Kevin Jones wrote:
Hi all,
There seems to be some debate about whether FG pre-release 0.9.9 is
(or was) available for Windows. I'm going to proverbially "pop my
head over the parapet" in support of the FG developers.
0.9.9 *is* available for Win32 in the same way that it's available for
other platforms...as source code (I've just checked the source code
download page). It's not hard to build the source code on Win32. I
used to think it was hard because all of the information to build for
Win32 was fragmented around the message forums. To try and relieve
that pain I spent many hours learning how to build FG source for Win32
then wrote a PDF document to help others. That doc has been reviewed
and is now hosted on the FG Downloads -> Tutorials section (thanks AJ,
Curt and others).
The tools to compile FG are, like FG itself, FREE. I'd like to
politely ask the readers of this forum that they remember FG is free
and, for those that are using the sim rather than contributing to the
project, take a moment to consider how many hours the developers have
committed. This is their own time purely for the love of the hobby (I
assume?!?).
Please, please, please stop badgering the developers. Try downloading
the document, downloading the build tools (Cygwin), downloading the
source and having a go at verifying the source. As Curt recently
said...the more people that verify the pre-release source the less
chance there is of releasing problems.
My final comment - if you truly believe there is a problem then try
making a positive contribution. Reliable documentation, for example,
is just as valuable as the code itself.
My personal thanks to all of the FG developers...may you all continue
to give up your time for this *excellent* FREE product.
I hope I mentioned "FREE" enough times in that message :)
Kevin.
Hello Kevin,
I think that you spoke the truth but that the truth is not always what
matters. I think we shouldn't care about who has "merits" and who is
"responsible". The Open Source strategy is brilliant. To me FlightGear
just has some problems of tactics. End users are a little dumb when it
comes to compiling things, even with a neat procedure listed. Whatever
precise and reliable the procedure, they simply don't understand the
words. Even if they understand the words, they're afraid. They already
have so many problems with their system... I once installed Cygwin and
used it. It wasn't simple at all. It took me gigabytes of DSL bandwidth.
The developers must adapt to the end users, not the opposite. I only
mean the developers should be more offensive to request testers. Let the
end users do what they do best: install and try out.
Two other examples of tactical problems:
- In http://www.flightgear.org/Downloads/binary.shtml#windows version
0.9.9 is the only Windows release listed, though problems have been
reported on common systems and hardware: both Windows 9x and XP, both
ATI and nVidia graphic cards. This isn't good for the reputation of
FlightGear neither for the reputation of free software. My personal
opinion is version 0.9.8 must be restored as the main Windows version
and version 0.9.9 be proposed as a test version. You can no more remove
version 0.9.9 but you can't either make it the flag version.
- On the software download site http://www.tucows.com FlightGear is
listed only for X11 and in version 0.7.8.
15 years ago I heard Microsoft owned whole buildings filled with PC's
from all over the world, from all kinds of brands and configurations.
They used them to test the releases of their products. Later on
Microsoft opened the gates and relied on "privileged" customers and
partners to test the beta releases. Can the FlightGear community build
such a network of testers?
Can FlightGear be split in more distinct parts, allowing them to be
tested individually by end users? This may allow to fork some parts, for
example to better adapt to new hardware. Final releases would be made of
parts known to work, even if this means using some old parts and leave
some new features temporarily aside.
Eric
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