Interest in an Open Source Colorisation?

[usul27]

Preface: This thread addresses developers and colorisation authors NOT users of existing colorisations. Please do NOT use it to post that that's a cool idea or you don't like it or you're happy to use something that is free (who doesn't). If you want to discuss some things like this the thread linked below might be a better place.

As you might have seen already, the Pin2DMD editor exports encrypted files that can't be ready anymore by any open source software and also doesn't allow it to be used for any hardware other than PIN2DMD. If you want to discuss this (including the legal problems about it), feel free to do it in this thread:

This thread is about something different: Some authors have asked me if there is a good way to still use the colorisations that they have been created. There are some problems with the existing VNI format that could be problematic. Therefore we would need to change this a bit, which really isn't a big deal.

If there is enough interest in this, I'm willing to contribute software and documentation about a new file format and a converter for existing VNI/PAL files. This should be easy to integrate into existing open source solutions as Freezy's DLL.

From my point of view, the community would profit a lot on this as it would also be enable 3rd party hardware of your choice. (have you seen Zedrummers ESP-solution already?). 

What does this mean? 
- No central control of this project. Even if there are only few core developers, none of them can hijack the project and implement restrictions of any kind. If somebody wants to use this software to run on a toaster, that's just fine (maybe a toaster with a DMD is a cool thing ;-)) 
- No encryption and or DRM: Anybody can use it for free.

Another important point: Open Source does also mean that there are no restrictions on how this can be used. If somebody decides to compile the code and sell it for €1000, that's perfectly legal as long as he's compliant with the license. With a GPL license this would mean that all changes need to be also available under the same license and no dynamic linking into close-source software is allowed (I just want to make it clear here as there seem to be some strange interpretations about this). 

As an author, you can still decide to export in another format for Pin2DMD (with encryption, UID lock, whatever you like). But you won't be able to control how the export in the new format is being used.
The new format will probably be very similar to the existing and be based on existing open source code. There is no need to re-invent the wheel.
If you want to share your work, you are free to export it also in encrypted formats and give it away for free or sell it. That's your decision and it won't have any impact on this project.

The colorisations have to be created with a PIN2DMD editor version earlier than April 2022 (which is probably the case already for almost all available colorisations). In personal discussions I have heard from 3 authors that would support this. This thread is for authors that should state their interest. IF you think this is a good idea and you want you colorisations to live in an open source environment - please speak up!

How will this look in a year or 3? Nobody knows! That's the fun of open source. There is no central gremium or developer that can decide what's the right way. As long as there are interested developers (and I've seen a lot of cool Open source stuff in the VPin community), it can go in every direction. 

If there is no interest in open source from content creators, that also just fine. Because in this case, developers who want to support this can work on other stuff.

Just to be clear: I won't judge any of the authors who want to go on with encrypted files. and closed-source software. If you really don't want to support this, because you think open source is the wrong way for your work  (e.g. because you want to be paid for your work or you want to make sure your colorisation only runs on specific hardware)- that's just fine. It is your work and you can decide what you want to do with it. If you have questions about technical details and some legal stuff that has been flowing around in non-public form, feel free to contact me personally and I can explain a few things (what might be problems, why this might be problems, how to deal with it in a clean way). It would also help to say: "No, I don't want this for my colorisations", just to get an idea what authors really think.

Disclaimer: I have created a rudimentary  open-source  implementation of the existing VNI/PAL format based on Freeze's work.  This is pretty useless now without any files and I decided NOT to support any encrypted files. I don't charge anything for it, everybody can use it for whatever he/she likes. If you see this as a conflict-of-interest, just send me a PM and I can explain a bit where this comes from and why it's there.