DeleD Community Edition

[Jeroen]

For some time now, the development of DeleD has been progressing at a much slower speed then we would like. There is ever more stuff to do, and less and less time to do it in. However, we see DeleD as a promise and we want it to live up to it. So... we decided to stand up to the facts and do something about it: starting January 15 2010, DeleD is going Open Source!

Yes, that's right: we are taking the Open Source route. This is not something we decided overnight. It might the most daring move we ever pulled in the history of DeleD. If done right, Open Source applications can thrive like no other software can. But if left unattended, Open Source projects die. Of course, we hope to see DeleD become even bigger and better when lots of other people can contribute to it.

Here are the details of our plans:

- DeleD PRO will be sold up to december 31st to anyone that cannot wait until january 15th. After that, it'll cease to exist. PRO features will be merged with LITE into a new, open sourced DeleD CE (which stands for Community Edition).
- The forum will remain the base of the DeleD community, and will be extended with shiny new developer sections. We will, of course, continue to be frequent visitors of the forum.
- The sourcecode will be hosted on SourceForge. It might not be the best host, but it definitely has the most developers on it.
- Sourcecode of plugins will also be open sourced, including the Torque Export plugin.
- The website will be reduced to a simple front page with links to the forums, the wiki and the gallery, as well as quick access to downloads.
- Jeroen and Paul-Jan will continue to contribute to the project, but hopefully won't need to be in charge.

This means that DeleD needs you guys more than ever:

- The first thing we need is programmers, and a lot of them. So if you are a developer, want to become a developer, or know where to find developers: here is your chance!
- But we need more than just programmers, we need people to manage stuff. Managing and moderating the issue tracker, managing release candidates and releases, checking aspiring contributors, answering community questions, etc. There is a lot of management involved, and we need trusted people to take care of things. And in you guys we trust.
- And as the number of developers grows there will be need for testers. Loads of testers.

So, what do you think? Would you join us in this adventure?
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[Starnick]

Wow didn't see this coming. This is very interesting.

Pity I don't know/use delphi, though this may be an incentive.

[trucker2000]

I'm with Starnick on this one. This is a shocker.
What I don't understand here is why? This is a big bold step. I'll be here tho.
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[Jeroen]

[Starnick]

Has there been any consideration on porting DeleD to a different language?

[fik]

Wow this is a big suprise, what with all the work you have put in lately in 2.x.
As long as the code can be used in turbo Delphi I would love to help with the programming side when this happens.

[Jeroen]

[Starnick]

[Starnick]

[Jeroen]

[Starnick]

I'll give you that, that's certainly true.

Still worries me - the java engine I use a lot, jmonkey, recently went through a shift in the "big wig" main developers. The two movers and shakers have gone onto bigger and better things, which left jmonkey in a pretty grim spot for a while. Things picked up, but it's still fragile. Even now, you only have maybe a handful of developers picking up the slack.

Though, I'd say most java programmers out there aren't exactly 3D graphics-oriented to begin with. I wouldn't want that to happen to DeleD...

[raspes]

Realmente es una gran iniciativa, y me uno al equipo ya sea como tester, programador...ahm ahi me pegan, o tambien como asesor en la parte de diseño gráfico en lo que tenga que ver con diseño de interfaces. Una gran iniciativa

[chronozphere]

This is great news.

I'll probably be one of the programmers that will work on DeleD. Developing robust and efficient graphics algorithm's (like CSG, texture-mapping etc) has always been on my developers wish-list. DeleD allready offers a nice enviroment for this kind of code to be implemented, so I can't wait...

Furthermore, I can assist with bugfixing and support but I also need Jeroen en PJ to help me because they are more familiar with the code.

What are you guys going to do before the 15th of January? Any chance you have some nice documentation ready by then?

@Daaark: I think it's better to release the source if you don't have enough time for development, than keeping everything closed and let DeleD die a slow death. I also think that there aren't alot of pascal-programmers in this community, but a few might be enough for now.

[John]

So if I understand correctly Delgine was written in Pascal?! Can I use C++ to write plugins or does everything have to be in that language?

[Mr.Fletcher]

DeleD was written in Delphi, hence Del_eD. You still can use another language to write plugins.
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