Delete me
by Duncan Gray · in Torque Game Engine · 08/05/2006 (8:17 pm) · 5 replies
@ Nicolas Quijano, what huge dose of arrogance and poor reading abilities. Go re-read the proposal and you will see that resources are just once aspect of the idea.
Having a current, up to date code base with all bug fixes implemented is the main need. Seeing as GG could not pull it off, I chose not to berate them for it like many others, but rather to see how that problem could be solved in a congeneal manor by community assistance.
I did not however consider that some people would have such a huge problem with positive thought unless negativity is you base nature.
This ends my public discussion with Nicolas Quijano. Anything else you want to say, send to my private email.
Having a current, up to date code base with all bug fixes implemented is the main need. Seeing as GG could not pull it off, I chose not to berate them for it like many others, but rather to see how that problem could be solved in a congeneal manor by community assistance.
I did not however consider that some people would have such a huge problem with positive thought unless negativity is you base nature.
This ends my public discussion with Nicolas Quijano. Anything else you want to say, send to my private email.
About the author
#2
08/05/2006 (8:40 pm)
Lol, I don't want CG in my TGE base. I'm slaving over GLSL and that would ruin my effort! 
#3
Second, any C++ based ressources for TGE cannot be Open Sourced (even though code they use, or link against might be under the more friendly OS licenses, as zlib, ljpeg, etc which TGE already uses) since that would be a breach of the TGE EULA.
Third, your scheme has been proposed a few times already since TGE's release, and GG so far feels (with good reason imho) that the implied support in having a community supported branch would bring more headaches than anything : ressources are far from being compatible with each other, or without constraints, who would decide what goes in or doesn't ?
You ? Excuse me if this sounds harsh, but you mention not allowing stupid people to commit code and obviously you didn't try to see if this hadn't been discussed before : why should GG empower you or any of us to control a "public" fork of their code ? And why should it be only one fork, if you think about it : FPS, RPGs, flight sims, space sims, turn based wargames, real time wargames, not to mention MMO's have wildly different needs and requirements, so what good would such a endeavour do ?
And don't say they could lay the law, since one of your arguments for that endeavour is that they're too busy to do it themselves, neh ?
Sure, TGE can be made better, but not by adding to it, if you want my opinion, but quite the opposite : making all the FPS legacy code from Tribes 2 not part of the core, but as an example module of building on the foundation, to make it more generic, as was done for T2D/TGB.
And as the GG supported codebase, not a community effort in a different codebase...
But having a hacked up TGE fork with CG in it and other resources whose inclusion would be done on an adhoc basis, which in all likelyhood new, unexperienced licensees would jump on because of hype, is completely unrealistic if not insane, whatever the quality of those resources on their own....
If you want to work on such a codebase, do it, talk to GG and make it an enhancement pack like TLK : you seem to imply you have the ability to do so, what's stopping you ?
Or do you want the community to integrate a bunch of ressources for you ?
Again, not saying that's your intent, but I can't help but wonder, seeing as you used the CG ressource as an example, when we all darn well know GG is a business, and they have their own branch of the TGE code leveraging shaders that they even sell....
Keep on Torquin' !!
08/05/2006 (9:46 pm)
To start things off, even the most stringent of Open Source licenses, the GPL, doesn't prevent in any way anyone from selling a GPL based product, as long as you abide by the terms of the license (make the source available, without any strings attached), so you're completely offbase on this. Second, any C++ based ressources for TGE cannot be Open Sourced (even though code they use, or link against might be under the more friendly OS licenses, as zlib, ljpeg, etc which TGE already uses) since that would be a breach of the TGE EULA.
Third, your scheme has been proposed a few times already since TGE's release, and GG so far feels (with good reason imho) that the implied support in having a community supported branch would bring more headaches than anything : ressources are far from being compatible with each other, or without constraints, who would decide what goes in or doesn't ?
You ? Excuse me if this sounds harsh, but you mention not allowing stupid people to commit code and obviously you didn't try to see if this hadn't been discussed before : why should GG empower you or any of us to control a "public" fork of their code ? And why should it be only one fork, if you think about it : FPS, RPGs, flight sims, space sims, turn based wargames, real time wargames, not to mention MMO's have wildly different needs and requirements, so what good would such a endeavour do ?
And don't say they could lay the law, since one of your arguments for that endeavour is that they're too busy to do it themselves, neh ?
Sure, TGE can be made better, but not by adding to it, if you want my opinion, but quite the opposite : making all the FPS legacy code from Tribes 2 not part of the core, but as an example module of building on the foundation, to make it more generic, as was done for T2D/TGB.
