SCaLE 12x call for papers

[raevol]

Hey errbody-

Every year for the past 2 years, a long time I know, I've attended SCaLE, which is the Southern California Linux Expo. I've been thinking about submitting a proposal for a talk based around OpenMW. ( https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/cfp ) Now, I'm not a dev here, but I am pretty familiar with the project, and have been with the project for a while, so I think with some help from you guys I could put together a decent talk.

What do you guys think? Should I do it? What are some things that you think would be good to talk about regarding OpenMW? Some stuff I thought of:

- hard lessons we've learned about organization and governance in regards to project resiliance
- hard lessons we've learned about working with proprietary assets
- good and bad things about using open source libraries in such a large scale project as this
- the internet's reception and frequent misconceptions about an "engine-recreation" project like this
- how community and PR contribute to project success

[Zini]

Sounds like a good idea.

Regarding the points you listed:

- hard lessons we've learned about organization and governance in regards to project resiliance

Actually not sure what you are referring to here. From my point of view the project went pretty smoothly. We had a few people in positions that they were not suitable for (mostly because they didn't have the persistence and the time to do the job right), but these got replaced with our people. If there have been any hard lessen, then I did not learn them.

- hard lessons we've learned about working with proprietary assets

Apparent from the fact that they are annoying but sometimes you have no choice but dealing with them? Again, not really sure which hard lessons you are talking about.

- good and bad things about using open source libraries in such a large scale project as this

If that is proprietary libraries vs open source libraries, then obviously there is only good. If you mean libraries vs writing the stuff ourself, that might be an interesting point.

- the internet's reception and frequent misconceptions about an "engine-recreation" project like this

Agreed. Still puzzling to me that there are so many misconceptions.

- how community and PR contribute to project success

Yes, very important point.

[sirherrbatka]

Actually good idea!

Will you record your talk for us?

- hard lessons we've learned about working with proprietary assets

I would ask chris for supporting nif animations. Morrowind is quite ankward when it comes to animations IIRC and no documenatation at all.

[psi29a]

- hard lessons we've learned about working with proprietary assets

I would ask chris for supporting nif animations. Morrowind is quite ankward when it comes to animations IIRC and no documenatation at all.

Don't forget about about trying to get the built-in bitmap fonts renderable in MyGUI. We had to wait a few releases before MyGUI could do what we wanted. This allowed us to be as close as possible to the original Morrowind.

[sirherrbatka]

Oh, but this was issue in the MyGUI in fact, not in the assest.

OTOH we had interesting advanture with polish bitmap fonts. Translators used obscure MAZOVIA codepage, that used to be popular in the DOS era (according to Lgro: I know about that codepage thanks to him).

Basicly, programmers of closed source programms do all kinds of crazy shit

[WeirdSexy]

doo ettt

End the talk with "Also, SPEEAAARRRSSSSS"

[sirherrbatka]

"Ah, one more thing. A friend of mine asked me to add this:

SPEARS!"

[Sslaxx]

The biggest thing is the wholesale change of programming language, surely?

[sirherrbatka]

I'm not sure if raevol would want to answer loads of questions regarding D programming language.

[Zini]

The biggest thing is the wholesale change of programming language, surely?

The switch from D to C++ should definitely be mentioned, because it was an important change.