[Bf-committers] Microsoft dev support

[Toni Alatalo]

On May 15, 2008, at 1:52 AM, bjornmose wrote:
> 'reverse engineer' almost everthing .. but we are proud to say : we
> don't need to do ! .. we simply don't care :) */

:)

> 2. Because Blender is 'cross platform' in a real wide sense,  we don't
> think it is a good idea to implement features that focuses a certain  
> OS.
> 3. However we do/did support some  MS specific formats on output ..  
> such

well, like someone already said, one thing to tell them is that it's  
good that opengl works well. and of course they know that, i guess.  
anyhow, that i think is a sensible approach: if they asked if something  
should be done for things to be well with Blender in their land, i  
guess we just reply our ideas about what would be helpful. when  
discussing this on irc it was pointed out that Blender already works so  
well with Windows .. well, good that it does.

i don't know if there is a need to think about formats with regard to  
Microsoft at all. Aren't we are talking about the Windows platform -  
one of the official platforms of Blender? afaik there aren't platform  
(here: os) specific file formats in 3d .. and video encoding, oh well,  
those are kind of like plugins for Blender anyway .. i see nothing bad  
in that Blender can work with Quicktime also (which makes a lot of  
sense on Macs), i guess it hurts no one if e.g. someone plugs it so  
that it can work with Windows Media on Windows? i guess we easily get  
what we need from ffmpeg, but if someone wants to use e.g. QT .. of  
course they are free to do that. i see that not as that central for  
Blender even. like e.g. opengl is. and obviously GHOST which was a good  
point i find.

> rather politely say : 'We are pleased to be recognized by Microsoft ,
> but we don't feel you have very much to offer to get us along'

who knows, can be. but they do many kinds of things, some of them fun  
too ;) (like making threaded use of the python "print" statement safe  
in IronPython :p ..  
http://www.codeplex.com/IronPython/WorkItem/View.aspx?WorkItemId=16623

one area i guess which can touch Blender from another direction is game  
development, as they have the XNA - XBox etc. stuff (i suppose they  
don't use Collada XML there?-). but i don't know if the original poster  
from MS had that sort of stuff in mind at all, again i think the win  
platform was perhaps the more relevant point there, dunno. with games  
there is still stuff to do with data/file formats.

> BM

~Toni

>
>
> Ton Roosendaal schrieb:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I recently was contacted by Microsoft Development, they've assigned  
>> one
>> of their people with the job to support open source projects better.
>> Yep, I've immediately asked for free MSVC Pro licenses! :)
>>
>> They also like to know about file format support... which I really  
>> have
>> no idea about. Are there files in the Windows universe you need to  
>> have
>> a better Blender user experience?
>>
>> ----------------- quote -----------------
>>
>> With respect to Blender, what can you tell me about your  
>> community/user
>> feedback that you have heard regarding file formats?  Specifically,
>> Microsoft is slowly shifting toward a more open standards based
>> approach to its file formats.  The ISO standard Office Open XML is an
>> example of the direction we are moving towards.
>> A good user experience of Blender on Windows is good for your
>> project/community and good for Microsoft.  What we are trying to
>> understand is what file formats, which are not open or not fully open,
>> are impeding the optimal experience with your community. If this is an
>> important issue to your users then it also accrues to the experience  
>> in
>> Windows. I would like to know what feedback you might have received
>> regarding the files your users most often import and those they might
>> be having a sub-optimal experience with.  Please also include in that
>> list any Microsoft files that you might have trouble with.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------
>>
>> Anyone has answer to this?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> -Ton-
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>> --
>> --
>> Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton at blender.org
>> http://www.blender.org
>>
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>>
>
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