HP Forum Archive 19

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Free42 for iPhone/iPod Touch just landed Message #1 Posted by Dave Britten on 6 Nov 2009, 2:12 p.m. Not to be confused with Byron Foster's port named "42s", Thomas Okken just released his own port, and it hit the iTunes store sometime yesterday ($4.99 USD). Seems to work very nice so far, though not all the printing and import/export functionality is there yet. The built in web server works great for importing and exporting programs in the .raw format. Also, it looks like there's a good amount of dead space around the screen and keyboard that could be used to increase the size of the keys. All in all, it's very solid for an initial release, and I haven't uncovered any bugs yet. Definitely a worthwhile addition to my iPod.

Re: Free42 for iPhone/iPod Touch just landed Message #2 Posted by Egan Ford on 6 Nov 2009, 3:35 p.m., in response to message #1 by Dave Britten Free42 for $4.99. Probably going to confuse a few people. :-) How about Fee42? Or Open42?

Re: Free42 for iPhone/iPod Touch just landed Message #3 Posted by Reth on 7 Nov 2009, 2:49 a.m., in response to message #2 by Egan Ford Free42 is a *very popular* name. So Thomas should keep it. Do you consider $5 adequate for such a brilliant work? I'll buy it right now as a token of my appreciation of Thomas' work even though I might never use it; I like 42S and the way Byron is going.

Re: Free42 for iPhone/iPod Touch just landed Message #4 Posted by Egan Ford on 7 Nov 2009, 1:02 p.m., in response to message #3 by Reth Quote: Free42 is a *very popular* name. Yes I know. Hence the :-) above. However, I'd argue *relatively popular*. Quote: Do you consider $5 adequate for such a brilliant work? Yes, that is why I purchased it. Quote: I like 42S and the way Byron is going. Same here. Edited: 7 Nov 2009, 1:04 p.m.

Re: Free42 for iPhone/iPod Touch just landed Message #5 Posted by Reth on 7 Nov 2009, 11:00 p.m., in response to message #4 by Egan Ford I new all that, we're on the same boat ;)

Re: Free42 for iPhone/iPod Touch just landed Message #6 Posted by Thomas Okken on 10 Nov 2009, 12:59 a.m., in response to message #2 by Egan Ford Quote: Free42 for $4.99. Probably going to confuse a few people. :-) How about Fee42? Or Open42? I knew that this was going to come up, so I addressed the question in the new FAQ section on the Free42 home page. :-) While I was first developing Free42, it was actually called Fake42. I changed the name to Free42 just before I published version 1.0 -- I thought the "Fake" part sounded a bit cheesy, and I also wanted to emphasize the GPL aspect. If I had anticipated the iTunes App Store business model back then, maybe I would have called it Open42 instead! - Thomas Edited: 10 Nov 2009, 1:02 a.m.

Re: Free42 for iPhone/iPod Touch just landed Message #7 Posted by Anders Peterson on 7 Nov 2009, 3:14 p.m., in response to message #1 by Dave Britten Seems nice. I got the desktop software just a few weeks ago, and it is fantastic. Does anyone know why the previous iPhone app that was based on Free42 (42s) disappeared from the app store just a little while before the new one came out? Did the developers have a falling out perhaps?

Re: Free42 for iPhone/iPod Touch just landed Message #8 Posted by Dave Britten on 7 Nov 2009, 3:59 p.m., in response to message #7 by Anders Peterson No, it was just some silly red tape with Apple, as I understand it. Byron seemed to think it would be reappearing very soon.

Re: Free42 for iPhone/iPod Touch just landed Message #9 Posted by Thomas Okken on 10 Nov 2009, 2:00 a.m., in response to message #1 by Dave Britten Quote: Also, it looks like there's a good amount of dead space around the screen and keyboard that could be used to increase the size of the keys. Good point! Byron's version does a better job of using the screen real estate available on the iPhone. My version does support skin switching, and if you download the free42.tgz source code package and install the Hofferth skin (it's in the iphoneskins directory), you'll get pretty much the same skin as in 42s, but I still have to implement non-integral display scaling, so the display looks a bit squished for now. Once I have that sorted out, I'll start offering a skins package specifically for the iPhone and iPod touch on my web site, and maybe also compile one or two additional skins into Free42 itself. - Thomas

Re: Free42 for iPhone/iPod Touch just landed Message #10 Posted by Anders Peterson on 15 Nov 2009, 3:34 p.m., in response to message #1 by Dave Britten Does anyone know what's up with the new, third 42s app that's out there? It looks like a total rip off of the first one (42s), even the icon and description text is almost identical. At first I thought it was a "lite" version or something, but that appears not to be the case since it lists a different developer.

Re: Free42 for iPhone/iPod Touch just landed (UPDATED) Message #11 Posted by Thomas Okken on 15 Nov 2009, 10:49 p.m., in response to message #10 by Anders Peterson Quote: Does anyone know what's up with the new, third 42s app that's out there? It looks like a total rip off of the first one (42s), even the icon and description text is almost identical. At first I thought it was a "lite" version or something, but that appears not to be the case since it lists a different developer. It is a total rip-off of Byron Foster's 42s; it's a slightly older version, and the only other thing that's different is the name. I wrote a review that explains the situation, but it hasn't showed up in iTunes yet. I guess that takes a few days. UPDATE: My review just showed up on iTunes. I'm posting it here, too: Quote: This is an exact copy of a slightly older version of Byron Foster's 42s app. C. A. Vijayan charges less money for it than Mr. Foster, but he has contributed nothing to the project, and you won't get any support from him, either, even if he did provide an email address or a web site. If you want 42s on the cheap, by all means get this one, but if you want to support the developers that did the actual work, get Byron Foster's 42s (with the nifty UI features) or my Free42 (basic port of the Unix version) instead. Of course I realize that releasing something under the GPL means that anyone can take your code and start selling it for himself. But even so, this feels sleazy... and the part where he actually asserts "(C) 2009 Infowise" really gets my goat. (For what it's worth, the only contribution of "C A VIJAYAN" is to change the title of the app.) Edited: 16 Nov 2009, 10:07 p.m.

Re: Free42 for iPhone/iPod Touch just landed (UPDATED) Message #12 Posted by Byron Foster on 18 Nov 2009, 12:25 a.m., in response to message #11 by Thomas Okken Quote: (For what it's worth, the only contribution of "C A VIJAYAN" is to change the title of the app.) Yes, from "42s RPN Calculator" to "RPN Calc 42s" !. Even the website pointed to within the calculator points back to the 42s site, for support from either Thomas or myself. A parasite of the tape worm variety me thinks.

Re: Free42 for iPhone/iPod Touch just landed (UPDATED) Message #13 Posted by Anders Peterson on 18 Nov 2009, 8:22 a.m., in response to message #12 by Byron Foster That is absolutely terrible that someone can get away with that. I reported it to Apple, but I suppose they will not care if he is not breaking any rules. Still, there has to be some way to prevent someone from making an exact copy and going so far as to steal the icon and app description. Anyway, thanks for the information. I certainly won't be buying that app.

Re: Free42 for iPhone/iPod Touch just landed (UPDATED) Message #14 Posted by John Collis (New Zealand) on 18 Nov 2009, 3:17 a.m., in response to message #11 by Thomas Okken Thanks for updating us on this. This goes against the whole spirit of Open Source. Supporting the people that do the work is really important. Personally, I've been a long time user of Byron's 42s and it's my number one calculator on the iPhone, used virtually every day. I probably will also buy Thomas' version also to support him. It's simply obvious how much effort he has put into Free42.

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