FGAddon vs. FGMEMBERS, bus factors etc.

[IAHM-COL]

Dear Hooray

I am certain that you still don't understand what all the noise is about. But it also seems your are tormented by the noise.

>> don't mistake getting "banned" with having access revoked due to technical reasons, such as a demonstrated misunderstanding of SCM concepts
>>Equally, you should take into account that helijah has a certain standing within the French community (to which F-JJTH undoubtedly belongs), so there's clearly some "history" involved, too.

Why do you persist in coming back to helijah? To me its way simpler than that. Helijah had made and maintain 268 out of 485 of the planes hosted in FGAddon. Half of that repository is made for him to maintain his plane. There is not such misunderstanding on his part in how to commit tot he subversion: regardless he was using KDESVN software. You can see some commits of his previous to his revoke. And they were good. Why do we need to care about Helijah and Clement personal history? And who says there should be police enforcement revoking driver licenses over the repository? That was/ and still is/ an unexplainable aggression to Helijah. Curt has been authoring his commits, which is a "technical" solution, but is far from correct. Helijah should have had Un-revocable access to his planes.
In addition, then it came L. Brenta pushing changes suggested by E. Avergne over the K-7. So he not only looses the ability to write over his planes, but he gets to see how other people starts taking "appropriation" over planes he is still maintaining.


>> F-JJTH has made a number of postings and statements that might be considered "bold" by some standards, but you should give him the benefit of the doubt, especially given the obvious fact that English isn't his first language, so some things were maybe not said in a very tactful manner. However, at that time, F-JJTH was largely responsible for handling the migration, so it made sense for him to oversee what was going on.

May you have seen that. Because I had not. Clement English is proper, clear and very correct. I would say polite if I could. The problem is not a language problem, but a problem of understand that he was not to put himself in the role of regulator. And by placing himself in that role he made the essential mistakes: Like limiting Helijah under a "technical" reason that is still unclear to me, but more importantly limiting the addition of a new aircraft: the dash. This situation is ALSO still unsolved. Torsten came with reasons for not inclusion; which I reply for, but never heard a reply back.

>> then again, having your driving license taken away from you by a police officer for passing a stop sign isn't "banning" you, but just "punishing" you for not following rules - simple as that.

Who is to work as a "Motorized Vehicle Authority" here? And why? The role of the administrators should be guarantee a system that ease contributions. Not place themselves in an "authority" role. Executing bans, forbiding or limiting write access, deciding who writes and who doesn't.

>>the "shuttle story" etc

I don't see such misunderstanding. It is clear who had acted aggressively here. And who has abused GPL rights on this whole shuttle affair. At least it is clear to me. Read Michat's reply slowly and do a good concentration effort. Michat hits the nail into the wall, by several on the head hits.
Again, I agree that HerbyW et al Shuttle should be granted official access. Which is very simple. HerbyW is a major improvement over the long present "shuttle" in FGAddon. While Thorsten work is a new Aircraft present in FGAddon: "SpaceShuttle". Both Shuttles are not incompatible, and can reside, and develop concomitantly and independently. And both can be granted "official" inclusion -- whatever "official" here could mean.

>> As for IAHM-COL

Thanks Hooray. I do apologize and repent- if it may- of having written a very personal accusation to Curtis for his being "curt" on his reponses. And for banning me from writting the devel-list. I disagree, profoundly, with that action. But I can see he needs to be in piece of mind that no-one thinks differently. So on his devel list everyone agrees. It's either that, or outcasting. I found, funny, lets say, that they hang around there just to hear their own voices, and their self-praising. But, oh! well, not my business.

****

But more importantly,

It is my opinion for all thing previously mentioned, that FGAddon, while remain existing by a unbending defense of people that controls a lot in FG, basically due to ownership of critical infrastructure, and people with senior-ship --- While remain existing, I say, It is clearly a technically unfavorable approach to aircraft development that facilitates unethical treatment of authors (dash, helijah, HerbyW, to mention afew).
In my view, althought the code resides under GPL clauses, there is nothing open about that whole untransparent operation, and it is my opinion that the whole thing is fundamentally biased, unfair, unjust, inappropriate.

I created FGMEMBERS as an inclusive, transparent, and friendly method that decentralizes aircraft development and centralizes distribution. It solves the technical and humanistical failures of the FGAddon approach. And I call now, and before, and will in the future, to aircraft developers to join us. Even those with write access to the Addon, at the moment, to consider the past, know that is a reflection of the future, and make what I'd call a vote of conscience. For the rest of this "batle of words" against our repository and our contribution to FG, is childish, and impolite. As you've said before, we are a community of volunteers, and we do in FG what suits our interest. My interest, is create, and maintain FGMEMBERs and help previous and new aircraft developers to understand, learn, and enjoy the new paradigm.

