From: owner-fractint-digest@lists.xmission.com (fractint-digest) To: fractint-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: fractint-digest V1 #367 Reply-To: fractint-digest Sender: owner-fractint-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-fractint-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk fractint-digest Tuesday, February 16 1999 Volume 01 : Number 367 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 09:59:09 -0800 (PST) From: Ken Childress Subject: Re: (fractint) The price of fractal software Tim, > > Only in the last stage I have added a feature > > to import Fractint parameter sets. This was possible because the > > formula compiler can also read Fractint fractal formulas. > > > > Thanks to the extensive documentation in Fractint, I was able to > > do this without looking at the source, just by following the help > > text and trying some parameter sets to be sure. > > However, in a more general way I could have been talking about > Ultra Fractal. You have benefiting enormously from Fractint in > developing your concepts to go beyond Fractint. You say as much > in the quotes above. You have included the functionality of > Fractint's parser in your program. If you hadn't, it would not be > possible to run translated formula PARs in Ultra Fractal. (You were > within your rights to do this). Doesn't this happen with virtually all competing (similar) programs? I certainly don't condone stealing of anyone's code, but I see that this is merely the natural competition between similar programs as they evolve. It happens all the time with Netscape/IE, Word/WordPerfect, etc., etc., etc. > I find that now the shoe is on the other foot. My programming skills > have fallen way behind because in my professional life I do non-GUI > C programming. I have never managed to get myself assigned to do > any Windows or GUI programming, or even C++. Most of the other > team members are in a similar situation. Unless we get an infusion > of new programming blood, or unless someone starts a brand new > open source project similar to Fractint (but avoids the problems of > the legacy code and platform), Fractint and what it represents is > dead. This would be a shame, but is understandable. Personally, being tied to the text based IF is what limits my using Fractint more. I certainly love it for generating images from PARs people post, though. > Where is there a full featured, open source program that is a > worthy successor to Fractint? There isn't one, as far as I know. Well, UF could certainly evolve into such a thing, at least on the Windows platform, though it may not be open source. One a program enters into the GUI interface realm, portability suddenly becomes quite a major task. Maybe one could study PoVRay to learn what they have done and apply it to Fractint's future. > Actually I am very interested in Xaos, which runs on many > platforms, and has just been ported to Windows. I may shift my > efforts to working with Xaos, or merging some of Fractint's features > with Xaos. Xaos, besides being open source, acknowledges > Fractint generously. Is there a link to the Windows version? I haven't been able to find it. > I am radically committed to the open source concept. I love Linux, > POV-Ray, Fractint, and Xaos for this reason. I don't expect anyone > one else to agree with me. It's just my personal decision. I am not > even speaking for "Stone Soup" when I say this. I think these efforts are wonderful. I hope they are able to continue. I also understand the reasons why people choose to go the commercial or shareware routes. > The bottom line for me is: you have benefited from our thousands of > hours of work over ten years. We will not benefit from your work > because your program is not open source. I am not saying you are > making the wrong decision, or that the situation should be > otherwise, I am just saying that it's a fact: we won't be able to > benefit from your work. We knew this was a possibility going in, we > took the risk with our eyes wide open, so we can't complain. I'm not so sure this is totally accurate. Did Frederik study the source code? If not, then you can benefit from UF just as much as he may have benefitted from Fractint. One can benefit greatly simply by studying documentation, help files, UI layout, etc. without having access to the source. Ken... - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 15:04:06 -0300 From: "Ricardo M. Forno" Subject: (fractint) Questions about Fractint Please, anyone up there can help? I have two questions about Fractint: 1) I have seen parameter files where a background/border in a different color is drawn, but I can't get one. How is it done? 2) Why many (not all) lyapunov fractals are drawn with the "1" option in the x screen, in spite of having specified "g"? Thanks a lot! - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 10:04:17 -0800 (PST) From: Ken Childress Subject: Re: (fractint) The