US Rules Committee to ban XC Soar in US soaring competitioneffective immediately? - Ahh the "genius!"

wrote:
The statement put on the XCSoar Facebook page is not accurate,

Not accurate? Let me paste a verbatim email you wrote to a XCSoar
developer yesterday:

"Thanks for your views. When we construct our list, we now know to
put XCSoar on the list as non compliant and not approved for use in
US competition."

[unclhank 24. Februar 2012 00:44]

I hope this is accurate enough for you.

Max

I rest my case.

RESPECT IS GONE. Confirmed.

Keep telling yourself that Evan.

I personally have no passion at all about this. I find it sad. But I will stand up for the counterpoint that it somehow makes sense to go on a crusade to make any software or device with a gyro illegal moving forward. I can afford to buy a new PDA & pay $300 for new PDA software if I must. Many other can not or will not, based on the dumbness of all of this in general.

I am concerned about the many new pilots in my region who bought new PDA's & spent days wiring up their comm boards, etc to use this software. They have now wasted their time and money while you try and Mafia Strong Arm XC Soar developers into modifying their code by threatening them (and then denying it).

To alot of guys that investment in time and money was significant. And for what? Is this rule that important? I can hear the people logging into OLC as we speak...

You guys are really lost here. Its sad to watch. Stop trying to over regulate the sport like this. Let go of this rule. There are about 10 guys (at the top of the sport) who agree with this rule. The rest could care less..

Is it really worth it?

And I am wondering what back room conversations are being had with the for profit manufacturers upset over XC Soars growth. I wonder...



On Friday, February 24, 2012 11:05:06 AM UTC-5, T8 wrote:
On Feb 24, 10:34*am, Sean Fidler wrote:
Evan...I am helping by reporting the madness, trust me.

No, I am making progress. Quietly and with reasoned argument.

Inflaming passions is not helpful, at all.

T8

On Feb 24, 11:07*am, Max Kellermann wrote:
wrote:
The statement put on the XCSoar Facebook page is not accurate,

Not accurate? *Let me paste a verbatim email you wrote to a XCSoar
developer yesterday:

*"Thanks for your views. *When we construct our list, we now know to
*put XCSoar on the list as non compliant and not approved for use in
*US competition."

*[unclhank 24. Februar 2012 00:44]

I hope this is accurate enough for you.

Max

This statement was in response to the position by the XCSoar
individual that indicated that they would not be providing a version
that would permit users to comply with US rules as requested by the RC
of the XCSoar group.
At no point have we indicated intent to not permit open source
software.
To be fair, there are others within the XCSoar group who are more
inclined to help work this out so pilots can have complying software.
Hopefully they will succeed.
UH

wrote:
This statement was in response to the position by the XCSoar
individual that indicated that they would not be providing a version
that would permit users to comply with US rules as requested by the RC
of the XCSoar group.

No, no, you are now being very inaccurate. To remind you of how it
really was, here's what you replied to:

"As I mentioned earlier, we could publish a stripped version, but
unless anyone can prove how this will be useful to catch cheaters, we
won't put much work into it."

Can you?

Max

On Feb 24, 11:22*am, wrote:
On Feb 24, 11:07*am, Max Kellermann wrote:

wrote:
The statement put on the XCSoar Facebook page is not accurate,

Not accurate? *Let me paste a verbatim email you wrote to a XCSoar
developer yesterday:

*"Thanks for your views. *When we construct our list, we now know to
*put XCSoar on the list as non compliant and not approved for use in
*US competition."

*[unclhank 24. Februar 2012 00:44]

I hope this is accurate enough for you.

Max

This statement was in response to the position by the XCSoar
individual that indicated that they would not be providing a version
that would permit users to comply with US rules as requested by the RC
of the XCSoar group.
At no point have we indicated intent to not permit open source
software.
To be fair, there are others within the XCSoar group who are more
inclined to help work this out so pilots can have complying software.
Hopefully they will succeed.
UH

Context matters. Often, knowing the writer personally helps.

I was in on this exchange, I know UH personally, I knew it wasn't the
end of the conversation. I can understand that my German friend
Tobias on the other end may have understood things differently, not
for the least reason being that it was close to midnight his time.

As I see it, we have short term problems on some platforms... and a
longer term potential solution that might work. I'm handicapped here
in that I haven't written any code in 15 years and I was just a hack,
never in the class that our XCS developers are. So really, I can
suggest solutions, but I cannot implement them. I'm pretty sure the
level of willing help and cooperation is going to go down FAST if the
name calling and finger pointing keeps up.