Best,
IH-COL

[Hooray]

Sorry, but I am increasingly arriving at the conclusion that responding to this any further is a huge waste of our time and resources - keep in mind that you are addressing here some of the very people who are regularly responsible for major features in the last couple of release cycles - in other words, dealing with you (plural) to this extent is taking away resources from the project, especially manpower and time. And quite frankly, you are also taking away the "fun" aspect of collaborating here. I think you did make a couple of valid points and that some things were handled in a an unfortunate fashion, but subsequently the very people who are now yelling here were responsible for what happened. There is a sense of entitlement and "attitude" that a volunteer-driven project simply cannot afford - you may not like the fact that people are treated based on their current/past involvement, but that really is the only "currency" that counts - simply because manpower and time are the most precious resources, especially manpower and time coming with expertise/skills - right now, many of you are hurting the project, and the upcoming release, by behaving like this - because it's roughly taken 12+ contributors so far to deal with you, many of whom having a track record of having contributed major features recently ...

I don't usually "moderate" threads and discussions like these, and I am generally against "banning" people, but in this case -and for the aforementioned reasons, I could even relate to an admin temporarily disabling your forum/wiki accounts until the next release is out, just for the sake of peace... and to ensure that you are not given the power to hurt other users, who want to enjoy FlightGear 3.6, which ideally shouldn't be dedicated to a bunch of trolls on the forum ...

[curt]

When I lived and worked in the Milwaukee area, the primary concern was getting hit by the beer truck, not the bus. Funny about different cultures.

[IAHM-COL]

When I lived and worked in the Milwaukee area, the primary concern was getting hit by the beer truck, not the bus. Funny about different cultures.

ROFL
Great comment Curt.

In Colombia, I remember my early years, when I used to watch some TV, some sponsored commercials showed the beer truck arriving a town. No one was concerned of possible "being hit by", and as opposed, everyone surrounded these trucks, and started opening the Pilsners, surrounded by some fanfare.

Like this:

[Jabberwocky]

Great, now we need a plane with beer truck livery!

[Thorsten]

And who has abused GPL rights on this whole shuttle affair.

What an interesting and changing view of the GPL you have!

If you take something I make available in a thread and make a repository in your collection out of it - against my stated intentions, claiming your right to do that under GPL - that's perfectly legitimate of course. Whereas if I start a project and base it on GPL and public domain work (the vast majority of what I have used is authored by NASA, vitos and Jon S. Berndt by the way, there's very little that's actually from HerbyW), that's an abuse?

So only you are free to ignore the wishes of an author, but others are not? Can you show me where GPL says that? I think it states that you don't need to ask any permissions, regardless of who you are.

You have even yourself stated a few times that you personally don't see an issue with two independent projects. Now the insight is thrown out of the window to score a few cheap points?

In any case, I have, a while ago on the list, stated that I will to continue to give you technical advice for things like rendering and effects regardless of whether you host the aircraft in question on your own fork or not. In face of your incessant attacks, I retract that. I see myself under no obligation to help people who make baseless claims like that I would 'abuse' GPL. If you want my help on anything, please adhere to some minimum standard of politeness and decency.

[IAHM-COL]

Dear Thorsten
To avoid the word-battles, I just will direct you to the GPL view I have:

IH-COL GPL VIEW

The reason for which I though your "request" or "wish" or whatever that was over the redistribution of the shuttle were just some sort of a wink of yours are these:

1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;

https://github.com/FGMEMBERS/SpaceShutt ... er/COPYING

6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.

You had indicated you did not intend to have "issues" created as of yet: A petition I honor, and created this issue in our repo:
https://github.com/FGMEMBERS/SpaceShuttle/issues/1

About the shuttle. I am not involved in that situation at all. Reffer to Michats reply, and figure out with them directly how to find a common ground.
I found at least a bit unfair that you: 1) reject collaborating, 2) take over a project they were trying to advance, and 3) modify the FG information such as the wiki to label an official (your own) and a private work (any other but your own). You are prob. in GPL rights, but what it is being abused, is, in my humble opinion, the ability to write over the FGAddon, and make "official" your version, over others.

I still think, regardless of what you call a cheap point (I am not involved in a competition and need no points) that both shuttles can develop concomitantly and independently, if you and the other authors are unable to find a common ground. Currently they exist in 2 different namespaces (aircraft folder names), and thus are not incompatible to exist in the FGAddon and be simultaneously official.


