think about disappearing. Open source is the way to go! So much good work goes to waste when it is abandoned.

Love to see your code...

Well, Jorge has been at this for like 106 years, now, so not EVERY dev lets his product die. Okay, I'm exaggerating. But Jorge has been at Winstep for a LONG time. How long has it been, Jorge? 15, 20 years now?

I didn't really doubt it! I just raised the fear of it...

Lol. Work on NextSTART started, IIRC, in late 1998. So almost 18 years now.

But yereverluvinuncleber does have a point, there were times were I had to get away from Winstep for a while to recharge my batteries.

Most devs have a fear of going open source, firstly because others will see their code and comment upon it. This does not worry me because I know mine is terrible. My argument is that it works! My skills are in the graphic and concept department in any case, so no skin off my nose if someone criticises.

Secondly loss of control. This generally does not happen because the dev is the one person that knows the code inside out. He stays in charge.

What open sourcing does is to build a team based around a common resource. People can contribute what they do best. The feel they can partly 'own' the code even if they don't have enough skill to actually change it. Then they can add to documentation, graphics, help with the hosting/forum, whatever their skillset.

Finally, it means the dev can walk away knowing that it is there for perpetuity. If someone clones it then that is flattery and any development can be incorporated or at the very least it can stimulate development through competition.

All my widget are open source and instantly editable - people love them, they can see the code so they feel secure, one million downloads from here and there but only two/three people have actually cloned them or claimed them as their own and they have done so only to port them to other platforms.

I am a big fan of open source, it doesn't stop you selling the finished product either. Mind you I haven't made any money from them...

Open Source does have some advantages.

Making a living out of it is generally not one of them.

If I may weigh in on this, I'm with Jorge. Generally, open-source software is free. After all, after releasing the code, who's to stop anyone else from compiling the program and offering a free version on the internet?
The only cases where open-source makes money is by licensing the software to big corporations, who care not about who makes it, but who supports it.
Plain users may care about support to some extent, but they're most definitely *not* going to pay for support when there'll be an identical version for free.
For example, OpenOffice (before the big split to LibreOffice) was free for "normal" users but Oracle was selling it as a package with some extra collaboration tools to big corporations. Not only did they never make a dime from "plain" users, they even lost the whole thing, when a fork (i.e. LibreOffice) came out better.
Firefox is free but most of Mozilla's revenue comes from advertising and not licensing.
Linux, again, is free but look at RedHat. Once upon a time, they were giving it for free -- I must have been one of the very few who actually purchased a boxed version way back when -- but never made a dollar. Now they're selling it, again, to big companies and RHEL itself is essentially not available. CentOS, which is the free compiled version of the RHEL source, is free for everyone.

All in all, notice the common denominator there: big businesses. Open-sourcing a small project like Winstep (no offence, Jorge) whose primary target is individual users will inexorably lead to it being free.

I've also been involved in another such project (LCDstudio) which was actually freeware, and its primary coder, Ray, just abandoned it without releasing the code to anyone (apart from me, but it's not public). That's the risk you take "following" such a project.

But it's up to the creator and, since Jorge is making a living off Winstep, I'd expect him to open-source it only if Portugal turns to true socialism and work is being done on a voluntary basis.

Yes I completely agree, I hope Jorge is making good money from it - and may it never die!

Nothing lasts forever.