Back from being banned ...

[jwocky]

THIS IS A COPY OF A POST I JUST LEFT ON THE "OFFICIAL" FORUM:

Back from being banned ...

well, only for a short time, I guess. Since political motivated deleting of posts, abuse of moderator privileges (by one or two special moderators, not all), and now, as one can see on the dev-list, attempts of automated silencing of any opposition is the new standard here around, I guess, I won't have for long the opportunity to post anything.
BUT STUART, READ BEFORE ABUSING YOUR MODERATOR PRIVILEGES AGAIN FOR THE POLITICAL EXPEDIENCE:

The first time, some people tried to whip something through by deciding it behind closed doors and then abusing privileges on board and mailing list, you got FGMEMBERS and obviously, it is here to stay.
Now, as prove, you didn't learn, you tried it again. Thus, to ensure freedom of speech, you forced reaction. Guess what we have now? Right ... and thus, you are once more too late in your attempts to silence opposition. Now, this will of course lead to a further escalation (I will actually post this in copy on another4 forum as well so your chances to cover your tracks are zilch) and you and your little bunch of self-declared masters will accuse me of splitting the community (something actually you did when you abuse your moderator rights for the political goal and thus, forced my hand) and some will believe you others will not. And you will probably go ahead what you plan on the dev-list and in IRC, but here is a word for the wise: Every time, you do that, you force reactions. So before you start the little defamation campaign discussed on your dev-list, you may want to think hard, what could be the reaction? Or speaking about reactions, what could possible be my reaction if you decide to abuse your moderator privileges once more by deleting this post?

[SHM]

How correct is Newton's third law : Every force has an OPPOSITE and EQUAL reaction!

[jwocky]

You love that smiley, do you?

[IAHM-COL]

yes. I completely understand you JWocky

Here is the problem I completely fail to see:
How is FGMEMBERS really affecting their core infrastructure? How is it preventing FGADDon commiters to do their work?

We are even blame of having forks of Flightgear, and place in the same pocket with groups such as flightprosim, which is outrageous.

They forgot what they plead under GPL license, about how software development could be decentralized, and how FGMEMBERS all does is have a copy of their planes for us to tinker and learn and enjoy the software.

They panic because I offer the system to anyone willing to try, and they consider that inviting others to enjoy the advantages that FGMEMBERS has goes against their core system at all. Well, it does not and that is a sick lie.

[IAHM-COL]

You love that smiley, do you?

my favorite smile is the uber geek

[SHM]

[jwocky]

One day, when I have too much time, and we know how likely that is, I have to create a devil face with little bat-wings for me.

[jwocky]

Re: Back from being banned ... (copied hereto from the "official" forum to prevent sudden disappearance)

Postby Jabberwocky » Tue Sep 15, 2015 6:57 am
Obviously, someone is floating wrong information around again:

1.) The legal requirements to be added to FGMEMBERS are NOT lower. FGMEMBERS contains FGMEMBERS (for GPL)and FGMEMBERS-NONGPL for obviously non-gpl aircraft.

2.) Therefore, the argument, one has to sort it out by hand is void, it is already sorted.

3.) Actually, the only planes in FGMEMBERS that were lately in discussion about whether they are GPL or not were planes, FGMEMBERS pulled from FGADDON. Which makes me wonder, what would happen if someone from the outside really takes a closer look at FGADDON's aircraft.

In general, the story, something is "a fork" and "doesn't give back" is the usual cover story that everywhere pops up if one group does things, the established group perceives as a threat for various reasons. It is not about "giving back". None of us is a core dev, none of us would be for political reasons even accepted as core committer if any of us would try. But we put a lot of work in it on other fronts. Aircraft development, helping new users, organizing MP events, all that kind of stuff. Of course, a core-dev maybe considers this as second class contribution, not really counting, but then, FG is a whole, not just C++ code. I mean, it's nice and great that some program C++, but without planes your C++ would be a bit empty. And obviously, without the C++ core, the planes would be quite useless and without the program and the planes, MP events wouldn't happen. So one depends on the other and therefore, in my opinion, ALL contributions count. So this is not about "doesn't give back". That's just a propaganda trick born from a struggle that started on a technical level and then got too much psychology into it.

The same is with the argument "version control". Since FGMEMBERS has a working commit log, there is no problem with version control. There simply isn't. How can there be one. Every single commit is logged and can be rolled back if the need should arise. I honestly don't know whether this is possible in FGADDON, but then, that's a problem of FGADDON, not of FGMEMBERS, right?

And there is this argument, that there is no control who pushes what in FGMEMBERS. Which translates to, developers can't rotect their work from others who may break their planes. Now, that is at least worth a closer look. Most developers have own repositories. I have for example stuff under Github.com/JWocky. There, I have control what I allow. Admittedly, I am quite open in my personal attitude to it, so I just allowed FGMEMBERS to play back changes from there into my repository. If I would be more afraid of other people, I may would say, do it all by pull-request and I check out every little change before I commit it. Actually, despite having rights to merge, FGMEMBERS still sends me pull requests and has me merging them myself. Bottom line: I can protect MY repository.
FGMEMBERS is not supposed to be overly controlled, that would be exact the opposite from what it is supposed to be. FGMEMEMBERS is supposed to be the place where sometimes a dozen people put their work on one and the same plane together. Of course, there will be a point, where someone things, it is funny to push something bad with malignant intent, maybe just to prove a point. Actually, some tried already. So what? As soon as someone notices, it can be rolled back. Working commit log, you remember?
So this argument is as far fetched and non-existent as all the other arguments brought up against FGMEMBERS.