Currently, that is the solution in FGMEMBERs, and FGDATA next with Submodules.
Your SpaceShuttle exist in a repository independent to that of HerbyW et al., shuttle

And they can be installed and tested independently with the FGDATAnext with submodules as


This code installs both Shuttles if used on FGDATA next with submodules.

Code: Select all

git submodule init Aircraft/SpaceShuttle #Thorsten Version
git submodule init Aircraft/shuttle   #HerbyW et al., Version
git submodule update


I hope you don't retract your willingness to be of help, since you are one of the most experienced and knowledgeful persons over rendering in flightgear and in fact some of FG rendering behavior is actually decided by yourself. You do not need to make everything a personal cause, and understand that our cooperation is for the good of the project and the community.

Wish you the best,
IH-COL

[Hooray]

@IH-COL: As far as I can see, Thorsten's understanding of the GPL is flawless, your's however is -quite frankly- strongly biased and mistaken.

I suggest that you take one step back and look at the way you're acting here and all your moot points -FWIW, I think you even made a huge case about your "git fu", wanting to tell people on the devel list what to do when it comes to git, despite incidents like these:

Subject: New Ratings

I don't really know how you find original authors. Let's see who can give you some orientation there.

Given your expertise in GIT, I don't dare to recommend

Code: Select all

git log Aircraft/dhc6

or probably:
https://gitorious.org/fg/fgdata/source/ ... craft/dhc6

Torsten

Honestly, you are not just making a lot of noise recently, but are also coming across increasingly incompetent, too.
I admire your willingness to write such long postings, but I would really suggest you apply those skills elsewhere, and if you cannot be convinced to use the wiki for that, I suggest that you take some time off until 3.6 is out.

[IAHM-COL]

Thanks Hooray

The problem with the commit log in FGDATA (previous version in gitorious), and even other aircraft repositories, is that frequently someone else commits for the original authors.
That makes the git log | grep author strategy a bit incomplete or inaccurate.

Furthermore, the "revision 3" initial commit on FGAddon obliterates that option completely

I won't say git is my expertise thou.

Sincerely,
IH-COL

Thanks for inviting to take time off. I decide my own vacation times

[Thorsten]

I found at least a bit unfair that you: 1) reject collaborating, 2) take over a project they were trying to advance, and 3) modify the FG information such as the wiki to label an official (your own) and a private work (any other but your own).

What you find a bit unfair is however not automatically and 'clearly' an abuse of the GPL license - it's just what you find a bit unfair. You shouldn't confuse your private feelings with the license.

In the event, even your private sense of fairness seems to be strangely blind to the actual facts.

ad 1) I have quite a long track record of spaceflight in FG. Yet none of the Space Program folks ever contacted me, expressing any kind of interest in collaboration. When I pointed out that the FDM should be improved and demonstrated that a vertical launch is feasible and Erik pointed out that there's existing work by Jon on the JSBSim repository, HerbyW's reply was 10. Ok, replace it and have fun with it. We take ours and have fun too. Translation: Not interested in your or Jons work. It would have been easy to acknowledge that things can be improved and issue an invitation to collaborate at any point - yet it has never happened.

It's not me who has consistently rejected collaboration and previous efforts.

ad 2) I have not 'taken over' a project, I have effectively created my own parallel project. The aerodynamics, flight controls and Nasal scripts are completely replaced (the files don't even have the same name), so are most of the animations. The parts I have used are chiefly the 3d models (that's NASA public domain work I understand) and sounds (they're largely vitos' work for Vostok). So you might claim that I have used the same collection of GPL material HerbyW has used, but I have not used a significant amount of his own material.

As for spaceflight in FG, I was trying to advance that long before the efforts of the Space Program. Imagining that I would have traveled through time to make posts e.g. on the FG website on spaceflight just to try to 'take over' what someone else is trying to advance right now is a bit of a stretch, isn't it?

ad 3) I have added a label to the effect 'This description refers to the orbiter in FGAddon' vs. 'This description refers to the orbiter in a private hangar', yes. As far as I recall, I have not actually used the word 'official' which you seem to hate so much, that's just another urban legend. Since I added wiki content referring to my project, some form of label was necessary, and to base the label on where a user obtains the file from seemed quite reasonable, because that's most likely what the average user would know.

The fact of the matter is that neither your fork nor HerbyW's repository are official FG repositories, they are private hangars. You might not like that, but it's an accurate description of the state of affairs.

Still, the Wiki being a wiki, it would have been eminently easy for anyone to simply change the labels if the text is seen as inappropriate rather than to endlessly complain about them in the first place.

The fact of the matter is that pretty much nothing out of the ordinary happened. It all grew in rumors. Now we're at an abuse of GPL. What happens next - I murdered someone to take over the Space Program? I hacked into a repository?