price of fractal software Tim, > The question then is, should Fractint remain open source, or > should we not release the source to version 20? Why should we > write open source, free software, when others will look at our code, > even ask us questions about specific lines of code, and incorporate > our new features into their fractint-compatible, commercial, closed > source program? People can incorporate your features regardless of the availability of the source. Though, to answer your question, I would think the answer might depend upon whether or not the developers of Fracint want to benefit financially from their efforts. Or, at least attempt to. If your philosophy is to keep the development open, and make the source available, then you continue to do so out of principle fully realizing the risk of others studying the code and doing as you might fear. Either way, I would support your decision. Ken... - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 19:59:40 +0100 From: "Frederik Slijkerman" Subject: Re: (fractint) The price of fractal software > Does anyone know if UltraFractal will work under WINE? This would allow > Linux users to run it... If anyone can get UF to work with Linux, I would be interested to hear about it. Best regards, Frederik. - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 20:29:33 +0100 From: "Frederik Slijkerman" Subject: Re: (fractint) The price of fractal software Tim, > I installed Ultrafractal > yesterday for a quick look, and it is obviously a program with a > completely different design and implementation. Ok, thanks. :) > However, in a more general way I could have been talking about > Ultra Fractal. You have benefiting enormously from Fractint in > developing your concepts to go beyond Fractint. You say as much > in the quotes above. You have included the functionality of > Fractint's parser in your program. If you hadn't, it would not be > possible to run translated formula PARs in Ultra Fractal. (You were > within your rights to do this). That's true, but this is not due to the availability of the source code. I can learn from Fractint just by using it and reading the documentation. In the same fashion other developers can benefit from Ultra Fractal, even though its source is not available. People can see how I have extended the formula language, how I have implemented the interface, etc. The most important design issues are plainly visible from the outside. And the other decisions can be made by every decent programmer, I think. Furthermore, I think it is very difficult to understand source code written by others (especially if it's not very well commented :-)). So in my experience it is usually more efficient to write things yourself than by copying it from others. At least when you know how to do it. > Unless we get an infusion > of new programming blood, or unless someone starts a brand new > open source project similar to Fractint (but avoids the problems of > the legacy code and platform), Fractint and what it represents is > dead. That's a pity. But I can very well understand that working on Fractint is not as fun and exciting for you anymore as it as been ten years ago. Ten years is a long period to work on a project. > The bottom line for me is: you have benefited from our thousands of > hours of work over ten years. We will not benefit from your work > because your program is not open source. This is not true, as I have pointed out above. Best regards, Frederik. - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 15:07:44 -0500 From: Paul Derbyshire Subject: Re: Xfractint compilation [Re: (fractint) Xaos] At 06:20 PM 2/16/99 +0100, you wrote: >With gcc "2.7.(latest)" I mean the latest 2.7 release. > >I have 2.8.1 as well, but as you very well know, it's not that perfect.... EGCS is good, except for a nagging exception bug (this prints a bogus error: void (*func) (void) throw (); ... Stroustrup 3rd Ed clearly states that an exception specification on a function pointer is legitimate). - -- .*. "Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not - -() < circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a `*' straight line." ------------------------------------------------- -- B. Mandelbrot |http://surf.to/pgd.net _____________________ ____|________ Paul Derbyshire pderbysh@usa.net Programmer & Humanist|ICQ: 10423848| - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 15:59:37 -0500 From: Barry N Merenoff <110144.2274@compuserve.com> Subject: (fractint) Re: One of the two questions about Fractint The option for coloring the boundaries in Boundary Tracing is inaptly nam= ed Fill Color. (?!) - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:27:45 EST From: Damascena@aol.com Subject: Re: (fractint) Re: One of the two questions about Fractint In a message dated 2/16/99 2:04:08 PM Mountain Standard Time, 110144.2274@compuserve.com writes: > The option for coloring the boundaries in Boundary Tracing is