[vos-d] next priorities

[Peter Amstutz]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Alright, with 0.23.0-stable coming very soon now (I promise) we can thaw 
the code freeze and start discussion on what is going to happen next.

There is a gigantic list of things to do, and so I'd like to solicit ideas 
and discussion as to what our priorities should be.  Ideally we make a 
list of things to do, select two or three items from that list, and 
identify those as the development goals for 0.24.0.

Here are my thoughts, categorized by area:

- - Project management
   * Ditch CVS in favor of SVN or BZR
   * Move windows support to cygwin toolchange and -mno-cygwin instead of
     mingw/msys
   * Import ALL dependencies (boost, wx, CS) as vendor branches into VOS 
source repository, giving us a more stable source base to work from.

- - VOS core
   * Rewrite site connection management to use public keys instead of 
hostnames as discussed previously
   * Implement an extension for caching remote vobjects locally.  Would 
allow VOS to avoid re-downloading the entire 3D space every time.

- - Scripting
   * Bring Python bindings completely up to speed so that they can be used 
to write omnivos plugins, parts of ter'angreal etc
   * Bring OpenVRML support up to speed to be able to script behaviors 
in javascript within the VRML model (would not be VOS aware)

- - 3D rendering
   * Add native animation to A3DL
   * Add skeletal models to A3DL
   * Add terrain to A3DL
   * Add prims (via FractalSpline) to A3DL
   * Add trees (via OpenTreeLib) to A3DL
   * Add humans (via MakeHuman) to A3DL
   * Support for more import 3D formats to A3DL, such as VRML/X3D, 3DS, 
Quake maps, Collada, OpenFlight, FBX...

- - User interface
   * Add a concept of a "user agent" to A3DL which is an object 
which specifically reperesents the 3D browser application and what is 
being displayed to the user
   * "Clickable" type, would indicate a 3D object (or other interface item) 
was clickable and would send a message back saying it was clicked
   * Start using AWS2, the next-generation Crystal Space which defines and 
renders UI components with fragments of javascript, would allow the client 
to download a UI from a server to reconfigure itself on the fly
   * Get Metalurgy up and running, this would be a user-friendly editor 
for vobject structures; basically a GUI equivilent to mesh.
   * Rewrite ter'angreal in python (since CS+VOS+Wx all have Python 
bindings)

- - HyperVOS
   * Add wiki-type editing capabilities to HyperVOS, session management, 
scripting...

This is all just off the top of my head.  There's a lot to do.  Obviously 
these arn't all the same amount work, but we need to narrow the focus to 
two or three critical tasks.  Comments?

[   Peter Amstutz   ][ tetron at interreality.org ][ piamstutz at anteon.com  ]
[Lead Programmer][Interreality Project][Virtual Reality for the Internet]
[ VOS: Next Generation Internet Communication][ http://interreality.org ]
[ http://interreality.org/~tetron ][ pgpkey:  pgpkeys.mit.edu  18C21DF7 ]
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFEMZ15aeHUyhjCHfcRAlQiAKChXGg5zPc8jKGMCdv/BJEs37UIJACeMcn7
vS38K9CLIz3ASePnUqXCO1c=
=nFEg
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----