OpenInkpot section moved into the Archive

[Alexander Turcic]

The OpenInkpot project was started in 2007 by MobileRead member dottedmag with the goal to create a drop-in open-source firmware replacement for E Ink based e-reading devices. Two device families were initially supported, the Hanlin V3 and the Hanvon N516, along with their many clones. Unfortunately the project appears to have stalled, with no recent reading hardware being supported. And from what we've heard, jekhor, the only kernel hacker who was actively involved in the project has been unavailable due to time constraints.

Until there is reason to believe that the project will revive (any willing kernel hackers out there?), we're going to move OpenInkpot to our Archive section. The project's source code is still available via Git: http://git.openinkpot.org/

[mbovenka]

Alas, poor OI! I knew him, Horatio...(when I was still using my BeBook One, that is). It was my favourite firmware, back in the day of the Hanlin V3.

[Moe The Cat]

But I haven't used my BeBook for quite some time either, having moved on to reading on my cell phone (bigger screen on today's cell phones, convenience, as it's already in my pocket anyway) or my Android tablet.

[geekmaster]

It seems openinkpot.org is gone. Was the site archived anywhere reliable, like github? I am interested in hacking kernels and exploring this codebase, if somebody can supply a copy or a link. Thanks.

[WT Sharpe]

Is this what you're looking for?

www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17414

It does seem as if git.openinkpot.org is gone.

[WT Sharpe]

I don't know if this will be of any value to you or not:

https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9...openinkpot.org

[geekmaster]

Openinkpot.org (as referenced in your first link) is gone. The second link is to an app that runs on openinkpot.

I am actually looking for openinkpot itself, source code to examine...

Thanks. Sad that all the content on that site it gone, and archive.org was of little help. The "wayback machine" does not archive stuff on sites with a robots.txt prevention..

[jgaiser]

This maybe?

https://www.openhub.net/p/openinkpot

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

This maybe?

https://www.openhub.net/p/openinkpot

Your link would be useful if the download and homepage links on that page pointed somewhere still alive, instead of the dead openinkpot.org website. The link you gave me suffers the same problem all the other stuff I found with google suffered -- dead links.

How are future internet archaelogists going to deal with all the useless dead links?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

How are future internet archaelogists going to deal with all the useless dead links?

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Will they spend decades digging for that "missing link"?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

Your link would be useful if the download and homepage links on that page pointed somewhere still alive, instead of the dead openinkpot.org website. The link you gave me suffers the same problem all the other stuff I found with google suffered -- dead links.

How are future internet archaelogists going to deal with all the useless dead links?

the same way it has been done before. Archive.org wayback machine works on most sites unless the have the dreaded robot.txt file.

Dale

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

the same way it has been done before. Archive.org wayback machine works on most sites unless the have the dreaded robot.txt file.

Dale

I tried the wayback machine before posting here -- mosly dead links due to robots.txt, as I recall. Lots of sites are that way, mostly hit or miss. That is why it seemed so strange that archive.org has huge downloads available for almost all old kindle firmware updates (really large files tat you can still download from amazon), when really valuable content is gone and not archived. I wish more of openinkpot (especially the github) had gotten archived somewhere.

Sadly, that link I mentioned as not helpful, estimates the source code value (based on manhours) at 170 megabucks. Sad for so much effort to evaporate like that.

https://www.openhub.net/p/openinkpot/estimated_cost

The other sad thing is that that link also claims that the git.openinkpot.org source was verified just 4 months ago, but I see that the domain name has expired now (as it was months ago when I checked it). Strange.

Hmm... some links at openhub require logins. I wonder if the sopeninkpot source MIGHT be hidden there if I register. Worth a try. They do claim 64 download sites. Hmm, geekmaster has already been taken -- I do not recall using that site, so probably somebody else (though I have used geekmaster "handle" since pre-internet days).

[geekmaster]

Okay, I created an account at openhub. They do have an openinkpot project (google "summer of code" 2008) but it has ZERO lines of source code in it, and ZERO contributors. How can they estimate so many manhours and so much value to so little code? Oh, wait. That estimate is for a different openinkpot project with 9.8M Lines of code.

Meh. It looks like ALL 64 dowload locations are on the defunct openinkpot.org domain. Or something... Do they actually ARCHIVE stuff at codehub, or just links to external repositories?

And archive.org just has teasing snippets of git.openinkpot.org:
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http:/...eninkpot.org/*

[rkomar]

Perhaps you can find someone who cloned the repo before it disappeared and clone it from them. With git, there is no central repository.