OpenPlay Newsletter January 2000
Happy 2000 to all, hope the new year is going well for you.
Things have been quiet here on the List, wanted to give everyone
a status report now that most of the post-holiday fires have been
put out. As you read through this please bear in mind that, as
always, your thoughts and comments are strongly encouraged.
Newsletter Contents:
- Kudos
- Test Team
- NetSprocket Integration
- Inputs for FAQ
- Sample Apps Wanted
- Why Contribute?
- Etc.
Kudos
First, as you know OpenPlay 1.2 went out the door last month,
made possible only through the extensive efforts of many volunteers
here. At the risk of forgetting anyone' contribution, I'd like to
thank the following people:
0) Kevin Holbrook, for his efforts on the Linux port and
creating the repository structure on which the current distribution
structure is based.
1) Paul Elseth and Ron Wilson of Edmark Corp. for their
extensive and ongoing efforts to improve the OpenPlay code base.
2) Kirk Haynes, for his various OpenPlay fixes.
3) The Apple Crew for releasing NetSprocket to the Open Source
community, and infrastructure support for OpenPlay.
4) All the List members here for suggesting improvements,
spotting problems, asking questions, and keeping OpenPlay moving
forward.
Not all modifications made it into this release, but are still
being integrated and tested for a minor update to follow soon (see
below for more on the testing effort).
Test Team
If you are interested in occasional testing of pending OpenPlay
releases, please let me know (email to: )
and I will add you to the OpenPlay pre-release test team. This will
give you a chance to not only address code issues but project
files, repository structure and other concerns as well.
I considered posting the test releases and shouting, "come and
get it", but felt a better organized approach was more likely to
yield the desired results.
NetSprocket Integration
Apple's release of NetSprocket to the OpenSource community gives
us a head start in several areas. In case you haven't done so
already, I urge you to download it and review the
documentation. NetSprocket has a lot of functional overlap with
OpenPlay, but also offers many higher level routines that will sit
nicely on top of OpenPlay, such as managing player information,
creating/managing groups of players, etc.
Just as for the test team, if you are interested in working on
NetSprocket integration, please email me.
Note that NetSprocket in its current form is very MacOS-centric,
relying heavily on OpenTransport. That is the layer that needs to
be replaced by OpenPlay functionality.
If you are already a registered Apple developer, you can find
NetSprocket on your monthly developer seed discs. Otherwise you can
download the package by visiting <http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/openplay>.
If you haven't done so already, you'll first have to visit <http://www.opensource.apple.com/apsl>
and create your desired Apple Open Source account/password. I
realize that may seem like a hassle to some, but it's only 4 data
fields.
I'm in the middle of a detailed review of NetSprocket in order
to cleanly identify the areas for modification. Needless to say,
the more eyes/voices the better.
I was originally trying to determine a schedule for the
NetSprocket/OpenPlay integration, but realized that until we have
an idea of what specific areas need to be worked on and who is
willing and available to sign up for a given task, setting a
schedule would be about as accurate as a Tarot card reading. I'd
like to have the schedule done as soon as possible however, so we
can get a jump on things.
Inputs For FAQ
The online OpenPlay FAQ is rather sparse at the moment (see <http://www.opensource.apple.com/projects/openplay/faq.html>).
If there's something you'd like to see added, please let me know
and it will be taken care of.
Sample Apps Wanted
As always, the more samples the better. Anyone willing and able
to contribute is strongly encouraged to do so. You can either
contact me or submit directly to the List. We're all in this
together, and the easier we can make the learning curve, the more
OpenPlay will be used and the better it will become for all of us.
Why Contribute?
Because we all stand to win. I don't want to resurrect a certain
politician's "Thousand points of light" speech, but little
contributions have a large impact when enough are made. A sample
app here, a bug fix or feature suggestion there, or even just
asking questions that cause the rest of us to examine a portion of
code closer.
Think of all the nights we've all squandered in the past dealing
with networking minutiae. If we can all pitch in just a little, we
*all* stand to save immense amounts of time and frustration down
the road. Networking is proving to be a key element to many
products, games or otherwise. Particularly for games however, if
you can offer network play, you've got an edge. OpenPlay offers
flexible, portable networking.
That is what we all stand to gain. The Windows market is
huge. Apple sold another 1.3 million Macs last quarter. The Linux
market is growing fast. What products can you offer to take
advantage of all those markets from a single code base? Ship your
product on a hybrid CD, and you can now leverage even more from
your investment. This week I ported 400K of source code (a 3D
graphics/networking sim) from MacOS to Win98 in less than two days,
thanks to OpenPlay, OpenGL, and careful project design from the
start.
OpenPlay can be an integral key to that goal. It works now, but
it can be much better. That part is up to us. Little contributions
add up. Go team go!
Etc.
I now have a 400MHz K6-2 on the LAN here, running Win98 and soon
plan to add dual-boot Linux. This should greatly help smooth out
testing/integration issues that cropped up in the last rev. I am
also now running Metrowerks CWPro5 on both MacOS and Win98, so we
can do more cooperative sanity checking of project files.
Is there any interest in providing VC++ or Borland project files
for OpenPlay?
There are a few warts in the current release, mainly related to
file type binding and project settings, which should be addressed
by early next week (MacExpo has gobbled up many developers on the
MacOS side this week). One goal for the interim release is a better
"out of the box" experience for those who download
OpenPlay. There's never a second chance to make a first impression.
That's it for now. Thanks for your time, and thanks again to all
for your contributions, input and questions, both past and future.
Cheers,
- Joe Gervais, OpenPlay Tech Lead, rodent@NakedMoleRat.com
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