On October 20, 2004 10:05 pm, Boris Koenig wrote:
Ampere K. Hardraade wrote:
One of the problems, as I pointed out earlier, is that the download size of the base package is a bit on the huge size.
fully agreed, that's something most people seem to complain about - on the other hand it's fairly "small" to be honest - if you compare it to other simulators like MSFS, X-Plane etc. - so having a full simulator by downloading less than 100 MB data, sounds okay to me.
FlightGear targets people who want to get something for free, while MSFS and X-Plane target people who are willing to pay. Therefore, you can't really compare FlightGear to the latters.
well, somehow you folks permanently try to convince me that you cannot
compare opensource projects with closed source projects - and on the
other hand exactly that is done all the time... if not by the developers
themselves (who nevertheless indicate to aim to outscore the commercial competitors one day) then by every new user who OF COURSE will make
comparisons with previous experiences.
On the other hand, you're of course true that the companies behind products like MSFS or X-Plane *target* commercial users, I'd assume that the "non-commercial user community" (=those who didn't pay) is significant for either project, too - particularly for MSFS this is very true.
For people who just want to check out FlightGear, their mentallity is to download the executable, run it for five minutes, and delete it if they are not sastisfy.
probably a good point, but then the whole process of compiling the thing is even more problematic than the big download in the first place !?
If the download is too big, or the time for download takes too long, this group of people are going to get discourage, and FlightGear can potentially lose these new players as consequence.
Okay, then one would need to think about creating kind of a "preview" or "down-stripped" version that contains only working stuff - preferably with a certain scenery already available and a handful of finished aircraft.
Something like this could probably result in a significantly smaller package.
100MB is okay for me because I have broardband. But even so, I still think the download is too big, because it still takes time and 90% of the aircrafts that it contains are aircrafts that I don't fly.
probably true, but one would need to determine what types of aircraft are interesting for the majority of people/users AND what aircraft can actually be used without problems - otherwise one might very end up packaging only stuff that some of us think should be integrated and leave out other aircraft that might appeal to others anyway.
[...] The patch doesn't really solve the issue: people still have to download the entire base package when they first run FlightGear.
That's of course true - and I didn't mean to imply anything else - it's only meant to provide a viable alternative for those who want to upgrade (or even down-grade)
Beside, how many players do you think actually know about the patch?
I am not sure about that, but I am confident that the patch will be added as an option to the official FlightGear download page as soon as there's been some experience made about the whole patching thing.
We've talked about that already on the devel list.
And I can understand Erik's objection or rather "fear" that patching might create a whole new bunch of problems the developers would then might have to face every now and then.
On the other hand, the tardiff pages are quite extensive about the whole patching process and it would not take very long to add some advise about how to deal with unsuccessfully patched FlightGear base packages.
So, I am not sure if it's such a good idea to simply stop packaging unfinished aircraft.
You are correct; as a modeller, I do want my aircrafts to appear in the base package so that people can appreciate my work.
That's what I figured, too
However, forcing them to download my aircraft(s) isn't right.
Well, I wouldn't call it "forcing" - the policy to integrate any new aircraft seems to me rather like some sort of artifact from the early beginnings where everybody was glad that a contribution was made - and I understand that it's somehow tough to declare now certain requirements in order for future aircraft to be considered for the base package.
> It may even be counter productive, and
I certainly don't want that to happen.
yes, this is a bit of a two-sided problem - both scenarious could probably become counter-productive.
An alternative is to set up a section at FlightGear.org for aircraft downloads.
I think it was Chris Metzler who brought up a similar idea some time ago - to set up a webpage for additional FlightGear-related downloads, which wouldn't necessarily have to consume Curt's resources - while all this was back then about scenery in general, it's certainly something that would fit together with some kind of "Aircraft Repository" - on the other hand that idea wasn't appreciated that much if I remember correctly !?
That way, people do not have to deal with a large initial download. They can download the aircrafts that they want, and have better knowledge as to what is in their installation of FlightGear.
yes, I see - and I would agree that some type of aircraft directory would probably be nice, avsim.net provides something like that for many simulators, so one could probably use it for exactly that purpose.
What's also neat about such a service is that you can easily provide descriptive information as well as screenshots for uploaded files - for a novice user this is certainly much more attractive than first having to download the whole thing ...
On the other hand, actually using avsim.net has become a pain in the ... - meanwhile they require membership before someone's able to download anything.
As for the aircraft developers, I'm sure they will be quite happy to see the screenshots of their works appear on the Internet, eventhough their actual aircrafts are not included in the base package.
yes...if there's really a base-package made available whose size is reduced accordingly, one could still ship those aircraft that meet certain criteria.
So, there's still the chance for the most popular stuff to be packaged.
How many aircraft, or rather which aircraft do you think would be minimally needed in such a down-stripped package ?
Let's see what savings in size can be achieved, and where else things can be stripped - at least we could then see HOW big such a "newbie" ;-) version of FG would become and whether it's worth the effort.
--------- Boris
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