Re: Open scoring software?
 

> I can say pretty confidently that we will not be seeing open source scoring software any time soon.

> FIRST will definately be looking at how they are doing things before next season, they may go with a new company they may stick with this one. One problem is that every year they goto a new company, or a new software package or a new system just as the bugs from the old system begin to be worked out.


I do not see hiring a company to create the scoring software as diametrically ruling out open source software. Just make that one of the requirements of the contract.

If FIRST is purchasing software and not getting source code for it, I believe that is a terrible mistake. If they had the source code from the first time they bought scoring software, maybe they would not have had to buy it again (and again, and again). Software without source is just a black box. You will never fully understand it, and you will always need someone else to fix the (inevitable) problems.

> However i have yet to see any home grown system that has the gui, the control of the sounds, and most importantly control of the field boxes that the real scoring system does, and therein lies the challenge. there is so much more to this problem them people realize.

Sure. And Apache when it was first released did not have support for virtual hosts and modules and authentication and ssl and ... etc etc etc, but when people needed those things they were able to create them and add them in.

Re: Open scoring software?
 

It seems that using screenshots and documentation on how to use the software would be a method of open source. Someone could easily replicate the interface and make it open source. After using the scoring package, it is actually quite simple. If this can be done with quite a bit of time before a competition than FIRST will most likely consider the best open source package available.

Also, the scoring animation/simulation white paper for 2005 was released and well tested a few days after the kickoff. I doubt FIRST had their scoring program complete at the same timeframe because real testing did not start until competition. FIRST should consider building off exisiting white papers and create their own official version.

~Andrew