-Evan Ludeman / T8

And what of the countless other means of installing AH capabilities on these devices, cell phones, smart phones, watches? If it is your intent to ensure that no contest pilot has this capability in the cockpit, that is next to impossible. And if you still want to go for it what is the cost in aggravation to the average pilot?

Are we going to strong arm all equipment manufacturers into eliminating those capabilities from their products? Are we going to inspect pilots cockpits for hiding places of these electronic devices on the grid? It is already going too far. It will have to go much, much further to be anywhere near enforceable.

If someone wants to try and cheat, they will be able to do so easily.

This is the wrong approach in general. As with electonic vario's and GPS's, learn from history. We should simply let it go!!!! Or at minimum we should have a set of rules for Nationals and Worlds and a open policy for regional's.

On a final note...I really do not appreciate the attack on XC Soar. I do not think the committee has any idea how much work they are doing and how difficult it is to change midstream in their late stage development of V6.3 and do whatever modifications to their code that committee is requesting. It does not work like that. I find it rude and of very poor taste to make the statement that was made to XC soar. It boarders on un-ethical. Who do we think we are?

This should have thought of this LONG ago if it was that important. Just because committee was unaware of a massive problem in your own rules does not mean everyone else must drop what they are doing to fix your so called problem immediately (or else we will ban you). And oh by the way screw a large number of our own contest pilots who invested alot of time and money in getting it all working.

Will they also ban bringing cell phones. Many smartphone apps provide better "apps for that" then XCSoar. The smartphones have better sensors then a GPS based attitude indicators which have to much lag time to be really useful.

On Feb 24, 11:46*am, Karl Kunz wrote:
Will they also ban bringing cell phones. Many smartphone apps provide better "apps for that" then XCSoar. * The smartphones have better sensors then a GPS based attitude indicators which have to much lag time to be really useful.

If you are speaking of gyro horizon type displays, those have always
been prohibited in competition. That's true for just about everywhere
people race gliders.

-Evan Ludeman / T8

Smart phones are also illegal according to SSA rules...read butterfly vario thread (set aside some time...). I have copied Tom Kelley's post on the subject at the bottom of this response.

There is an honor system supposedly but I have not seen anything official. It very well could not change from present. AT PRESENT...if you are caught in a contest with a smart phone in the contest you have cheated and will be DSQ'd. You are expected, at current, to go to walmart and by a disposable cell phone for use in the glider for land outs, etc at a contest.

Again, this rule is a nearly impossible to enforce. Consider the pilot that "WANTS TO TRY AND CLOUD FLY..." The rules committee is trying (at great cost) to do the impossible.

Pretty soon we will have to go thru a bomb detector before we get into the cockpit at a contest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the Android platform: https://market.android.com/details?i...ahorizon&hl=en

On the iPhone platform: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/airpl...385491648?mt=8

----------------------------

By Tom Kelley on Smart Phones in contests...

Enforcement of the rule comes from Sportmanship. Its us, its that
simple. We act alone on this issue but stand together in the
definition of "Sportsmanship".

The cell phone issue is simple, Wal Mart, a $20 cell answers this
issue. Many do this as we also have Androids but don't carry them
during a SSA contest.

Going IMC, meaning into a cloud, flight below VFR minimums, IS
AVOIDABLE. Enough said their.

The rules do have an effect, as it is now expected of all entrants to
display Sportmanship while racing in SSA contests.

Noel, like no PDA to fly with?? No cell or Spot?? Just good old
charts, a wiz wheel and knowing the task area? Like real airmanship
and looking outside? Dang, bring it on, lets race, you made my day.

Yes, enforcement can happen and will. As during the 18 Meter Nationals
several years back. Several were carrying Android phones or
BlackBerrys. I, yes, I, stood up during the pilots meeting and spoke
of Sportmanship. After my brief talk, a senior old rules commititte
guy spoke. He made it very clear. Unsportsmanlike conduct can be as
sever as a ban from SSA contests for up to 5 years. Carrying these
devices can be considered unsportmanslike conduct. After the meeting,
those 2 folks went and got new cells to carry with them, from Wal
Mart. Ahhhhhh............they never once complained.

Again, we stand as one, meaning we are each responcible for our
actions, but together we bring under the definition of "Sportmanship"
a sport inwhich we race in. We also know that our peers have given
much thought to these topics.

Its been posted way before this on the "how to's" of rule changes. As
at shopping in Sears, its the "best" way.

Thomas Kelley #711.