[alberto]

Hi Daniel,

how are you? I hope your studies are going well.

Most of the community are young (I'm not referring to age, you know), so I am not surprised to see there's no good, deep and joint agreement on the issue.

Yes, many are new users, some are not. However, what surprised me is not the disagreement. It is expected to have it, mixed with quite some noise, in whatever discussion in a community. Just look at what happens in other open source projects, and you will find out much harsher discussions that this one.

What is surprising is the lack of participation of many users, and with this I mean a simple comment to explain what they think about the doc project and what happened. My feeling is that if they do not consider it worth a comment, they will hardly contribute in a future.

Best,

[lakeat]

Thanks for asking, I am still having a very hard time on writing thesis. I found post-processing is by no means easier than the preprocessing and solving, more statistical knowledge are needed.

[wyldckat]

Greetings to all,

I've stumbled upon the link for the 4th OpenFOAM Workshop and scrolled through it and found near the end, the slides for the OpenFOAM-extend presentation.

In the fourth slide, I found this:

Henry Weller was contacted to check OpenCFD's interest in a public source code repository for OpenFOAM:
* No resources available to participate
* Needed sponsoring to get involved, even for in-kind contributions

When I read on the presentation, I found out about how it started, who's involved, and also how to get involved! I didn't find nothing really specific about documentation (well, only read it diagonally), but the repository works on an open SVN system. On the 41st slide, there is a nice slide saying:

Title: What we want from you
* Contribute your bug fixes
* Share and document your test cases
* Share your test loops results
* Contribute your source code
* Contribute documentation and Howtos
* Keep on helping on the Forum
* Register to SIGs mailing lists
* Participate in SIGs
* All contributions are valuable!!!!

On the 16th slide, there is this:

Title: How to get write access to the Svn

1. Get a SourceForge.net-account
2. Contact one of the project-admins with this information:
   * Your SourceForge.net-account-name
   * Your real-life identity
   * A description what you need the write access for ("Contribute bugx to project XY", "Add a new utility" ...)
   * A description of your previous work/experience in OpenFOAM(TM) if we don't know you in person

I remember ranting a while back about something like this... And it is already being done since (at least) September 2007!

Soooo... is it really necessary to create a fork project, if OpenFOAM-extend already as enough basis for integrating the documentation project? Isn't it easier to contact the project administrators, instead of just waiting for them to say something on this thread? Because so far, I've only seen remarks about "them" not saying something on this thread, but I've also not seen remarks (or at least don't remember ) about contacting them and not getting a reply!

Back on the post #7, the link to the thread's project was already given... so why not post there the question?

The OpenFOAM-extend seems to be currently lacking the webpage for a direct list of documents, so why not join efforts with them? At the very least, the openfoamwiki can serve as front-end for accessing the documents, straight to the project's web-svn!

I apologize if this looks like I'm still ranting, but ever since I got educated (although some consider it being genetic)as an engineer, I go restless if not all possible solutions are fully investigated

Best regards,
Bruno

[pauls]

Originally Posted by wyldckat

I apologize if this looks like I'm still ranting, but ever since I got educated (although some consider it being genetic)as an engineer, I go restless if not all possible solutions are fully investigated

This discussion is not about finding a solution. Many have been suggested. It is about Alberto's ego. He got the credits for a first attempt of the documentation project. He wants more. Engineers should stick to their numbers and stay away when people are involved.

A psychology student was to help a professor in conducting a personality test. The room was set up with various props in order to move through the assessment quickly. The first person to enter the room started through the test.
“How does this glass of water look to you?”
Person 1: It is half empty.
Student writes ‘pessimist’ in his report.
Person 2 enters the room. “How does this glass of water look to you?”
Person 2: It is half full.
Student writes ‘optimist’ in his report.
Person 3 enters the room. “How does this glass of water look to you?”
Person 3: Looks like you have twice as much glass as you need there.
The student looks totally blank and goes to consult with the professor.
“Oh them!”, the professor says, “I forgot to warn you about the engineers! They have no personality.”

