[Source] xj3d checked into source forge, planned improvement activity

[Don Brutzman]

Hi Rex, hope you are well.

Your questions are important, so in addition to your copying source at web3d.org, I am copying these responses to the x3d-public mailing list as well.  (Both mailing lists are public.)

Further comment is welcome.

On 8/17/2014 4:49 AM, Rex Melton wrote:
> On 6/3/2014 3:12 PM, Alan Hudson wrote:
>> Don, I understand your desires to fork the codebase and I'm fine with that.  I would ask that you change the name of the new project so there is no confusion.
>
> On 8/9/2014 9:15 PM, Don Brutzman wrote:
>> Announcement: NPS has copied the full Xj3D codebase and history from xj3d.org and uploaded everything to the Sourceforge Xj3D site.

We have been following the plan outlined on the following wiki page with recurring email discussion over the past months.

	Xj3D Evolution

	http://www.web3d.org/wiki/index.php/Xj3D_Evolution

> Perhaps I missed some out of band communication on this....
>
> Has there been agreement to relocate the Xj3D repository without rebranding? If so, have there been discussions regarding cut over dates, commit rights, etc?

There have been a series of prior messages on the source & x3d-public mailing lists.  Summary, copied from the top of that wiki page:

========================================================================
Discussion and consensus building

We are using source at web3d.org mailing list to work out these possibilities and build stakeholder consensus. (subscribe, archive)

Consensus summary points

     Basic strategy: we are evolving by re-versioning, not re-naming Xj3D
     We will simply mirror the current xj3d.org repository, as version 2.0, and maintain full backwards compatibility by integrating any forthcoming changes there
========================================================================

We met the publicly stated goal of completing the copying of the entire Xj3D.org codebase + history to Sourceforge, just prior to the Web3D Conference and SIGGRAPH 2014 in Vancouver.

Here is some more about recent steps in Xj3D Evolution.  The discussion about moving to github went pretty far, including the creation of a project there.  Either sourceforge or github appeared to be viable destinations.

The xj3d.org site has of course been useful, but it is not effective at encouraging either participation or improvement.  It has been frozen for years now.  Further it's hostname renewal was in question a few years ago, and Web3D Consortium's decision to assume the financial responsibility for site renewal was rejected at the last minute before private renewal.

The NPSteam does not want to repeat that risk to our sizable investment of time and effort into Xj3D, upon which multiple tools depend.

During the public creation and review of this Xj3D Evolution plan, it became clear that multiple orphaned Xj3D projects need to be integrated back into the Xj3D codebase.  They are listed on the page above at

	http://www.web3d.org/wiki/index.php/Xj3D_Evolution#Merge_orphaned_Xj3D_codebases

For some time, github appeared to be more appealing for encouraging broad participation in Xj3D development.  However, recovering all this past work became the dominant factor in choosing Sourceforge over github, so that re-integration using subversion was possible.  NPS is committed to working with these other projects to integrate their sizable improvements back into Xj3D, one by one.

The current Sourceforge Xj3D versioning plan is:

- Migrate trunk, all branches, and all code history from Xj3D to Sourceforge (complete)
- Move current trunk snapshot to a branch, call it Xj3D version 2.0
- Move the NPS branch to become new trunk, call it Xj3D version 2.1
- Continue incrementing as 2.2, 2.3, etc. with each merger of past projects
- Build community of engaged users and committers using Sourceforge suggested practices

NPS is further prepared to track and adopt any future changes occurring in the xj3d.org trunk over to Sourceforge Xj3D that may have broad utility to Xj3D.

Regarding commit rights, we would be happy to extend them to any of the current Xj3D.org committers as individuals might want.  Presumably they might further want to be "in charge" of the Sourcefore Xj3D 2.0 branch, which would make sense.  As far as future committers who might be added, following the Sourceforge rules for meritocracy and skill in a community would seem to offer a proven path for group success.  The mechanics of granting projeect permissions can be found at
https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/documentation/Project%20Permissions

I walked a few rows across the SIGGRAPH show floor last week and had a constructive conversation with Alan Hudson (who you quoted above).  He again mentioned naming, and that he didn't want to add features to the existing stable Xj3D.  I explained how discussion regarding evolution and recovery of past codebases became way too confounding if the codebase had a different name.  It might also seem quite unfair to the many people who have engaged in using and extending the Xj3D project.  Further, our focus is less on "features" per se, and more on simply implementing the X3D standard within Xj3D.  Indeed, the opening sentence on the Xj3D.org site states that case well:

	http://xj3d.org

	"Xj3D is a project of the Web3D Consortium focused on creating a toolkit for
	VRML97 and X3D content written completely in Java."

Hopefully we are achieving the best interests of all concerned, to continue growing the technical capabilities of Xj3D and encouraging the growth of a larger and more-effective open-source community via Sourceforge.

I hope this summary provides a helpful recap of the good-faith step-by-step efforts that are continuing.

Additional questions, concerns, improvements and alternatives are always welcome.

all the best, Don
-- 
Don Brutzman  Naval Postgraduate School, Code USW/Br       brutzman at nps.edu
Watkins 270,  MOVES Institute, Monterey CA 93943-5000 USA   +1.831.656.2149
X3D graphics, virtual worlds, navy robotics http://faculty.nps.edu/brutzman