inaptly named > Fill Color. (?!) Umm, that's the color used to fill in the often fairly large spaces outlined by the boundaries (or the spaces sometimes left with the Tesseral option). "B" instead of 1, 2, G, etc. sets the Boundary Tracing option. ("T" sets Tesseral.) Dama - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 15:59:50 -0800 From: John Wilson Subject: (fractint) Re: READ THIS NOW. Hi Clifford, Sunday, February 14, 1999, you wrote: CH> Goto http://www.datafellows.com/news/pr/eng/19990129.htm CH> This is a possible virus. The above link points to a reputable source where CH> you can find out more. Do yourself a favor and don't run any unsolicated CH> attachments, ever. CH> At 08:16 PM 2/14/99 +0000, John Wilson wrote: >> >>Attachment Converted: "c:\program files\eudora\attach\Happy99.exe" And I want to thank you for your input. I've written to Tim as follows: SNIP xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx As I now have a sterilized machine, I can write this overdue letter. Firstly I want to apologize for being the unwitting instrument for the transmission of the Happy99 worm into the Fractint group. Next, I wish to warn you that this thing is just a little smarter than Fractint members realize. As I'm no longer on your list, I am unable to issue a warning, but may I suggest that you might remind all members to examine their computer with an up-to-date virus checker: i.e. one which is aware of late 1998 - 1999 viruses. ------------------------------------------------- Incidentally, that worm did not ATTACH to a message, it REPLACED the following...which was dumped into my "sent" folder. Note the date; actually Nature wrote on Feb.13th, and I replied on the 14th. This old date effectively hid the message among stuff sent a year ago. Sunday, December 13, 1998, Nature wrote: NL> Well, I was playing with my frm file, and I came up with this NL> formula. I NL> don't know if this same mathematical logic has done before; I NL> don't know all NL> the frms floating around out there. :-P The parallelogram NL> structure here is NL> kinda interesting. Yes it is, and zooming into the bottom RH corner, plus adding a little color, produced some remarkable draped corridors for me. I found this an interesting fractal, as the actual *drawing* process is visually fascinating, in some of these zooms. Closing drapes and rolling carpets! Mark's modification of the frm didn't seem to affect the results significantly! John W. - ---------------------------------------------- Finally, I ask you to please convey to the Fractint group my thanks to those members of your group who offered constructive and informative comment on my problem. Their input enabled me to clean up my two computers promptly, and was extremely timely, as I was about to e-mail a large number of people with my e-mail address change. I bless these smart guys from the bottom of my heart! SNIP xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Thanks again, John W. mailto:johnw1@attcanada.net - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 16:21:45 -0800 From: John Wilson Subject: Re[2]: (fractint) In Which The Mad Lurker Actually Posts A Par Hello davides, Sunday, Sunday, February 14, 1999, you wrote: d> Received from John Wilson the below, in which there was no par, simply the d> Happy99.exe worm. d> Tim - remove either Mr. Wilson from this list or me. Your choice. (Please read the headers, which you carefully copied. Note the ****RE*** at the beginning of the subject. This indicates that my message was a *reply* to that "Mad Lurker" title, and NOT my original). I have written to Tim as follows... SNIP xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx As I now have a sterilized machine, I can write this overdue letter. Firstly I want to apologize for being the unwitting instrument for the transmission of the Happy99 worm into the Fractint group. Next, I wish to warn you that this thing is just a little smarter than Fractint members realize. As I'm no longer on your list, I am unable to issue a warning, but may I suggest that you might remind all members to examine their computer with an up-to-date virus checker: i.e. one which is aware of late 1998 - 1999 viruses. ------------------------------------------------- Incidentally, that worm did not ATTACH to a message, it REPLACED the following...which was dumped into my "sent" folder. Note the date; actually Nature wrote on Feb.13th, and I replied on the 14th. This old date effectively hid the message among stuff sent a year ago. Sunday, December 13, 1998, Nature wrote: NL> Well, I was playing with my frm file, and I came up with this NL> formula. I NL> don't know if this same mathematical logic has done before; I NL> don't know all NL> the frms floating around out there. :-P The parallelogram NL> structure here is NL> kinda interesting. Yes it is, and zooming into the bottom RH corner, plus adding a little color, produced some remarkable draped