hi,

Thorsten <tho### [at] trfde> wrote:
> On 02.07.2020 18:59, ingo wrote:
> > in news:5efdd904@news.povray.org Thorsten wrote:
> >> open source...
> Well, some people think this way, I know. Quick rewards is all that is
> left on the internet, I know. However, if you have to put no effort into
> achievement, does it have any value?

if _that_ is the "message" you took away from the talk posted by ingo, then, I'd
suggest, yr comprehension of spoken English is .. rudimentary, at best.

(my impression however, in keeping with my expectations, is that you simply did
not listen)


regards, jr.

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hi,

sorry for late reply.  (slipped my mind)

Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:
> This post raises a few questions which are worthy of discussion.

thanks.

> ... some issues in play that most people would not expect. I'll post a
> followup covering as much of them as I can once I get time to write it
> up (should be less than a day).

(I'm a great believer in "sunshine is the best disinfectant".  :-))


regards, jr.

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On 03.07.2020 11:56, jr wrote:
>> No, actually, I left the team many years ago.
> 
> unless you left on or around February 2007, I don't see how that absolves you
> from (yr share of) the blame, ie letting POV-Ray "run down" to its present
> state.

No, given all contributions are made voluntarily, I have no 
responsibility beyond my actual contributions.

	Thorsten

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On 03.07.2020 12:00, jr wrote:
> if _that_ is the "message" you took away from the talk posted by ingo, then, I'd
> suggest, yr comprehension of spoken English is .. rudimentary, at best.
> 
> (my impression however, in keeping with my expectations, is that you simply did
> not listen)

No, I did listen. And he is completely right about the license. I know, 
because it cost Chris and me an extreme amount of non-quality time and a 
lot of money to get all the contributor agreements to relicense under 
AGPL3.

It is just his approach that one should give and expect an instant award 
for contributing that I absolutely do not share. And as I said, also do 
know that the second generation of WWW users developed his expectation. 
But I do not have to agree, and I just don't.

Thorsten

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hi,

Thorsten <tho### [at] trfde> wrote:
> ...
> No, I did listen. And he is completely right about the license. I know,
> because it cost Chris and me an extreme amount of non-quality time and a
> lot of money to get all the contributor agreements to relicense under
> AGPL3.
>
> It is just his approach that one should give and expect an instant award
> for contributing that I absolutely do not share. And as I said, also do
> know that the second generation of WWW users developed his expectation.
> But I do not have to agree, and I just don't.

happy to agree that the immediate reward and the everyone-can-merge wouldn't be
my choice, either.

but, "the message" I took from his talk was that an successful open source
project tends to be one where the maintainers create, and then foster, an
"atmosphere" that allows the users/"community" to .. coalesce around shared
goal(s), and play an active part of that pursuit.  and perhaps the fact that "it
cost Chris and me an extreme amount of non-quality time and a lot of money" is
simply an indication that the (potential) "support base" ought to have been
asked to become involved; anyway, by the by.

(I find it very interesting that you have not touched on this point, at all,
even though it would seem pertinent wrt this debate)


regards, jr.

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I was going to post a long reply but have come to the conclusion that
really it doesn't matter how we got to this point, what matters is where
we go.

Yes we have a manpower issue. Yes I have not helped by not steering the
boat. To be honest, though, after more than 25 years involvement in the
project I see my role more as one of keeping POV-Ray stable and making
sure that it works as designed on modern CPU's and modern operating systems.

I have not done feature development for some time and as I have moved
away from C++ professionally (I primarily develop in C# in my day job
nowadays) I'm really not the best person to be doing core work anymore
(that's not to say I can't, just that I feel it's best left to someone
who is using C++ on a regular basis).

Clipka has apparently moved on to doing other things. We had been hoping
he was just taking some time off but it's pretty clear by now that we
can't expect him back.

Where to go from here? What can you guys do to help? Good questions. Let
me ping the other guys on our mailing list and see what they think.

-- Chris

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Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:
> I was going to post a long reply but have come to the conclusion that
> really it doesn't matter how we got to this point, what matters is where
> we go.

