CELESTIA IN THE FUTURE

[FarGetaNik]

t00fri, I'm a bit frustrated with your statements. All we have for now avaliable is the good old Celestia. Naturally, there is a desire to improve this program. For I while I thought Celestia.Sci might actually replace it, but for now the progress on Celestia 1.7 is more comprehendable. It seems you leaving Celestia for Celestia.Sci was one of the key points why developement stopped, but I can only speculate. Now that none of the original creators are left (apparently?) it's hard to catch up from there. Talking about how superior Celestia.Sci would be doesn't help anyone.

At this point it is probably too late to unite the projects, but won't it be possible to at least cooperate?

Clearly, what you request, would only have a chance of success, if we'd manage to set up a formal agreement about mutual collaboration (rather than competition). At the same time it must be made clear who has the saying at the development front! Moreover, it must be made clear who is entitled to speak on behalf of your community.

Can you give a more clear suggestion? This doesn't sound very promising. How would such an agreement look like respecting the community? Are we getting political now on an open source project?

[t00fri]

t00fri, I'm a bit frustrated with your statements.

For I while I thought Celestia.Sci might actually replace it, but for now the progress on Celestia 1.7 is more comprehendable.

From where do you know this? In my CelestialMatters site, the celestia.Sci development proceeds behind a wall through which you or other non-team members cannot see.

I don't even know who of you is entitled to speak for your community. Anyway, I do represent celestia.Sci. celestia.Sci is a fork and a priori has no formal ties anymore with Celestia.
So who is your Lead developer to talk to?? In the end one will have to talk about licenses and all that. We are close to going public with celestia.Sci, yet my collaborators are busy through part of the summer.. Also you should realize that we are NOT developing Celestia but another program that is mostly downward compatible with Celestia.

It seems you leaving Celestia for Celestia.Sci was one of the key points why developement stopped,

No no, we had years of peaceful coexistence. I used to announce celestia.Sci progress in shatters.net as you may easily check. I also kept my close relation to Chris Laurel. But in the end when Chris explored new business horizons and a "Starwars" invasion entered the shatters.net forum, I simply left.

Cheers,
Fridger

[Alexell]

Can you give a more clear suggestion? This doesn't sound very promising. How would such an agreement look like respecting the community? Are we getting political now on an open source project?

I do not want to interfere with Fridger's project and make him uncomfortable.
I would have been enough if Friger could sometimes devote a little time and help with problems and mistakes that I can not correct myself due to lack of knowledge.

Added after 4 minutes 42 seconds:
t00fri, As I already wrote somewhere with screenshots, Chris Laurel allowed me to coordinate the project, gave me the website, helped to reborn the forum, and also said to make a repository on GitHub, instead of the obsolete SourceForge.
Why me? Because no one else wanted. I do not have enough knowledge of C ++ for Celestia development, but I'm an enthusiast and I always wanted Celestia to live. So I was able to do something useful for Celestia.

Added after 1 minute 39 seconds:
I do not want to inconvenience you, I just want to ask you for a little help, because you are one of the founders of the project and know the code well.

Added after 1 minute 15 seconds:
In any case, I am ready to consider any options for cooperation and related issues.

[t00fri]

Hi Alexell,

many thanks for your understanding approach to this tricky problem...
Unfortunately, I don't have a practical vision in front of me, yet.

You have been rarely seen here, recently. Is it true that you are currently on the way to becoming a "Pop star"?

Cheers,
Fridger

[Alexell]

t00fri, I have several activities, including programming, sound-production, vocal and other. But Celestia I started studying at school, so I appreciate this project and want it to develop. I was not at the forum for a while, partly because I was upset that I could not make some changes related to Locations, and also I can not build QT5. Of course there were other reasons.

Added after 3 minutes 19 seconds:
I am ashamed that I have not been here for more than a month, but I feel helpless. You are working on your project, I could not get help from other Celestia developers, but we just do not have enough knowledge and do not have enough people.
Forgive me, I do everything in my power and can not do what I do not know how.

[john71]

t00fri By the way, I suspect (but I can be wrong of course) that probably we (as Celestia community) will be one of the primary users of celestia.Sci too...but I don't think that this would make a limited help from your side a self-defeating act...on the contrary, a limited goodwill gesture and help would be in my opinion good for everyone...

[t00fri]

Alexell,

here is a first possibly practical proposal:

I suggest you and others try motivating the celestiaproject members to have a regular look at my celestialmatters.org forum in this thread at least:

Glancing at celestia.Sci
http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=910

Since a couple of days I have started to expose various new celestia.Sci features before public availability.
It would certainly be very useful if at least the more active users of your community would make comments and/or contemplate the idea that these features might become part of the new software... ;-)

Cheers,
Fridger

[Alexell]

t00fri, It's not a problem. But how it will help the development of our Celestia source?

