Celestia Forums

Hey community!

I've been away from celestia for some time now, and since my return i've noticed that it's really becoming BIG. Virtual Textures add-ons, Nebulae etcetera. The forum has also become a mumbo jumbo of topics with no good place to look.

I've found that starting with a clean installation of Celestia and trying to get all the textures/add-ons etc together is really impossible. There's just too much to get. Servers down, many settings to take care of, make directories when installing etcetera.

The process has become really tedious and time consuming.

So what I'd really would like to see is a DVD release, heck i don't care if it'll cost me like $30 or so. I just want to put a DVD in my computer which then pumps like 3 gigabyte to my harddisk and gives me a complete and working version of Celestia. With mega high resolution textures.

I'm just wondering if anything like this is possible: everybody sending the textures to someone who then pieces together the DVD and burns it for shipment.

Let me know!

Oh and BTW it's not just for me, i think the entire community would benefit from a DVD like this.

Cheers,

Redfish

Well everybody reading it isn't going to help, so lemme know what you think.

Redfish,

One problem is going to be getting permission from all of the Addon authors. Remember that everything is copyrighted unless the author has specified otherwise. Many authors of Celestia Addons have explicitly released all rights to their creations. Many have not. And many would object strongly to other people making money from their hard work.

It's not going to be easy.

If one of the forum members did it, and only charged for the cost of the DVD, P&P, and a 10% or so commission ( ) i'd have no problems with it.

This clearly isn't a legal opinion here, but I would assume that all addon creators would have no problem having their stuff put on DVD if we knew who it was & could be sure they weren't ripping people off. In an ideal world, the person making up the disc could put on anything they wanted, unless someone specifically stated they didn't want their addons on it...

Or I could be completely off here?!

Well, this discussion has just prompted me to put another disclaimer on my web page. I'm apparently also going to have to add one to every script or help file I ever create too.

Don't know about the rest of you, but my work is free to anyone who wants it. However, if anyone tries to charge for my free work, I'm gonna be pissed. Time to get a lawyer involved?

Take care, Bob

Howdy Redfish,

The idea, is a good one. Howver, as Selden pointed out, implementing it could be a bit difficult. Not only from a legal standpoint, but also from a monetary and shipping viewpoint.

If a "price" is placed on the DVD, then every government in the world is going to want to get their share of taxes from its sale (VAT in Europe, Tax in the USA, etc.). Some countries may even charge import duties.

Taking credit cards for payment requires the person doing the work to have a company name, tax ID number, special bank accounts, and then they pay a transaction fee for every item paid by credit card. Some may also have to pay additional fees. So, the cost would be higher for a person using their credit card, than for a person sending a money order.

Then there are the multi-part forms to be filled out, in different ways for different countries, and for different carriers.

Selling things Internationally on the internet isn't pretty, or easy.

Thus, a Celestia DVD would probably need to be done by someone who is experienced in International Import/Export and has the facilities to do so.

Just my 2 cents worth.

-Don G.

I think part of the problem mentioned in the last post could be overcome by putting the disc out via E-bay and using pay pal, listing the disc under the "buy now" section.

So far as the tax/import duty angle is concerned, and speaking only from one experience of buying a PDA over E-bayfrom the USA (I live in the UK), none seems to be taken from goods worth less than GBP18.00 (approx USD32.00). I also discovered (again experience in the UK only) that if any tax or import duty is due, the post office would collect this from the purchaser on delivery.

Certainly international sales seem to work everyday on E-bay. It would still need someone to front it though........

Well occasionally I order stuff from the US and let it ship to the Netherlands. This only costs me shipping, no taxes. I pay with Paypal.

I also agree that anyone who makes add-ons has rights over these files. I Understand the point made by Bob Hegwood, his stuff is free but when someone sells that he gets pissed.

Addressing the issue of who gets what from the $30 dollars is quite difficult. Don't have a real idea about this... :?

I think it's a great idea. I am also overwhelmed by the number of addons, and would love a simple way of getting a high spec Celestia installation. Perhaps a better idea would be to build a DVD image - the DVD equivalent to a CD ISO) and distribute it over bittorrent or similar. Download bandwidth and dvd burner withstanding, I would find this immensely useful.

Redfish wrote:I also agree that anyone who makes add-ons has rights over these files. I Understand the point made by Bob Hegwood, his stuff is free but when someone sells that he gets pissed.

Redfish,

Just so you understand... It ain't just me either. Some of the packages I have available from my website also include textures from other people with whom I've made an agreement. A specific case in point would be Mario Rossi's Mars textures. I have an agreement with Mario. In this agreement, it is made very clear that Mario's texture are NOT to be sold under any circumstances.

If you have the resources available to offer a CD for distribution, why don't you just create a central repository website for all of the Celestia addons? That way, a user could simply go to one website to get what he/she wanted. Just a thought...

Thanks, Bob

If you have the resources available to offer a CD for distribution, why don't you just create a central repository website for all of the Celestia addons?

This is what the addon repository software was supposed to do, but all development of the idea seems to have died...

I wish someone would just put together a well organised list of as much available stuff as possible, with just a short description of what each is, a file size & a link. No need to search the forums trying out lots of different word combos just to find something you didn't want anyway...

billybob884 has something like this on his site, but it hasn't been updated in a good while & could be organised better etc..

I would do this if I had the time, but i just don't...