Personally, yes.  With regard to the evolution of the code; however, the _how_
of that is relevant and integral to understanding problems and formulating
solutions.  We need context.

> Yes we have a manpower issue. Yes I have not helped by not steering the
> boat. To be honest, though, after more than 25 years involvement in the
> project I see my role more as one of keeping POV-Ray stable and making
> sure that it works as designed on modern CPU's and modern operating systems.

I hear you, and the following statement is a point to consider, not to cast
blame on anyone, etc.
I've worked on a LOT of things with a LOT of people, and the bigger something
gets, the more it stagnates - because no one knows what to do, can't see the big
picture, doesn't want any of the responsibility, and so they resort to the safe,
blame-free option of "that's not my job."
Of course, no one else knows whose job it IS, and they don't have, or feel that
they have the authority to implement a solution (and then there's the 'no good
deed will go unpunished' phenomenon.  If YOU try to fix something, and it
'breaks' (it was rotten to the core and 'fixed' [badly] 30 times before, and
everyone was just waiting for it to break anyway) then it's obvious who to point
the finger at.
So in order to get people involved, and working on doing productive things, we
need to remedy that, and invite people in to participate in the development
side.

> I have not done feature development for some time and as I have moved
> away from C++ professionally (I primarily develop in C# in my day job
> nowadays) I'm really not the best person to be doing core work anymore
> (that's not to say I can't, just that I feel it's best left to someone
> who is using C++ on a regular basis).

I don't think that anyone really expects you to dive in and code a solution for
all of the things that need improvement or are missing.
But after 25 years, you surely have an excellent overview of everything, and are
privy to a lot of information.  That's a position that few, if no one else is
in.
You can provide illuminating information and context.
See below.

> Clipka has apparently moved on to doing other things. We had been hoping
> he was just taking some time off but it's pretty clear by now that we
> can't expect him back.

It's a hobby, after all, and for a young guy, he invested an astonishing amount
of time and talent working on the source code and helping clueless schmucks like
me to ascend the learning curve step by painful and hard-won step.
I hope someone is paying him well for his intelligence and skill, and he's
getting some enjoyment out of life.  He deserves it, and he will be missed.


> Where to go from here? What can you guys do to help? Good questions. Let
> me ping the other guys on our mailing list and see what they think.

There are 2 interrelated problems that I alluded to above.   One is the
monolithic "thing" that is POV-Ray, that invites stagnation, and the other -
which I only hinted at, is the opacity that ensures that it _does_ stagnate.

No one "here" knows what the positions of - responsibility - and decision-making
authority are, who holds them, how involved they are, how to contact them, or
what to do if they drop off the planet for reasons large or small.
If POV-Ray is some kind of corporation - and LLC or whatever, then no one really
knows how that works, and who the world-wide users of the product are.  That is
relevant, because for us it's a hobby image-renderer, whereas other people are
very well using it for scientific illustration, visualization of data, and other
more serious things in their professional lives. That's highly relevant when
solutions are needed and one has to understand the mechanisms under the hood and
the effects and repercussions of monkeying about with a giant pile of
25-year-old organically-grown code written by dozens of contributors who are
long gone.

There should at the very least be some redundancy in personnel, and a master
"key-ring" for things like important information files (development notes,
90%-done code snippets, etc), accounts, and administrative passwords (IIRC there
seems to be some issue regarding the object collection)

We don't know if there is money involved, where it comes from, what it's for, or
where it goes. (There must be, as there is a website, domain name, a server,
etc...)
POV-Ray is officially somehow in Australia, California, and Connecticut (in my
mind).

So, whether it's helpful or [perceived as] not, at the very least, I think it
would help educate the present collection of active users, clear the air, and
make "open" the _workings_ - the personal workings - of this "open source"
project to have a series of installments where things are just discussed, and
information is transferred.  A "board meeting" where people are kept in the
loop.
Some people are hanging on in quiet desperation - others are venting their
frustration, and others just --- give up and disappear.

