This discussion has died down a bit, but I have noticed a rather suspicious absence of comments from a few key players. :)
Are there any "core" developers that wish to comment on the future of OpenSG? -Allen Allen Bierbaum wrote: >Hello all, > >What I am about to say may be flamebait, I don't know, but it has >started to bother me enough that I couldn't hold back any longer. I just >feel I need to speak up. I know many of the things in this e-mail may >sounds harsh, but as someone deeply involved in OpenSG and who is >betting their company's future on it I must call it like I see it. So >here goes, let's stir the pot up. :) > >The problem >----------- >I have been using OpenSG since the beginning and my company is currently >using it for all of our development. We do this because IMHO OpenSG is >the most technically advanced open source scene graph out there. But >recently I have had to start re-examining whether it makes good business >sense to keep using OpenSG. Don't get me wrong, I love OpenSG, I think >the developers are great, but OpenSG is losing out and is falling >further and further behind other efforts, most notably OpenSceneGraph >but also relative to other projects out there. > >For an example of this just check out the following links: > > - http://www.openscenegraph.org/ > - Community activity: http://tinyurl.com/m3sxe > - Siggraph 2006 presentation at: http://tinyurl.com/levs5 > - Contributor list: http://tinyurl.com/rl7xc > >OpenSceneGraph is growing by leaps and bounds. They have nearly 200 >contributors to the codebase and have more plugins on the way. I highly >suggest that any OpenSG developer take a detailed look at the OSG >website to get an idea of what they are up to. As they say, know your >enemy. I know we don't often think of other open source projects as the >"enemy", but remember that every user and contributor on OpenSceneGraph >is one less for OpenSG. Unfortunately it is a zero-sum game. > >But back to OpenSG. I have a simple question: What is the goal of >OpenSG and the OpenSG developers? > >Is the goal to have a codebase to do research? To work on fun projects >on the side? Or is the goal something large like to create the most >widely used open source graphics scene graph? > >The state of things >------------------- >As it stands now I don't know what the goal is. It really seems like >there is no central direction or push to make real effort on the project >towards a goal. There is no roadmap and it often seems like there is no >rhyme or reason to the development direction. I know this sounds harsh, >but I have heard multiple people describe it this way. > >For example here are a short list of some of the symptoms I see. > - No roadmap describing what needs to be done and who is working on >it and no urgency to make progress. > - Relatively few contributors. There are several core contributors >but very few community members contributing small bits of code. > - Relatively few people in the graphics community know about OpenSG. > - Still too few loaders compared to other scene graphs. No one has >an incentive to do this grunt work but it still needs done. > - Many things never get completely done. (FLT loader, experimental code) > - OpenSG 2.0 development is languishing. There doesn't seem to be a >big push to move over to this codebase. When GV originally started on >it many of the ideas were more advanced then any other scenegraph, now >others are catching up and OpenSG 2.0 is still not moving forward very >quickly. > - Relatively difficult to build and install. > - There are multiple build systems. I don't even know which one >is the right one to use. > - Need more pre-packaged builds for common platforms. > - Need to get OpenSG into Fedora Extras and Debian (like >OpenSceneGraph) > - No promotion of new features > - OpenSG has cluster-based rendering. It can render over 1 >billion polys using a cluster but no one knows this. > - Cluster rendering on tiled displays. > - Occlusion culling was added a while back and there wasn't even a >user announcement. > - The shadowing code still has no public announcement. > - Staged rendering in OpenSG 2.0. > - These are all killer feature that nobody else has and OpenSG has >had it for quite a while but there has been no demo, no announcements, >nothing. If we don't tell people about OpenSG how can we expect them to >use it? > - The webpage is confusing and hides the important information. It >is just hard to navigate. > - No where does it say, "This is why you should use OpenSG" and >"This is how it compares to scene graph XXX" > - And more.... > >Sorry about all these, but I think it would be hard to say any of it is >not true. :( > >As a side note, I think that the reason for the current state of things >(and correspondingly the reason that OpenSceneGraph is succeeding) is >that as far as I know there is no one whose livelihood directly depends >upon OpenSG. There is no one whose full-time job is OpenSG development >and consulting. OpenSceneGraph benefits greatly in that Robert and Don >have to make OpenSceneGraph succeed and work or they don't have an >income to support their family. That is a great motivator for success. > > >Call to action >-------------- >Now to what can be done. First, what do you all think? Are these >things issues in your opinion and more importantly do we really want to >solve them? If the goal of OpenSG is just to be a place to work on >research code, then these issues might not matter. If the goal is to >create the dominant and most featureful scene graph, then I think these >issues all matter. > >I think many of these things can be corrected but it will require a >commitment from the entire OpenSG community to take action and grow the >community further. The two areas I see as being most important in the >short term are active promotion and a shared roadmap. > >Active promotion is important because we need to get the word out. >People need to know about OpenSG and why they should use it. If there >is a new feature added to OpenSG, there needs to be a small demo in the >source tree that is compiled with every distribution. There needs to be >a page on the website with screenshots and descriptions and we need to >promote this demo on the web (opengl.org and all the others). We need >to make the website more community oriented and better organized to put >the important information right there in the user's face. > >I know marketing is not something developers worry about much, but it is >important. If the graphics community doesn't hear about what we are >doing then all our effort is wasted. It reminds me of something I heard >about research one time. "It is not research until it is published". >Well, correspondingly it is not open source development until someone >knows about it and uses it. > >A shared roadmap is important for two reasons. Users need to see where >the project is heading and developers need to agree on where the project >is heading so they know what to work on. I think this is the key to >keeping the project moving forward and maintaining inertia. It is also >a great way to get new contributors because it can help them be >interested in what is going on. > >What do you think? Are these the most important current needs? > > >What we can do >-------------- >So what can we do? First, I think anyone that cares about this issue >should reply to this e-mail and say so. Correspondingly, if you think I >am full of it, then reply and say that to. > >After that discussion I hope we can start really documenting the goals >and roadmap for the project. > >For my part, I am willing to put my money where my mouth is so to >speak. I will do anything I can to help out the project and I will put >the resources of my company at the community's disposal (within reason :) > >For now what I can do is: > - I will provide server space and network access for any tools, >websites, build farms, whatever is needed. > - I am working with Dirk on a single integrated build for OpenSG 2.0 >so we can finally have one build system > - I am working on making pyOpenSG work with OpenSG 2.0. After this >is done I hope to create a small viewer application that could serve as >a good demo of some of the advanced capabilities of OpenSG 2.0. > - If there is interest I will consider giving free non-commercial >access to our max exporter for OpenSG. It automatically generates >shaders to photo-realistically render the scene as closely as possible >to the max software renderer. (exports normal maps, bump maps, etc) > - I can devote some time for our graphic designer to work on things >like website graphics, models for demos, etc. Let me know what you need >and I will see how we can do it. > - I will help out with marketing. If you write the code and a demo, >I will help make the webpage about it and post it everywhere on the web. > > >In closing I would like to say again, I love OpenSG. It is technically >superior to everything else out there. I just want to make sure it >stays that way and grows to its full potential. > >-Allen > >PS. At first I considered just sending this e-mail to the core >developers that I know but I decided that since OpenSG is Open Source we >should probably have all discussions in the open. :) > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? >Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier >Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo >http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 >_______________________________________________ >Opensg-users mailing list >[email protected] >https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/opensg-users > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Opensg-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/opensg-users