And as the GG supported codebase, not a community effort in a different codebase...
But having a hacked up TGE fork with CG in it and other resources whose inclusion would be done on an adhoc basis, which in all likelyhood new, unexperienced licensees would jump on because of hype, is completely unrealistic if not insane, whatever the quality of those resources on their own....
If you want to work on such a codebase, do it, talk to GG and make it an enhancement pack like TLK : you seem to imply you have the ability to do so, what's stopping you ?
Or do you want the community to integrate a bunch of ressources for you ?
Again, not saying that's your intent, but I can't help but wonder, seeing as you used the CG ressource as an example, when we all darn well know GG is a business, and they have their own branch of the TGE code leveraging shaders that they even sell....
Keep on Torquin' !!
#4
I think the real question here is how much community involvement and control does GG want to support, manage, and/or allow over the source code, and how much we as a community are willing to lay aside our divergent interests and general B.S. for the common good of helping each other out. I think everyone would agree that what GG are currently doing could be improved in some fashion. But managing divergent opinions, additions, different resources, etc., could easily become a nightmare if not managed properly. It can be hard to do on a regular in-house project, let alone one as large and diverse as the GG community. As Nicolas pointed out, it may be very hard to make MORE people happy rather then less, and GG has stated they don't want to expend the resources to try this experiment.
With that in mind, I think we should expect that GG will not manage the community source project at this stage. If such an experiment succeeds and provides amazing benefits, then they might consider hosting and managing it.
I think a better set of questions may be:
Does the TGE EULA allow us to setup an external CVS site to share source?
If so, who will setup and manage the site?
How will they know who should be given access and who shouldn't?
Will the source be tested on win32, OSX, and/or Linux? Does every developer need to test all 3 before committing changes?
What additional GG resources will be included? (RTK, TNL, TLK, TSE, TGB, etc...)
Will there be some sort of project manager and project plan or will it just be a free for all?
What will be the license agreement on the source committed by the community be? Will they give 100% of the rights for licensing model and distribution to GG, or will they try to enforce their own licensing model like the GPL?
Ultimately, my guess is that GG will allow such an experiment to take place as long as a reasonable attempt is made at preserving their EULA and that all code submitted will remain solely the property of GG. (I hope a GG employee will please correct me if I'm off base on this.)
If my assumption is correct, it would leave the next question as to who is willing to spend their hard $$ and time to manage such an experiment. I'm a willing contributor, but by no means have the time to manage something of this scope.
08/05/2006 (11:45 pm)
The tough part about working with real programmers is that very few have humble opinions, myself included. That said, I think it is good for the community to have a discussion along these lines as there is a lot that can be done here. I think the real question here is how much community involvement and control does GG want to support, manage, and/or allow over the source code, and how much we as a community are willing to lay aside our divergent interests and general B.S. for the common good of helping each other out. I think everyone would agree that what GG are currently doing could be improved in some fashion. But managing divergent opinions, additions, different resources, etc., could easily become a nightmare if not managed properly. It can be hard to do on a regular in-house project, let alone one as large and diverse as the GG community. As Nicolas pointed out, it may be very hard to make MORE people happy rather then less, and GG has stated they don't want to expend the resources to try this experiment.
With that in mind, I think we should expect that GG will not manage the community source project at this stage. If such an experiment succeeds and provides amazing benefits, then they might consider hosting and managing it.
I think a better set of questions may be:
Does the TGE EULA allow us to setup an external CVS site to share source?
If so, who will setup and manage the site?
How will they know who should be given access and who shouldn't?
Will the source be tested on win32, OSX, and/or Linux? Does every developer need to test all 3 before committing changes?
What additional GG resources will be included? (RTK, TNL, TLK, TSE, TGB, etc...)
Will there be some sort of project manager and project plan or will it just be a free for all?
What will be the license agreement on the source committed by the community be? Will they give 100% of the rights for licensing model and distribution to GG, or will they try to enforce their own licensing model like the GPL?
Ultimately, my guess is that GG will allow such an experiment to take place as long as a reasonable attempt is made at preserving their EULA and that all code submitted will remain solely the property of GG. (I hope a GG employee will please correct me if I'm off base on this.)
If my assumption is correct, it would leave the next question as to who is willing to spend their hard $$ and time to manage such an experiment. I'm a willing contributor, but by no means have the time to manage something of this scope.
#5
08/06/2006 (2:19 am)
I'd have to agree that this would impose more problems than it's worth - which is also why it has been suggested and turned down before. 
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