[Raion]

We welcome dexter1 as a moderator of irix.cc.

A veteran moderator of Nekochan.net, his skills, and relationship with the community are welcomed.

Please join us in welcoming dexter1.

[Irinikus]

It’s great to see experienced Nekochan members such as dexter1 joining up!

Welcome!

Here's your old Nekochan Avatar if you still want to use it: (I personally think it's fitting)

<ATTACHMENT filename="Dexter1.png" index="0">     </ATTACHMENT>

[dexter1]

Thanks for having me :-)

I usually change avatars once in a while, but kudos for unearthing the old Dominion one. Went with Deunan from Appleseed this time.
Personally i think there is enough room on the web for both Nekochan and irix.cc but with Nekochan currently down i decided to help out here.
To be honest i haven't talked to Pete or other mods recently because of fatigue, though i will see Hakimoto next week. We'll try to get in touch with some more people.

If there is anything you need from me or something for me to do, just contact me.

PS: i have sourced my original photo's and text from the SCSI2SD wiki from Nekochan.

[dexter1]

Hello all,

I'm going on a long holiday 'down under' and you won't see me frequenting the forum as much as i usually do. I'll be back about 6 weeks from now, and will occasionally burn some Sim data to visit you all online.

On a more informative note, i have emailed Pete if he's okay and asked for an update about the current state of Nekochan. He has replied that he is fine and that the forum is still intact. He currently is looking for re-hosting this somewhere else in the US with a lower price tag per month than he now has. So i gave him some advice and pointers where he might get help transferring stuff and getting a good deal. Can't do much more if he decides to keep Nekochan US based.
There is not much else to say. We just have to wait and see if he can get it running again.

Feel free to contact him for offering help in re-hosting stuff, and at the risk of being obvious or verbose: Please be constructive; Don't bully him or demand the forum back.

[Trippynet]

Thanks for the update Dexter. Good to know Nekochan is not completely forgotten. As much as I'd like to thank Raion-Fox for hosting this place - (and it is massively appreciated), it's the sheer historical posts and data archive on Nekochan that makes the place invaluable. It either needs to be restored, or for Pete to provide the full archive so all that information can be uploaded somewhere for reference.

[Raion]

Trippynet: I've reached out to Pete now that I know what he wants/needs

[Irinikus]

I agree that the invaluable information from Nekochan needs to be recovered, but I also have to say at the same time, that their policy regarding software wasn’t helpful in my opinion.

And yes, you could PM other members and make arrangements privately regarding the distribution of software, but that wasn’t clearly visible to potential newcomers.

Just look at how alive the IRIX Software thread is.

What is a machine without software? (And in the case of SGI’s, the proper commercial software that they originally ran, as they were commercial machines!)

As a result, even if Nekochan comes on line again, this site will have great relevance in keeping the SGI community going into the future, in my opinion

[Trippynet]

I think a lot of the software situation with Nekochan is historical. When Nekochan started, SGIs were still in regular commercial use (albeit, declining use), and hence when there were a few posts that skirted the legal line, Pete was threatened with legal action I believe. Nobody likes to be sued for a hobby, so it was all tightened up.

Now however it's a different story. It's only worth spending money on legal enforcement for software if it still has commercial value, otherwise a company is paying for legal enforcement despite there being no possible financial gain for the company, and that's a waste. Do you believe HPE cares at all about someone downloading IRIX these days? It's a dead OS for a dead hardware platform, and both the original SGI and the "risen from the ashes" Rackable SGI are long gone.

It's maybe a bit more sketchy for some software such as Photoshop, seeing as there is still a newer version being sold (albeit not for SGI systems). But for software which is completely abandoned/discontinued, I don't really see the issue. Ultimately, if you cannot purchase the software legally any more, I don't see the issue with an "abandonware" version of said software.

Hence I think the current policy here of promising to promptly remove any software/links if a complaint is made is probably the right one.

[vishnu]

At the risk of repeating myself I'll mention again that there's a guy on ebay who's been selling SCSI disks with 6.5.30 installed on them for at least the last 10 years, probably longer. And SGI never tried to squash people who were passing around the Hax Force licenses either, although once it was posted to Usenet obviously there'd be no way to ever corral it again. And the last guy I talked to at Autodesk said he didn't think they even had the source code to any of the the MIPS versions anymore...

[TruHobbyist]

<QUOTE author="vishnu" post_id="1522" time="1531629003" user_id="60">

And the last guy I talked to at Autodesk said he didn't think they even had the source code to any of the the MIPS versions anymore...

I can't understand how a company, having invested resources in a product XYZ, doesn't even keep its source code.

On a similar note, just FYI, in my longstanding search for the Tru64 DDKs I was able to contact several guys working in big companies having license agreements of all kind and partnerships with HPE who filed requests for this DDK (on my behalf) and all they got back was: "We can acknowledge the kit/s existed, but can't locate them anymore".


BTW, congrats dexter1


Tru