What can you do for Minkata and MOULa?

[rarified]

I can do either time. I’ve been somewhat busy so there isn’t much change.

Let me know preferences.

_R

[Doobes]

I can do either time. I’ve been somewhat busy so there isn’t much change.

Yeah, I get that. It's understandable...but it's also part of the problem. When you're gone, nobody else can work on the shard that's supposed to be the gateway to MOULa. It grinds things to a halt like it has so many times before for so long.

This is what we were talking about at the last meeting. It's too much and too important for one person, particularly one with a busy real life like yourself, to do on their own.

If it's a matter of hosting costs, we can also discuss that at the next meeting too...and we should. Nobody expects you to shoulder that burden on your own either.

Bottom line: it's been several years now, rarified, and there's very little to show aside from minor fixes every few years or so. I checked and saw that I gave you the Pub files to experiment with over 2-and-a-half years ago and, at least from where I've been sitting, not much has come of it aside from "It broke things". Okay...how? Let's learn from it and fix it. What can I do on my end with Korman? What can our other programmers in the community do to help squash these bugs? Perhaps they've come up with a fix already that can be implemented.

Instead of asking vaguely what we can do...just tell us what needs to be done! It worked quite well at the last meeting and it's why I'm proposing future meetings like that one.

If it sounds like I'm frustrated, it's because I am, and I know I'm not the only one. There's fan content waiting at the gate right now and after so many years, Minkata is still struggling to implement what other shards did years ago. Even with Cyan's restrictions and expectations, that's still way too long. We have got to start making some big strides...a TRUE cooperative effort on all levels of Minkata...or OpenURU will fail in its mission of bringing open-sourced content to MOULa.

[JWPlatt]

Doobes,

Please take it easy. Give us time to recover from our loss. We are working toward the independence you want, but a significant member of our team is suddenly gone. Rarified does most of the heavy lifting, but we all still depend on each other for emotional support and to collaborate and face these issues.

Thanks,
JW

[Christian Walther]

What can our other programmers in the community do to help squash these bugs?

Set up a MOSS server, build an OU client, try to load the pub, and debug where it crashes. Or maybe it doesn’t crash anymore in a newer version, so ask Doobes for a newer version, and ask cjkelly1 for his backport of the required H-uru updates. Or maybe this isn’t worthwhile anymore, since we seem to be moving forward towards a H-uru client, so try building a MOULa-compatible H-uru client (again cjkelly1 seems to be the person to ask) and test it with MOSS and see if it loads the pub and try whether it works in Wine and figure out how to get it into Chogon’s MOULa contribution pipeline format and I don’t know what?

I’m probably out of the loop, but these are a few things that come to my mind. I’m sure others can think of more.

[Hoikas]

Been meaning to post this for three weeks, but I suck at forum posts... I remember a lot of folks at the AGM wanted to be in-the-loop as it were with a meeting on MOULa proper. So it seems valuable, even if it does descent into tech talk. Not sure it has to be every month right after the AGM specifically, but I think it's important to operate in front of the curtain as much as possible.

Doobes,

Please take it easy. Give us time to recover from our loss. We are working toward the independence you want, but a significant member of our team is suddenly gone. Rarified does most of the heavy lifting, but we all still depend on each other for emotional support and to collaborate and face these issues.

Thanks,
JW

I find it distasteful that you are seemingly using the passing of a valued community member to score points here, JWPlatt.

[Doobes]

Give us time to recover from our loss. We are working toward the independence you want, but a significant member of our team is suddenly gone.

If you're referring to Tai'lahr, I agree that her passing was a great loss to this community and should be mourned...but eventually, we need to come back from that, and then what?

Rarified does most of the heavy lifting...

And again, that's the issue here. He seems to take it upon himself to do ALL of the heavy lifting. If he's away, which I get that that can happen, all up-front work seems to stop. With Minkata being Cyan's preferred beta shard for MOULa, that's a big problem, especially when we have a few proven shard admins/programmers in the community that can at least pitch in if rarified needs to step away.

I reiterate, JW...it's been YEARS now. Minkata should be at the forefront of everything happening with open source by now, and instead, it's dead last in almost everything aside from Cyan endorsement.

So I'll bring things back to the topic at hand and reiterate a need for regular, public meetings in MOULa as it's still the most widely-used shard. Post AGM would be best IMHO as it'll carry over the biggest regular crowd and would only be once a month. Let's take that momentum from that meeting last month and really push to actually get something done.

[Emor_D'ni_Lap]

Please take it easy. Give us time to recover from our loss.

If the plan is to cancel the October 2 All Guilds Meeting due to mourning Tai'lahr, then fine; we can postpone our Minkata Progress session. Otherwise, I don't see why we shouldn't proceed forward...nor do I see how making progress on Minkata is in any way disrespectful to Tai' or our memories of her; quite the opposite in fact, it should be seen as a tribute.

[rarified]

I don’t think JW was suggesting cancelling a meeting after AGM, Emor. I fully expect to — as I have consistently tried to — make the next AGM, as well as a post AGM meeting.

I have, however, been wrestling with thoughts about how to compose a constructive response to comments above. When I have felt conflicted in the past on how to put forth my ideas in threads like this, I often offer drafts of part or all of my comments to a small OU chat group for review and suggestions. Tai’ was an essential member of that group, one who often suggested I rethink things before posting them. I cannot count how many times i have drafted a response to an issue in these forums, only to be gently corrected by her and often leading me to drop the response entirely rather than inflame an already volatile topic.

That guidance is now gone, and I miss it deeply. For me, that is what JW is referring to. None of us can presume to know how Tai’s passing has impacted another individual.

I continue to organize my thoughts before I set them to words about what has been recently posted here, and when I feel comfortable with them, I will set them to word. And again ask my close collaborators for review. It will just take a little more time and effort. Perhaps time I could be spending otherwise on Uru progress.

_R

[Emor_D'ni_Lap]

I don’t think JW was suggesting cancelling a meeting after AGM, Emor.

Nor did I, rarified. What I was indicating was that a cancellation of the AGM would be the only reason to also cancel a subsequent Minkata Progress session.

And, knowing Tai'lahr a bit over the years, I am positive she'd be thrilled to see any real progress toward fulfilling Minkata's central purpose as the designated external test server in the pipeline bringing Fan Content to the Cyan shard. This, from what I can see publicly, was her #1 focus in OpenURU: enthusiastically bringing explorers into Minkata's beta tests, writing up her excellent Tester's Guide, and so on...all toward this goal of eventually seeing new content flow through Minkata to Cyan. It's a pity she did not live to see her efforts come to fruition, but we can certainly honor her memory.

[Emor_D'ni_Lap]

rarified, I've just sent you a PM containing a link to download a very basic, vanilla MinkMaxTest Age, exported directly from 3DS Max/Plasma.

Hope it works well; looking forward to hearing (and seeing!) the outcome!