> That said - I don't see why an Atmospheric
> Light Scattering scheme should have embedded in it some ac modelling  
> stuff.
> That serves to diverge the schemes. And it makes it look like ALS is your
> private sandbox.

Offering new and different options is the whole point of having a different 
scheme. What would be the point of having Rembrandt if it were to look just as 
the default scheme and would not offer novel options? You think these options 
should be limited to the sky (and terrain?) - fine,  I don't, I think they may 
well affect models, trees, all the visuals. 

Since Emilian accused me of wanting to rule FG anyway - just what would happen 
if I would start editing some new effects also into Rembrandt or default? Or if 
I would decide myself how Basic Weather needs to interact with ALS? Let me give 
you the answer: I would get the same accusations 10 times over - and (at least 
partially) rightfully so. It's not my call to make - it's up to the maintainers 
of Basic Weather (Rembrandt,...) to decide what to include and how.  There's 
simply no pleasing some people - if I introduce new effect in my framework, you 
complain about diverging schemes, if I would do it everywhere you would be 
complaining that I can't simply make such decisions on my own. So in your book, 
I just shouldn't introduce any novel effects at all unless you approve? (You 
didn't say this, but it pretty much follows.) You can't be serious.

Last time I checked, I designed or ported something like 95% of the code of 
ALS. Stuart did some work on the trees, Lauri did the original skydome shader 
before haze, Emilian contributed insights, corrections  and tests to the ported 
model ubershader - and that's basically it. So I guess that makes me the 
current maintainer of the scheme.

What you (and Henri) are really saying here that you guys should really have a 
vote on where the scheme is going without investing work into it (and 
ironically enough, you're both not even users of the scheme), and you should 
even be able to overrule my own judgement on what is important and how things 
get implemented and be able to tell me what I should be working on first. Just 
since when did we start doing things that way in FG?

I fully accept that decisions which affect other subsystems, potentially 
disable them or require substantial action by others must be discussed and 
voted on, and that coding e.g. an explicit preference for one weather system 
over the other is a bad thing. So if the choice were that we can have either 
Rembrandt or ALS, we'd need to have a discussion and a vote. But that's not the 
case.

Thus,  you don't get to overrule me if I consider implementing wind effects 
more useful than the wake effect. You can bring up your case, you can ask 
nicely, we can have a discussion, but as long as you expect me to do the work, 
you'll have to live with my decisions and wait till your request reaches the 
top of my to-do list (in the case of the wake, I have already stated that it's 
on the to-do list - same with the rainbow). You can do it yourself if it has a 
higher priority for you (in which case I offered help and expect the customary 
amount of coordination with what I'm doing, same as if I would start working on 
one of your aircraft), you can convince anyone else to do it (in which case 
I'll also help), and that's how it works everywhere else in FG. If I want a 
particular feature for an aircraft, I ask nicely and try to be convincing, I 
don't go around claiming the aircraft is broken every time.  Why is this mode 
not acceptable to you?

You know, I don't want any special treatment here - I just want that the same 
standards are applied to me which apply to other people (specifically also you 
and Emilian). And I can't see that in what you say - I'm always held to much 
stricter standards. 

Vivian, for all your eloquence, I don't get the impression that all this is the 
real sticking point - what is _really_ bugging you here?

You're not a user of ALS, I haven't seen it on in any of your screenshots. 
You're not affected personally by anything I do. I told you I will put the 
rainbow back and I will implement the wave, and we're in the middle between 
release periods, just when it's officially time to introduce new features with 
the idea to consolidate towards the release.  So there can't be any serious 
concern at this point that users might not get to see and appreciate your work 
sufficiently.  You argue against the hypothetical case that you might 
potentially have to adjust your aircraft for ALS even when this is not 
factually the case.

At every opportunity, you speak up against  the way Advanced Weather is done. 
You implemented, together with Emilian, an environment for the water shader 
which explicitly favours Basic Weather over Advanced Weather, in spite of the 
fact that I documented the lighting model of Advanced Weather in the readme, 
outlined it to you on this list, again in a mail to you and Emilian and coded a 
shader which explicitly demonstrates my control property approach which avoids 
this. When I handed over the code of ALS to you and Emilian, you did nothing 
with it for half a year, and afterwards criticized forever that I implemented 
it the wrong way.

I'm trying very hard to come up with a charitable explanation not involving 
that you do it just to put stumbling blocks to whatever I do, but I am running 
out of those. 

You accept that it's perfectly fine if Fred introduces new features in 
Rembrandt and modify your aircraft according to novel standards, but you have 
concerns all over the place when ALS (which is much less of a radical change) 
is concerned. Pretty much every novel feature by ALS has been criticized by you 
or Emilian as unwanted, badly implemented, breaking things ... In several 
cases, it was pretty apparent you (or Emilian) hadn't even looked in any detail 
through the shader you were opposed to and argued just based on assumptions. 
You frequently argue on behalf of users - but I hang out in the forum and have 
all the discussion with users (much more than you do), and I think I get a 
pretty clear picture of what the average user is about. 

I don't get it. What is the real problem?

I'm not asking you to like what I do. I'm just asking for some basic mutual 
respect and peaceful co-existence. Can't you be content with me not taking away 
any of what you like in FG? Do you have to oppose features nobody asks you to 
use? Can't you stand the idea that there is an option which works different 
from what you like? We can take this off-list if you like, but I'm really at a 
point where I can no longer treat this as a misunderstanding and lack of 
information flow, I have explained too much to believe in this any more.

Finally, I acknowledge gratefully that you have always been very polite and 
civilized in discussing with me, which can't be said for some hate-mails I've 
received from others off-list.

* Thorsten
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