[wyldckat]

LOL!!! Paul, that is one sweet anecdote
Though I feel a bit misunderstood... for I believe that engineers are artists at heart! Numbers on the other hand, are for Mathematicians

Engineers should stick to their numbers and stay away when people are involved.

But... then we need sociologists for this thread? Although the talk about creating a fork does remind me a bit about divorce... so, it's the children who are to be blamed! eheheh

[alberto]

Originally Posted by wyldckat

Soooo... is it really necessary to create a fork project, if OpenFOAM-extend already as enough basis for integrating the documentation project? Isn't it easier to contact the project administrators, instead of just waiting for them to say something on this thread? Because so far, I've only seen remarks about "them" not saying something on this thread, but I've also not seen remarks (or at least don't remember ) about contacting them and not getting a reply!

I think Holger can answer these questions better than me. He had direct contact with Hrvoje and -extend people.

I actually suggested the same thing you are suggesting, and I stated my eventual future contributions will go in -dev/-extend long ago. Just check comment #111 to this discussion where I said

I think at this point any further community contribution should be oriented towards the only truly open community oriented initiative that originated in these years around FOAM. I am clearly talking about the FOAM-dev/-extend ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/openfoam-extend/develop ) initiative, where it is actually possible to take part to the development of the code, with the idea of creating an open code that can be a reference for the CFD community.

The OpenFOAM-extend seems to be currently lacking the webpage for a direct list of documents, so why not join efforts with them? At the very least, the openfoamwiki can serve as front-end for accessing the documents, straight to the project's web-svn!

That's true. I said already I think it is a temporary solution, since it is very hard to manage documentation using a wiki and a svn/git repository. Moreover, unfortunately, it does not fix the actual problem, which is related to the trademark use. It is surely a starting point, and it is better than abandoning the idea of documenting the code.

I apologize if this looks like I'm still ranting, but ever since I got educated (although some consider it being genetic)as an engineer, I go restless if not all possible solutions are fully investigated

You are not ranting, just asking questions and helping to clarify the situation. There is nothing wrong if this is done without personal attacks.

Best,

[alberto]

Originally Posted by pauls

This discussion is not about finding a solution. Many have been suggested. It is about Alberto's ego. He got the credits for a first attempt of the documentation project. He wants more. Engineers should stick to their numbers and stay away when people are involved.

I do not think you actually deserve a reply, since you have spent most of your comments to give negative comments and attack personally, suggesting to let the documentation project die, to litigate legally with OpenCFD(R) and attacking me. I do not know why you do this. Surely it does not help to keep the thread clean and the discussion focused.

After I recognized it many times, you are not aware yet of the fact that I do not have and do not deserve the credits of the documentation project. As a consequence, even the initial assumption of your attack is unfounded.

I am not looking for "more", whatever you are referring to. I am looking for a way to have a truely cooperative environment around OpenFOAM, without the need of worrying about legal problems, as those met by the documentation project created by Holger.
If it were a question of "ego", at this point I would have put my ideas in practise, instead than trying to find a shared solution, exposing my ideas and suggestions here and collecting others suggestions in the common interest.

Best,

[jaswi]

My dear friend Alberto

I am shocked and deeply hurt by what Mr. Paul Schiefer has posted. Such posts demonstrate how easly one can hide oneself behind some arbitrary ID and obstruct others to achieve something productive.

Best Regards
jaswi

[pauls]

Originally Posted by jaswi

Such posts demonstrate how easly one can hide oneself behind some arbitrary ID and obstruct others to achieve something productive.

You are right. This is my last post, and I will not interrupt this highly productive discussion again. It is very impressive how the community has come to an instant conclusion based on profound judicial knowledge. Keep it up!

[lakeat]

Hi, dear all, this is what I think, it is very easy and takes just one word to hurt another, but it would be extraordinarily difficult and takes perhaps thousands of words to rebuild the relationship. So, I would like to ask you be at peace with one another. If you dislike whatever other guys' talks, please just simply and kindly neglect them or reply with wise words. Let's reason but with patience and kindness.

