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Forking the Actor Framework

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I've been a big (over)user and proponent of the Actor Framework for a couple years now. In that time I've found a bunch of things that I think could be improved, but they require changes to the framework rather than just extension Actors. I'd like to try out some of those ideas and see how they work in real code.

 

What is the best way to fork the Actor Framework? Backing up and working out of vi.lib seems wrong. I want to preserve the ability to use LabVIEW's built-in AF message creators.

 

What is the licensing model attached to the Actor Framework? In the unlikely event this comes out awesome I'd love to share it back with the community on GitHub or VIPM, but I do not want to get sued by NI 😄

 

Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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Accepted by topic author OneOfTheDans

AF is part of LabVIEW. It is governed by the EULA. If I still worked at NI, legally, that’s all I could tell you: “Go read the EULA.” Since I’m not at NI anymore, I can tell you my interpretation: I believe the EULA gives you full rights to fork, modify, and distribute the AF, and you can even charge for the new library. That’s my reading. Personally, I’d appreciate it if you included reference back to the original in your documentation. 

As for how to do it… I suggest you Save As the “Actor Framework.lvlib” to a new name and then go to town. 

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With regards to the mechanics, I'd suggest reading the forum threads about making an AF PPL.

 

Obviously you don't have to make it into a PPL, but those threads (Stefan's is popular, and I believe maybe addresses this, mine is not but definitely does) describe removing it from vi.lib.

 

You can also easily modify the installed framework tools to identify your copy as an Actor Framework - but you have to do it for each installation. I don't recall the VI to modify (on phone right now) but it's also described in this forum board somewhere. 

 

Edit: thread giving the paths to VIs that identify what counts as an Actor: https://forums.ni.com/t5/Actor-Framework-Discussions/Actor-Message-Maker-not-showing-up-in-Context-M...


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@AristosQueue(NI) wrote:

Since I’m not at NI anymore, I can tell you my interpretation


This is officially what I'm thankful for this year 😋

 

Interesting about being able to charge for re-distributions of the code. I will double check the EULA before getting too crazy with this. And for sure I'll refer back to the original. If the fork goes anywhere, I'm hoping to keep significant overlap with the original.

 

By the way, I noticed you're on a new blue account - are you going back to NI?

 


@cbutcher wrote:

With regards to the mechanics, I'd suggest reading the forum threads about making an AF PPL.


I did this at my last job very successfully (after getting past all the hurdles! lol). But beside backing up and restoring the vi.lib folder out of caution, I never found it necessary to delete/hide the source code in there. I wish the AF was a VIPM package to make this easier, especially if someone accidentally messes up the vi.lib source. Maybe I'll do that first, thank you! Looks like it's already in VIPM - I'll double check that the version matches my LV2020 SP1 before relying on it though https://www.vipm.io/package/ni_actor_framework/

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I noticed you're on a new blue account

 

#ItsComplicated 🙂

 

are you going back to NI?

 

No plans to do so. Just IT trying to figure out how to migrate my account, and it ended up this way. 

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