IS Update

[Octal450]

So - what is happening here
I am tired - of following FG aimlessly waiting for them to do SOMETHING!!!

We are starting this fresh over and fix it.

The A33X development is halted
Lego and I will be exclusively working on "IntegratedSystems" for the A32X and MD-11
After completion of the A32X the A33X will be rewritten.
ALMOST EVERYTHING IS BEING REWRITTEN
We will be resetting the git becuase it will be a giant mess of commit history with changes that don't apply - but the repos will be renamed and archived so that we can access commit history should we need it.
The first commit to the new repos will be of the current state of the aircraft exactly as it is now - with further commits being made only to the "DetailedSystems" branch. This branch will contain the same copy, but also the new developments made. As the rewritten files become correct and complete, they will merged into master, similar to what I've been doing on the MD-11 for the last few months.

We will require FlightGear 2019.1 or later for these - we understand that the release has been called "not fully stable" by the core team.

So, upgrade yourself to 2019.1 and if you find bugs in the sim, report them so that they can fix them.
Follow the aircraft dev channels or our Discord (see sig) for updates

We will, of course, continue to provide bugfixes and support however note that MD-11 and A32X bugfixes may be delayed pending a possible merge into master.

This is time to show what FG can really do. Not time to wait. Where things are not available placeholders will be added (for example, JSBsim additions in newer versions)

Kind Regards,
Josh

[wkitty42]

wow... just... wow...

[hendyrix]

Does anyone have a link to the 'unstable' 2019 fg

[FlyMax]

If you are using windows here it is:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/flight ... e/download

[Octal450]

wow... just... wow...

What's wrong? This way we will get to V1.0 fastar!

Kind Regards,
Josh

[FlyMax]

Do I just instal the A32X again and put it into the hangar in Flightgear 2019.1.1? Or is there a different procedure?

[legoboyvdlp]

Yes, just install it exactly as you did for 2018.3.

It should migrate your settings, however, so it shouldn't actually be necessary to do anything.

[Thorsten]

What's wrong?

In case this needs to be spelled out:

The current release plan is the result of a discussion on the mailing list in which every interested party could say his piece (and lots of people did). A consensus was reached and properly announced on the FG webpage.

Here you denounce that legitimate consensus as 'nonsense' - pretty much on the grounds that you do not like it:

we understand that the release has been called "not fully stable" by the core team and you should use 2018.3.3 - but this is nonsense

And here you make things complicated for the user by practically trying to force him to follow your release plan instead and withdraw support from the official one:

and we will not be supporting multiple "releases".

Lengthy discussion, a consensus is reached, people who did not participate in the discussion disagreeing with that consensus later, core developer statements called 'nonsense', attempts to bring people around to the own point of view via 3rd party repositories, claims to speak for 'the common user' and what he wants...

That all sounds spookily familiar to me unfortunately... do you really want to go down that road again?

If you must disagree with the release plan made by the core team - can't you do it silently or politely? If you can release your aircraft only for 2019.X and feel unable to do any branch management - can't you just do that, rather than calling the official plan 'nonsense' ? Can you not somehow accept the outcome of a discussion as legitimate, even if you personally do not agree with it - and even if you don't want to support it, refrain from actively working against it?

That is what is wrong.

[Richard]

I am tired - of following FG aimlessly waiting for them to do SOMETHING!!!

I consider you to be one of the elite group of model developers currently producing models for FG; but I'm slightly confused about what you mean by "do SOMETHING". There's a lot of new things that are going to be in the 2019.3 release.

We will require FlightGear 2019.1 or later for these - we understand that the release has been called "not fully stable" by the core team and you should use 2018.3.3 - but this is nonsense and we will not be supporting multiple "releases".

Your models are all under active developement and because you don't currently have a stable release it makes perfect sense for you to require 2019.1 (or whatever you decide is best for you).

One of the reasons why we chose to adopt a stable release is to allow time for models to be developed and be ready for a stable release. This strategy works best with FGAddon based aircraft because we make a stable release branch at the time of a stable FG release. So if you choose to download 2018.3.x you'll get only bug fixes to the aircraft in the launcher - and not the current model from FGAddon.