Yours,

[mabinty]

hi dear friends!!

I also think we should put away childish behavior and should be productive. honestly, I ve followed the discussion from the beginning and now I feel to give my two cents: the documentation project is very appreciable and I think necessary to push the idea of a open source cfd project forward and I would be happy to contribute with my experience. What concerns a possible fork, my knowledge about the organisation, licence, effords to undertake, etc. is too small to give an input, but I have the impression, out of the current discussion, that the community is not ready for that. Maybe we should concentrate on how to contribute best and most effectivly in the scope of the dev/extend project. It is really impressive to me what the community has reached up till now so we should keep it up and not forget that we need a constant progress ...

cheers,
aram

[alberto]

Originally Posted by mabinty

hi dear friends!!

I also think we should put away childish behavior and should be productive. honestly, I ve followed the discussion from the beginning and now I feel to give my two cents: the documentation project is very appreciable and I think necessary to push the idea of a open source cfd project forward and I would be happy to contribute with my experience. What concerns a possible fork, my knowledge about the organisation, licence, effords to undertake, etc. is too small to give an input, but I have the impression, out of the current discussion, that the community is not ready for that. Maybe we should concentrate on how to contribute best and most effectivly in the scope of the dev/extend project. It is really impressive to me what the community has reached up till now so we should keep it up and not forget that we need a constant progress ...

Hi,

your proposal is what, with some variation, most of the people that commented in this thread agree on. Re-using and contributing to an existing project is easier than starting from scratch with a new official fork, it is clear.

I think there is only one additional requirement, if we want to see the documentation project back. This requirement is a change in the name of the -dev/-extend projects, since they both contain the trademark. We would simply risk to see a repetition of what already happened, with further waste of resources.

An alternative is a "fork to document". In other words, a fork of one of the releases that does not add any additional feature, but is used only for documentation purposes. It is a solution adopted, for other reasons, by other projects, due to copyright and contribution problems. For example, Novell forked OpenOffice to created go-oo, now used by almost all major distributions (suse, mandriva, ubuntu, ...). Debian did the same for patching issues with Firefox/Icewseal.
It is without any doubt a slightly different situation, since we want to contribute documentation and not patches, but it might be a way.

I do not hide I would prefer the first solution, to have a direct connection between documentation project and one development tree.

Best,

[wyldckat]

Hi,

Originally Posted by alberto

This requirement is a change in the name of the -dev/-extend projects, since they both contain the trademark.

I actually think that the name change won't be required, because the -dev/-extend projects are backed by prof. Hrvoje Jasak, and according to his company's website:

Wikki Ltd. was founded in 2004 by prof. Hrvoje Jasak, one of the authors and principal developer of FOAM as a part of its release into the public domain under the General Public Licence.

So, he might hold part of the copyright to OpenFOAM, although the legal page of the site doesn't indicate that. So my best guess would be to email him and ask about this specific issue: are the -dev/-extend legally protected to use the trademark in documents of the project, without authors and project being liable to future lawsuits! And if not, what has to be done to either change the name or to actually protect the projects!

Best regards,
Bruno

[santiagomarquezd]

I've been following the thread from its beginning and it's clear that we're in the same situation that another communities have been in the past, forking for better growing, forking for documentation.
I think that OpenFOAM(R) guys won't express their opinion, it's clear in the trademark policy and when one read the forums a lot, one can see that H. ever give some things as obvious, this is another 'obvious' thing for him.
Maybe the only one thing that is remaining to explore is the legal issues about openfoam-extend/-dev as wyldckat explained to us.

Regards.

[alberto]

Originally Posted by wyldckat

I actually think that the name change won't be required, because the -dev/-extend projects are backed by prof. Hrvoje Jasak, and according to his company's website: So, he might hold part of the copyright to OpenFOAM, although the legal page of the site doesn't indicate that. So my best guess would be to email him and ask about this specific issue: are the -dev/-extend legally protected to use the trademark in documents of the project, without authors and project being liable to future lawsuits! And if not, what has to be done to either change the name or to actually protect the projects!

