Altap Salamander Support Forums

Yes.
That's the short answer to title question: Is Salamander dead?

Hi, I dont know why Jan Rysavy or another dev did not post here any update, but Altap company was sold to their's collegues/friends/bosses! AS was made freeware with basic intention on their part to free both devs to work for them full time (and so they should not spend (so much of?) their time on this project anymore).
I am no insider, I just read some articles on Czech IT server Lupa.cz and some comments published there.

And here is my take:

1. Altap as company is dead for sure.
2. AS is freeware and is not planned to be developed any futher.
3. Opening of source code is something they are talking about, but generally not very enthusiastic about (IMHO real shame - if this would happend 10-15y ago, we could have world class file manager here. Much better then Double Commander, FAR or TC).
4. Major problem cited is that on developement of SS worked many different programmers trought last two decades and they do not want to bother to make new arragements with them just to open source code.
5. Possible very poor state of source (structure, comments, ...)
6. I don't know if they just love their baby too much or are code hugers, but are in general not willing to share further.
7. But they will continue to use AS (and possibly to put out security fixes and maybe even some minor new features).

Alrough the AS was still making money, they were not able to create sustainable bussines model (outsource anything, pay some promotion & PR, recruit ppl from schools and unis,...). They, in general, tried to do everything by themselfs - from their own forum, eshop, pay-gates to office stuff and form filling - and that broke their neck, because they were not able to find any time for developing AS itself and not able to bring anybody else on-board. I think they were not lucky in trying to train their own staff or outsource some programming to other - again, maybe too high expectation and not realistic enough aproach, I dont know, but it is as it is - and result is: no UNICODE, no TABS...

Pardon my english - is quite late for me and I am not patient enought to re-read it & polish grammar.

As a die hard Salamander user since 1998 I am passionate about keeping it alive. I have read this whole thread and I have to say as an avid Open Source developer I have some thoughts I hope that get considered...

Issue: ALTAP states the source code is "old C code and not up to modern standards and documentation". ALTAP seems content to not open source the code and let the product seemingly die.

My two cents:
1. Its OK if its not modern C code or well documented or even messy!. Microsoft (yes, Microsoft) open sourced Calculator which was 30 year old C code and developers poured in to optimize, clean it up, enhance it. Look at the commits since it was open sourced : https://github.com/microsoft/calculator

2. As Linus Torvalds the creator of Linux stated as Linus's Law "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". Let the power of community keep this project alive.

3. "When you lose interest in a program, your last duty to it is to hand it off to a competent successor." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathe ... the_Bazaar

Thank you for your consideration and 20+ years of hard work. Please don't let this die, just open it to the world!

Melloware

Now it's their software and they can do whatever they want with it, but yeah letting such a great software die because you don't want to make it open source it's really a sad thing. Now I would love to work on it even under NDA, but unfortunately Jan didn't contact me until now.
I still having high hopes that someday we would be able to do something, but I don't know if it wouldn't be to late by then.
Keeping fingers crossed.

What about a rewriting it from scratch?

WaldemarH wrote: ↑12 Nov 2019, 12:24 Now it's their software and they can do whatever they want with it, but yeah letting such a great software die because you don't want to make it open source it's really a sad thing. Now I would love to work on it even under NDA, but unfortunately Jan didn't contact me until now.
I still having high hopes that someday we would be able to do something, but I don't know if it wouldn't be to late by then.
Keeping fingers crossed.

I have my fingers crossed that this happens. I could help with some simple tasks.

It's Open source now, I think...

Yeah it's ALIVE and we started with the talks what and how to continue development.

WaldemarH wrote: ↑11 Dec 2023, 09:22 Yeah it's ALIVE and we started with the talks what and how to continue development.

A small sentence, in the whole freakin Internet.
But it resonated like thunder in my 60 year old ears.

Really? This would be a great news.

Back in the DOS years a fellow named John Socha created Norton Commander in C and Assembly. I got addicted the instant I tripped on it.
I was desperate when it died. Then I came across Servant Salamander and lived again.

If I could have ONE wish: Add support to long filename/path (beyond 255)

Simon

That is definitelly one of the things to do, but it will take time and we must not rush it.. we were waiting for toooo long to mess it up now.

Jan Rysavy wrote: ↑04 Jul 2019, 12:28 Waldemar, We don't plan to open source AS core right now, you are right. But private repository access is an option. Please give us some time (summer vacation), we will reach you on your e-mail.

.

They open sourced it here: https://github.com/OpenSalamander/salamander