DJ Wiza wrote:
> Ever seen Bugzilla for the Mozilla web browser?  Mozilla is open source and
> many people look at and modify the code to add features or fix bugs, and
> they're all incorporated in the next version.  Plus, nightly builds are that
> update to any bugs fixed that day.
> 

Yes; I've seen, but pardon me, Perl based system????Yuck!
just kiddin', of course!

> Check it out at http://www.mozilla.org/bugs/ .  Could this be applied to
> POV-Ray?

Perhaps, but I'm not quite sure, that there is need for such elaborated 
system. Simple CVS should be sufficient, I guess. But I'm not against 
better system either.

Post a reply to this message

ABX wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Oct 2002 21:30:39 +0300, Vahur Krouverk <vkr### [at] starmanee>
> wrote:
> 
>>With POV-Ray 3.5 release there is considerable interest in source code 
>>'hacking', many users fix bugs and add new features. Perhaps it would be 
>>good to unite such efforts and create one version, which contains all 
>>useful modifications. Best would be, if there is public (CVS) server, 
>>which hosts source code and users can commit fixes and updates to it.
> 
> 
> Somehow I thought the Team is against CVSed holding of POV-Ray sources in any
> way but I agree it could be much better. I have never played with CVS but as
> far as I see from other packages it is interesting.

I use CVS (with ViewCVS, http://viewcvs.sourceforge.net/) at my work (3 
differently located officies in 2 countries) and it seems to be quite 
decent system for source code management (although it has some 
deficiencies, that's why more elaborated systems, like BitKeeper or 
Subversion are developed). AFAIK, CVS is used extensively in open source 
community and this should be good enough argument :-)

Post a reply to this message

Thomas Willhalm wrote:
> 
> As it comes to POV-Ray, the "stable" version is probably the official
> release. AFAIK the POV-Team includes known bug fixes in minor updates.

I don't expect POV-Ray 4.0 anytime soon, perhaps in year 2004? If there 
is really intention to make full rewrite, then I expect, that it takes 
at least couple of years (unless some miracle happens and POV-Team 
'conquers Mount Everest bare-foot' :-), so in the meantime POV-Ray 
community is on its own and free to develop patches :-)


> 
> I'm against a cvs server where anyone can submit patches. Usually
> you have some kind of maintainer who decides which patches are
> suited for this particular version. 
Why? Sure, there should be some maintainer (or build-master or 
whatever), who decides, which patches will go to release. Patch goes to 
the CVS branch and buildmaster decides, what goes to the release and 
will merge them with main branch (as it goes with CVS).

> In the before-mentioned scenario,
> a cvs server doesn't make much sense for the official version.
> There are just too few realeases.
As I said, I don't expect official new (4.0) version anytime soon 
(although I'd be glad, if my expectations are incorrect!).

> Finally, for the 3.5 based MegaPov, a public cvs server would make
> even more sense, because then developers could easily create their
> patches for a common source base. Nevertheless I think that a
> (group of) maintainer(s) is needed to ensure some kind of minimal
> standard. If someone - as it has happend in the past - shows up
> creating excellent patches I assume that such a person would get
> write access to the cvs very quickly.
> 

I tend to agree. If there is really doubt, that low-quality 
pathes/bug-corrections will be submitted, then 'commit' access could be 
limited to 'proven' persons by maintainer/buildmaster/whoever.

Post a reply to this message

Vahur Krouverk wrote:
> 
[Yadda/Yadda/Yadda]

Seems like there is quite interest in this proposal. To be more concrete:
1. Is out there anyone, who can provide (CVS?) server for unofficial 
POV-Ray releases?
2. Is there anyone, who agrees to be 
'buildmaster'/'maintainer'/'whatever-you-call-him/her', who has 
knowledge of version control systems (CVS?), who has development tools 
(compilers and computers to compile POVRay (for at least for Linux and 
Windows??)) and has sufficient time to build releases for POV-Ray 
patches, maintain CVS repository (merge patches with main branch), etc.
3 (probably most important?). Is there interest among POV-Ray 'hackers' 
to have such 'united' version of POV-Ray patches? '
4. Is there enough people ready to try/use/test POV-Ray versions, built 
by such approach (buildmaster can't be only person for such task!)