Hi. The tradermark is registered by OpenCFD(r), and it has nothing to do with the copyright on the code. The documentation project never had troubles due to copyright infringment. The problems were originated by the use of the project name only, and this is the reason why I keep hammering on this

I do not know how -dev/-extend avoid troubles with the trademark policy. You know the content of their reply, but you can try to ask them yourself.
On my side, I will save the time to write other private emails, since the last ones I wrote did not receive any reply.

Best,

[wyldckat]

Hi Alberto,

Originally Posted by alberto

The tradermark is registered by OpenCFD(r), and it has nothing to do with the copyright on the code.

But might be used as leverage in court

Originally Posted by alberto

The documentation project never had troubles due to copyright infringment.

Uhm... I thought that was actually one of the problems... oh, wait, trademark != copyright... ok ok.

Originally Posted by alberto

The problems were originated by the use of the project name only, and this is the reason why I keep hammering on this

I guess it has finally gone through my thick head

Originally Posted by alberto

You know the content of their reply, but you can try to ask them yourself.

I feel that I need to apologize to you... because I already read that post (#101) a while back and I had completely forgotten if it was from the admins of openfoam-extend or freefoam Although the weird thing is that I read somewhere about them not saying anything...
And secondly, I apologize for proposing (in #183) the very same thing you already had said in post #111... it was a case of unintended plagiarism

So, I thank you and Holger for the replies and for clearing up (over and over again) the questions I've posted!

Originally Posted by santiagomarquezd

Maybe the only one thing that is remaining to explore is the legal issues about openfoam-extend/-dev as wyldckat explained to us.

The annoying thing to me is that so far I've only contributed to the OpenFOAM community with the cross-compiling of OpenFOAM from Linux to Windows, and even that was based on Symscape's efforts! So, personally, that is only what I can contribute for now... and even that is time restricted... so I feel I won't be able to help the openfoam-extend project with the same effort in a near future

Best regards,
Bruno

[alberto]

Hello,

Originally Posted by wyldckat

I feel that I need to apologize to you... because I already read that post (#101) a while back and I had completely forgotten if it was from the admins of openfoam-extend or freefoam Although the weird thing is that I read somewhere about them not saying anything...
And secondly, I apologize for proposing (in #183) the very same thing you already had said in post #111... it was a case of unintended plagiarism

no need of apologies. In this long and tiring discussion it is normal to miss something or have doubts.

The annoying thing to me is that so far I've only contributed to the OpenFOAM community with the cross-compiling of OpenFOAM from Linux to Windows, and even that was based on Symscape's efforts! So, personally, that is only what I can contribute for now... and even that is time restricted... so I feel I won't be able to help the openfoam-extend project with the same effort in a near future

Well that's good contribution in my view, especially if you can keep it up to date for the new releases.
I don't think everybody has to make huge contributions to be active part of the community, and surely it is not necessary to amaze the community with huge contributions to keep it alive and well every single day.
It is much more important to have a constant flow of relatively small contributions and a network to actively share information and knowledge.

Best,

[thinktank]

In view of the fact that there is almost no interest in the community for a fork, I think we should start considering the alternative a bit more seriously...i.e. put it up on a wiki site....I would suggest that you put it up on wikipedia or wikibooks..the reason for that is that there are lot more volunteer editors in those sites who know how wikis work and can help us make a better copy of the documentation on the wiki site...moreover there are lot of restriction on those sites which will prevent vandalism...

As alberto said it might be difficult to convert a pdf documentation into a wiki, but I dont think it would be as difficult as a complete fork. Further it would take much less work and cause much less confusion among users..

Finally we are users of a software...not all of us are programmers per se.

[holger_marschall]

Hi FOAMers,

indeed, it seems time for a bottom-line: At this point, I'd like to thank all of you for your very positive and supportive feedbacks that you have sent me.

Don't stop FOAMing and contributing...

best regards,

[shangzung]

Is the FOAM Docomentation, the thread is about still online? If yes, where can I find it?