Possibility of SVN?

[Zexsi]

Now that the code base is opened up a bit, is there any chance of code contributions via SVN or something similar? Many SVN solutions provide for approval of code submissions, and some of my ideas regarding the UI/Config and integration with Ace3 are downright Seksi as hell :-P

-Zexsi

[merak69]

While possible, I doubt we'll see this in SVN anytime soon.

The code currently, while not obsfucated, looks like its purposely been converted into spaghetti code. Kinda like they parsed it through a program to abbreviate all subroutine names and change all the variable names to a,b,c,d,e,f,g,etc,etc

You, me, or anyone else could go technically go read it, but it'd take more time and headaches than it's worth.


Edit: On a side note, while the Ace libraries are convenient and provide a layer of separation from some wow api, they are extremely bloated and somewhat inefficient. (Even if they themselves are calling them "Lightweight")

[Unbelievable]

I'm pretty sure that an SVN is highly unlikely.

Carbonite was (until recently) a commercial product. The only reason that the code is visable at all is to comply with Blizzard's (dodgey) policy. If that policy is ever tested in court and found to be non-binding OR in light of the massive opposition Blizzard decide to revoke it, then Carbonite could return to the commercial arena. Providing an SVN could limit their option to do so IMO.

[wreck]

Originally Posted by Unbelievable Carbonite could return to the commercial arena. Providing an SVN could limit their option to do so IMO.

That doesn't actually hold true. There are commercial products that are in open source. Many companies do this for a number of reasons:

• It allows users to verify there are no security holes

• Users can submit potential bug fixes and new features

• It generates a developer community

So simply opening the source code up does nothing to eliminate the commercial viability of a product. If the license states that the company retains all rights and any changes are subject to approval of the company. Even Microsoft has released portions of their code to open source, but they maintain the rights and still sell the products.

[Unbelievable]

An SVN would mean making the code even more readable. Carbonite's developers would encrypt or byte-code the entire project if they were permitted to do so. They aren't but that doesn't mean they want to offer there code up on a plate for the mod community to pick over and/or plagerise.

The security holes thing is kinda silly tbh. The code is readable right now. Besides, if you don't trust a mod then simply don't use it. Personally, I've found no reason to not trust Carbonite either now or in the past. The moment that trust is broken is the moment I stop using the mod. Ironically, in some way's the commercial nature of previous versions provided some reassurance. Carbon Based Creations business model was to make sales, which would've been pretty hard to sustain if they went about exploiting their customers.

Sure 3rd party debugging is a noble and worthy service to offer, but so far Carbonite has managed admirably without it. Any 3rd party code submissions would limit Carbon Based Creations, LLC's ability to claim sole copyright over their work. So the only value in the debugging argument is really to point at specific lines of code and say "this needs changing", which is something you could do right now if you needed to.

Over on the General Carbonite forums Haavok has already stated:

Originally Posted by Haavok Carbonite was released in this form strictly to comply with the new UI policy; it was not released to be some kind of coding resource for other addon developers. If an addon developer would like to hook into Carbonite in some way, we will do our best to provide them with an API/information to do so (as we have done in the past).

Frankly I agree with Haavok. It's not like Carbonite's code has been made readable because the Carbon Based Creations have freely chosen to do so. The change was forced upon them by Blizzard.

[Haavok]

Sorry, no plans at this time. We appreciate the interest in contributing to Carbonite but right now our focus is on getting migrated over to WoWI and seeing if we can’t make this donation model work for us.