[john71]

We need a point of mutual benefit I guess...a useful compromise...

[Alexell]

john71, I agree, but in this case Friger wrote only half of the mutually beneficial proposal.

[john71]

Alexell, yes, that's what I see too, I agree.

[Alexell]

I can make a topic-ad and give a link to the topic of the celestialmatters forum.

[t00fri]

Alexell,

in my view this option that I or the celestia.Sci team members help here and there to find bugs or give coding hints will hardly work! For example, I know of many bugs in the old Celestia 1.6.x code that we have eliminated in the course of time. It will be unsurmountably difficult for us, to help but never to insert the respective code from celestia.Sci.. ;-)

Also our time scale is very tight and in coding there is never enough time available. So helping out a bit with coding if your guys are stuck is an illusion. Hence if we manage to get together somehow, only a "unified" approach might have a chance.

Cheers,
Fridger

[FarGetaNik]

In my CelestialMatters site, the celestia.Sci development proceeds behind a wall through which you or other non-team members cannot see.

And that's exactly the problem. With Celestia, I can test versions of the programs in various states of developement and get hyped by what I see. There was nothing avaliable of Celestia.sci, as you actively removed any leaked content. Naturally, I am more invested in good old Celestia for that reason.

I suggest you and others try motivating the celestiaproject members to have a regular look at my celestialmatters.org forum in this thread at least:

I regulary visit the other forum, but I didn't yet feel invested in anything going on there. I thought about joining while shatters was down, but your community didn't feel welcoming at all for casual Celestia users like me. Are you expecting constructive critizism or just praise of your work? Because there is nothing really to comment about with so little information avaliable. What I can see on these screenshots could also be implemented in Celestia (and has been done with various addons and extensions).

Also our time scale is very tight and in coding there is never enough time available.

We are all working on our free time anyways. Of course we would need a dedicated, talented programmer first to make this work. Then tips from someone like you can be beneficial without much investigation on your side.

[t00fri]

FarGetaNik,

to me your writing sounds (unnecessarily) aggressive and tends to block potentially constructive exchanges from the start.

Fridger

[john71]

t00fri, Please think it over from this perspective: what is the main difference between the users of Celestia, Gaia Sky, Cosmographia and Space Engine?

Space Engine is an unrealistic proto-game in a plastic eye-candy universe (somehow cheesy).

Gaia Sky is a scientific representation tool for the ESA Gaia mission (interesting but too restricted and has no full scale database).

Cosmographia is a solar system simulator (accurate, nice, but boring).

So, what is Celestia then?

Celestia is

1.) a 3D celestial content maker, the best, the brightest, the most ingenious
2.) an easy to use programming tool to create fictional, but realistic astronomical worlds
3.) the most versatile programmable 3D space simulator software.

Five key words: versatile, content, create, programmable, realistic.

These 5 words are keeping alive Celestia.

You cannot get the same satisfaction from Space Engine, Gaia Sky or Cosmographia.

First you should tell us: are those five words important to you and to the celestia.Sci project?

[FarGetaNik]

t00fri, if my writing sounds agressive to you, you won't want to hear what I really think about that matter. I'm just trying to stay polite, but of course it's easier for you to dismiss everything by such a statement.

john71, you have a point here. There is many astronomy software out there and we have to focus on the things Celestia does better. Celestia.Sci for now has no target groop apart from its programmers, at least not that I am aware of.

[Cham]

LOLMAO ! You guys are so funny !

Still beating a dead horse !

[john71]

It ain't dead.

https://apps.alexell.ru/celestia/bin/x64/

[Janus]

Even if it did die.
Like any open source project, it is only one compilitopsy from resurrection.
Though a case could be mode for compilotopsy I guess.

The ongoing discussion here proves that although the project is lethargic, it is not dead.
The questions remains though, what is celestia for?
If it is for content creation as has been posited, then what if anything does it need added or fixed to help with that.
If it has another purpose, then what does that purpose need, and how much of it does celestia already have?

I intend to use it for content creation, and study.
I have my own list of needs and wants.
In my case, I have to visualize in order to learn, and celestia enables me to visualize, then play with the parameters, and revisualize.

Now the question is, who else has a use/goal/vision for it?
Then, what do those require, and what does celestia already have?
Without at least guidelines, there can be no movement.
Goals work better though.

So, what is right with Celestiaa, and what is wring with it?
What are its limitations?


Janus.