About T3D Steering Committee (01/2014)
by Luis Anton Rebollo · in Torque 3D Professional · 01/21/2014 (4:20 am) · 77 replies
It has created some hopelessness toward the Committee since the announcement of his halt.
The committee is made up of all of us. It is a little our fault that no one outside of GG with rights to write to the repository on Github. I myself was thinking on send an apply, but the 2 times i thought that it was not the right person.
It is clear that this is not good for the community that the official repository this so stopped.
I hope to be able to submit my application to the committee when they have time to talk, but I am sure that in the community there are people better prepared than I am.
Torque3D Committee and GREED FPS are good for the community.
The committee is made up of all of us. It is a little our fault that no one outside of GG with rights to write to the repository on Github. I myself was thinking on send an apply, but the 2 times i thought that it was not the right person.
It is clear that this is not good for the community that the official repository this so stopped.
I hope to be able to submit my application to the committee when they have time to talk, but I am sure that in the community there are people better prepared than I am.
Torque3D Committee and GREED FPS are good for the community.
About the author
I'm working on a port of Torque3D to OpenGL and Linux/SteamOS
#62
Thanks to all the new interested, seem to come good times for the T3D community.
02/11/2014 (3:03 am)
Congratulations to the people of Afterworld project :DThanks to all the new interested, seem to come good times for the T3D community.
#63
Please send me an email about being a part of the new committee. Thanks!
- Dave
02/11/2014 (10:26 am)
@Bank (and Anti):Please send me an email about being a part of the new committee. Thanks!
- Dave
#64
Hugs all around. :)
- Dave
02/11/2014 (10:39 am)
Everyone, it brings a tear to my eye to see so many members come forward to help out. Especially those who's own futures are tied to the engine and believe that moving together as a group, instead of individually, helps us all. I think we just needed time to find our footing as an open source project, and allow the community to rebalance itself.Hugs all around. :)
- Dave
#65
I might as well step up to the plate and help out. :D
02/11/2014 (7:52 pm)
I would be interested in helping with art samples and tutorials on getting started with T3D.I might as well step up to the plate and help out. :D
#67
I don't think there is any reason to keep the list secret, but I will make an official announcement through a blog to let everyone else know, probably next week when we officially make the transition:
- Andrew Mac (Blood & Mana game on Greenlight)
- Bank (Afterworld game)
- Daniel Buckmaster (Walkabout Navigation Toolkit)
- Jeff Raab (component Kickstarter)
- Luis Anton (cross platform guru :)
- Thomas Fischer (from BeamNG)
I feel that the original Steering Committee will be leaving T3D in good hands.
- Dave
02/13/2014 (8:25 am)
I have just sent out an email to all six (yes, six!) people that will be part of the new Community Committee. Thanks to everyone that submitted their name. We're now moving forward with the next step to giving them write access to the main T3D repo.I don't think there is any reason to keep the list secret, but I will make an official announcement through a blog to let everyone else know, probably next week when we officially make the transition:
- Andrew Mac (Blood & Mana game on Greenlight)
- Bank (Afterworld game)
- Daniel Buckmaster (Walkabout Navigation Toolkit)
- Jeff Raab (component Kickstarter)
- Luis Anton (cross platform guru :)
- Thomas Fischer (from BeamNG)
I feel that the original Steering Committee will be leaving T3D in good hands.
- Dave
#68
02/13/2014 (9:23 am)
When do the committee jackets get sent out? I take a men's medium :P 
#69
02/13/2014 (9:57 am)
This sounds like a much better solution, I hope this way the development does not stagnate that much if one member drops out, which is likely to happen, since people work as volunteers. 
#70
02/13/2014 (10:14 am)
yeah! Congrats...When is the official announcement? 
#71
Perhaps this is premature as the official announcement is still pending, but I hope the committee will consider these questions (and maybe even answer some of them!):
1. What is the overall structure of the community going forward?
It seems that it would improve community involvement to have intermediate levels of involvement rather than just a distinction between committee and non-committee members. Among other things, this would provide a natural pool of candidates when a committee member needs to step down. It would also allow these committee members to reduce involvement without stepping away completely. More than anything, however, giving people ownership in tech would be a unifying force in a relatively fractured community.
From an infrastructure standpoint, will there be a community-maintained webpage? How will bugs be filed? How will documentation be generated and/or hosted? Will SDK installers or packages be created and provided as stand-alone downloads?
As a related sidenote, it might be worthwhile to explore how Ogre is managed. It seems like a good example of a sustained open-source project with an active community over a long period of time, and there's probably a lot to learn from its example.
2. What are the criteria for community contributions?
Dave outlined some of the requirements from the perspective of GG ("product development," "stable base") - but what does that mean in practice? Is broad refactoring off the table?