corridors for me. I found this an interesting fractal, as the actual *drawing* process is visually fascinating, in some of these zooms. Closing drapes and rolling carpets! Mark's modification of the frm didn't seem to affect the results significantly! John W. - ---------------------------------------------- Finally, I ask you to please convey to the Fractint group my thanks to those members of your group who offered constructive and informative comment on my problem. Their input enabled me to clean up my two computers promptly, and was extremely timely, as I was about to e-mail a large number of people with my e-mail address change. I bless these smart guys from the bottom of my heart! SNIP xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx John W. mailto:johnw1@attcanada.net - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 19:02:36 -0600 From: "Tim Wegner" Subject: (fractint) (Fwd) An apology John Wilson informs me that he has now cleaned up his machine, so I am putting him back on the fractint list. When I took him off the list after the worm-infected happy99 file sent itself to the list from his machine, I told him I would put him back on as soon as he told me his machine was clean. Here is his note to me. Quite an interesting story. I guess I need not say this again, but folks should NEVER run an executable attached to an email message. Here is another good link telling what to do about the worm. http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/happy99.worm.html I hearby declare that (for a few days anyway) further discussion, and welcome back messages to John, are "on topic". Tim Wegner - ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date sent: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 15:32:57 -0800 From: John Wilson Send reply to: John Wilson To: twegner@phoenix.net Subject: An apology As I now have a sterilized machine, I can write this overdue letter. Firstly I want to apologize for being the unwitting instrument for the transmission of the Happy99 worm into the Fractint group. Next, I wish to warn you that this thing is just a little smarter than Fractint members realize. As I'm no longer on your list, I am unable to issue a warning, but may I suggest that you might remind all members to examine their computer with an up-to-date virus checker: i.e. one which is aware of late 1998 - 1999 viruses. ------------------------------------------------- Incidentally, that worm did not ATTACH to a message, it REPLACED the following...which was dumped into my "sent" folder. Note the date; actually Nature wrote on Feb.13th, and I replied on the 14th. This old date effectively hid the message among stuff sent a year ago. Sunday, December 13, 1998, Nature wrote: NL> Well, I was playing with my frm file, and I came up with this NL> formula. I NL> don't know if this same mathematical logic has done before; I NL> don't know all NL> the frms floating around out there. :-P The parallelogram NL> structure here is NL> kinda interesting. Yes it is, and zooming into the bottom RH corner, plus adding a little color, produced some remarkable draped corridors for me. I found this an interesting fractal, as the actual *drawing* process is visually fascinating, in some of these zooms. Closing drapes and rolling carpets! Mark's modification of the frm didn't seem to affect the results significantly! John W. - ---------------------------------------------- Finally, I ask you to please convey to the Fractint group my thanks to those members of your group who offered constructive and informative comment on my problem. Their input enabled me to clean up my two computers promptly, and was extremely timely, as I was about to e-mail a large number of people with my e-mail address change. I bless these smart guys from the bottom of my heart! John W. mailto:johnw1@attcanada.net - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 01:35:30 +0000 From: "Pedro A. O. Lopes" Subject: GUIs and the future of Fractint (was: Re: (fractint) The price of fractal software) Ken Childress wrote: > > Tim, > > (...) > > > I find that now the shoe is on the other foot. My programming skills > > have fallen way behind because in my professional life I do non-GUI > > C programming. I have never managed to get myself assigned to do > > any Windows or GUI programming, or even C++. Most of the other > > team members are in a similar situation. Unless we get an infusion > > of new programming blood, or unless someone starts a brand new > > open source project similar to Fractint (but avoids the problems of > > the legacy code and platform), Fractint and what it represents is > > dead. > > This would be a shame, but is understandable. Personally, being tied > to the text based IF is what limits my using Fractint more. I certainly > love it for generating images from PARs people post, though. I agree that fractint must break free of DOS if it is going to keep up with the host of fractal