About the shuttle. I am not involved in that situation at all.

Then kindly stop commenting about a situation you're not involved in and which you plainly don't understand.

You do not need to make everything a personal cause, and understand that our cooperation is for the good of the project and the community.

So you go claiming that I clearly abused the GPL license without any shred of evidence that this actually happened while you acknowledge that you are not even involved in the situation, and then you tell me I need not make this a personal cause?

I don't think so. You chose to make this personal by your baseless accusation.

[Hooray]

Thanks for inviting to take time off. I decide my own vacation times

Quite frankly, I wasn't concerned about your spare time when I suggested to take things a bit more slowly - the point was to give others a little more space/time, i.e. those having to deal with you and your peers currently, i.e. all the people who are at the same time responsible for the upcoming release, which I am sure, you are also awaiting eagerly.

I think it's pretty clear that having to deal with you folks is draining resources from the project, resources that would be better spent working towards the next release.


On average, there are roughly ~10-12 regular contributors who spent at least 30-45 minutes talking to you meanwhile (some even much longer)...

But maybe I ended up getting the wrong impression, so if you'd prefer that, I can also set up a forum poll to see how many people around here would like to see your account temporarily disabled, or restricted to the offtopic/Hangar forum - if in doubt, we can also invite the devel list folks to vote, too.

[legoboyvdlp]

What! This is rather odd! If IAHMCOL is to be disabled till 3.6, then Thorsten should be as well for he is rather... bluntly worded.
Anybody remember that someone offered to mediate? This looks like it needs someone to help.

And oh, isn't this just an excuse to (try to) "prove" that if I - CO dissapears, then FIMBER will go as well?
I have refrained from commenting till now, as I did not wish to be involved in this bickering.

If IAHMCOL is restricted:
*No more USA Tour for a few months - one of the best, most successful MR events
*JAFVA loses its President - one of the most successful VAS
*No more help/support for a while from such an experienced member
*The Team of Dictators looks bad...

At least let him have a access to all of Developement, Media, and Multi player subroutine as well as the hangar.
About the last sentence, if that happens of course he will be banned. The whole core team hates this excellent member.

[Hooray]

I don't think anybody here "hates" IAHM-COL, but there's only so much time that people can spend dealing with a single person - at some point, others will inevitably be affected by the degree of intervention required under such circumstances.

As to "banning", I don't think that you'll see this measure being taken lightly - but restricting people to a certain sub-forum would seem like a good compromise to me, and I would add that I am also quite willing to be restricted to the offtopic/hangar sub-forum if moderators/core developers agree that I have ignored all warnings and that I end up wasting the time of others by participating the way I do.

Now, regarding the repercussions you mentioned (multiplayer events, VA stuff etc) - quite frankly, none of those have any bearing for the upcoming release - in fact, they're totally irrelevant to the majority of the FG community, especially those responsible for the project, i.e. shouldering 99% of the workload.

However, permanently having to deal with IAHM-COL (and a few others) is harming the project, and will undoubtedly affect all contributors and even end-users, who may never do any MP/VA stuff.

Concerning the degree of "support" offered by IAHM-COL, I have yet to see anything that couldn't be just as well handled by a single wiki article, or even by other contributors. Those permanent "fgmember" updates are redundant in my eyes (and even noise), while adding unnecessarily to the confusion by "promoting" a 3rd party repository that isn't supported/managed by any long term contributors, and whose longevity is questionable even under perfect circumstances.

Note that this is not my call, but I would definitely support restricting IAHM-COL's forum access for the aforemention reasons, not because he's such such a bad guy, but because he's failed to deal with a plethora of politely-phrased and explicit warnings by a number of more senior contributors, and because the project cannot afford having 90% of the people responsible for FlightGear development deal with a single guy and few of his peers, no matter the degree of MP/VA involvement or well-intentioned proposals and ideas.

Overall, FlightGear remains a meritocracy, so once someone starts making too much noise, people will inevitably look at that person's involvement/track record, which even happened to some of the more senior contributor's - so not even core developers are immune to that. However, I stand by my offer to set up a forum poll to conduct a democratic survey and see how many contributors would want to see IAHM-COL post "as is".

[legoboyvdlp]

Right do it then.
I have yet to see that a wiki article can do Git work.

[Thorsten]

If IAHMCOL is to be disabled till 3.6, then Thorsten should be as well for he is rather... bluntly worded.

I think you're confusing bluntness (i.e. spelling out an unpleasant truth without mincing words) with slander (i.e. claiming unpleasant things about others which are not true).

While superficially they look similar, I assure you it makes a huge difference whether a claim is actually true in the end or not.