noel.wade wrote:
But I wish to make one point: It has been admitted here in this
discussion thread that XCSoar 5.2 versions have many bugs. No version
after 5.2.4 has been released, so no pilots are able to use XCSoar
with all of the bug-fixes you claim have been worked on with the
XCSoar codebase. Is it any wonder that people are willing to use
LK8000 - even illegally - if it means a less-buggy solution (in
addition to its enhancements and new features)?

Couldn't agree more. I'm not the manager of the XCSoar project, and I
urged those who do to maintain a "stable" branch with just bug fixes.
Didn't happen.

I would hate supporting XCSoar 5.2.4. I joined the XCSoar project not
because I thought it's a well-designed softwa quite the opposite.
I knew the source code was very, very ugly, full of conceptual
misdesigns and bugs. I had a huge amount of work ahead, which is now
mostly behind me, a year and a half later. Three of us (two new
developers, one old-time developer) rewrote nearly everything in a
clean manner (note that Paolo left because he did not want me to clean
up the code - go figure). Bottom line is: I'm not going to support
the ugly old code which I left behind.

That said, XCSoar 6.0 pre-releases are a lot better and more stable
than any previous XCSoar release (naturally, I also think they're a
lot better than LK8000, but I'm kind of biased ;-)). Anybody can
download those inofficial pre-releases from my private server:

http://max.kellermann.name/projects/xcsoar/

Admitted, it's sad that the XCSoar home page doesn't mention our
efforts. The home page is in a sorry state anyway.

On the other hand, my struggles with XCSoar project management are a
good example of the advantages of Open Source: if the "official"
project managers become (temporarily) inactive, I can continue
developing, and roll my own releases on my home page. Half a dozen of
XCSoar developers submit their patches to me, while the official lead
developer is absent.

Max