[Opengc-devel] status/Avsim conference update/RFC

[Damion S. <be...@cs...>]

Hi,

I wanted to give everyone a report of the feedback I received after 
"unveiling" OpenGC at the Avsim conference in Reading yesterday (I gave 
a 40 minute presentation). The overall reaction was extremely positive; 
in fact, amazingly so. It appears that there is more of an interest in 
glass cockpit software than I had thought.

I spent several hours today talking with both Enrico Schiratti 
(developer of Project Magenta) and Austin Meyer (developer of X-Plane). 
Having met both of them in person, I would like to put to rest negative 
claims that have been made about both; they're extremely cordial guys, 
and quite supportive of OpenGC. Both Enrico and Austin (Enrico in 
particular) had interesting thoughts on developing sim add-on software, 
and some of their opinions have caused me to rethink the place of 
OpenGC within the simming community somewhat.

As the result of conversations with them and a number of conference 
attendees, I would like to summarize the feedback I received regarding 
OpenGC:

1) People are impressed with its multi-platform, multi-sim capabilities.
2) The open-source nature of the project is not, in and of itself, a 
selling point of the project (keeping in mind that this is largely a 
FS200x, and to some extent X-Plane, oriented crowd).

I have personally believed that the main thing that differentiates 
OpenGC from Project Magenta (and indeed other cockpit efforts) is it's 
multi sim/platform support. While I do not wish to make product 
announcements for other projects, it is worth noting that this will 
likely _not_ be true for the indefinite future. Take that for what you 
will...

This means that OpenGC will soon need to offer a compelling feature 
set, rather than resting on the status of supporting everything under 
the sun. To that end, I have started to rethink the nature of OpenGC. I 
would caution everyone that these are _only_ preliminary thoughts and 
I'm primarily interested in soliciting feedback. In a nutshell, during 
the drive home today, I have debated adding a payware/closed source 
aspect to OpenGC. My reasons are as follows:

1) Closed source development creates a viable business model that would 
allow development of gauges for which there is a non-trivial 
development & distribution cost. For instance, gauges based around 
commercial terrain and map databases (for which there are no freeware 
alternatives).

2) The homebuilt aircraft/EGyro component of OpenGC developed this 
summer will need to be accompanied by physical hardware development, 
which will require purchase of hardware in the multi thousands of 
dollars range. I am unable to float the cost of this myself with no 
expectation of return (for obvious reasons), which would essentially 
block development of what I think is a potentially very valuable 
addition to general aviation.

If commercialization were to occur, and I emphasize IF, I propose the 
following:

1) All of the current OpenGC code would remain publicly available and 
licensed under the GPL.

2) Any code contributed by authors other than myself, and any code not 
part of but used by OpenGC that is GPL'd (i.e. Simgear) would not be 
included in any commercial product, to satisfy the GPL. Code which is 
not authored by me includes the 777 EICAS, 737 PFD and EICAS, and the 
original version of the FlightGear data source. According to CVS logs I 
am the only developer who has touched the majority of the other files; 
I am happy to provide documentation of this to anyone who asks.

3a) A full executable version of the commercial OpenGC that functions 
only with FlightGear (or any future open source simulators) would be 
available, free of charge, in perpetuity. This is to encourage 
development of open source simulators.

3b) A "lite" executable version of the commercial OpenGC, supporting a 
selection of generic gauges, would be available to the commercial 
simming community free of charge, to promote the hobby among younger 
simmers who are working on limited budgets.

4) The source code of OpenGC (the commercial version, perhaps with 
specific gauges removed), would be available to academic institutions 
and personnel free of charge, for use in teaching or research.

I believe that these changes would result in very little impact to the 
use of OpenGC within the freeware community. Very little gauge 
development has occurred within the past year by persons other than 
myself, leading me to believe that people are largely interested in 
_using_ OpenGC rather than designing within it. My personal goal of 
providing OpenGC as a teaching tool would continue with essentially 
zero modifications.

This leaves the following as potential targets for full 
commercialization:

1) Development of more polished gauges, more in line with the Project 
Magenta work, and any gauges which require data unavailable in free 
format.

2) The homebuilt aircraft market.

3) Custom gauge development, either on a contractual basis or by 
licensing a copy of the OpenGC source for commercial development.

Again, I caution everyone that this is not an announcement, merely a 
request for comments. Feedback is of course welcome, and I hope this 
does not come across as a criticism of those who HAVE contributed a 
great deal of their time to aspects of OpenGC's development (you know 
who you are).

Thanks in advance for any feedback, and remember, regardless of what 
happens:

1) OpenGC will remain free for use with free simulators, with the added 
benefit of the free version being supported by commercial development.

2) The source will remain available to students and educators, for 
non-commercial use.

3) I'm not out to price-gouge anyone (neither is Enrico, for that 
matter - really).

Cheers,
-Damion-
<donning flame retardant suit>

---------
Damion Shelton
The Open Source Glass Cockpit Project (OpenGC)
Carnegie Mellon University, Robotics Institute
http://www.opengc.org
da...@op...