I ask this in large part because I've made these kind of massive changes to my own branch (or rather, my perforce repository) over the past year and a half. I'd like to submit a lot of this back to the community, but there's a lot of overhead in doing so. I don't want to make the effort if the changes won't be integrated.
T3D has a lot of power, but it's also got a lot of cruft. For the tech to come into its own, I believe wide-ranging changes need to be possible. It seems, however, that the dominating concern has been to avoid big changes that might orphan projects that are in-progress. This segues into my next question
3. How will releases be handled?
To address the problem above, I suggest that the committee move T3D into a major/minor version model in a more intentional way. I'd argue there should be a branch for each major release with critical fixes back-ported to older versions (as minor version fixes). At the same time, major version releases provide an opportunity to make sweeping changes for those brave enough to go through a more difficult upgrade, or for new projects just beginning to spin up.
4. What is the long-term roadmap for T3D?
I don't ask this out of an expectation that the committee will do all the work. Rather, I think a roadmap would encourage community buy-in and provide finer-grained ways for people to get involved. More selfishly, a long term plan would provide valuable information to people like myself who are trying to decide whether they should keep working on a divergent branch, or migrate their work the common framework.
Even if there aren't answers to all of these questions now, hopefully these considerations and suggestions will be on the minds of the committee members as T3D moves into the next stage of its life.
--Tim
02/13/2014 (1:20 pm)
This seems like a positive development, and I wish all the best to the new community committee members.Perhaps this is premature as the official announcement is still pending, but I hope the committee will consider these questions (and maybe even answer some of them!):
1. What is the overall structure of the community going forward?
It seems that it would improve community involvement to have intermediate levels of involvement rather than just a distinction between committee and non-committee members. Among other things, this would provide a natural pool of candidates when a committee member needs to step down. It would also allow these committee members to reduce involvement without stepping away completely. More than anything, however, giving people ownership in tech would be a unifying force in a relatively fractured community.
From an infrastructure standpoint, will there be a community-maintained webpage? How will bugs be filed? How will documentation be generated and/or hosted? Will SDK installers or packages be created and provided as stand-alone downloads?
As a related sidenote, it might be worthwhile to explore how Ogre is managed. It seems like a good example of a sustained open-source project with an active community over a long period of time, and there's probably a lot to learn from its example.
2. What are the criteria for community contributions?
Dave outlined some of the requirements from the perspective of GG ("product development," "stable base") - but what does that mean in practice? Is broad refactoring off the table?
I ask this in large part because I've made these kind of massive changes to my own branch (or rather, my perforce repository) over the past year and a half. I'd like to submit a lot of this back to the community, but there's a lot of overhead in doing so. I don't want to make the effort if the changes won't be integrated.
T3D has a lot of power, but it's also got a lot of cruft. For the tech to come into its own, I believe wide-ranging changes need to be possible. It seems, however, that the dominating concern has been to avoid big changes that might orphan projects that are in-progress. This segues into my next question
3. How will releases be handled?
To address the problem above, I suggest that the committee move T3D into a major/minor version model in a more intentional way. I'd argue there should be a branch for each major release with critical fixes back-ported to older versions (as minor version fixes). At the same time, major version releases provide an opportunity to make sweeping changes for those brave enough to go through a more difficult upgrade, or for new projects just beginning to spin up.
4. What is the long-term roadmap for T3D?
I don't ask this out of an expectation that the committee will do all the work. Rather, I think a roadmap would encourage community buy-in and provide finer-grained ways for people to get involved. More selfishly, a long term plan would provide valuable information to people like myself who are trying to decide whether they should keep working on a divergent branch, or migrate their work the common framework.
Even if there aren't answers to all of these questions now, hopefully these considerations and suggestions will be on the minds of the committee members as T3D moves into the next stage of its life.
--Tim
#73
02/14/2014 (1:34 am)
Tim - you ask excellent questions. We're on it ;). 
#74
02/14/2014 (2:11 am)
Congrats to all of you old and new steering comittee. I hope this will put some new energy in T3D and I am sure this will be a positive step.
#75
This gives new hope for a fruitful future!
@Danny : Means you're pretty busy now? :)
02/14/2014 (2:24 am)
Congratulations to the new steering committee! This gives new hope for a fruitful future!
@Danny : Means you're pretty busy now? :)
#76
@new committe, hi all.I'm glad to see so many names. A pleasure to be part.
@Tim, very good ideas. I do not know how it works internally Ogre3D, but Qt use a format that I liked a lot
02/14/2014 (4:13 am)
@old committe, people may forget ... but the history of commits in github always remember the great work you have done. I hope the future GG can re-engage in the commite. Thank you very much :D@new committe, hi all.I'm glad to see so many names. A pleasure to be part.
@Tim, very good ideas. I do not know how it works internally Ogre3D, but Qt use a format that I liked a lot
Torque Owner Daniel Buckmaster
T3D Steering Committee