[BillC]

James Ross, on 18 December 2012 - 01:32 PM, said:

I've had no trouble installing Visual Studio 2008 Professional on Windows 7 and Windows 8; I've been happily developing for OR on both versions of Windows. There must be more to this issue it seems, though I suspect this isn't the best forum to resolve it.

Also the professional version is not necessary, at least for Windows 7 32 bit. I use Visual Studio 2008 Express with no problems.

[cjakeman]

Walter Conklin, on 18 December 2012 - 04:53 AM, said:

I am not a programmer, but still a member of the OR team. Your correct in noting that Open Rails is not purely 100% open source.

The phrase "open source" is not used on the www.openrails.org site to refer to Open Rails. The home page explicitly states that "This program is not open source." and the topic of copyright is covered right at the top of the FAQ and in the webpage that leads to the SVN repository.

We couldn't be much clearer. I think there is a tendency to see "open" and then assume "open source".

[wacampbell]

I have just come back from travelling and am only now catching up. In way of introduction to the OP, I am the founder of Open Rails and am responsible for most of the policies in place. Its hugely frustrating to read the OP's post as absolutely none of it is true. My response below:

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it wasn't really a source control system as one might expect?

Subversion is a fully featured, and widely used source control system. From reading your post I gather you used the public SVN access provided via the developer's page on our web site.

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there was no versioning or provision for code paths or anything

Just to check, I started with a clean PC, installed Tortoise, and accessed the code using the public credentials and I see a fully functional subversion system.

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Just what appeared to be a snapshot of the code at an (unspecified) particular time

Using the public credentials, I see the full revision history going back to my first commit.

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Visual Studio 2008 which wont run on Windows 7

Of course you are wrong.

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project files ...They seemed very convoluted and intertwined and maybe not consistent?

perhaps to the newcomer. But they make sense to us.

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Why do you leave out key files?

What key files? I decided to check this, using my fresh clean install, and the public credentials. I checked out the source and built it with no problem.

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whats the purpose of supplying the "source" if you cant build from it?

Your premise is invalid - see above.

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I find it disconcerting that this is touted as an "open source" software

Huh??? where is it ever described by us as an 'open source' project. See the disclaimer on our home page.

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you dont even make the proper source available

See above.. you have access to the very same subversion server that we use for our day to day development.

... I think the above invalidates the rest of the OP's points so I won't continue.

If you had of just politely asked for help with compiling you would have got it. ... but geeesh ...

[cjakeman]

Hi Luke,

Lukecool, on 19 December 2012 - 03:53 AM, said:

I saw no CMS system or versioning whatsoever when I looked at the "source" with TortoiseSVN - your recommeneded way of accessing the supplied "source". All I saw was what appeared to be a snapshot of the code and what appeared to be an insane directory structure which made me think perhaps I was looking at the wrong thing.
[snipped]
So if I understand you correctly -as the team leader or whatever - it IS possible to build from the supplied source? Sheeesh thats great! - The polite question still remains how do you do it?

Pleased that you're continuing to follow this thread. Like James, I didn't realise that the public can now download a set of files to build the complete system. It wasn't the case when I started about 18 months back and it's a good step forward.

I have installed Visual Studio 2008 on 64-bit Windows 7 without problems, but I haven't tried installing it on a PC with VS 2010 already in place.

Seems that there's a technical problem with SVN access here since it works for Wayne but not for you. I'll try it later tonight on a PC that hasn't been used for SVN yet. Are you able to post any screendumps showing what you see?

[CGW121]

Lukecool, on 19 December 2012 - 05:25 AM, said:

I really really have to hand it to you guys - you are just amazing - I dont think I have ever laughed quite as loud for as long as I can remember....
Now, all of a sudden as if by magic the public account provides full read access to a properly versioned code base - which as your leader pointed out does in fact now point back right to the inception of the project. Laughs "Magic" - or maybe bit of surreptitous tinkering to cover up a little bug or paper over a few policy cracks? And those "experts" the developers on the project who told us the complete source wasnt available to the public might want to check back with the boss!
Anyway irrespective of the code the entertainment was priceless - you had me halfway convinced black was white....

So glad you find this all so funny. Obviously we all are way beneath someone as wonderful as you. So now are you going away and leave us poor peons to wallow in our own incompetence? I wonder how Open Rails got as far as it did without you helping us poor drooling slobs out.

[wacampbell]

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maybe bit of surreptitous tinkering to cover up a little bug or paper over a few policy cracks?

There was no tinkering. Full access to the source code was provided with the release of 0.8 a few months ago. Not all the team was aware.

Unfortunately, on your first attempt to access the code, you made some mistake with SVN or other that led you to go off on us. As to your interest in joining the team, I think I am the one laughing now.

[Genma Saotome]

And I have to add that I too was unaware of the recent change and I apologize for defending so firmly a lapsed policy.

I believe there is still one area where source is not available but I'm told that will not prevent a compile and build.

[Genma Saotome]

Ok folks... I think we have the current set of facts in front of us now:

A policy change occurred with the last major release but wasn't communicated clearly to everyone on the team: You can get the source code to compile and build a copy of OR. You need Visual Studio 2008, which does install and run on Windows 7.

And with that, I'm going to bring the curtain down on this particular show... it's time to move on.