programs that are out there. I really think the best way to do this would be to throw all UI related stuff out, leaving the "core" functionality to be accessed through a well defined programming interface (something like set_parameter(...) / get_parameter(...) / execute_command(...) ). Then, in good Open Source style, anyone could volunteer to support a GUI as a front end to this library, for any variety of environments, more or less independently of the core fractint development. Of course any changes of this kind will probably require a big reorganization of the code, and some careful design (easier said than done...). Judging from what I remember of the fractint source (during a hunt for a piece of code I wanted to borrow, no less...) this may not be easy - it's pretty hairy stuff - globals everywhere, DOS related niceties such as overlays... As for GUI programming it's not that big a deal. I guess a simple Windows interface with the same functionality as the one fractint currently has would be pretty simple to do. I've never programmed for X-Windows, but it shouldn't be any more difficult. I certainly don't think fractint is dead. Maybe it has fallen behind a little in terms display related features, but it's still the most complete and powerful fractal program IMO. I keep reading things like "yeah, I do most exploring in fractint and then I import the par into XXXX for coloring and retouching...". As for "what it represents" if you mean Open Source, I think it's never been more alive! > > Where is there a full featured, open source program that is a > > worthy successor to Fractint? There isn't one, as far as I know. > > Well, UF could certainly evolve into such a thing, at least on the > Windows platform, though it may not be open source. One a program > enters into the GUI interface realm, portability suddenly becomes quite > a major task. Maybe one could study PoVRay to learn what they have done > and apply it to Fractint's future. That's one of the biggest advantages of the approach I suggested above: if you keep the GUI well separated, the rest of the C code will tend to be pretty standard and easily portable - although the heavy use of assembly might complicate things (at least it will make non x86 ports impossible). > (...) > > > I am radically committed to the open source concept. I love Linux, > > POV-Ray, Fractint, and Xaos for this reason. I don't expect anyone > > one else to agree with me. It's just my personal decision. I am not > > even speaking for "Stone Soup" when I say this. We seem to have similar tastes in sofware :) Linux and Pov-Ray are perhaps the best examples of how far the Open Source model can go, and Fractint is not very far behind. If the DOS lock-in can be broken once and for all, and there are enough people wanting to use it (I must believe there are), then there will also be people willing to keep the project going. > (...) > - -- - ---------------------- Pedro A. O. Lopes (paol@mail.teleweb.pt) - ---------------------- Yo-yo: Something occasionally up but normally down (see also "computer") - ---------------------- - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:26:19 -0500 From: "Morgen H Bell" Subject: (fractint) Fractint in DOS I like Fractint better than any of my Windows-based fractal generators because working with the keyboard is faster than using the mouse. I think Fractint in windows would be great as long as it kept all the keyboard shortcut commands. Morgen http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Orion/4798 - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 19:49:28 -0800 From: John Wilson Subject: Re: (fractint) An apology (2) Hello Tim, Tuesday, February 16, 1999, you wrote: TW> Here is his note to me. Quite an interesting story. I guess I need TW> not say this again, but folks should NEVER run an executable TW> attached to an email message. . . TW> I hearby declare that (for a few days anyway) further discussion, TW> and welcome back messages to John, are "on topic". Here's the sequence of events that led to disaster... Firstly, my wife and I run separate stations, with separate ISP accounts. I'm in the process of changing both, from Netpointer to Attcanada. I'm also in the process of changing my mailer from Outlook Express to "The Bat". During part of the checkout of the systems, I went over to my spouse's computer, grabbed a file...any large file...and sent it over to my station. Then I returned to my own computer and checked my attcanada mail for a message from netpointer. All was well, and a file had arrived. Happy99??? Oh, that must have been a New Years card that my wife had received...Hmmmm, singularly uninteresting CGA-type fireworks reminiscent of old Apple II graphics...dump it. Now back to Fractint...Soon I had 54 messages of pain and outrage, and Nature Leseul's humorous Subject heading looked particularly bad in context! I took the advice of Fractint experts, and downloaded F-SECURE Anti-Virus