Experimental Celestia

[Paolo]

Time passes by, its July the second here in Italy. Very early morning indeed.

Someone else has voted. Percentages are almost unchanged.
Number of visits in the Poll is high, number of votes is still low.
No one else has posted negative comments.
The Experimental Celestia forum is ready to start.
Today I'll write some documentation.
If in the meantime won't happen nothing, the day after tomorrow CELUI CVS will host Experimental Celestia.

So everyone that wants to discuss, develop and share bleeding-edge Celestia code will be formally invited.

In the documentation there will be a set of roles required by the Experimental Celestia, so beside C++ and OpenGL coders there will be space for other volunteers and supporters.

A very important thing that I forgot since now, I'll give some support and I'll keep some control over the CVS, I'll propose some basic rules but I won't be the "Team Leader" of the project. This role, like every other thing in Experimental Celestia will be decided democratically.

[BlindedByTheLight]

Hey Paulo... just wanted to chime in something. I think you were right that people weren't voting because an option didn't include supporting the branching for non-coders. That is why I did not vote originally. And, now that everyone interested has probably read the the posting and are ignoring it, you're not going to get many new readers.

Maybe update the choices, then do a new post in a new thread referencing it so you can get all those hundreds of eyes to look at the voting again?

[Paolo]

Hi Steven,
perhaps another poll should be the right choice in order to have a higher number of votes. But on the other hand I think it is unconfortable to ask to the people to re-vote for almost the same thing.

If we suppose that at least the half of the voters that have answered "yes" will join Experimental Celestia I think that they are enough for starting. If the project will have success someone else will join in.

So let see what will happen in these two days. Perhaps Chris will be back.

[BlindedByTheLight]

Hi Steven,
perhaps another poll should be the right choice in order to have a higher number of votes. But on the other hand I think it is unconfortable to ask to the people to re-vote for almost the same thing.

I suppose one could look at it that way... but I'm from Chicago originally and our motto in elections (especially in the 70's) always was "Vote early... and vote often!"

[ElChristou]

Poalo,

Are the non coders invited to your "experiment"?
(I quite interested in following what will happen on this new forum...)

[MB]

Hi Paolo,
Following the El Christou point,
I also gave a positive and anthousiastic answer to your initiative as very interested to but not really able to participate to the professional coding as used in Celestia, although as (experimental) physicist I have a long (very long actually but simple) coding experience. and even makes some small personal alteration to the celestia code long time ago (colored eclipses :wink: )
And now I am(apparently) able to compile successfully celestia code under Windows XP :oops: and would be pleased to help you in your audacious project.
I obviously regret the non participation of Fridger and not undersand at all his reason.
MB

[doctorjoe]

My sourceforge user name is drjoe

I'd like to get my unofficial patches in.

[Paolo]

Poalo,

Are the non coders invited to your "experiment"?
(I quite interested in following what will happen on this new forum...)

Hi El Christou
Everyone that can give a positive effort will be invited. In my mind there are several roles that has to be covered in experimental Celestia, so not only coders should be actively involved, but also testers, debuggers, document writers and so on.
But be aware there will be some requirements and rules to be admitted in the team.
And obviously If someone won't have write permissions on CVS it does not mean that them won't be able to follow the discussion threads in the forums.

[Paolo]

Hi Paolo,
...
I obviously regret the non participation of Fridger and not undersand at all his reason.
MB

Hi MB
Please see the previous answer to El Christou.
I don't think that Fridger will remain outside the project. I can understand his doubts perfectly, but I feel confident that he will be one of the team if I will be able to demostrate that I will get the things under way very seriously. And so others like him.

[Paolo]

My sourceforge user name is drjoe

I'd like to get my unofficial patches in.

Hi DoctorJoe
I would like too, and I would like to include the Toti's ones and the latest Fridger's ones about galaxy rendering, and all the latest that are circulating the forums lately.

And so on.... since we will exhaust all the bugs and all the ideas. It will be a never ending story with the purpose of having as much fun possible for everyone that will be involved.

[ElChristou]

Paolo,

I think I will register on your forum, but stay "in the shadow" , as observer...
Also, I think you should open a thread in the official forum to inform users here on what's going on (perhaps people won't browse the two forums daily, and will loose some important test or interesting stuff...)

Bye

[Paolo]

In Experimental Celestia Policy forum I've posted some drafts for the rules to participate to the project.
Are drafts so work in progress documents suitable for changes and large improvements. If you want to post a comment you are welcome!
Today I'll write some other documents about communication rules.

