I'm a bit confused as to why you do not release the source code for the core shell. I want to use an alternative shell in order to have a stable system with no memory leaks. While you may be excellent coders, I have had incidents of the core crashing out. I believe strongly in the idea of opensource as it vastly improve the stability of an application if people point out various issues. I think it would be rather foolish to act in the same manner as Microsoft and screw us all with bug ridden binary distrobutions. Quite franky its pure stupidity to do so. Please, I ask that you release the code so that it may be improved upon.

the source code should be available ... somewhere.
send a mail to ilmcuts, he's the only dev currently. i'm sure he will give you the code.

I dunno what gave you the idea that the source is not available...

i looked under the downloads/litestep section and every version does not have anything but a binary package to download. perhaps im missing something but i didnt see it anywhere. my appologies if i have made a mistake.

one last thing, could you please give me a link to where the source is availible to download?

email and ask ilmcuts where the CVS is. politely

as far as I know the CVS is still closed...but he has always been willing to ship source out for people.

ilmcuts, are you planning to post the source to the SourceForge project CVS? Also, I had heard some talk here and there about porting the source over to a project format usable in Dev-C++. Any word on that?

Asking nicely, of course. ;)

@verbalshadow: technically, gravis doesn't have to be polite about it, although politeness is always appreciated. :)

INAL, but here are the facts as I understand them.

According to the GPL, providing a download link or CVS account for the source does not suffice to fill the obligations when the software is distributed under that license. The source either has to be distributed with the software, or the author(s) have to honor requests to send the source code to anyone who requests it, by mail, for a period not to exceed three years after the last distribution.

Providing downloads is an efficient, expedient and recommended -- but not sufficient, in license terms -- way of fulfilling the GPL's requirements.

Requests for the source code must be honored or the software (a) has to be relicensed, which requires the consent of all developers involved with the source on which the current distribution is based, or (b) cannot be distributed at all. That's the bottom line.

It's all covered here:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

I'm in the middle of an exams phase, I'll post an update on the CVS stuff after it's over (ie. in about two weeks).

gravis: Looking the in the "downloads/litestep section" won't really help you, this is not an official site. Just because there's no source available here on litestep.net doesn't automatically mean that the source isn't available at all.
I already tried sending you the source by the way, but my email to youguysarefuckersforneedinganaddressyoufuckingspammers at adaptivetime dot com bounced. Send me an email or post back here with a working email address and I'll hook you up.

Would you be willing to post source code archives to the ldex.terica.net site? I admin that, and since the recent builds are hosted there, I'd be more than willing to provide a source repository. I'm also working on setting up a Perforce depot that you'd be welcome to use.

One thing that I'm considering for use is ByteHoard, if that would make the process easier:

http://bytehoard.sourceforge.net/

Anyway, let me know.

ok... good to hear there is atleast a hope of getting the source now. i was begining to get the impression that perhaps litestep was some sort of hack of explorer. doesn't matter now. im not out make wage wars but its far too often i see people keep the source closed on such promising software. precocious little scamp arent i. :D

oh... and average guy, im not sure GNU code is not what modern internet culture would consider up to date as far as timeliness but whatever, its good.

gravis: Again, I don't know where you got this from. Litestep and all of its modules are GPL'ed. The sourcecode of all modules is available here: http://www.shellfront.org/modules/source (except for a few where the author disappeared without posting the source). The source of 0.24.6 (and earlier) LS builds is available as well. The only sourcecode that (at the moment) can't be downloaded from a website is the source of the current .7 betas. The source of all other builds since '97 or '98 is available as a download. I really don't know what your problem is. :\

Amtal_ttag: No (not yet at least), but thanks a lot for the offer. :)