Some excellent points. But I couldn't help thinking of a comparison: if
the risk with skylines is that it relies on volunteers - doesn't the GFA
structure rely on volunteers too?
KZ
On 14/07/2012 4:10 PM, [email protected] wrote:
Back when GFA decided to use the OLC for it's Decentralised
Competition, there was no alternative available. The OLC offerred a
good (and at the time, innovative) way to operate a Decentralised
Competition without the administrative hassles that previously existed.
It was quite definitely worth the 4 euros per pilot per year for this
service, and while there have been some difficulties (for example, not
being able to have our own handicap list) in general it has worked out
pretty well. If I had to pay the 4 euro myself, well that's about
10c per flight uploaded for last season. Won't break the bank.
Of course, if there were competing services available then it would be
worth looking at a change - we don't have any commitment to continue
with OLC and it would be good to see some alternative services and
also some other competition types available. I would like to see a
competition for pure gliders, and a competition that required
pre-declared tasks - both of which would redress the bias towards
motorgliders.
Whether "free" services are a viable alternative in the long term is
questionable, however.
One problem with volunteer developments of any kind, is that the
"sexy" part is the development. There are always plenty of people
willing to help with putting together something new and different.
The problem comes with maintenance and support - not only bug fixing,
but dealing with questions, complaints and endless requests for new
features (which of course, no one is paying for so anyone can ask for
anything no matter how difficult it may be).
The number of volunteers willing to deal with the hard grind of
keeping things running tends to be much smaller, and so the shelf life
for these "free" services can be rather short. Users have no
guarantee that the volunteers won't suddenly get sick of it, and there
is no way anyone can demand a certain service level because no one is
paying.
Of course, paying for a service doesn't guarantee that it will be
provided either, and doesn't guarantee that the business will
continue. But at least the user has the comfort that they are
providing something towards the upkeep of the service and at least has
the right to expect something in return.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. And if it sounds too good to be
true, well...
Cheers
Tim
----- Original Message -----
From:
[email protected] "Discussion of issues relating to Soaring
in Australia." <[email protected]>
To:
"aus soaring" <[email protected]>
Cc:
Sent:
Sat, 14 Jul 2012 10:27:32 +0930
Subject:
Re: [Aus-soaring] Alternative to the OLC
Like Rolf I've been following the OLC discussions for some time.
It is sad to see how commercial interests and personalities have
created this rift. Unlike Rolf though, I'm with the Skylines camp
for the following reasons:
The data uploaded to the OLC is owned by them (similar to Facebook
etc) and once uploaded the user community can't easily - if at all
- control what happens to it any more. The intent for Skylines is
that the data remains public if I understand correctly.
Downloading large numbers of flights from the OLC necessary for
statistical analyses like thermal and wave maps is blocked I
believe. The data may be for sale if someone is serious enough
about it but given the relatively small number of glider pilots in
the various regions or even globally, a commercial venture along
these lines is going to be a tough business case. When I see
how rapid the development of XCsoar is compared to its commercial
counterparts then I can't help but think that this is the future.
Open source can tap into a large resource cloud that a business,
especially in a small niche like ours, cannot or will find very
hard to match. So over the years I would not be surprised if
Skylines (or a similar platform) overtook OLC in terms of the
features it will be able to offer and especially the spin-offs
that the promised unlimited data download and public ownership
will enable. That in turn might win even hardnosed OLC fans over...
It has also been proposed for Skylines to have an OLC upload
function so if you choose your flight(s) would be automatically
forwarded to the OLC as well (provided they don't block Skylines
from doing so...). In that case you can have the best of both worlds.
An open platform could allow any number of competitions (with
different rule sets) to "plug in" and experiment with different
formats. (Maybe the "lucky dip" of our Pylon Race would finally
gain the global following it deserves;-)). The OLC team can't
support diversity at such a scale unless the data is made public
which may not be in their commercial interest.
I believe that the competition won't hurt. Besides, Skylines is
not the only alternative. There are a number of perhaps lesser
known platforms already in existence, all exploring different
feature sets and models. We as the user community have the choice
and ultimately the extra features and spin-offs can only enrich
the gliding community - no matter which platform ends up "winning".
Time will tell...
Ulrich
*On Sat 14/07/12 07:56 , "rolf a. buelter" [email protected] sent:
*
I'm following the OLC / Skylines discussion on segelflug.de.
Max K., the main force behind the Skyline development is of
the opinion that the OLC organisation is to dictatorial and
possesive when it comes to the use of data they collect, i.e.
IGC files. On top of that there are a few rules in the OLC
scoring which don't meet the approval of all, e.g.
motorgliders get no penalty applied eventhough they have a
perceived advantage. The developers are also unhappy that the
german decentralised comp is derived from the OLC, similar to
ours and the DAeC pays for that admin too. The whole thing is
motivated by a mix of personality, the genuine drive to do
better and some local (german) issues.
I'm with Pam and Stuart.
Rgds - Rolf
> From: [email protected]
*>* To: [email protected]
*>* Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2012 22:07:57 +1000
*>* Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Alternative to the OLC
*>*
*>* I'm with Pam; WHY?????
*>*
*>* The wonderful thing about the OLC is that it brings most
of us together -
*>* this is why we find it so interesting?
*>*
*>* I'm not saying that the guys and gals developing the new
site do not have
> some innovative ideas - I hope they do
*>* but by diluting the numbers participating erodes what we
love about the OLC
*>* - is that what we really want - I doubt it.
*>* Can we see some collaboration?
*>*
*>* SDF
*>*
*>* -----Original Message-----
*>* From: [email protected]
*>* [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Pam
*>* Kurstjens
*>* Sent: Friday, 13 July 2012 3:55 PM
*>* To: 'Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia.'
> Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] Alternative to the OLC
*>*
*>* Why would we need an alternative? I think there is great
strength and
*>* interest having worldwide flights in one place.
*>* If you would like to see an alternative system, check out
the BGA Ladder in
*>* the UK: http://www.bgaladder.co.uk and click on 'daily
scores' for example.
*>* Yesterday, 39 flights in the UK were posted to this site,
and only 5 of
*>* those were posted to OLC.
*>* People are regularly doing 750's and the rare 1000, which
are incredible
> flights given the size of the island, the airspace, and the
weather, yet we
*>* see few flights on the OLC so gliding in the UK goes
largely unnoticed by
*>* the worldwide gliding community
*>*
*>* Pam
*>*
*>* -----Original Message-----
*>* From: [email protected]
*>* [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Peter F
*>* Bradshaw
*>* Sent: Monday, 2 July 2012 9:51 PM
*>* To: [email protected]
> Subject: [Aus-soaring] Alternative to the OLC
*>*
*>* Hi;
*>*
*>* There is an alternative to the OLC at:
*>*
*>* http://skylines.xcsoar.org/
*>*
*>* IGC files may be uploaded and scored here. In addition it
is planned to
*>* implement a realtime tracking feature in conjunction with
XCSoar (v6.4).
*>*
*>* Cheers
*>*
*>* --
*>* Peter F Bradshaw: http://www.exadios.com (public keys
avaliable there).
*>* Personal site: http://personal.exadios.com "I love truth,
and the way the
> government still uses it occasionally to keep us guessing."
- Sam Kekovich.
*>* _______________________________________________
*>* Aus-soaring mailing list
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*>*
*>*
*>* _______________________________________________
*>* Aus-soaring mailing list
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*>* To check or change subscription details, visit:
> http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring
*>*
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