Post a reply to this message

Christopher James Huff wrote:
...
> From the POV-Team Status Report - September 1, 2000 in 
> povray.announce.frequently-asked-questions:
> 
> "Second, we are also hoping to use a much more open development model for
> POV 4, with public read access to our source-revision tree.
...

That's good, but it was more than two years ago, it would be nice to 
hear what the team has to say today on the matters outlined in that post.

Post a reply to this message

Vahur Krouverk wrote:

> Thomas Willhalm wrote:
>> 
>> As it comes to POV-Ray, the "stable" version is probably the official
>> release. AFAIK the POV-Team includes known bug fixes in minor updates.
> 
> I don't expect POV-Ray 4.0 anytime soon, perhaps in year 2004?

That sounds optimistic! What I meant is: As soon as there is *some* code
(which would of course barely do anything), a public cvs server -- or
a similar system - would be nice. My impression is that there are a lot of
experienced programmers around here. If they were able to look at the
code and comment on it in an early stage of development, it should 
speed it up and lead to a better result. But, as mentionend in the FAQ,
this might going to happen.

Best regards
Thomas

Post a reply to this message

Vahur Krouverk wrote:
> 
> Seems like there is quite interest in this proposal. To be more concrete:
> 1. Is out there anyone, who can provide (CVS?) server for unofficial
> POV-Ray releases?

What about sourceforge?

> 3 (probably most important?). Is there interest among POV-Ray 'hackers'
> to have such 'united' version of POV-Ray patches? '

IMO it would help. However the (more) active patch writers should answer
this question.

> 4. Is there enough people ready to try/use/test POV-Ray versions, built
> by such approach (buildmaster can't be only person for such task!)

In view of the big success of MegaPov I assume that there would be a lot
of interest, if it contains neat features. (Do you remember live without
isosurfaces and photons?)

Best regards
Thomas

Post a reply to this message

Thomas Willhalm <tho### [at] uni-konstanzde> wrote:
> If they were able to look at the
> code and comment on it in an early stage of development, it should 
> speed it up and lead to a better result.

  Although this is probably true in some cases, it might also be a burden.
Usually there are as many opinions as coders, and most people are quite
eager to express them, no matter how useful/useless the opinion is.
Trying to decipher all the text posted by people and getting the good
opinions can be a big job... Who is going to do it?

-- 
#macro M(A,N,D,L)plane{-z,-9pigment{mandel L*9translate N color_map{[0rgb x]
[1rgb 9]}scale<D,D*3D>*1e3}rotate y*A*8}#end M(-3<1.206434.28623>70,7)M(
-1<.7438.1795>1,20)M(1<.77595.13699>30,20)M(3<.75923.07145>80,99)// - Warp -

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Thomas Willhalm <tho### [at] uni-konstanzde> wrote:
> 
>>If they were able to look at the
>>code and comment on it in an early stage of development, it should 
>>speed it up and lead to a better result.
> 
> 
>   Although this is probably true in some cases, it might also be a burden.
> Usually there are as many opinions as coders, and most people are quite
> eager to express them, no matter how useful/useless the opinion is.
> Trying to decipher all the text posted by people and getting the good
> opinions can be a big job... Who is going to do it?

Were the POV team to conduct their design discussions here, or in a 
newly created group, say, povray.developers, they would be perfectly 
able to ignore all traffic from non team members for as long as they 
liked. This would allow serious potential developers to get a feel for 
the new POVRay from the ground up and discuss it amongst themselves. 
Eventually, little by little the team members might peruse bits of the 
chatter and start to identify those people seeming to make worthwhile 
comment. From there the developer network can gradually expand. While 
not necessarily admitting more and more people to the core team itself, 
a broad base of committed developers could be established, thus allowing 
useful opinion to filter through without anyone in particular having to 
monitor all the traffic in the group full time.

Certainly, this is but one way of many that the POV Team might decide to 
go about migrating POV development more open model, but I dont see it as 
particularly problematic.

Post a reply to this message

In article <3DA### [at] alphalinkcomau> , Edward Coffey 
<eco### [at] alphalinkcomau>  wrote:

> Were the POV team to conduct their design discussions here, or in a
> newly created group, say, povray.developers, they would be perfectly
> able to ignore all traffic from non team members for as long as they
> liked.

You are kidding, right?

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

Post a reply to this message