[Bf-committers] Development plan proposal for after the 2.6 series

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi,

Luckily the "after the 2.6 series" will take a while ;)

But seriously, any future we can think of will only work if you can  
make it work in a natural way. Defining a vision (like the bi-monthly  
develop focus) is a nice one, but you won't get much volunteers  
inspired for it. And not with money either I'm afraid.

For a mid term (next few years) strategy, I would prefer to see our  
developers getting professionally involved more. And preferably as  
small teams working together. Such people will get managed and  
supported by their own organizations, with targets managed internally  
as well. And who will meet online together to define agendas and  
roadmaps.

That organization model is based on a positive target (= to want  
Blender to work for a job).

Patch review and bugtracker maintenance then will still be a bit  
problematic, but it will work acceptable if there's a very clear self- 
interest involved... we all want stable software, right? That's where  
a BF can play the coordinating and facilitating role, with possibly  
(if funds allow) to hire people for tracker coordination, making docs  
and doing reviews.

-Ton-

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation   ton at blender.org    www.blender.org
Blender Institute   Entrepotdok 57A  1018AD Amsterdam   The Netherlands

On 17 Dec, 2009, at 16:02, Tom M wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I'd like to propose that after the 2.6 series completes that we start
> scheduling patch review and perhaps have a development focus.
>
> My thoughts were to have a  1 or 2 month rotating cycle where we focus
> on one area of Blender and try and bring that area to be the industry
> leader in terms of speed of workflow and capabilities.  During that
> time period I'd recommend we have a commitment to review all patches
> that are relevant for that area - of course coders could review other
> patches as well that are relevant to them, but with a schedule outside
> coders can have a clear idea of what code base they need to have their
> patch current against, and have a clear timeline about when they can
> expect their code to be reviewed.  Also with a schedule - artists can
> have a clear timeframe to submit ideas and proposals and mockups.
>
> I'd recommend that we order the development similar to a production
> pipeline (Ie similar to how Durians development timeline is ordered).
>
> So roughly
>
> Modeling Tools
> Sculpting Tools
> UV Mapping
> Painting
> Baking of Maps
> Rigging and Skinning
> Animation
> Lighting and Rendering
> Compositing
> NLE
> GE
> User Interface
>
> The python would probably be throughout since it is involved in all of
> our tools.
>
> What are your thoughts?
>
> LetterRip
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