Open Source
 

Just throwing this out there...from what I see the progress on the development of Project64 is very, very slow. I was wondering why the developers don't open source Project64?

If they made Project64 open source it would allow coders interested in the project to grab the source and tinker with it which would produce the end result of further contributions to Project64.

Just curious..

This has been asked a lot >.>

I don't understand why this isn't open source under the GNU licence.

EDuke32 is a source port for Duke Nukem 3D that was written from scratch by the developers of the port and they wrote a brand new renderer from scratch to make the game look better (it adds a variety of nice lighting effects, support for various new things such as spec maps, glow maps, true room over room, etc..) and EDuke32 is open source under the GNU licence so I don't understand why Project64 isn't.

I used the above as an example of a project thats open source as I believe the reason project64 isn't open source is out of fear of someone attempting to steal the work of the Project64 developers (which will most likely not happen)

I'm not a coder myself but I do know that if a project such as Project64 were to be made open source it would enourage people interested in Project64 and Nintendo 64 emulation in general to look into the project and may even make additions to the code.

I don't want anyone here to chew me out, making Project64 open source was simply an idea that came to mind as I believe it'd encourage coders to check out the project and maybe make contributions.

In a perfect world the teams working on the Nintendo 64 emulators would all unite and merge their efforts into making one amazing emulator. In a dream world that is...I've always used Project64 as it's the most reliable and stable emulator but I've been saddened to see that very little progress has been made in terms of development recently and I really don't want it to die.

It didn't and it wouldn't.
They already tried with 1.4. nobody gave a shit.

Well, kaillera gave some >.>

but that's not a good argument :L

Why is everyone on this forum so fucking cynical.

They probably didn't care because all you did was dump the source out there rather then setting up a proper SVN that coders could commit to/grab the latest revision from.

Setting up a proper SVN and making it open source would make it easier for coders interested in the project to grab the latest revision and check it out and if interested make some contributions.

there wasn't even such a thing as SVN when 1.4 was released, people were still using that archaic CVS crap.

Well, since times have obviously changed, what would it hurt to release the source through an SVN to encourage more developers to come out of the wood-works to work on the emulator?

I've lately became pretty versed with the N64, and MIPS R4300i, it's really neat and quite similar to some of the stuff I was doing with powerpc on the Xbox 360.

What do you all have to lose?

the quality of the code.

Reputation

So you are willing to emulate a pipelined CPU well, plus vector processor, plus gfx chip with tons of programmability?

What could possibily be added to to?
well...
* framebuffer notification for HLE video crap
* pure PIF2 emulation
* better timing
* more optimized code via SSE3 for the RSP
* the removal of plugins
* etc....

Trust me, you are in for a world of hurt if you manage to pull all that off. Especially with the current state the source is in ;)

Indeed, and the reason we know this..... well we somehow ended up in possession of the source, Zilmar has been informed that certain peoples are handing out the source without permission.

wow, that is interesting XD

wat http://www
:U

Another thing would be working out proper timing, rather than this Counter Factor stuff....

Course, proper timing would up the sys reqs and stuff....

Which aren't that horrible anyway

suppose, though there is some glaring issues with no connection to accuracy.

like overall style. but i guess its common in projects. pj64 1.4 had the same issue.

You don't always have to accept people's patches... you can tweak them or reject them outright, entirely your choice. Open source doesn't need to be a free-for-all.

I can recommend Git as a good version control system (though not too beginner-friendly), and GitHub is also pretty darn good when it comes to managing/sharing/controlling access to/accepting patches to/tracking bugs for repositories. I can't post links as I registered to post this, but try them out - they're the first hit for both on google (though I know google's results can vary between people/locations).

Git causes nothing but trouble.

Do you really want people making forks of forks of forks, and then people distributing tons of different versions of essentially the same shit?

I really think the worries about this are massively overblown.
Invariably, people will find the original first and only by digging around will they find the forks. They won't harm anyone, and in fact they will benefit those who feel they need those changes to the code.

Have you seen CraftBukkit? There are a million and one forks for that, it's the most popular minecraft server software, and yet most people still use the original (with the exception of two popular forks; spout and craftbukkit++. Both are extremely uncommon but popular by fork standards. Both cater to different audiences and both would be completely unsuitable for pulling into the main repository)

I would say that the situation with forks in CraftBukkit has significantly improved a user's choice (if they're willing to spend time looking for these forks), while still having absolutely zero impact on the average user.

With that in mind, is there a substantial (i.e. real-world) case against forking?

lol I hate GIT XD

what about google code?

I like it, as long as it is SVN not GIT (you can do either on code google)

Sorry, i hate hit, SVN is my preference, slow as it may be

This has probably been asked before in some ancient thread, but in what language(s) was Pj64 written in? (apart from C++, if any). How long would take for someone to learn the concepts needed to (further) develop Pj64?

C and maybe ASM.

If you just started programming, don't bother.
If you are a beginner, don't bother.

Nope and nope, but still have a way to go.

You can check it yourself at github.com/mudlord/pj64

Wait, what.