A new Flight Simulator

[bomber]

Please don't accuse me of not addressing your concerns directly, I'm doing my best it's not my fault you're being obtuse.

In your scenario you paint a rather weird world in which a plane is built where a person creates a pay to use sound pack to scupper the whole process .... Well what's to stop a quick and dirty generic (like 3/4 Of FG Planes) sound pack being made as GPL or CC and distributed.... Allowing people to fly and upgrade if they wish with another sound pack ?

[bomber]

Also your concept that a GPL core has to use GPL content only is wrong....

"Now, someone interested in this project could get a "New Flight " Core that allows the part to come together and operate, under GPL. "


A planes data can be any licence, GNU does not dictate the licence of data used.

[bomber]

Yup. Ok. Why bother making a box-diagram in the first place, except such effort is spend trying to dissuade people to engage doing it? I add one of my favorite sayings:

People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

This i agree with you on.... I'm not calling for only rah rah pompom girls to post, but I am saying try and be constructive rather than say "I'm not interested in doing it that way" . As this just dissuaded people to communicate....

Didn't you say something like that ?

[IAHM-COL]

In your scenario you paint a rather weird world in which a plane is built where a person creates a pay to use sound pack to scupper the whole process .... Well what's to stop a quick and dirty generic (like 3/4 Of FG Planes) sound pack being made as GPL or CC and distributed.... Allowing people to fly and upgrade if they wish with another sound pack ?

Great

Now we are talking

I fully agree that at least a minimum generic specification of lgpl license is needed so the Sim flies.

Then advanced configurations can exits expanding the content and these could be of any license the author chooses and then users chooses where to agree and obtain or not a given expansion pack.

In addition, this method would not limit hi qual gpl expansions too


In my opinion this should be possible

[bomber]

Ok then why not have non commercial CC as the standard licence to cover the initial files of any content.

Why use GPL as all this file format would do is play into the hands of those wishing to scam unsuspecting punters. Who could charge for downloads of content containing 95% GPL and 5% dubious quality pay to play. As they could distribute both their Pay to Play files and GPL together, advertising it as a whole plane/content.

If Non commercial CC licence is used then this isn't so, and you put a barrier in the way of potential scammers. Whilst allowing genuine pay to play content developers to publish separate expansion packs for download, priced at the market value of only their work.

The desire would be to not inhibit initial generic CC work to be included in the initial download of any content. But see this as a starting point in which others could improve the work, WITHOUT having to go beg to any 'plane' Author for inclusion in any download. If someone comes along with a GPL content that's better then it's up to the user if he wished to run his simulation using it. If someone then comes along with a pay to play content file, it's then again up to the user to continue simulating with current files or upgrade. And if someone then comes along with a CC content that's getting rave reviews, why pay when it's free ?

[Richard]

Israel, I'm not saying "why bother" at all. What I am saying is "be aware how long the road is before you start your journey", I'm informing you that it is a massive undertaking - but I'm not definitely not saying "why bother".

Not sure i understand why jsbsim and 3d exists twice or why things like weather and others aren't through a plugin module.

So what is plug in module ?

Model dynamics manager ?

Cockpit linkage ?

JSBSim is in the second diagram twice as I think the core code may well need to provide access to JSBSim to provide 'global' features that can be implemented as a JSBSim system. This will be a slightly different version of JSBSim that will allow systems to be loaded dynamically. This part could be thought of as the property rules - but to keep things consistent I'd rather have just one way of doing things.

In my original diagram I was trying to show how multiple models can be loaded at the same time, so you could hop out of a 737 (either as a pilot or passenger) into an F-15. The original model would remain loaded so you could land the F-15 and get back into the original model and it would be exactly as you left it.

The second diagram is missing a lot of the interconnections - basically my vision would be to have multiple compute nodes (threads, processes or machines) that communicate via an in memory (or network) bus to allow the whole simulation to make full use of available CPU cores (or phyiscal machines). Machines would need to be connected by fast ethernet on a local network as the network element of the bus has to take <1ms to avoid latency issues.

Plugin modules are different to the rest as a plugin will be known to the core and when installed it will act as part of the core, e.g. it cannot be unloaded. This could be an advanced weather model that would tell the core that it is replacing the standard weather modul.

The model dynamics manager will manage all of the loaded models and the link between the aircraft model and the rendering engine. Although it's not clear from the diagram the rendering engine is a separate process (lots of reasons why this is a good thing) - so to get a 3d model required by a model to be rendered there needs to be something to sit between the two. Models will need to be installed, and as part of the installation process the model will provide the 3d assets and the simulation assets.

The cockpit linkage does many things; it abstracts away the input devices from the models, but it is also responsible for connecting model click events back to the simulation model. So the aircraft model will have all of the code to read, write and act on simulation variables (properties) and simulation events - but it will not have the tightly bound 3d model and xml file.

A key part of my design is to allow the 3d models to be replaced and keep the simulation code part of the model - that's why the 3d models need to be installed into the visual database. This also means that 3d modellers can contribute replacement models without needing to change the simulation code. This is the same principle as liveries, and yes liveries would also have to be in the visual database.

[IAHM-COL]

Why use GPL as all this file format would do is play into the hands of those wishing to scam unsuspecting punters. Who could charge for downloads of content containing 95% GPL and 5% dubious quality pay to play. As they could distribute both their Pay to Play files and GPL together, advertising it as a whole plane/content.

