Patreon Campaign?

[turtle]

I was wondering if you folks would be interested in running a service like this? I was thinking we could help fund someone to dedicate a little extra time on an area of the simulator. For example, I would love to see VR (virtual reality) support included in this simulator. If all goes well we could fund an Oculus Rift developer-kit to one of the folks involved in the project. Or to a smaller extent, get someone to polish a couple of aircraft and scenery that are voted the highest by the community. I think it would be the best compromise between free, and open-source for those who rather work on it when they have the free-time to do so. I myself don't have the time for the developing aspect, but wouldn't mind contributing to have someone do a little extra.

Has this been suggested before?

[Johan G]

I know that bounties have been discussed before, but I think very little happened due to those.

I think the basic issue is that few developers (aircraft, scenery, core etc.) spend their spare time working with anything they perceive as dull, boring, or complex enough to to not be completed in a foreseeable future. There are a few exceptions, but still they do it for the eventual end result of having something work in a way they feel is more acceptable.

To get someone to do more than that would probably require enough money for them to be able to afford going down to working part time.


These past forum topics might be of interest:

• Bounties for developers (December 2011-January 2012)
• Procedural aspects of bounties (January 2012)
• Bounty: RAH-66 Comanche (January 2012-August 2012)
• Help needed - market research for FG (November 2012-January 2013)

[Hooray]

The people most likely to -be able to- help with VR/oculus rift development (i.e. those familiar with the FG rendering pipeline, the underlying C++/OSG code and effects/shaders) are also the ones most unlikely to be impressed with even $ 500-1000 US (and collecting that much would be quite an accomplishment for this dispersed community).

Keep in mind that most people around here have fulltime jobs and cannot easily spend much more time on FG, and most people spend time on doing stuff they're interested in - in fact, we have contributors who hold PhDs in fields/areas that are basically underserved in FlightGear (software engineering, computer science, physics, maths), but who still prefer to focus on doing entirely unrelated stuff (think 3D modeling, liveries, FDMs), rarely/never looking at things/features that match their day jobs.

Assuming that you cannot afford funding one or more developers for a whole year, your best bet is going to be college students - who may not have all the skills/expertise (yet), but who have plenty of time on their hands, and who may appreciate making a few hundred bucks.

[turtle]

The people most likely to -be able to- help with VR/oculus rift development (i.e. those familiar with the FG rendering pipeline, the underlying C++/OSG code and effects/shaders) are also the ones most unlikely to be impressed with even $ 500-1000 US (and collecting that much would be quite an accomplishment for this dispersed community).

The money was actually to buy them (the folks in coding) a developer kit to play with, in hopes of seeing VR support in the future. I am not trying to say that with the funding I expect to see full support the next day. If you take a look at 0.A.D. they did an indiegogo campaign with the same idea I had in mind for FlightGear. To create interest in future features and projects to come for the free released game. I think it would be a good thing to see more folks jumping in and updating some areas of the simulator. I kind of picture it like Steam workshop for FlightGear. The community votes on what they think is the best contribution, and the development team gets the final say on the matter (if it ends up breaking the simulator or should be included by default).

[bugman]

The hard part would be to actually find the perfect developer for the job. Due to the narrow conditions of requiring advanced graphics coding skills, and probably being a uni student who has the time and possible skill for this, it will be difficult. You could try on the FlightGear development mailing list, and if you look at the policy document you'll see that that is where most important things get decided, but I think you'll have far more success advertising in a CompSci faculty of a university (that is a serious suggestion!). Something like Google Summer of Code tends to pull out these CompSci students.

Regards,

Edward

[CaptB]

This might work well but for aircraft or scenery developers, these are usually smaller projects and can be broken into pieces ( 3D model, texturing, programming )