What would be needed to go to a full 1.5.0 release?

[hank]

Look at it this way. If Chris posted a message here to us saying he was dropping Celestia personally but was freely turning it over to us all ... would we be unable to move it forward satisfactorily without him ... or would we eventually work it all out and come out with a top quality 1.5.0 release?

If it is the latter case, then ....

:?

... then what? Are you suggesting we could go ahead and try to "work it all out and come out with a top quality 1.5.0 release" without waiting for Chris?

- Hank

[t00fri]

Look at it this way. If Chris posted a message here to us saying he was dropping Celestia personally but was freely turning it over to us all ... would we be unable to move it forward satisfactorily without him ... or would we eventually work it all out and come out with a top quality 1.5.0 release?

If it is the latter case, then ....

... then what? Are you suggesting we could go ahead and try to "work it all out and come out with a top quality 1.5.0 release" without waiting for Chris?

- Hank

Of course we could do this if there was any motivation. No doubt whatsoever.

But I am not willing like last time (cf. Celestia-FT-1.x two years ago while Chris had vanished for 1 year!) to work for half a year put some nice (galaxy) code together and then Chris reappears one day and commits it all under his own name and copyright! And everybody continues as usual under his guidance.

As I said earlier. This time I will rather invest the time
in a project that /I/ want to become reality.

And to put it straight: I am just SICK of these "hide and seek" games...



Bye Fridger

[hank]

Of course we could do this if there was any motivation. No doubt whatsoever.

But I am not willing like last time (cf. Celestia-FT-1.x two years ago while Chris had vanished for 1 year!) to work for half a year put some nice (galaxy) code together and then Chris reappears one day and commits it all under his own name and copyright! And everybody continues as usual under his guidance.

As I said earlier. This time I will rather invest the time
in a project that /I/ want to become reality.

And to put it straight: I am just SICK of these "hide and seek" games...

So unfortunately we would be without the help of Fridger as well as Chris if we tried to proceed with a Celestia 1.5.0 release. Anyone else have thoughts about this?

- Hank

[ElChristou]

So unfortunately we would be without the help of Fridger as well as Chris if we tried to proceed with a Celestia 1.5.0 release. Anyone else have thoughts about this?

Anyway, only you dev guys can decide what to do. Us common user can only support or not the decision. IF you guys can release a decent 1.5.0, why not? Perhaps this will shake a bit Chris and then? Apparently he log here from time to time, so he must know very well what are the last comments. Such silence may be considered as a green light, or not? Else he would write something without a doubt, no?

[hank]

Anyway, only you dev guys can decide what to do. Us common user can only support or not the decision. IF you guys can release a decent 1.5.0, why not?

I think this would have to be a community effort. There are many ways that non-developers could contribute if they'd be willing to get involved. Volunteers?

- Hank

[fsgregs]

I sympathize with Fridger here in many ways. Unless he is laying in a hospital bed with two broken arms, there is NO reason that Chris Laurel should not be making some comment here and letting everyone know the status of this project. His failure to do so is simply ... well ... bullshit!

It is unprofessional and insulting to the millions of followers of Celestia, and the handful of dedicated developers who have worked with him to improve "his" creation. Given Fridger's many unanswered emails to him, and the many posts on this forum, I must conclude he is aware of this thread and the many others that have requested some input from him, and is choosing to shaft us all!

I don't know what to do about it, but I for one strongly vote to continue 1.5.0, get it into final form and release it on an alternative website. I know nothing about C++ and simply could not make much of a contribution other than serving as a beta tester, but I am willing to help anyone who wishes to continue to breathe life into Celestia.

Frankl

[hank]

I sympathize with Fridger here in many ways. Unless he is laying in a hospital bed with two broken arms, there is NO reason that Chris Laurel should not be making some comment here and letting everyone know the status of this project. His failure to do so is simply ... well ... bullshit! :x

It is unprofessional and insulting to the millions of followers of Celestia, and the handful of dedicated developers who have worked with him to improve "his" creation. Given Fridger's many unanswered emails to him, and the many posts on this forum, I must conclude he is aware of this thread and the many others that have requested some input from him, and is choosing to shaft us all!

I don't know what to do about it, but I for one strongly vote to continue 1.5.0, get it into final form and release it on an alternative website. I know nothing about C++ and simply could not make much of a contribution other than serving as a beta tester, but I am willing to help anyone who wishes to continue to breathe life into Celestia.