[d.m.falk]

Paulo, you actually caused me to register here, so I can say something.

(This is my first post after lurking unregistered for the last 4 months- Yes, 4 months....)

Anyhoo....

Being that this is an open-source project (I believe under the terms of GPL, although there are other open-source licenses out there, too), this means any Celestia development need not be restricted to just Cris' team (although Celestia proper is his). This means alternative Celestia projects are allowable, as long as it does not claim the Celestia, and gives Cris, et al, proper credit for the code used.

I'm not a coder, myself- I don't even know how to compile existing code, nor do I have the diskspace on my HD to install a compiler. (If I had a way of running as compiler with all libraries from CD, that would be fine- as long as I find out how to compile raw code, not just CVS. (I'm on WinME at the moment, but will be going to Mac later this year, when I can find a good deal and manage to get credit, on a G4 iMac- Needed, due to my eyesight problems.) I am, however, interested in following the development, and perhaps do occasional testing and offer input where I can.

Based on my experience, I think your decision to use GLUT is a good one, since I've used a few GLUT-based programs, and they do run faster than OpenGL, plus it's device-independent-- Definitely important, IMO, due to hardware inconsistancies and lack of support for OpenGL 2.0 on most machines- Like my 2001-vintage Dell laptop, which I'm currently using.

Although I'd like to see your project more-or-less integrated here, on this forum, so the entire Celestia community can be involved, rather than splintering off the discussio9n. (The project itself- More power to you, man! Celestia has been WAY too stagnant and in needv of constant input!)

Now, as to development, I think instead of a team per-se, it should be open to all for input and review, where the code wouldn't be limited, and both professionals and amateurs, both in space sciences and coding, can participate openly. As for integration to a common CVS, this can be done through administration and submission processes, so if someone- even me- could contribute something, and it's worth adding, it will be added by a CVS administrator after review.

I, for one, have been frustrated with Celestia's limitations as a user, both for intrasolar and extrasolar exploration. (Such as the whole orbit issue!), and the speed of rendering on a 1GHz laptop- GLUT is faster than OpenGL.

And yes, I do get the impression of Celestia, in its current form, as "closed", and that's not good.

d.m.f.

[Paolo]

Hi D.m.f.

Thanks for the support. But I have to give you all some more details.

Of course Experimental Celestia will have the same licensing terms of Celestia and obviously it will give all the necessary credits to Chris and to the current official development team.
If somenone can give some support in order to prevent violation of the licensing terms please post some additional comments.

But this is not the point. At present time Experimental Celestia won't be for final or end users but the indented audience is for developers only. So there won't be any installation package or distribution of executables if not absolutely necessary for wide spread testing. So to get executables you'll need to deal with CVS and a compiler.
In a future I don't know. Perhaps someone will distribute unofficial executables like Steven (Blinded by the Light) did.

There is another reason why I've decided to create other forums beside availability, continuity and speed. Since Experimental Celestia at present time is completely independent from Chris and he pays to keep shatters.net on-line, I don't think that is polite to use these forums also if the project that I'm going to start is strictly related.

The choice of GLUT is related only to aim the purpose of development of core multiplatform functionalities beside the additional complexities of modern GUI environments such WinXP, KDE and so.
But Experimental Celestia will implement all the current OpenGL 2.0 features. GLUT is only a multiplatform basic layer between the underlying operative system and OpenGL. The GLUT executable are lighter end perhaps faster because do not contain any GUI implementation code.
To be more clear and do not give to anyone false expectations this means that at present time no mouse driven point and click menus, dialogs and so on are planned to be available in the Experimental Celestia. But if someone will be interested, the creation of versions with traditional GUI's will be very easy to implement starting from the official Celestia ones.

[Paolo]

Here in Italy is late night and is July the 4th.
As promised now CELUI CVS hosts the current Celestia code.
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/c ... /celestia/
The sourceforge viewCVS server will be updated within some hours.

So the Experimental Celestia project is officially opened and everyone that is interested in joining the team is officially invited.

In the forums at: http://18.freebb.com/index.php?freebb=celui
I've posted the drafts of the rules for participating the project. These rules must to be considered as work in progress and are subject to further changes and improvements accordingly with the comments that will arrive.