I don not think you have the licensing issues correct here.
If you use any GPL content within your code, then your code is a revised version of that GPL content. You are not allowed to re-lease this material (code/data) bundled in any other license except as GPL. This is call the copyleft provisions of the GPL

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html

Violations of this sort ARE very common in the Flightgear world. Per example one could look at the code in many non-GPL aircraft and one could see that copy/paste of Flightgear GPL core resources had been re-written verbatim (or copy/pasted). This is required for a plane to work ok in Flightgear. But these are clear violations of copyleft limitations. On the other hand, the owners of such code are those with the moral, economical and ethical authority to raise their flags, and address these issues with the non-GPL aircraft creators directly or through expensive court proceedings.

But that a violation or copyright infridgments exist in FG under failures to follow copyleft provisions do not means neither that's ok, nor that we would be unprotected if we decided to pursue a similar violation with code of ours.

To correct these I had suggested that our code be very modular and new code/data can be plugged in as a dynamic library. this is, you do not need to copy our/ the GPL content and bundle together with your restrictive non-GPL data. All you need to do is link it dynamically, and thus your data by remaining separate from that of the GPL code can still be plugged in a play appropriately.

Per example: think of this as if the FDMs were selectable thru a menu during runtime (just as liveries are).

Then you could have a menu where it says "select FDM".

You could make an FDM that uses the import/plugs interfaces we provide. But you do not need to copy any code from our GPL library into yours. Example your FDM specification could look like

Code: Select all

#a line like this could be loading dynamically the FDM library
#from the python Flight Simulator (pyFS)
#no code copying exist.
from pyFS import FDM

#a line like this could be creating an instatiation of an FDM that follows class inheritance of the pyFS FDM
myFDM=FDM()

##from here below the FDM specifications are your own code as it does not copy anything from the pyFS GPL  or LGPL code. You are effectively plugged in, but not copied nor bundled-up



Now lets say our pyFS has a "select FDM" menu that may look like a list of available FDMs for the given aircraft on use.
So just as one can change on runtime the livery, one could change on runtime the FDM, so if one has installed a pay=ware FDM created as above, after agreeing with whatever the content provider would have indicated, the new installed FDM package would show up in the selectable FDM choices.

Select, and run. And then your new FDM is up and running. You keep flying.

If Non commercial CC licence is used then this isn't so, and you put a barrier in the way of potential scammers. Whilst allowing genuine pay to play content developers to publish separate expansion packs for download, priced at the market value of only their work.


The desire would be to not inhibit initial generic CC work to be included in the initial download of any content. But see this as a starting point in which others could improve the work, WITHOUT having to go beg to any 'plane' Author for inclusion in any download. If someone comes along with a GPL content that's better then it's up to the user if he wished to run his simulation using it. If someone then comes along with a pay to play content file, it's then again up to the user to continue simulating with current files or upgrade. And if someone then comes along with a CC content that's getting rave reviews, why pay when it's free ?

as said above. Copyleft protections exist within GPL and LGPL.

[bomber]

Sorry but you've been misled by Curt and all, by talking such simplistic tripe.

Licenses exist to allow use of a product within a defined set of rules... It's not there as a virus to infect separate works done by other authors. GNU say so themselves...

So please if you're going to tell us your opinion of GPL, I'm not interested..

Tell us not your opinion of GNU GPL, but instead like I've done in the past on various forums, tell us GNU's opinion of its GPL licence.... They have a questions asked section.... It's very easy to post a frequently asked question and it's answer.

I'm not calling for copyright theft, if someone's done GPL work and it's copied and added too then this new work has to be GPL... But equally don't tell me that an FDM I create from scratch that has no copied GPL content has to be GPL if used with an existing GPL 3D model.... These are separate works and GNU makes it clear that it's licence is not a virus which infects others work and does not exclude distributing GPL and non GPL content in the same download.

That said, if a 3D model is copied and improved, this must remain its original licence, be it GPL or CC.

The clue here to understanding this is if an existing work is copied in whole or part...... and by part that doesn't mean using an existing 3D model with a new sound, texture, or xml flight model..... Part means part of an existing 3D model and adding to it, which is clearly the same work.... 3D to 3D, texture to texture, sound to sound, fdm to fdm.

If I make a brand new 3D model with no copied parts, as the author of this new work i can licence it how I want. And I can use it with files created by other authors of any licence as long as I don't brake their licence agreement for their work...

The licence isn't on a folder, but instead each file within the folder, GNU even explains this and that all files should have its own licence.

GPL and CC gives me the right to copy, update and distribute others work as long as I give the resulting work the same license... What it doesn't give is to them the right to dictate to me what licence i can use on my new work that I distribute together.

One minute separate works are understood and accepted the next not... It's a shame whoever's talking in your ear doesn't have the backbone to post their opinions.

[bomber]

Also you're not understanding that all files of a plane are connected dynamically already... Through the .set file.

A 3D model has no relationship with the flight model or for that matter the sound... They're ALL separate works with no relationship to each other being called up by the set file and used by a GPL executable..... If we're not careful simply writing a GPL .set file would require all called up files to be GPL following your line of thinking.

[bomber]

Ok let's say i make some content with 3D, textures, sound and flight model and I release if CC.. Then someone comes along and makes a pay to play texture and rather than make a person first download the CC content and then have a separate download of the new texture and install install that into the correct folder... He want instead for a person to be able to download the working plane as a whole, paying for his work and receiving mine for free.

I've no problem with it, he's breaking no rules, he's only selling his own work, the licence on mines not changed and everyone's happy.

Now along comes another person and creates a better sound pack and licences it GPL. ...... Mmmmmmm he too wishes for a single download for simplicity and wants to use my CC files so he puts them altogether and yet again my files are published CC and his sound GPL. No ones had their work stolen or licence broken.....everyone's happy flying planes.

My work if published with GPL does not become GPL..... ever ever..

And visa versa ...