Frankl

Frank,

I understand your frustration, and I can't say it doesn't seem justified. I hope Chris will eventually be able to let us know what's going on. But in the meantime I think it would be best just to assume that he's busy with other things, and unavailable to work on Celestia for an indefinite period, and see if there's any way to make progress on Celestia without his active participation.

- Hank

[Hungry4info]

Maybe he's just watching us to see what happens when he leaves for a little while.

[bdm]

Perhaps we should fork the code. In the code fork we implement bug fixes and any new features deemed important by all or that Chris has previously approved. This version can become the next release candidate.

If the code is forked in this way, then Chris is no longer essential to Celestia, and his absence would no longer be an impediment to the release of new versions. When (or if) he returns, he can choose to approve any code changes. If he chooses not to return, the forked version can then become the new Celestia.

At present the organisational structure for Celestia is somewhat lacking in contingency plans. If Chris is hit by a proverbial bus, that should not be an impediment to future development. Celestia is good enough to be used by some of the major space agencies. Software of such esteem needs a more resilient political structure than it currently has.

[Cham]

There are many ways that non-developers could contribute if they'd be willing to get involved. Volunteers?

Well, I'm already a strong beta tester since a long time... Testers are very important too !

[Christophe]

Perhaps we should fork the code. In the code fork we implement bug fixes and any new features deemed important by all or that Chris has previously approved. This version can become the next release candidate.

I don't see the need for a fork. We have commit rights to the cvs repository, who said a release could only be done by Chris? Sure there is a sort of tacit agreement on that, but that could be reconsidered if he is not giving any sign of coming back.

[ElChristou]

...There are many ways that non-developers could contribute if they'd be willing to get involved. Volunteers?...

What do you have in mind? for non dev/coder users, apart debugging (thing that almost all "active" member already do), what could we do?

IF you, Christophe and Fridger are ok to go on, this is a good start. What about DW and Pat? It would be nice to ask also Grant who is an important person for the database...

[t00fri]

Honestly, friends,

Hank's anonymous "call for the masses" makes little sense at this time.

Such a venture cannot succed without thorough coordination and some people knowing both the Celestia code very well AND the underlying astrophysics.

Suppose I turn towards other projects, as planned, I don't see anyone around with the astrophysics background required to guide/coordinate the remaining SERIOUS issues with Mie planetary atmospheres, surface colors & skylight, the required improvements of star rendering, the frame dependence of orbit displays, CMOD issues, etc., just to name a few not quite trivial things ahead.

On the other hand...
----------------------------------
At CelestialMatters we could certainly do quite a lot of things, IN PRINCIPLE!

For example, we have enough fast storage and a proven VERY reliable server to easily establish another local CVS archive for Celestia development, PROVIDED, the three of us consider this option worthwhile, reasonable and strategically sound!

In addition, we have recently created a (PHPbb ) CM Forum that becomes more lively every day ... 29 active shatters.net members are registered users already. Selden, for example, has agreed to make some of his vast forum experience available as a Supporting Advisor...
----------------------------------

Yet...

The decision about this hard and delicate question is certainly NOT much influenced by some of you "crying" Celestia must not die ! .

In view of the fact that organizing an alternative development environment for Celestia is quite a bit of work, let me address just some of the HARD issues we have to contemplate about:

• What would be the longer-time prospects of such an effort? Suppose after building all this new structure up, what if Chris reappears one day (like ~2 years ago, when he was hiding for ~ 1 year)?
  
• Such an initiative could surely serve as a good lesson for Chris L., NOT to leave a community of loyal devs, contributors, testers forum moderators...fans.. hanging in the void for a long unspecified period of time!
  
• Since Chris L. is presumably following any major activities here, my educated guess is that he would rather quickly reappear on the scene, once the "removal" of Celestia Development and Forum to Celestial Matters would be imminent!
  
• Another important issue is whether anything about Celestia's licence has changed or is changing in the context of Chris L.'s probable paid contracting work related to Celestia.

These few items of many others are just to illustrate that I DID consider various possible and drastic reactions to the present frustrating situation...yet it is VERY hard to arrive at a convincing conclusion!

Cheers,
Fridger

[ElChristou]

... I don't see anyone around with the astrophysics background required to guide/coordinate the remaining SERIOUS issues with Mie planetary atmospheres, surface colors & skylight, the required improvements of star rendering, the frame dependence of orbit displays, CMOD issues, etc., just to name a few not quite trivial things ahead.

... I thought you were able to handle the torch at this level...

These few items of many others are just to illustrate that I DID consider various possible and drastic reactions to the present frustrating situation...yet it is VERY hard to arrive at a convincing conclusion!

