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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

Issue Hunt: A New way to fund INDI Driver Development

Yes, it's technically any Github issue in INDI & INDI-3rdparty can more or less be funded by IssueHunt.
3 years 8 months ago #56384

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Is this compatible with GPL ? I'm not a lawyer...
3 years 8 months ago #56389

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It's not related to GPL, it's just a way to highlight an issue and fund it. So if an issue receives enough funds, and there is a developer who can do the work. Then after the developer finishes the work and it gets accepted they receive the funds (maybe there are some fees from IssueHunt in this process as well).
3 years 8 months ago #56394

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I suppose that, concerning existing third party drivers under GPL, the modified code will be made available to the community after "issue hunting".
Does the Indi development team consider to be the "owner" of third party code it is currently hosting on its github repository ?
3 years 8 months ago #56408

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All contributions would be made under the same LGPL v2 license for INDI drivers. So if someone wants to fix an issue and submit a pull request, it's going to be LGPL v2 like the rest.
3 years 8 months ago #56415

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Ok, thanks for your answer concerning GPL and availability of paid development for the community.
Now concerning "Owner", as you did not give an answer, let me specify some points.
And start with a short history concerning my 3rd party indi-eqmod driver:
- I started it in 2011, hosted on code.google.com as indi-skywatcherprotocol
- it has been hosted later on sourceforge together with indi as a 3rd party driver, mainly to avoid users compiling it separately
- indi grew up, the forum appeared
There I started to find completely fake affirmations about indi-eqmod. I specifically remember one: "it can flash your camera firmware".
And subsequently confused users asking "Is indi-eqmod the culprit of (my USB hub dysfunctionning or whatsoever)?". I took time
to give an answer and asked the author to correct his affirmation (which he did). One time, two times. I think I gave up with the third fake.
Afterwhile I realized that there was one single author of these fakes, and he was an Indi team member (he "optimized" a small part
of the v4l2 driver that I previously adapted to the Indi CCD interface, and he did that with a direct push).
And this has continued since, convincing users the driver is unsafe/bullshit.
I won't speak about the offensing/pedantic comments in his posts about indi-eqmod.

To sum up the situation is:
- I gently accept my work to be hosted in the indi github repository
- I then read fake affirmations on the forum originating from one indi team member.
- Never other indi team members refute his fakes (if they read them)
- I stopped contributing, being dispappointed by this behavior, just making some updates when you asked me
- I may suppose that my eviction was the goal (in such cases, just tell)

Now comes Issue Hunt: should I left the control of the indi-eqmod driver to a team whose one member has written
fake affirmations confusing non warned users ? As money is involved, this is not the same game.

Let's illustrate with a recent small example: 'Adding support for EQ8-R autohome'
- user comes on the newly created issue dashboard (as suggests a post above)
- 'Owner' creates an entry in issuehunt, 'hunters' wait for the 'bounty' to increase
- one or more of them decide to accept the 'job'
- 'Owner' selects one of these hunters (how ? FIFO, best rated, friend of mine...)
- in this particular case, the assigned developper suppresses the test restricting the autohome feature (1 minute including recompilation)
- user/'Owner' validates the job (how ? Maybe ask the original author)
Clearly I do not want this to happen for indi-eqmod.

I first consider there are other ways for team members to deal with authors who partly helped to build their reputation.
I also consider to still be the owner of the indi-eqmod driver. I don't want to make money with it (go give ascom eqmod) but don't want
others fool people with it. And if you want a situation to change, maybe just ask before bashing authors on forums.

This post will be automagically destroyed in 5 seconds...

PS: it makes me uncomfortable to write this. But things have to be clarified before involving money.
Also note that I'm not against funding open source development this or another way. Just against cheatings.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Eric, Paul Muller
3 years 8 months ago #56459

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I've been paid to develop ASCOM drivers. In money and/or in hardware. The peple paying have invariably been commercial manufacturers, not users. In my opinion this has worked well for everyone, the manufacturer and users get a reliable, supported driver and I get paid. Win, win, win. This model makes sense to me, well it would of course, but basically the people who benefit financially pay. I've supported drivers developed in this way essentilly indefinitely.

I'm not suggesting this is the only way to develop astro software. I know it isn't, after all I've also contributed to ASCOM and INDI software with no suggestion that I be paid for my work and I try not to differentate between paid and unpaind development.

Chris
The following user(s) said Thank You: Wolfgang Reissenberger, Jose Corazon
3 years 8 months ago #56469

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great idea - I've added a fiver to help show some support!
3 years 8 months ago #56488

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Crap - you are thinking about this much harder and much more fully than I did, you make a lot of great points. I have no easy answers.
3 years 8 months ago #56489

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Ok I'm genuinely shocked by this. Maybe it's my fault I haven't been paying attention (INDI has grown so much recently). But the INDI EQMod driver is perhaps the most popular INDI mount driver ever and I'm not sure who was advising users against it. I use it for my observatory all the time and I'm sure everyone who has a SkyWatcher mount uses this over Synscan. At any rate, I don't think this forum post is the right place to talk about this, so I'll email you and we'll take it from there.
3 years 8 months ago #56494

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Thanks, this may be effectively somewhat complex. And I totally agree with you, Chris, and really hope some manufacturers will come support the Indi team.
There has been a very huge investment from many people here and that's great. And at that point, it becomes crucial to find developpers and ensures
good quality code production/revision (I note revision mainly for indi-eqmod as this is really not my first quality, if any).
Let me somewhat reword my preceding post:
- there is no personal attack in it, I won't never cite anyone, I notice one particular behavior from my point of view
- I consider that this behavior may eventually imply some problems involving me directly as long as funding/money is involved and I have no control over it.
Concerning indi-eqmod, my name is at the top of every files, that's a point.
- I actually suggest that the simple way to resolve this is that the ownership be somewhat formally transferred to Indi (sed -e "s/geehalel@gmail.com/Indi/g")
- As manipulation is a very common technique, I don't want to get the feeling to have been fooled. In such a situation, you need "to know".
- And to not limit this transfer to a simple substitution, it would be nice if, for instance, it consists in some rewriting with code quality in mind,
made by an internship supervised by a QA manager, hopefully funded by a manufacturer (hmmm, "the" manufacturer, let's have a dream...)

Writings in social network may have great impact for other people. As you noticed in my case, I just now doubt, and this will remain permanent for me, regarding any open source project teams.
These words are somewhat moral, some people don't care morality, I do. And I also care software ownership. And I really dislike to have to write such things.

@Jasem We have been posting at the same time, I however leave this post here for posterity ;-)
The following user(s) said Thank You: Paul Muller
3 years 8 months ago #56496

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The all Indi has grown immensely lately, it is a real solid alternative to ASCOM. I would not have my observatory without Indi.
I do hope that this way of driver development is not going to damage the Indi reputation or do any damages to the Indi community.

May I advice something, before any money gets collected that a new driver gets tested by multiple independent users?
3 years 8 months ago #56558

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