None of what we do takes place in a vacuum, and the solutions won't magically
pop out of the Celestial interstitial space either. Narrowly, pedantically and
artificially restricting and compartmentalizing discussions to "raytracing with
POV-Ray as it exists at this exact point in time" don't really go anywhere -
what people using it on a voluntary basis need is context.

It would be great if there were a way to get some more long-time users a wiki
page so that their development work could more clearly be seen, and inspire
questions and possible solutions.

Maybe you could tell us some stories.  Bring up points of historical interest,
the current state of Dev team issues responsibility and workload, and enlighten
us about the actual usage of POV-Ray by people outside of this tiny forum, and
how "POV-Ray" finds new developers and advertises it existence, promotes
interest, raises funds, and appoints people to take on positions of
responsibility.   Give us context.

Thanks for being here for 25 years, and helping keep this thing alive in a
rapidly changing technological world.

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On 04.07.2020 14:36, Bald Eagle wrote:
> Chris Cason<del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg>  wrote:
>> I was going to post a long reply but have come to the conclusion that
>> really it doesn't matter how we got to this point, what matters is where
>> we go.
 >
> Personally, yes.  With regard to the evolution of the code; however, the_how_
> of that is relevant and integral to understanding problems and formulating
> solutions.  We need context.

I think the first thing to understand is that the code and the language 
are the way they are by design, and that design makes a real lot of 
sense if you take a serious and not a superficial look. And yes, even 
the scoping makes a real lot of sense. As do the limitations. All this 
has to be viewed in the context of the times most of the code was 
developed at.

I can't talk for Chris, but I do (usually) check the newsgroups once a 
week, and can explain a few things here and there. I have been around 
from 3.1 to 3.7 release cycles after all.

Thorsten

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hi,

Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:
> I was going to post a long reply but have come to the conclusion that
> really it doesn't matter how we got to this point, what matters is where
> we go.
> ...
> Where to go from here? What can you guys do to help? ...

personally, I'd like to see action on the website + wiki first.  because they're
(likely) the primary access points.

not sure I could offer any practical help, certainly not regarding code (am a
poor programmer and do not speak C++), but if I were to see a newsgroup post
asking for (other) help, I'd be happy to oblige, assuming I can meet the
requirement(s).


regards, jr.

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Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:
> I was going to post a long reply but have come to the conclusion that
> really it doesn't matter how we got to this point, what matters is where
> we go.
>
> Yes we have a manpower issue. Yes I have not helped by not steering the
> boat. To be honest, though, after more than 25 years involvement in the
> project I see my role more as one of keeping POV-Ray stable and making
> sure that it works as designed on modern CPU's and modern operating systems.
>
> I have not done feature development for some time and as I have moved
> away from C++ professionally (I primarily develop in C# in my day job
> nowadays) I'm really not the best person to be doing core work anymore
> (that's not to say I can't, just that I feel it's best left to someone
> who is using C++ on a regular basis).
>
> Clipka has apparently moved on to doing other things. We had been hoping
> he was just taking some time off but it's pretty clear by now that we
> can't expect him back.
>
> Where to go from here? What can you guys do to help? Good questions. Let
> me ping the other guys on our mailing list and see what they think.
>
> -- Chris

Let me first say from the perspective of the relatively new user I am, that the
*real* picture is not as dark as it seems, coming from the very fast moving and
massive  Blender community I saw the recent POV technological moves happen in
the right direction faster than what I could witness at some turningpoints in
Blender's branching history.

Mostly thanks to Clipka, who had the good sense to really synch his Uberpov
branch and move back things to trunk from it as much as he could.

If we could we would be very well inspired to gather enough money to provide
some kind of Grant for Clipka... But how to do
that?

Has it been considered to at least make him a candidate for a Google Summer of
code campaign?... I have no doubt that he will be very much over the lot of
other candidates... The tutor could be one of the chairmen.

If this is not an option or not attractive enough for him, let's come up with
other ideas to fulfill this goal (a short term but professional contract for
Clipka !)

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