Firstly, let me start by providing my motivations:

1) I'm not a fan of proprietary closed-source software. I understand it's unavoidable in the current state of the world (trade > deed), so I'll keep my Utopian views out of it for the most part.

2) Since we're given the tools to develop these add-ons (insim...etc) freely, it seems only fair that the development work done on them be freely shared as well.

3) 1 & 2 being said, I don't want to put the image out there that I want to "change" other projects or pressure any existing project to open up.

Now, onto the heart of my idea:

I think the "open-oriented" developers on here (and there are a few that I can see around) should get together on a few projects, one at a time... I've worked with number of community based projects before, and the enjoyment of working with a diverse set of people is great.

If I had to throw a few ideas out there now I would say:

1) Glade-like UI class to be used in any project. (http://glade.gnome.org/) basically, building UIs based on XML ... then interacting with the glade object to manipulate everything...a little cleaner and simpler than the current "every UI element is an Island to Itself" setup.

2) "Points" server setup. Much like the popular "points servers" now, but have a central DB for it, and allow people to create leagues ... etc, of their own, all running this as their core admin. Would be the larger in scale than most projects...requiring a web front-end as well.

3) Cruise server. I know most of us (myself included) don't particularly like cruise servers, but as a "development challenge" it would serve the purpose well. On top of that, it would provide a more "satisfactory" answer to the parade of cruise server requests and questions....

I have other ideas floating around...but I think these are the 3 that seem to stand out in my head as a) having the most impact and b) being fairly challenging and, in the end, rewarding.

Takers? I plan on starting on one of the 3 projects (likely the Glade-type engine) soon...

Lastly...for the "important" stuff. All code/assets of the projects will be GPL'd. All source for all aspects will be available. Obviously some components will be in compiled libraries (dlls) but code will be provided for those as well.

Quote from rjm1982 :

1) I'm not a fan of proprietary closed-source software.

Congratulations Some people here feel differently, however.

Quote from rjm1982 :

I think the "open-oriented" developers on here (and there are a few that I can see around) should get together on a few projects, one at a time... I've worked with number of community based projects before, and the enjoyment of working with a diverse set of people is great.

Some people may have a problem with you telling them how to develop. If they want to produce an open project, as many of us have done, the people you're targetting will already have done so.

Quote from rjm1982 :

1) Glade-like UI class to be used in any project. (http://glade.gnome.org/) basically, building UIs based on XML ... then interacting with the glade object to manipulate everything...a little cleaner and simpler than the current "every UI element is an Island to Itself" setup.

Errrr.. Are you on about creating a UI library so that clever things can be done with buttons in InSim?

The only thing that concerns me here is that many people use a great number of different languages, some of which aren't compiled, so linking them together may be tricky.

If you were simply on about a glade replacement then I don't understand what the goal is, or why you approached the LFS forums?

Quote from rjm1982 :

2) "Points" server setup. Much like the popular "points servers" now, but have a central DB for it, and allow people to create leagues ... etc, of their own, all running this as their core admin. Would be the larger in scale than most projects...requiring a web front-end as well.

Technically easily done, but requires by-in from each server administrator. Good luck with that. The reason I say this is that because almost every application tracks points in a different way and at a different rate, so globally storing them is pointless unless you plan to have a different namespace for each network of servers. In which case, why would any administrator want to use a remote database solution?

Quote from rjm1982 :

3) Cruise server. I know most of us (myself included) don't particularly like cruise servers, but as a "development challenge" it would serve the purpose well. On top of that, it would provide a more "satisfactory" answer to the parade of cruise server requests and questions....

Has been thrown around many times by a few people, including myself; no work has been produced yet purely because of the attitude from the average age of person who wants a "cruise server".

rjm1982, I think you mean well, but historically most open projects succeed if one person takes responsibility, produces a proof of concept and then work goes on from there. If you look at sourceforge you can see thousands of projects which have failed because they've been stuck at the committee stage and no code gets produced. It's easy for people to argue with design decisions if you don't have something that already works. The phrase "make it and they will come" springs to mind.

Er..someone mind explaining to a dumb and lazy person like me what this is about.. :|

seems to be a kind of programmers alliance ^^

Quote from Trekkerfahrer :

seems to be a kind of programmers alliance ^^

Pretty much. But I don't play well with others .

why not?
more peaople can make more interesting programs more faster

and its ok, when they offer them 4 free... *hate payware*

Quote from Dygear :

Pretty much. But I don't play well with others .

+1

Quote from Trekkerfahrer :

why not?
more peaople can make more interesting programs more faster

and its ok, when they offer them 4 free... *hate payware*

It depends, I can work with filur fine, no problem. But with other people depending on their skill level or ideology it can conflict with the betterment of their code, and thus the whole project. As long as there is an outline from the get go, there should be no problem. That and eveything has to really be nailed down in as to what the function is going to return once the information is processed to a T. That can take more time the the function it's self.

Quote from Trekkerfahrer :

why not?
more peaople can make more interesting programs more faster

and its ok, when they offer them 4 free... *hate payware*

Yeah, more people can make a more interesting, diverse programs faster...it's been proven over and over.

However, everyone involved must have the right mindset. Its not a "leader" or "follower" mindset, neither work. It's, for lack of a better word, a "Borg" mindset...collective cooperation towards a single goal.

Either way, I'm considering this idea dead here, not enough interest to really go anywhere...

As for the "*hate payware*", you shouldn't. Trade has a place in software, and thats not the "free" I speak of. I know of quite a few paid "free" projects, many of them on the enterprise level, but some on the consumer level...all are worth their price, and are continually improved do to community involvement.

There are 2 "free" types:
Free as in beer: Just that, no $$. No cost.
Free as in speech: Can be paid or free (as in beer), but is "free" in the sense that the software is open source, non-proprietary, and is distributed with a license like GPL that allows others to modify and freely redistribute it.

Don't know how well those 2 ideas translate across the language barrier though...