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Open Source Simulator FlightGear Releases v2.4
mikejuk writes "The latest version of FlightGear, 2.4, has just been released — and it has some significant improvements. Now it simulates weather so that you can ride the up draft from a range of hills and seek out thermals — but watch out for the simulated fog! For the future the implementation of an HLA interface means that you can build clusters of interacting simulators and perhaps even work with commercial flight simulators." The FlightGear website has gotten a long-deserved upgrade, too.
There are a handful of different HUD modes, the one the harrier is using has been bouncing around like that for a few years now, so I guess it's an issue within flightgear itself rather than the flight model, OSG, or what have you. It only tends to happen when you are yawing around at a fairly low airspeed. It's particularly annoying in the helicopters at times.
Well that is the thing about volunteer made software isn't it? While I have nothing against Open Source I've found when it is volunteers like the user generated models in something like Flight Gear you run into the age old "Nobody pays for the boring stuff so that don't get done" problem.
Lets be honest folks, bug fixing in software is like cleaning the shitter, it is a long boring nasty thankless job. Nobody volunteers to clean your shitters at the office right? Nope you have to pay someone to get that done or they will look like the shitters at a truck stop in Alabama pretty soon. That is the problem with the community model. It is simply more fun to make something new than it is to go over old code, especially someone else's old code, and fix the messes.
How do we fix it? Fucked if I know, the only way i know how is to either pay someone to clean the shitters or maybe take donations so you can offer a bug bounty, ala Google? because checking out software made by the community i've noticed that pattern is pretty consistent, someone reports bug, users confirm bug, bug gets ignored for years while new versions come out that add....well more bugs.If you don't pay someone to fix the bugs they just don't get fixed, it is more fun to create than to clean. it is just human nature.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
While there isn't a lot of research on the topic, what there is seems to indicate that open source software and "commercial" (i.e. not open source) software have similar defect densities. Here's a paper on the topic:
http://www.reasoning.com/pdf/MySQL_White_Paper.pdf
I've worked on both "commercial" projects and opens source projects. My personal experience has been that willingness to fix bugs is much higher on the open source teams. Usually the authors actually use the product in their everyday life and bugs affect them personally. They are highly motivated to fix them. On "commercial" software projects, my experience is that the authors of the software rarely use it in their every day life. Selection of bugs to fix usually comes from a project manager.
Both open source and "commercial" projects usually have large backlogs of bugs that never get fixed. The difference is that open source projects usually fix bugs that directly affect the authors, while "commercial" projects fix bugs that directly affect customers who have bought enough units to gain the right to complain (i.e. thousands of copies). However, with an open source project, if the authors decide not to fix a bug you usually have a number of options. You can complain on the developer's mailing list and plead your case. If that doesn't work, you can fix the bug yourself, or hire someone else to do it. With "commercial" software once you file your bug you usually don't even know if they will decide to fix it. You usually don't even know if it was fixed in the next version without buying it and trying it for yourself. If the program manager decides not to fix your bug, you have no recourse at all unless you have already bought thousands of copies of the software and can threaten not to upgrade to the next version unless they fix your bug. Even then they might decide not to.
"Well that's the thing with volunteer made software isn't it?" is what you wrote. Yes. That's the thing with volunteer made software. You have direct access to the developers to report your bug. You get informed whether your bug when your bug is being looked at. You can make a case for having your bug fixed. And if that doesn't work, you can fix it yourself. What is there that needs fixing again?