Before more drastic decision, I suppose a 1.5.0 release without Chris would be a good warning for him. As pointed by Christophe, no need of any new structure for this. Then if nothing change, ok, we will have to dig the topic more seriously, do some choices, etc...

[t00fri]

Both Christophe's ignored one crucial issue:

If things proceed as usual in the old CVS, this will probably NOT get Chris back on the scene. He can just watch his "workforce" to eliminate the bugs which is not terribly inspiring anyhow...

Yet, an imminent "removal" of the whole lot to Celestial Matters most probably will [it happened before, after I released Celestia-FT-1.x ...]

But certainly the Christophe^2 proposal is NO extra work for me/us, hence this looks attractive


Bye Fridger

[ElChristou]

Both Christophe's ignored one crucial issue:

If things proceed as usual in the old CVS, this will probably NOT get Chris back on the scene. He can just watch his "workforce" to eliminate the bugs which is not terribly inspiring anyhow...

We don't really know; after all 1.5 is a strong number; it should not be a minor update... ... and important, if Chris L. let it pass without reaction, we will be sure something goes wrong...

[rthorvald]

the remaining SERIOUS issues with Mie planetary atmospheres, surface colors & skylight, the required improvements of star rendering, the frame dependence of orbit displays, CMOD issues, etc., just to name a few not quite trivial things ahead

I understand it would be much more fun to release a 1.5 that really shines in all respects, yet i wonder if it, under the circumstances, it might not be better to limit the ambitions for 1.5 to fix the exiting bugs in pre 3 and wrap up anything that is half-baked in a satisfactory manner. Any huge undertakings could be postponed to a future release. Unless, of course, these bigger tasks are too integrated with 1.5 already to make it harder to take them out than to leave them in.

For example, we have enough fast storage and a proven VERY reliable server to easily establish another local CVS archive for Celestia development, PROVIDED, the three of us consider this option worthwhile, reasonable and strategically sound!

As you know, i like that option, but only if it can serve a long-term purpose. Its no point in doing it *only* to wake Chris up.

What would be the longer-time prospects of such an effort? Suppose after building all this new structure up, what if Chris reappears one day (like ~2 years ago, when he was hiding for ~ 1 year)?

Such a drastic change of context would neccesarily signify a "climate change"... The other devs could not just hand the entire project back to him after that. He would have to redefine his role somewhat. The project is really too big to move back and forth every time someone sticks his head up.

So that is definitely not a light decision to make; it would have to signify permanent changes, not be just a "warning shot". Because if not, we would just set up for a messy tangle of poorly defined responsibilities the next time Chris decides to drop out and there suddenly are more than one possilble "official dev central"!

Before more drastic decision, I suppose a 1.5.0 release without Chris would be a good warning for him. As pointed by Christophe, no need of any new structure for this. Then if nothing change, ok, we will have to dig the topic more seriously, do some choices, etc...

I agree with this. Try the less disruptive options first...

- rthorvald

[Cham]

Before more drastic decision, I suppose a 1.5.0 release without Chris would be a good warning for him. As pointed by Christophe, no need of any new structure for this. Then if nothing change, ok, we will have to dig the topic more seriously, do some choices, etc...

I also agree with this. In its current state, 1.5.0 is already far better (at least on OS X) than the official 1.4.1, despite the presence of bugs. So if we can release an official 1.5.0 without Chris, I think we should do it. We'll see after that if Chris is waking up. As most software out there, a new x.x.0 version has bugs, and the revision x.x.1 should be a bug fixing edition.

I suggest that we try to fix the must "major" bugs with can find in 1.5.0, then publish an official version. (there's already an easy fix for the celestial grid, for example, that we should commit to CVS, before we publish 1.5.0).

[t00fri]

For example, we have enough fast storage and a proven VERY reliable server to easily establish another local CVS archive for Celestia development, PROVIDED, the three of us consider this option worthwhile, reasonable and strategically sound!

As you know, i like that option, but only if it can serve a long-term purpose. Its no point in doing it *only* to wake Chris up.
...
- rthorvald

Runar,

when mentioning this option, I had of course other perspectives in mind than just to "wake" up Chris L. !

I also did not /advocate/ this CVS@CM option. It was merely to be seen as a possible alternative that one might envisage.

So let's stay with the "conservative" option, with me focussing on preparing "CosmoViz" CVS at CM...

Cheers,
Fridger

[Rassilon]

You dont need chris to fix those bugs... One of your team has to have the ability to do so... Dont give up guys...