The current commited code is almost useless because there isn't any makefile in CVS.
This will be the first task for the volunteers that will be interested in joining the project: create the makefile for the largest number of platforms using the largest number of different compilers and IDE environments.
For all these platforms will be written a brief tutorial in the tools forum in order to reduce the initial impact to any other contributor that in a future will be interested in joining the project.

Moreover there are many roles available in Experimental Celestia. You can even help me correcting my poor english and allowing other people to better understand the basic rules of Experimental Celestia !


So come on people we are going to start

[d.m.falk]

Hi D.m.f.

H'lo...

Thanks for the support. But I have to give you all some more details.

Of course Experimental Celestia will have the same licensing terms of Celestia and obviously it will give all the necessary credits to Chris and to the current official development team.
If somenone can give some support in order to prevent violation of the licensing terms please post some additional comments.

My mentioning this was more in response to Fridger than to you. (I just don't like the closed-mindedness of some that are here, though.)

But this is not the point. At present time Experimental Celestia won't be for final or end users but the indented audience is for developers only. So there won't be any installation package or distribution of executables if not absolutely necessary for wide spread testing. So to get executables you'll need to deal with CVS and a compiler.
In a future I don't know. Perhaps someone will distribute unofficial executables like Steven (Blinded by the Light) did.

Then what is the point of development? Celestia is a tool, not just a pile of code to toss around- Treat it as such! You need the feedback of those who actually intend to use the software, which is why this and that get developed- So something can be made useful and practical. (In the case of Celestia- any implementation of it- anything from educational to astrophisical theory to eye candy to monitoring probe and planetary conditions, and so forth.)

(I'm a part-time science-fiction writer by hobby-- Celestia is just such a tool I need for stellar and planetary positions. I am also a life-long space enthusiast, despite my visual impairment, spanning most of my 40 years.)

Development is a means to an end, not an end unto itself. This is why many write software- So they can have something useful, and in some cases, share it.

I have no problem with the CVS issue- That's easy. My contention here is that you don't seem interested in the end product, only the further development of it...or at least that's how I interpret what you're saying, here.

There is another reason why I've decided to create other forums beside availability, continuity and speed. Since Experimental Celestia at present time is completely independent from Chris and he pays to keep shatters.net on-line, I don't think that is polite to use these forums also if the project that I'm going to start is strictly related.

The only way you can be "completely independent from Chris" is to not use ANY of the source code that either he wrote, or modified, himself. (Same with anyone else from the rest of the current team.)

Because of the nature of open source, though (and the point I was trying to get at earlier), Celestia development need not be dependent on one person or group of people to be continually developed, and can be forked off into new projects under new/alternative names without any further approval. Alteratively, you don't need Chris' or anytone else's input, as long as you adhere to the open-source license (there are copies of the GPL license available in many languages, so you need not have to rely on the Engli8sh-language edition to understand what conditions thjis software is developed and distributed under) when using the existing source code.

Basicly, if you feel something is wrong or missing in Celestia, you CAN do something about it.

The choice of GLUT is related only to aim the purpose of development of core multiplatform functionalities beside the additional complexities of modern GUI environments such WinXP, KDE and so.
But Experimental Celestia will implement all the current OpenGL 2.0 features. GLUT is only a multiplatform basic layer between the underlying operative system and OpenGL. The GLUT executable are lighter end perhaps faster because do not contain any GUI implementation code.
To be more clear and do not give to anyone false expectations this means that no mouse driven point and click menus, dialogs and so on will be available in the Experimental Celestia.

GLUT is a graphics library (the GL in GLUT and OpenGL) that was developed for rapid renderiing of 3D graphics, particularly in videogames, where speed of the rendering is critical. It is platform (and hardware) independent, only requiring the inclusion of the GLUT library when compiling, which I think is also GPL or some other open-source license. It's not standard issue with most C/C++ compilers, but you can find it freely.

(The only other issue I have with Celestia, in terms of development, is that it does need to to be more C++-compiler independent, rather than just MS Visual C under Windows, with limited interpretation in Linux/Mac platforms. Even though I use Windows, I'd rather not use Microsoft, and prefer something free, like Borland or GNU C++ (with a UI that a novice such as myself can deal with).)

Remember, even though CVS compiling is relatively simple, even for a novice, you still need feedback from someone who actually will use it, even if they're not a deeveloper.

d.m.f.

[doctorjoe]

Can you incorporate the current celestia CVS code, specifically the GUI code?

