A need to have an open dialogue with upstream OCC team

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Quaoar
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Re: A need to have an open dialogue with upstream OCC team

Post by Quaoar »

The issue with CLA was discussed several times in the past, but I would like to stress my previous argument that it is not easy to make a valuable contribution to OCCT which can be sold then. Not easy at all. Look at this:
According to my analysis of the issues in Community project in our tracker, during last 10 years we have integrated 60+ contributions made by about 25 contributors. Most essential contributions (~ 20) have been provided by Roman Lygin. Among others, only 4 contributions (as submitted) touch more than 10 lines of code; typical case is one-line or even one-symbol change. (https://dev.opencascade.org/index.php?q=node/30)
The fact is that OCCT is a geometric kernel which is a system of evolutionary geometric algorithms. The evolutionary nature of these algorithms means actually the following:

- If you commit some algorithm, OPEN CASCADE will take responsibility to keep your contribution alive: fix bugs, maintain the code, provide documentation, elaborate sufficient test cases, define necessary interfaces (e.g. Draw). It is not a one shot commitment. Therefore, you get industrialization for free. This is a payback.

- If we are talking about some really meaningful contribution, then it should be a kind of research result. E.g. new fillets, new Booleans, whatever. Nobody is going to make such contribution. This is the reality.

- Unlike CGAL which is more a bucket of algorithms, OpenCascade is an ecosystem of algorithms. Even if you have implemented, let's say, a new tool for approximation, you will need to find its use in geometric modeling tools then (blends, sweeps, etc.). Otherwise, such contribution makes a little sense for OCCT.

Just put it in a right way. OpenCascade is a project which you can participate or not. It gives you for free the tools and algorithms which are very expensive as they accumulate years of research and development. I believe that what we really need is a roadmap and a way how a community can affect the contents of such a roadmap. For contributions, I do not believe in them...
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ickby
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Re: A need to have an open dialogue with upstream OCC team

Post by ickby »

my 2 cents: I personally think that the CLA discussion goes a bit in the wrong direction, as apart from tanderson I know noone in the FreeCAD community who is able to understand the occ source. I've read some parts, but it's too complex for a "from time to time" contribution.

So IMHO the main benefit that OCC can get from FreeCAD (what we get from occ is pretty obvious) is not code contribution, but bug reports. We expose the tools to a significant audience, and this results in some tough testing. And we find more than enough bugs and corner cases. But they are not well reportet yet. Hence I very much like the initiative from Kunda to make this more streamlined. If done in the future I personally think we all have something valuable out of the OCC/FreeCAD coorperation without having any negative impact from the CLA, as no code contributions can be missused if there are none.
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Quaoar
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Re: A need to have an open dialogue with upstream OCC team

Post by Quaoar »

ickby wrote: Fri Jul 28, 2017 11:03 am ...not code contribution, but bug reports.
100% agree in that.
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Re: A need to have an open dialogue with upstream OCC team

Post by tanderson69 »

Quaoar wrote: Fri Jul 28, 2017 9:30 amProbably, I misunderstand the point. On a dev web-site it is written that:
No you don't.



Quaoar wrote: Fri Jul 28, 2017 9:30 am
{CLA} confirms that the contributor retains ownership of his contributions (the OPEN CASCADE company does not require exclusive copyright transfer for these contributions) and gives all rights to OPEN CASCADE to use the contribution. In turn, OPEN CASCADE guarantees the open source availability of all integrated contributions.
This is different than what I am seeing currently on the site. Perhaps I am confused. https://dev.opencascade.org/sites/defau ... eement.pdf




ickby wrote: Fri Jul 28, 2017 11:03 am my 2 cents: I personally think that the CLA discussion goes a bit in the wrong direction, as apart from tanderson I know noone in the FreeCAD community who is able to understand the occ source. I've read some parts, but it's too complex for a "from time to time" contribution.
Hold on! Any portion of occt I MAY understand, is not significant to separate me out. I am just as lost.
I agree this is not a good direction for the conversation and I will bow out of this thread after this post.




Quaoar wrote: Fri Jul 28, 2017 11:16 am
ickby wrote: Fri Jul 28, 2017 11:03 am ...not code contribution, but bug reports.
100% agree in that.
Great! we all agree there is no reason for the CLA for our involvement in OCCT. ;) Sorry! I couldn't resist.
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Re: A need to have an open dialogue with upstream OCC team

Post by Kunda1 »

Question: Does anyone here think the upstream OCC devs would be interested in participating in a Google Summer of Code ?
What if they found a student that was interested in adding multithreading... or <add your fantasy wish here>
That would be pretty cool.
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Re: A need to have an open dialogue with upstream OCC team

Post by kkremitzki »

Sounds like a good idea to me. I'd be interested in helping them out with co-mentorship of such a project.
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Re: A need to have an open dialogue with upstream OCC team

Post by Kunda1 »

Quaoar wrote:
Hi @Quaoar,
what do you think of this idea?
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Quaoar
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Re: A need to have an open dialogue with upstream OCC team

Post by Quaoar »

Looks very interesting. I forwarded this information to our boss, will keep you informed here.
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Re: A need to have an open dialogue with upstream OCC team

Post by Kunda1 »

Quaoar wrote: Fri Sep 20, 2019 2:01 pm Looks very interesting. I forwarded this information to our boss, will keep you informed here.
Great! Thanks for the reply. If your boss has questions or concerns, please feel free to direct them here. We've participated in GSOC for a number of years now and have some experience with it.
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