[PREFACE: I'm a FG end-user who's not a programmer, nor am I an intellectual property rights attorney. My sole desire is to use FG as a "realistic" flight similator, as opposed to using it as a fun "game." Please consider the remarks below in that context. Thanks!]
On Wed, 2011-01-19 at 19:15 -0300, Victhor wrote: > VATSIM requires any developer to sign a NDA before having access to > their network, so it's not possible to make a open source client. SB747 > was made before the NDA requirement, but I suppose sources can't be > released due to obvious licensing issues. I'll get to this in a moment, but first... > It seems it has been fixed so that it reports you as the aircraft you're > currently using, but I'm not sure. Just to be clear, sb747 hasn't been "fixed" to report the proper aircraft but, rather, a workaround has been found whereby you file your flight plan via simroutes.com and then once that's done you file a blank flight plan with sb747. Since your simroutes.com flight plan contains the aircraft type, that's what is reported on VATSIM, Now, back to the whole licensing/NDA issue... IMHO, and with all due respect to those who might disagree, while the "ideal" would be that an FG<-->VATSIM "broker" (to use VATSIM's term) would be open source, I do not understand why this has to be mandatory? If VATSIM were saying that FG itself had to become closed-source for it to connect to their network, then I'd be in total agreement. However, that's NOT the case. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what VATSIM seems to be saying is that they don't want "just anybody" trying to connect to their network, hence the "only approved clients" policy, and in order to enforce that policy they want to be the only source for releasing the source code. I'm not aware of them wanting to extract licensing fees (i.e. earn income) for access to the source code (right?), and it seems to me they're merely trying to protect the integrity of their network. Is that so wrong? What we have here is an opportunity to take FG to a whole new level, and I'd *really* hate to see that opportunity rejected out-of-hand over this issue. We say on one hand that FG is a "serious" flight simulation environment (as opposed to merely being a "game") and, yet, when presented with the possibility of linking FG to a "serious" air traffic controlled online flying environment we immediately reject the idea because a client to connect to that environment would not be open source? IMHO, the FG multiplayer environment will *never* match the realism and professionalism of air traffic controlled online flying that VATSIM has achieved. Yes, we have a handful of MP ATC's (jomo, redneck, wookierabbit, and a few others), and those folks do a *fabulous* job. But they're just a handful, and those of us who are seriously flying under their direction are often overwhelmed by "gamers" who spawn into MP on the runways, ignore ATC directions, and otherwise disrupt (either accidentally or purposely) our efforts to mimick real-life flying under ATC control. By comparison VATSIM has *hundreds* of ATC's who must pass rigid certification requirements before they "go to work" on the network. VATSIM requires those who access the network to follow ATC directions, and failing to do so will get you booted from that network pretty quickly. It's possible on VATSIM to fly across North America, or even transatlantic, and do the whole flight (including clearance and ground control) under air traffic control the entire time, while being passed to multiple controllers in the process. I have listened to real-life ATC comms on liveatc.net and I have flown FG on VATSIM and, frankly, it's pretty hard to tell the difference between the two. So, while some of us may not like the idea of having to sign an NDA in order to develop an FG<-->VATSIM broker/client, the simple fact of the matter is this... those of us who want to use FlightGear to fly online in a realistic and professional air traffic controlled environment *can't* currently do that in MP (and, IMHO, likely never will be able to do it), but we *can* do it in VATSIM. In closing, the squawkgear/sb747 "solution" is an exceptional "hack" that does work, but if we *really* want to get serious about providing FG users with the capability of using FG as a "serious" flight simulation environment, then IMHO we should give this a serious look. Regards, Chris ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Special Offer-- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE (a $49 USD value)! Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better price-free! Download using promo code Free_Logger_4_Dev2Dev. Offer expires February 28th, so secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY! http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsight-sfd2d _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
