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

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

Hi,

Please be assured that I _am not_ making any claims of exclusivity 
regarding code within OpenGC. As I said, this is merely a request for 
comments, NOT a plan of action.

> Whoaa.. I seem to have a copy of an email where you expressed " I like 
> what
> you've done with the VVI"  so before you go making any claims of 
> exclusivity
> suggest you tread very lightly.  And there are several shots of a Nav
> Display circa Feb 2001 produced by myself. And there may have been 
> others
> that made incremental changes and contributions.  I don't think CVS 
> logs
> hold ground truth.

The current nav display, insofar as the map portion is concerned, was 
written entirely by myself, completely from scratch. It does not use 
any code from Simgear, nor is it based on the nav display contributed 
12 months ago by Jurgen and Michael. This can be easily verified by 
looking at the code in the CVS repository.

The overlay - VorCntr - is, as you point out, code you contributed some 
time ago. Again, I AM NOT claiming sole authorship of OpenGC; I would 
like to make this point extremely clear. In the presentation I gave at 
Avsim 3 days ago, I included a slide with the following credits:

John Wojnaroski (777 EICAS & FlightGr.)
Michael DeFeyter (737NG)
Jurgen Roeland (737NG)
Jeff Ray & PCFlightSystems (EGyro)
The many authors of the software libraries used by OpenGC

Also note that there are many files within OpenGC for which I am not 
even a contributing author, much less the original author, for instance 
ogc747EICAS.cpp, all of the 737 code, the FMC, MCP, and John's original 
navigation code (this is not an exhaustive list).

> Have not read all the details and finer points of the GPL but I think 
> you
> need the concurrence of ALL the developers and contributors (past and
> present) to make any changes to the license.

I agree. I am not _at all_ suggesting that the current license be 
changed for the code as it exists in the CVS repository. All of the 
current codebase would remain GPL'd forever. However, as I said, a good 
portion of OpenGC has _never_ been modified by a third party. The GPL 
merely states that if a license is changed on the file it must be done 
with the full agreement of all of the copyright holders (contributors) 
to that code. In many cases in OpenGC, particularly in the base portion 
of the code (the ogcGauge and ogcFontManager classes to name two), I am 
the sole copyright holder of the code. As I mentioned above, there are 
other cases where different authors are the sole copyright holder of 
the file in question.

This brings up a few issues I would like to raise for the community as 
to why I am considering close-sourcing this project at all. Contrary to 
what it might seem like, I am not discussing this for the sole purpose 
of pissing people off.

1) There have been _no_ CVS submissions by persons other than myself 
since mid-September of last year; the most recent submissions were by 
Jurgen and Michael, with their 737 code. They have since left OpenGC 
and started their own project. This means that for the past 12 months, 
I have been for all practical purposes the sole developer of OpenGC. As 
you might imagine, this is a bit frustrating, since the original intent 
of the project was to encourage submission of gauges from the 
community. I can only conclude that the community is (with a few 
notable exceptions, John included), not interested in contributing.

2) Despite the open source nature of FlightGear, no one has stepped 
forward to maintain the data source object. There has been only one 
significant change to that in previous 18 months - a rewrite I did of 
John's original data source using Plib instead of Unix code - so I can 
only conclude that the actual level of interest in home cockpit 
construction using FlightGear and OpenGC is similarly low. A good deal 
of the code that originally worked with FlightGear - the FMC and MCP - 
has been non functional for nearly a year because of lack of support.

I raise these points not as a criticism, merely as an observation. I am 
not attempting to belittle anyone's contributions to OpenGC, but the 
fact remains that for the past 12 months very little has been 
contributed by the sim community at large. If there is not enough 
interest in this sort of project to create a viable product using open 
source methods, then it may be time to move the project in a different 
direction.

A few final points that bear repeating:
1) I have been careful to credit other developers both publicly and in 
the source code.
2) I have NO INTENTION of ever using code contributed or modified by 
persons other than myself in a commercial product.
3 These are discussions only; I have no interest in running off with 
OpenGC in the cover of night. If this were my goal, I would not be 
soliciting feedback.

Cheers,
-Damion-

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