KC
With so many more people using Vixen on so many different OS combinations there is bound to be some teething problems.
I would like to point out that is entirely incorrect. The entire point of the .NET architecture is to provide a common interface for programs to adhere to. There should be virtually no different in functionality between running Vixen on XP and on 7.
I would also like to express my views on Vixen. I have been around since before Vixen even existed. When KC first started to develop it I offered to help him out but he also expressed the same personal reasons for keeping it closed source. At the time, I was also planning on developing my own software for this purpose but subsequently decided not to because it would segment the community. In this instance I do not think competing software is a good thing and that developmental efforts should be focused on one piece of software.
I think I have contacted him regarding helping two times since and have received the same answer. In the past few years, this hobby has grown by a huge percentage. There are very few forum members who roll their own software and a large number rely on the functionality Vixen provides (myself included). However, many people are frustrated by bugs every year (again myself included) and this is not related to hardware (my christmas lights computer is a very nice machine). I believe Vixen has scaled to the point that it requires more eyes on the source code in order to be functional and reliable. There are also a fair number of UI enhancements that can be made as well as inconsistencies that need to be addressed.
For all people who are giving me and anyone else advocating open sourcing Vixen static, I'm sorry but you frankly do not know much about software development. KC, please correct me if I am wrong but you are most likely using a code-and-fix development model right now. While this model probably worked well when Vixen was small, it has enlarged to such a point that a different development model is needed. Moreover, it is evident that KC, nor probably anyone with a real life, does not have the time to properly maintain and debug software that is as complicated as Vixen has become.
Here is how I envision the future of Vixen's development:
-Vixen will be open sourced and released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States or another like license. This license does not allow commercial uses of Vixen's code and does not allow branches to be developed and released. This will keep Vixen unified and disallow people to utilize Vixen for their own gain (something they can technically already do). Open source licenses have been upheld in US courts as valid licenses so legally this would protect Vixen.
-A roadmap will be created as to where Vixen will be going based upon existing ideas KC has as well as community input. This gives the project goals and can focus development where it matters.
-The bugtracker will actually be used to track bugs (although I would prefer using a service like Google code or github for this). This allows for a much better identification of bugs.
-Source code control will be implemented. This can be either git or svn.
-KC will be the primary maintainer of the project. This means all patches to the Vixen source will go through him and be approved by him. This means he still effectively 'owns' the source of Vixen.
-Vixen will be developed and tested in an iterative style. I believe the first step will be making version 2.5.0 stable. From there 2.5.x will be small bug fixes and enhancements. I must stress that in order to maintain stable software, the current version must be made stable before the next version can be developed. I do not wish to be overly critical but there are bugs that exist in the 2.1.x branch that were not entirely addressed in the 2.5.x branch.
A development cycle like this would allow us to have stable software each year for our holiday usage. More eyes will kill more bugs and additional coders will allow some pretty cool new features to be added to Vixen. There are feature sets of this software that can be improved that are not necessarily in KC's area of expertise. There are people on this forum who do have this expertise. This can improve the overall quality of the software.
Furthermore, an open source model will allow those that wish to give back to this hobby the chance to contribute even if they do not know how to code. While the development of hardware is rather complicated and is basically limited to the handful of hardware developers on this forums and the various testers, the software is much more easily "contributable". We would need moderators for the bug trackers, alpha and beta testers for the software, people to write documentation (which is lacking, even for plug-in development), etc.
All in all I think open-sourcing Vixen would create a VERY strong piece of software for this ever-growing hobby to utilize. Thanks for reading my small novel.
