[Bf-committers] Microsoft dev support

[Nathan Letwory]

On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 3:40 AM, Kent Mein <mein at cs.umn.edu> wrote:
>
>  I personally think a wmv import/export option would be nice, and
>  our bmp import/export could probably be improved.
>
>  Another section that could probably use some work is the Windows
>  specific ghost section of the code.
>
>  I would welcome any improvements they could provide and would just
>  mention that for code to be merged with the main code base it
>  really needs to be platform independent and have a compatible
>  license with the rest of the code (gpl)
>
>  And finally thanks in advance for anything they could help with.
>
>  We appreciate the offer for help.

Very much agreed. Any help with this and anything related to Win32 API
and work for 64bitness on their 64-bit OS versions will be invaluable.

Also help with: proper installer, proper userdata usage,
paths/filenames, and perhaps even work on cmd.exe just for our
developers would be greatly appreciated.

>  To all the people that have been complaining, come on, Microsoft
>  can't force us to do anything.  They are offering to help out,
>  were still in control of how blender changes and what contributions we
>  merge into the code base.  The more developers we have the better it
>  is for everyone, it doesn't matter where these developers work etc...

Bravo, well said. I think the threads on Groklaw and everywhere else
have been bad in all ways. I very much disliked the way it was
immediately taken (but I guess that's to be expected in a place where
open source people are), totally diverting from the point that
*should* have been made, and which Kent has made.

I sincerely hope that in the very least OUR developers stop with the
crap and focus again on the actual work at hand. We're still in
control, and all work on any platform to make Blender work better on
that platform is what ANYONE of our developers should work for. And
that not only means that what works on Windows should work on other
platforms, but very importantly so: what works on other platforms
should work equally well on Windows.

It's still powering our largest user base.

/Nathan