by Data Fellows Ltd., with their Happy99 update. This cleaned up both systems promptly, after I had bungled a manual cleanup on my own system. Lessons learned; 1. Don't trust even your wife's computer files! Apparently that thing had been in her computer since the New Year, unopened. (It apparently went un-noticed in many computers around January 1) I was the fool who sent it to my system, and then opened it. Our out-of-date McAfee didn't even notice this worm. 2. Don't be complacent if your virus checker is more than a few months old. 3. In my case, Happy99 did NOT attach itself to a message...it completely dumped my message into the "SENT" folder, and used just the address to send itself to Fractint. It also appears to have changed the date "Created", from February 14, 1999, to sometime in 1998, (unless, Nature Leseul's clock is incorrect???). This effectively hid the "sent" file back in history. 4. The manual cleanup procedure is tricky. WIN95 wouldn't let me delete the infected wsock32.dll and replace it with a renamed wsock32.ska. This has to be done in DOS mode. I stumbled during the swap/rename/delete procedure, and ended up re-installing WIN95 to ensure that I had the *correct* file! I am not normally a person given to intemperate language, but I will confess to a certain immoderation before my computer was back on line. In conclusion, I apologize again, abjectly, for letting this thing loose in Fractint. Please check your computers for those tell-tale .SKA files in your WIN System folder...I wouldn't wish this on anyone else. John W. - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:49:56 -0500 From: davides Subject: Re: (fractint) (Fwd) An apology At 07:02 PM 2/16/1999 -0600, you wrote: >John Wilson informs me that he has now cleaned up his machine, >Here is his note to me. Quite an interesting story. >I hearby declare that (for a few days anyway) further discussion, >and welcome back messages to John, are "on topic". > >Tim Wegner >From: John Wilson >Send reply to: John Wilson >To: twegner@phoenix.net >Subject: An apology > >As I now have a sterilized machine, I can write this overdue letter. > >Firstly I want to apologize for being the unwitting instrument for >the transmission of the Happy99 worm into the Fractint group. (Snipped) I would like to be among the first to welcome Mr. Wilson back, and to also offer an apology for flying off the end as I did. By way of explanation, I would mention that I had received that worm twice at home, more times at work, and had gotten a little ticked off at the situation. So... I imagine I offended Mr. Wilson and probably others; I again apologize for being most unconstructive. davides@pipeline.com ds30@umail.umd.edu Back up my hard drive? How do I put it in reverse? - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:16:29 -0600 From: "Tim Wegner" Subject: Re: (fractint) The price of fractal software Hi Frederik, > > However, in a more general way I could have been talking about > > Ultra Fractal. You have benefiting enormously from Fractint in > > developing your concepts to go beyond Fractint. You say as much > > in the quotes above. You have included the functionality of > > Fractint's parser in your program. If you hadn't, it would not be > > possible to run translated formula PARs in Ultra Fractal. (You were > > within your rights to do this). > > That's true, but this is not due to the availability of the source > code. I can learn from Fractint just by using it and reading the > documentation. Sure you can. You don't see my point, maybe I didn't explain it well. Fractint is the result of contributions from many people. People cannot and will not contribute to closed source commercial programs except in a very general way (unless, of course, you make them partners). It is precisely because Fractint is open source that it developed into something full featured enough that you would want to emulate it. The parser is in Fractint because Mark Peterson put it there, and Chuck Ebbert and George Martin extended it. They were able to do that only because Fractint is open source. Ultra Fractal then implemented the result of their work. The fact that you did it without reference to the source is irrelevant. (remember I am not accusing you of doing anything wrong.) > In the same fashion other developers can benefit > from Ultra Fractal, even though its source is not available. I don't see the point here. We are inundated with mail about ideas for doing things in Fractint (have you seen the Fractint Wish List Web page?). We don't need ideas. We already have more ideas than we can implement. We need help from people who can contribute implementation. > Furthermore, I think it is very difficult to understand source > code written by others (especially if it's not very well commented > :-)). Difficult for some, easy for others. I used to get email every week from hotshot students who would ask "where is Fractint's source? I