Open Source (was Don't you just wish Rev would do this?)

[Andre Garzia]

I see many threads on the list about open source but no one is talking
what this move would bring to RunRev...

I don't want to talk about the philosophy of the thing, I like sharing
stuff, everyone here knows that, I just want to make this thread
productive and not some eternal thread about opinions, the blogosphere
is there just for that.

We know there will be no OSS rev now, and even if the guys at Scotland
decide to open it now, it would take months if not years till a
workflow and community start working like they do there. It is not as
if everyone would to a SVN checkout and start patching the engine.

So now that we know that this will not happen and that if it did it
would take a lot of time and organization to make it work on the same
level as we have it working now, can someone please tell me what would
we gain? I am not talking about OpenGL and adding features to the
language, this can be done with a new external SDK and I know no
language that has things as 3D implemented on their core level, they
are always libraries, they might be bundled with the standard
distributions.

So let us talk about benefits, what benefits can we gain from an OSS
approach, and then think do we really need OSS approach to get those
benefits? Can't we create new hybrid or brand new original approaches
that would grant us the same benefits?

For example:

Adding features - We don't need OSS for that, we need a better FFI.
Porting to new platforms - We don't need full OSS for that, we need an
abstraction layer, like a simple engine that would bootstrap the rest,
this simple engine could be OSS while the rest is closed, like Darwin
and MacOS X.
Attract users - We don't need OSS to attract users, we need a better
Starter Kit, demos and marketing, specially with new marketing toys
such as blogs, podcasts, videos.

So again, except for the fact that there might be a tsunami that sinks
Scotland and RunRev with it, why do we need open source? We have
engineers and developers working full time in the product. They are
paying their bills and we're paying ours.

I just want to make a theoretical conversation about open source
become an useful conversation about goals and ways to reach such
goals.

andre