[Bf-committers] Minutes bf-blender project members meeting, jan 19

Ton Roosendaal bf-committers@blender.org
Wed, 22 Jan 2003 16:50:45 +0100


IRC meeting, sunday january 19, 16:00-18:10 CET
Participants:
Aphex, Hans, Desaster, Hos, Larstiq, Michel, JWalton, MaartenG, Phase,  
Sgefant, Sirdude, Ton,

Invited were all 'Members' in the Blender projects.blender.org project.

Meeting agenda:
-1- State of development (compiling at platforms, autoconf?)

For all reported platforms, the old makefiles/projectfiles seem to do  
OK. Autoconf is still an issue of further work though. We should be  
ready for an 'official' release soon.

Issues and action points:
- windows (cygwin) makefiles have to be updated, Frank?
- who's officially maintaining MSVC projectfiles, Maarten?
- Irix gcc makefiles don't work yet. Mipspro compiler does..
- OSX: Project Builder files still in test.
- Compilation docs: Larstiq will update
- Creator/Publisher targets in build system should be unified to a  
single Blender target: WHO?
- Sirdude still is the autoconf project leader. He'll help on getting  
it working for FreeBSD
- ODE still hardly functions (cross platform)
- Tinderbox is becoming a nice tool already, contact Hans for feature  
requests

-2- projects.blender.org site feedback

In general it's not much used yet, except for the obvious cvs usage.  
The project admins can add discussion forums and maintain the bug  
tracker. Proposal is to use this more.

Issues and action points:
- Use project BForge to commit feature requests and bugs related to the  
projects site. Both Timothy and Stefan will work on this regularly.
- Blender feature requests and bug tracking will be done per project,  
and not at the blender.org forums.
- releasing/uploading files at projects.blender.org should be possible,  
we'll check this.

-3- General projects organisation: who's taking the lead!

A complex issue... since there's still much missing. Like roadmaps,  
feature descriptions, release management, general vision on  
architecture... At least one project (the bf-blender project) will  
remain official, and should be managed in a way everyone can benefit  
from.

Decisions and action points:
- the current bf-blender admins (Phase, Sirdude, Maarten) will act as  
decision makers on the next release. Including on features and  
architecture.
- suggestion: a 'public release hack-down list' with code to be written  
for a release.
- Phase will extract a list of new features that will be (or were)  
added.
- to be sorted out: a definition of what 'cross platform' exactly  
means. Each decision on supporting a certain toolset (like opengl)  
involves excluding certain platforms.

-4- Member roles in the groups.

In the future, we will need a more elaborated group/member role  
definition. Like release managers, cvs admins, a 'python board', audio  
board, etc. What we agreed on for now:

- for each platform a 'platform manager' will be appointed. This  
manager will maintain & decide on the make system, verify tools & OS  
versions, and guards platform compatibility. This information can be  
collected in the doc file:
http://projects.blender.org/viewcvs/viewcvs.cgi/blender/doc/ 
building_blender.html?cvsroot=bf-blender

IRIX: JWalton
MacOSX: Stefan Gartner (sgefant)
Sun Solaris: Kent Mein (sirdude)
Linux: Frederick Lee (phaethon)
IRIX: John Walton
FreeBSD: Hans Lambermont
Windows MSVC: Maarten Gribnau (or Simon Clitherow, aphex, please let me  
know)
Windows Cygwin: Frank v Beek

The above people; please reply to me if you dont agree!

-5- time schedule, can we get a blender 2.26 out?

Targets for what Blender 2.26 should offer:
- compile out-of-the-box, well documented
- a couple of bug fixes and new features
- getting practical experience in doing an actual release (testing!)

Although I mentioned February 1 as a final date a few times, no real  
confirming sounds were heard to that. :-) Still we all prefer to work  
towards a the quickest possible date, and don't bother too much with  
making it perfect.

Action points and issues:
- Quicktime support might violate the GPL license. Phase & Ton check on  
this with Apple.
- We will release without a full working game engine. Physics (ODE)  
needs more attention.
- Python is giving quite headaches, it doesn't even work in the current  
version. It is related to the latest work NaN did at it; for 'frozen'  
and VRML input. There's no problem in leaving that out as well for 2.26
- Michel and Larstiq expressed intererest in becoming Python Board. At  
least for 2.26 they will be the central contacts for Python issues
- Ton will contact former NaN python coders for assistance
- 'libs' should be moved outside of the 'blender' dir. (well, the  
admins have a final word on this)
- To be sorted out: audio in Blender. Leave out stuff when it doesn't  
work. We need an Audio Board as well. But since the game engine still  
doesn't work, we can live without for 2.26
- The release will not include the player or web plug-in.
- topic for next meeting: how to do the (compiled) release, testing  
standards (regression suite)?

-6- do we need a regular IRC session, to discuss and make appointments?

Everyone was very happy with the meeting. The time (1600 CET is 0700 in  
California) was a problem though. Weekend was fine with everyone. The  
next meeting will be 2 hours later to have more californians available.  
We'll evaluate later if we do an alternating timing schedule, to allow  
people from all over the world to participate. The meetings will also  
be held weekly.

Issues:
- Another separate maillist for the meeting participants was not agreed  
on... it could split communication too much.
- we could use more sessions, like tips & tricks for Blender coding.  
(yes I know, there's so much I can share...)
- who to participate in the IRC sessions? For now, to keep discussions  
effective, the group is small and limited to people with actual CVS  
write access (= members in the Blender Projects). We'll talk about this  
in next meeting. At least, the minutes will be public here.

Next meeting: SUNDAY JAN 26, 18:00-20:00 CET
Mail agenda points to me, remarks welcome too but can best be discussed  
in the maillist!

Thanks!

-Ton-

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--
Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton@blender.org