JackHiggins wrote:This is what the addon repository software was supposed to do, but all development of the idea seems to have died... :(

Nop, not dead yet, just very slow...

JackHiggins wrote:I wish someone would just put together a well organised list of as much available stuff as possible, with just a short description of what each is, a file size & a link.

I thought this was what Selden was trying to do with parts 1 and 2 of his web page (http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/).

The Celestia Add-On Repository is what is really needed, where the authors themselves are in charge of keeping their add-on information up-to-date (descriptions, updates, etc.). When someone else tries to do this for the entire add-on community, they find out what an overwhelming task it really is -- to keep up with every little change to every single Celestia add-on currently available -- web sites, pages and links going up and down; new pages/sites coming on-line; etc. It really is an enormous task.

This is where the Add-On Repository comes in, once it is available.

-Don G.

Christophe wrote:Nop, not dead yet, just very slow...

Since you are "the person in charge" on this sub-project, please let us know what we can do to help! There are other folks out here who want to be involved, but you're the one who needs to create and publish a "plan" as to what needs to be done and in what order, so others can contribute.

If you want some help with defining the plan, let's start a thread on the newsgroup, okay?

-Don G.

I thought this was what Selden was trying to do with parts 1 and 2 of his web page (http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/).

Ah- right- sorry selden (!), I didn't realise your list of addon sites had got so huge...! But I was talking more about the individual addons themselves, not just links to the sites...

The Celestia Add-On Repository is what is really needed, where the authors themselves are in charge of keeping their add-on information up-to-date (descriptions, updates, etc.).

Absolutely! It's just that authors forget to keep their listing up to date, leave the forum, etc, but yes the author is the best person to maintain their own info.

The only way it will ever work is if it is VERY heavily "promoted" and people are strongly encouraged to list their addons on it. If only a few people are using it, it'll never really get off the ground.

Here's a previous incarnation of the addon database: http://arnaud.macron.free.fr/recherche.php

Might be helpful for the new version, I don't know... Most of my addons are listed, but I only added 2 or 3 myself, not sure how the others got there...!

Anyway, it only has a few user sites listed, I don't really think it ever got that big...

Well of course a website that allows all creators to put their stuff on that site is great, problem however is that this site will generate HUGE amounts of traffic even if it's just an image file of a DVD.

Say we manage to get 3 GB into the image. 1000 ppl download it. That's 3000 GB. Excluding upgrades and new stuff. From what I found this will cost serious money. We also need good uploads and not lousy 1Mbps uploads you usually get.

So indeed maybe it's better to design a celestia subscription service to a certain server with these files on the internet. Problem is that it will get hacked somehow and the money needed for hosting the files is not achieved from subscribers.

Better still share the DVD ISO online, but still that image will have to be created first. It will solve the bandwidth problem, but I guess not a lot of ppl will be online to share it and guarantee good downloads. Updating this ISO will also be a problem, because everyone will have to get the new version.

Another problem is that, probable not everyone who makes add-ons will read this post. So the ISO will never be complete. A website, could always be updated with new material and updates of textures. However this still requires the user to do a lot of work with installing add-ons.

Ppl who say their add-on will never be sold or something, they just don't send it to the person who does the DVD or does the website, it's that simple. I myself wouldn't mind my work being distributed with a DVD or over the internet for some money but then i'd like to see a little bit in return.

So it's really a bit complex:

3 Options:
-DVD
-Website
-P2p Filesharing

Which one you think is best? P2P is the only one that could keep it entirely free but will not solve the reason why i'm asking for a DVD.

I Thought about it again, and well a list of add-ons like the one on the site of this french guy, don't know his name, sorry for now is quite good.

It has to have the following things: Log in for creators and Users.
Program to download the updates which are new. Download + auto install. So maybe a Celestia Add-on file format could be needed. So all you have to do is just Click on a list and say download + install and you just wait. With Resume support for the downloads!

Update tracker, so that new updates are visible on the site and ready for download.

Auto check for recency of the project, Monthly mail to the creator to verify the project.

Then there's only the bandwidth and hosting problem.

A Bittorrent seems perfect for this function. All that would be needed is a site, even with low bandwidth, to host the .torrent file and a catalog of its contents.

Kolano wrote:A Bittorrent seems perfect for this function. All that would be needed is a site, even with low bandwidth, to host the .torrent file and a catalog of its contents.

Yes bittorrent seems ideal for that, but I think you can't share more than 10 files at a time. More precisely you can't download more than 10 files and you need the server to be a seeder for each file.

If anyone has some experience with setting up a tracker, I have the server to host it.

Bittorrent is definitely NOT the solution... The torrents die too quickly. It's a nice way for blockbusters, that's all.

Actually, I run myself a huge amount of addons for emule, and even if at this time not enough people share the bigs textures (let's say... virtuals one ?), a lot of little textures and addons (under 20 Mb) are correctly shared.

I'm convinced that emule is THE p2p system needed for celestia. Now, I have to convince the celestia community

If Celestia users were supporting the downloads there would be no reason for the bittorrents to to ever die. I am personally happy to keep a big Celestia image shared constantly through Bittorrent if someone set up a tracker.

Bittorrents can share a nearly unlimited number of files as well. There is no 10 file limit as Christophe says. One may not be able to reasonably share 10 torrents at once, but once can share 1 torrent with many, many files in it. We'd just need 1 giant torrent that had everything in it, and a second torrent for incremental updates.