Open Source Community

[guest]

There is a discussion going on about the store, in which @StiX brings up the difference between the Unity user base and eco-system and vvvvs.

I’m not a Unity user so I shouldn’t making claims that some things are easier in one piece of software that the other, but I feel that the multi-purpose use of vvvv is still its strong suit. I do some 3D but the aesthetic I go for wouldn’t suit the Unity, to my knowledge.

As much as I wish someone would modernise vvvv’s core media features, I think the dev should continue concentrating on the language. I’ve always thought of vvvv as an easy to learn alternative to Processing, Openframeworks, Cinder, but perhaps a better comparison might be Touch Designer. I’m not going there, though.

But if @vux had never come along and added tons of the features we use so heavily (not just DX11 but many of the addons we overlook, @woei et al) maybe they would have been filled in by someone else but who knows? In Openframeworks there are obviously lot of c++ devs out there happy to contribute to new libraries.

vvvv’s issues are different. They’ve created V++ and they now need c/c++ programmers and assembly coders to come up with libraries for it.

The problems are that
a) it ain’t easy to extend and
b) the size of its userbase.

So what’s the solution? In theory its VL: extendability, deployability and lots of documentation, but I digress.

I think the eco system the vvvv devs want to foster is more akin to OpenFrameworks, but the expertise among the users hasn’t been large enough to create that sort of open source community where cutting edge libraries are being ported and shared as soon someone can think of a good use for them. Vvvv is nearly there, but it relies on the time of too few really good and generous coders who want to see vvvv succeed as a program and as a community.

So why is that? Why aren’t there more users? And how can we increase the number of users across the art, design and software engineering spheres?

[h99]

How to achieve that?
Spend some time every day to give back a portion of what you get from vvvv, using your ability and knowledge.

How do I do this?
I devoted myself to the translation of docs and tuts. Why? Because to my experience, if there’s some ITA docs, there could be a slightly bigger chance that a company would invest some money in vvvv, just because the guy browsing the website has the chance to understand what’s going on in a deeper way, if I may say so.
I’m also sure that my efforts still aren’t rewarded; also, unfortunately, this is a very minor contribution to vvvv.

But as you can see this is what vux and woei and the others did. Everyone did what they were able to do.
What can you do for us, guest?

[StiX]

devs should be concentrating on extending language, and find a way how to expand the team with new people that will concentrate on graphical capabilities

I in no way want vvvv to be unity, i just bring that as a example of product that knows what it does and going very clearly in the right steps, while the weird mutated child that is vvvv is just standing still

I did lived the world of big installations for international companies (events like CES) and VJing in squats,
and vvvv comes from the big installations, it was made in that enviroment
The reason it is free, and has trust system is hugely that it does not have much other choice now honestly, almost no one would use vvvv in its current state if it had some harsh pay system, what would become of user base if it was only payed? How would people even get into it?

I dont think i saw some clear direction for vvvv, something like we want to be vvvv used like this and this and we will make it by doing X or Y. I would just love to see a bold move into something like this, leave core vvvv as is, but do a version that will the things that i talked about, I am not arguing vvvv should go into competition with unity, but I am arguing it should look more into direction of rendering some animations, Vjs, visual experimentators who are more focus on content creation then on coding stuff. There are tons of people that use processing for generating small animations. You can make that stuff with vvvv, prepare it real time, its totally different experience than processing, but then you need to know where to find dx11, how to use it, and find out that renderer NRT exist. I met a lot of people that were interested in vvvv and use it to experiment but there is such a slim chance that they will get to the level of knowing this stuff, even thou it should be basic usage of the software.

you can read my original post here:
https://vvvv.org/blog/introducing-the-store

and @h99 its very nice we have such a great community but if your community is big part of your product, your product should be catering to that community, which is vvvv not doing (the store etc.) thats why i am suggesting bringing in more people from community into development and making polished version that will unify it, empower people, gives money to contributors and allow small users to pay smaller monthly sums for great product, it is really big shift from how vvvv is set up now, and i dont expect something like this happening, but I am really interested in what people think about this. But if you are contributor to a product that is largely used just on trading conventions and bigger artistic installation in commercial setting, and you are expected to get some return from your time investment with such a low number of licences and narrow commercial model, that is just not going to happen.

[h99]

@StiX I read your post in the blog. A few things I have to say:

• vvvv still does not create a binary something with all dependencies (assets, libraries, etc) exactly as processing or unity do. But I understand that VL is here for this reason; and this could boost many things in the vvvvorld

• let’s just keep in mind that vvvv is not born to live embedded in some web page (and that the future of web, IMHO, is html5, not some binary proprietary plugin) so it took a completely different path from the very beginning; yes, you can also make standalone software with Unity: see preceding point

• the future of code… what is it… IoT? BigData? Services as in cloud services? Smartphone like apps (this I feel to say that won’t last much longer, but let’s not OT)? All of this together? How do other packages work with all of these and the not mentioned?

Especially behind the third point, there is the thing that I don’t use vvvv for the graphics; vvvv, in my useless opinion, is simply wasted when it’s mostly thought of as a graphics engine (even including all the under-the-hood nerdity, analysing and processing data to create and animate the graphics; I’m not saying that awesome visual projects aren’t created with vvvv, I’m saying that’s much, much more than just graphics).

Then again, users should try their best to give what they’re able to give. IMMHO, a better collision engine, even though it’s been mentioned just as an example, it’s definitely not a priority, if not pointless, looking at the future of coding. A much more simple series of objects to work with Serial communication, or nodes to flash a microcontroller (I may have missed something, but this still should not be possible out of the box, right?) could be of great help for the vvvvuture. But it’s just my humble opinion.

Nonetheless your points and your will to talk about this could do nothing but stimulate the community and enrich our vvvvorld.
Thank you.

P.S. Another most useful vvvvhing? It helps us to get rid of Saxon genitive. Let’s just not forget about this.

[joreg]

i know it is still just an announcement, but at least some of the concerns should see themselves addressed in our latest https://vvvv.org/blog/devvvvlopment-update-january-2017