The gui code is independent of the celengine, but having it around makes sure that the underlying celengine changes are compatilble the the top level GUI.

[Paolo]

Hi D.m.f.

You are right on many concepts but as you can see from the poll results about 1/3 of the voters says that they are not enthusiasts of forking Celestia, they prefer to wait. Even if the fork that I've proposed is a "semi-fork". It this necessary to take care about this.

And this is the point, as already said before, at present time I mean that Experimental Celestia to be as not a real fork, that will continue its life somewhat independently from Celestia creating programs for end-users like you have described correctly.
I mean it to be a space where new and old developers will exchange ideas and implementation waiting to see if Chris will be back. I don?€™t want to brake the connection with Celestia at all, and I don't want to tear away developers from Celestia definitively. In an ideal solution I would like that the official Celestia developers (even Chris) will participate both the projects. So Experimental Celestia is really a tool to toss around experimental code in order to discuss about it!

I know that feedback is requested by users so in Experimental Celestia are opened the Testing Roles. Those roles are opened for everyone that will be able to compile the code. And there will be detailed instructions on how to do this. Moreover will be supported the largest number possible of compilers and IDE environments.

But all of these things are explained with details as draft documents in the Experimental Celestia Policy forums.

Kind regards.

[Paolo]

Hi DoctorJoe

Sorry but I don't understand your request. Which GUI file do you mean?
Glutcelestia and Celestiacore are already included.

At present time platform specific GUI file (such Windows, KDE, Gnome, MacOsX) won't be included in Experimental Celestia CVS as declared many times in this thread and as stated in the Policy forum drafts. In a future maybe, I don't know. This has to be decided by the members of the team. Of course if someone will joint the team! No one did it yet! .

So at present time the compatibility of the GUI code has to be tested locally in your sandbox using the current official Celestia code.

Kind regards.

[t00fri]

Hi DoctorJoe

Sorry but I don't understand your request. Which GUI file do you mean?
Glutcelestia and Celestiacore are already included.

At present time platform specific GUI file (such Windows, KDE, Gnome, MacOsX) won't be included in Experimental Celestia CVS as declared many times in this thread and as stated in the Policy forum drafts. In a future maybe, I don't know. This has to be decided by the members of the team. Of course if someone will joint the team! No one did it yet! .

So at present time the compatibility of the GUI code has to be tested locally in your sandbox using the current official Celestia code.

Kind regards.

Paulo,

I strongly agree with DJ as to providing the /full/ Celestia code including GUI. Quite a few modifications e.g. in celestiacore.cpp have interfered in the past with the existing GUI codes. So one HAS to check the GUI stuff in parallel.

Also there are very important missing coding tasks that refer to GUI work: notably an extension of Celestia's browser to be able to profit from all the great multiple star enhancements, including all my 1000's of binary orbits. One urgently needs a browser to find and administrate these binaries!

Also a graphical tool for loading and unloading of specific catalog data is very overdue. Similarly, grid display enhancements and cursor coordinate readouts...All these things need some work at least on the OS-dependent GUI code.

By the way, this "personal page" you requested including photo and lots of personal information, in my view is just too "hot" for the internet! This sort of thing is highly unusual for good reasons. In the Celestia developer team we were "friends" and collaborated well also without all this superfluous info. If there is desire for exchanging private information, everyone can always do that via PM|email.

Another thought: knowing Chris and his generic reluctance of working too much on other people's code (patches) my prediction is that a reunification of Experimental Celestia and Offiicial Celestia will become effectively impracticable after a decent amount of new code has been accumulated. Since the only astrophysics expert around seems to be DJ, I am having great doubts, who else might be able to take responsability for the new code's correctness as to physics and astrophysics!?

My galaxy development work with Toti (and Chris) will be committed /as usual/ into the /official/ Celestia CVS tree, once it has reached a certain level of performance. This also holds for my updates of Titan, Japetus etc stuff. I shall continue in this forum to report in regular intervals on respective progress. Chris definitely plans to release version 1.40 in the near future.

I have been a developer and author of Celestia since > 3 years. Despite the arguments presented, I see no convincing reason to commit my Celestia stuff elsewhere. As soon as I find some time, I shall discuss with Chris about his views in connection with Experimental Celestia and the official one...

Nevertheless, I wish good luck to all involved in the new Celestia forking project. Do you plan to make the new CVS code downloadable to all people outside the team?

Bye Fridger