This lack of stable release used to cause me endless pain supporting old versions of FG as there used to only be one FGAddon - so my models had to support a wide range of FG versions because the update button would show on an old FG and would download a model that would then break. I never wanted to force pilots to upgrade FG to be able to continue to fly my released aircraft.

I've currently got 10 versions of FG installed on my system and they all work alongside each other nicely for the default hangar.

What we have done is effectively revert to 1 release per year; but with 3 previews of that release which are suited to developers or pilots who want new features even if there are a few rough edges - rather than using the nightly builds which can have sharp rotating edges.

[Octal450]

Thorsten,
I asked wkitty, not you. I already know what you think - I am not going to make my life harder by making your problems my problems unfortunately. Those who have FG and don't want to update can just not download and install any newer updates. Those who are new can just easily get 2019.1.1. I have been using minimum requirements for years now to take advantage of new features and nobody complained - you only complain now because you don't like that more people will use 2019.1.

So let's see if users complain or not - so far everybody I spoke with was very happy and content. I have only met one user who couldn't upgrade due to his OS not having a release out for it yet, but another user graciously provided him with a build if FG to use! Now he is happy!
What is your justification to prevent people from using 2019.1?

Don't dare to bring old flamewars into this. I am giving you MY PERSONAL opinion not anybody else!

Richard,
Well, I mean we wait 7-8 months for a release and all we get is a few bugfixes and a quote unquote unstable release, that most people shouldn't use, after hearing for months how great all the new features are. It is a big let down and I'm not going to support it. Everytime I give my opinion people accuse me of just trying to further my own agenda, and make everything terrible for them.

We do not force the updates, users can always roll back by pressing the "I don't care" or "remind me later" buttons on update prompts. But we just don't support them then. I will only provide updates and support for one version of the aircraft, because otherwise things get super complex and frustrating. Further, I have been waiting 7-8 months for one of these features so you better damn believe I am now going to take advantage of it. So - people who wish to continue flying newest versions and most advanced versions my aircraft will get 2019.1, end of story. I don't believe you when you say it's unstable. From my testing it worked flawlessly, and the RC ages ago did too. It seems a tactic to keep people on 2018.3 for some bizarre reason and I'm just not going to tolerate it.

Kind Regards,
Josh

[legoboyvdlp]

I believe this is just a tactic to keep people on 2018.3 for some bizarre reason and I'm just not going to tolerate it.

This is certainly not quite accurate - maintaining a fairly recent release as a stable version makes perfect sense. That doesn't mean we have to support it and that is what we decided not to do in our conversation last night

[Octal450]

That doesn't explain why "everybody" is so angry that I push for 2019.1 then
And by everybody I mean... Like 3 people.

Kind Regards,
Josh

PS. Message was edited to add more infos and fix some words.

[bugman]

Josh, here is a good example to highlight the possible instability of new code. One change coming up in the 2019.2 release is Richard's work on running Nasal GC in a thread for faster and more responsive garbage collection. This feature is not extensively tested as it is new. Note that the change causes the simgear tests to segfault on Linux systems. This issue should be resolved in time for 2019.3. But certain Linux users of the not so extensively tested 2019.2 version might experience segfaults when flying.

So the point is that users who wish to fly with high software stability will have to use a version of your aircraft that corresponds to the stable FlightGear version they are using (2018.3.x). In this case they currently would need to look at your git history, find the point in time when 2018.3 was released, use that historical revision of your aircraft, and hope that it is functional. Power users will use the latest and greatest HEAD version of your aircraft. However the average user - the majority of FG users who have zero forum presence and zero MP presence - will instead prefer a stable version of FG + a corresponding version of your aircraft.

Regards,
Edward

[Octal450]

Dear Edward with all due respect 2019.2 is not a "release" yet that seemed like a stable to everybody who look in sourceforge. And 2019.1 I tested the RC months ago and found no issues. I made short tests last night and everything looked good.

Kind Regards,
Josh

[Octal450]

It has been too long since new features are available and I do not really want to wait much longer. I don't believe you are correct and we will see about that. I'm moving forward and those who wish to use it can as well. I've been hearing for months from people that 2019.1.1 was stable for release from many people and now you say it's not? I don't buy it! But let's see what the users say. If there is a big revolt where people have a problem, I can always change it back and remove new components with placeholders - it's my plane afterall. But I don't see it happened.

Kind Regards,
Josh