will port it to Unix by next Tuesday." Bert Tyler's joke is that Fractint was the Bermuda triangle of porting efforts. Of course I never heard from any of these hotshot students again. Then one day I got an email from Ken Shirriff, saying "I have ported Fractint to Unix. How can I send you the code?" There are teenagers who have mastered Fractint's code and sent us major contributions. It is a strange fact of intellectual life that each of us has a unique set of problems that are easy or are hard for us. I could tell you stories like that about many different contributors. >So in my experience it is usually more efficient to write > things yourself than by copying it from others. At least when > you know how to do it. I have met programmers who share your preference, particularly when they are very expert on a platform. > > Unless we get an infusion > > of new programming blood, or unless someone starts a brand new > > open source project similar to Fractint (but avoids the problems of > > the legacy code and platform), Fractint and what it represents is > > dead. > > That's a pity. But I can very well understand that working on > Fractint is not as fun and exciting for you any more as it as been > ten years ago. Ten years is a long period to work on a project. No, it is just as fun and exciting as ever. The problem is the aging platform. We have squeezed an amazing amount into the medium model of Fractint, but we near a dead end. It is a very non-trivial matter to move from conventional C programming to Windows programming. I could do it if I had the opportunity to learn at work. Then programming Fractint in my spare time under Windows would be easy. I don't have time to learn WIndows programming outside of work. I haven't given up. There are many ways to go. I may even become a decent Windows programmer before I die :-) > > The bottom line for me is: you have benefited from our thousands of > > hours of work over ten years. We will not benefit from your work > > because your program is not open source. > > This is not true, as I have pointed out above. We have a different perspective on this. We can respectfully agree to disagree. My view is that open source, international teamwork, and "Stone Soup" is the essence of what Fractint is. I'm not surprised that a bright programmer with expertise on a modern platform can recast the functionality of fractint into a more modern architecture. I am just selfish enough that I wish someone would do that while continuing the Fractint open source legacy. Then I might even contribute to it or be part of the team! But as I said before, the fact that I hold this opinion doesn't mean that you are bound by it. Team freeware programming is not for everyone. Only those of us who are idealistic and crazy. The Fractint team is still having a blast putzing around with their baby. I've been threatening for weeks to just release our current developer version as a "public beta" we may just up and do that. Tim Wegner - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 22:16:29 -0600 From: "Tim Wegner" Subject: Re: (fractint) The price of fractal software Ken wrote: > People can incorporate your features regardless of the availability of > the source. They sure can. But the features would never have been developed if the program weren't open source. I can't get excited about commercial fractal programs, although the artists might have a different point of view. BTW you'd be amazed how little the Fractint artists look at other programns. The main reason is that we have been kept busy with our own imagination and integrating contributions, so we don't look at other programs. Our problem now is the weight of legacy code in an old environment that does not excite younger programmers. > Though, to answer your question, I would think the answer might depend > upon whether or not the developers of Fracint want to benefit > financially from their efforts. Or, at least attempt to. Some of us did benefit financially via writing books, but we paid a price: Fractint's progress slowed. Quite frankly, I don't think there is significant money to be made in a shareware or commercial fractal program. But never say never, someone with the right concept and marketing plan might succeed. > If your philosophy is to keep the development open, and make the source > available, then you continue to do so out of principle fully realizing > the risk of others studying the code and doing as you might fear. Exactly. We made this decision a long time ago. Tim - -------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for using Fractint, The Fractals and Fractint Discussion List Post Message: fractint@lists.xmission.com Get Commands: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "help" Administrator: twegner@phoenix.net Unsubscribe: majordomo@lists.xmission.com "unsubscribe fractint" ------------------------------ End of fractint-digest V1 #367 ******************************