An engine that does not have any content to run will never last.
News flash: The FSO engine has no shortage of content using it, and more is being created every day.
Thank you for taking me out of context, the comment was *not* directed at you Goober5000, but those that are worried about the project breaking the existing content or the engine being rendered unable to do anything. I guess unless you are one of the ones that is afraid of the engine being broken by the project. In which case, I reiterate, the goal of the overhaul project is not to break the engine, but to modernize it so that will be set for the next 10+ years.
I have also updated my quoted post to help clarify this, I admit the original version was not as clear.The thing is, even if the project falls short of actually changing any code in the engine, the first step of the project, documenting the current behaviour, will still be useful to future work on the engine.
Agree, but this does not require its own separate forum. Even if it did, using the "overhaul project" forum would be misleading.
Misleading in what way? Yes, the documentation part, which is only the *first* part of the overhaul project, does not really require its own forum. But
as the first stage of the larger project that does require a separate forum (if only for organization sake). There is no reason that all of the stages of the project use the same forum.
This is one of those "shoot for the moon, even if you miss you will land among the stars" type projects. Just because you (Goober5000) do not think the project will be successful or completed does not mean that this is what will actually happen. I know, I know, you have the experience with the SCP, but cutting it off before it has even failed? Really? Especially when there is some semitrance of consensus on the way forward?
Yes this project has drawn strong criticism from members, but this is because none of us want to see FS2Open, Freespace, and all of the mods and TC's just fall into obscurity after 10 years of going on.
Utterly false. This project has drawn strong criticism because of the way it has been conducted and the quality (or lack thereof) of the work that has been done so far.
So you don't care if FS2Open and its related content falls into obscurity because the engine slowly become useless on modern machines? As
Nuke mentioned, "[The Overhaul Project is] not about pissing off modders, its about preserving the engine's usefulness."
Or is it that the overhaul project has not actually produced any concrete? If so, I address this below.
"... [T]he way it has been conducted..."? What is wrong with the way it has been conducted? I only see some passionate people arguing over the destiny of their favourite space game engine. Even within the arguing their was a semblance of consensus on how the Overhaul Project was to proceed, as mentioned above by me and by the The_E in the post he snuck in while I was typing.
On a related topic, you (Goober5000) wanted a Mailing list, because other serious open source projects have them. As we reminded you on IRC then, the forum of the discussion has nothing to do with the "seriousness" or the quality of the project. The "seriousness" of a project rests entirely on its ability to get things done and to have mature, logical, and open discussions about the future of the project in the so that all stakeholders (ie. the mods and TCs) have knowledge about and the ability to provide input on the changes.
"Serious" opensource projects do not have a site administrator shelve the project because he feels that a project has not done anything useful, when it still has a leader and in still in the planning stages with active discussion. It would be one thing to have the
current project leader request the archival, but based on his response to the archival, it was obviously not his idea.
God? Fail.
Hyperbole? Fail.
Basically, this project was starting to trend towards the old disasters of shoddy, unmaintained (and unmaintainable) code, and was already bearing rotten fruit. Based on what it has accomplished so far, the best solution is to isolate it and let it die off. Otherwise it would be like a parasite feeding off a host.
What code? As far as I know the only thing that has come out of this project thus far is the 70 some posts in this forum. This project was never intended to be a quick "fix" for the engine, it has always being a long term project. I don't think anyone that has participated in this discussion does not understand that this project will take time.
How can this project "trend towards the old disasters of shoddy, unmaintained, unmaintainable code" when
no code has been written? Are you prophetic now? What rotten fruit has this project bared? A discussion about FSO's future? The idea that we can and should do something about the 1990's coding style? One of the original project leaders has left in a huff? Another has decided that his own projects would be a better use of his time? No code thus far? That the members cannot decide on how to go about implementing the big features that have been brought up?
Now, do not get me wrong, old code is not a bad thing, but FSO is turning into a mishmash of everything, every style and more hackish with every new feature and as a result is becoming more inconsistent and harder to read and pickup for new coders. Making the code accessible to new coders is what allows "serious" open source projects to grow, especially if they have chip on there shoulder like our licence.