The quality argument. Well, since the same people who claim here, FGADDON is a higher quality discuss on the dev-list that they would rather fly a less developed plane than an excellent one just because the less developed is in FGADDON and not in FGMEMBERS, I don't even know where to go with this argument. We wait since months for a list of quality criteria. The question came up when FGMEMBERS wasn't even created because aircraft were rejected from FGADDON for "quality reasons" and nobody was able to say whar quality reasons they were. Which was one of the triggers that led to the creation of FGMEMBERS in the first place. Today, we are still at the same point. FGADDON defines itself last but not least via "quality" without defining what are the criteria not making sure, the criteria are all the same or even checked for all contributors ... I don't want to be banned again, so I don't quote Animal Farm again.

In the end, this whole hostility is not fact-based. Look above, all those arguments against proved as non-existent, constructions to create perception, not real. Which shows, this is not a technical argument, nor is it a legal one. This one is purely emotional. If the situation would be different (as in we would be all in the same time zone and the whole thing would be less emotional driven) I would suggest, everybody leans back, grabs a coffee and does for some hours something else. Just to take the edge off of it. But after some months of perpetual attacks with always the same constructed non-arguments, I have doubts a few hours will suffice ... or one coffee. Now, after political bans and deletions of posts became the new reality of FlightGear, I am at a loss what even to suggest because one side refuses even to discuss the real technical level here with the killer argument "we are official, we silence you". So there is no room for any kind of compromise left as long as this attitude continues. Instead, the escalation on the "official" side has forced us now not only to run a repository and an organization but also a new forum to ensure, free speech is still possible. So how far will this go? Neither of us want to leave, neither of us want to "fork" FG and neither of us want to "kill FG", those are all just those emotion-making manipulative accusation thrown at us. We put a lot of time and effort in FG and we still do while we are under perpetual attack. Do you really think, we would do that if we would be already out of the door with one foot? Not even active harassment and open discrimination (for example the MPSERVER 12 trick against IAHM-COL) could make us leave. So how on Earth can you believe someone who says "you want to go anyway and make your own clone" just for propaganda reasons?
But it really doesn't matter, doesn't it? In the end, the third party in all of this will decide. Those who are rarely post here or on the dev-list (they aren't even there, I assume). The silent majority, as usual. They will load aircraft from FGADDON and from FGMEMBERS, wherever they find, what they like to fly and the same has to be said for any other kind of functionality. Under that consideration there is only one difference between FGADDON and FGMEMBERS relevant: If FGMEMBERS messes up, the FG project per se is not endangered. If FGADDON and its proponents mess up, for example by changing the way, we discuss such different approaches to political bans and silencing of any opposition, the FG project takes irreparable damage because there is no community anymore, only those who rule and those who can't speak anymore because they have to fear to be banned for it. And that is a sad picture. Now it is a repository, who knows, next year you say, there is a problem with the FDM in aircraft x and because it is an "official plane", who knows, maybe you get the ban then. Once this starts, there is usually no way back.

Jabberwocky

[IAHM-COL]

Awesome post JWocky. Thank you!

[IAHM-COL]

I want to cite a refutal by Stefan Seifert in the Devel list that clarifies the whole mess with great eloquency

Hi,

On Tuesday 15 September 2015 11:33:22 Curtis Olson wrote:

> Thanks for taking the time to organize and assemble this statement. After
> a first read it looks like a fair, accurate, and measured summary of the
> situation.

I disagree. It is a summary of FG' core team's position, but surely neither
fair nor exactly accurate. The relations seem to have deteriorated since then,
but FGMEMBERS did _not_ start as a hostile fork. It started as a suggestion
for a git based repository followed by a proof of concept.

Sorry, that I have to say this, but shoving the blame for the current mess
into FGMEMBERS' direction is everything but fair. From the very first email
suggestion, FG' core team's reaction has been a "we don't even want to listen
to any arguments, our decision is set in stone". I can't remember a single
statement that I would categorize as cooperative. The only fault of the git
based suggestion was that it came just months too late, when the switch to svn
already happened and everyone was understandably tired of the discussion.

I love the work you have done all these years and I'll be eternally grateful
for it, but in this matter you have not shown your best side. If all the time
that has been wasted by refuting FGMEMBERS and putting it down had been
invested into vetting commits and merging them into FGAddon, there would be no
concern about repositories drifting apart. Cooperation would have been a
wonderful tool to exert influence and help avoiding license violations. The
"summary" reads like those are a new trait brought by FGMEMBERS, but come on.
We had our fair share of license issues in the official repositories, too over
the years.

As a constructive suggestion on how to improve the summary, I humbly suggest
to stick to technical arguments and real facts. It should be enough to state
that the repositories are drifting apart with different improvements to
aircrafts being made and that the official repository benefits from the
maintenance of core developers. No need to point fingers and assign blame.

Putting the statement online as it is can only enlarge the tensions. Please,
let's avoid that.