[CsMain] Question about Mazed....

[Seth G. <sga...@li...>]

I am posting this message to both the Crystal Space and QuArK lists
because an important part of it applies to both projects.

On Tue, 6 Mar 2001, Thomas Hieber wrote:

> I am not sure, if it is right, to keep up MazeD. The first step should be to
> look for a good cross plattform open source 3D Modeler. Wasn't Blender
> supposed to go open source.

http://www.blender.nl/opensource/index.php

"Because we have always believed in Open Source products we decided to
open some parts of Blender 2.0. Also we have used some Open Source
packages in the creation of Blender and we must of course give these back
to the OS community."

Apparently the "open source" parts of Blender right now are basically the
Render Daemon and a Windows Toolkit designed to be a cross-platform
replacement for GLUT.

IMHO - don't get too excited when you hear the buzzwords "open source".
Often there is little difference between "open source" software and
proprietary software.  (I would rather use the best software regardless of
whether it uses the "open source" label!)

Also, if you find a "open source" program, keep looking around for a Free
Software alternative - often you will find something even more useful (for
example LGPL Crystal Space vs. "open source" Genesis 3D.)

Here's an example of a portable Free 3D modeling program in development.
I don't know how useful it is yet, but the license (GPL) and language
(C++) is similar to Crystal Space:

http://prettypoly.sourceforge.net/

> Maybe it would be worthwhile to take a look, on what it would take to get
> QuArK running on Linux, now that Kylix is almost there, it should be much
> easier to get that Delphi beast running there again.

I would recommend the following plan of attack:

1. Try porting QuArK to Kylix - this may not work if all the components
needed aren't portable.  This only makes QuArK "hackable" by Linux users
and Windows Delphi users.  AFAIK there is no plan for a free Windows
Delphi/Kylix compiler.

2. Whether or not QuArK works with Kylix, try making QuArK less dependant
on Delphi by porting it to a portable Free Pascal compiler like this one:
http://www.freepascal.org - this compiler supports many of the language
extensions of Delphi, so this would not be as drastic as a C++ re-write.

3. If a Free Pascal port works, then a C++ port might be considered,
although it probably would not make much of a difference.  It would be a
lot of work for a superficial enhancement.  If someone wanted to make
the code interface with C++ components like a 3D engine there are other
interfaces which could be used.

> If everything else fails, looking for a Windows only solution wouldn't be
> the worst option, as many graphics people have access to Windows.

The only problem I see with this is that most Windows-only software seems
to be overly buggy and proprietary.  (Programs like QuArK being an
exception, though QuArK would not be Windows-only if it weren't such a
monumental task to port it!)

> Just one note. MazeD isn't designed very nice (IMHO), but I would suggest,
> that you try maintaining it, and add new features instead of doing a
> redesign. See rework of MazeD as a longterm task and not as a big bang,
> where everything changes at once.

If you do a "real" design - as in a written design instead of just
mangling the code or starting a new codebase based on a few emails
outlining a few new design concepts - then you should wait until that
design is ready before you decide whether a "rework" or "rewrite" is a
more appropriate way to implement the design.
  __    __    _                                    _    __    __
_/  \__/  \__/  Seth Galbraith  "The Serpent Lord"  \__/  \__/  \_
 \__/  \__/  \_ sga...@kr...  #2244199 on ICQ  _/  \__/  \__/
_/  \__/  \__/    http://www.planetquake.com/gg     \__/  \__/  \_