Latest blog post on makehuman site is about them needing some solution to host nightly builds.
I wonder would panda3d servers be able to handle this?
They had 15 GB traffic in one day, and its too much for their server, i dont know how much traffic can this server handle?
Do you mean we should host makehuman builds on panda3d.org? Because I don’t really see a reason to do so.
Well, if you have capabilites to do so and it wouldnt hurt panda servers, i dont see reason why not.
Its not my call, just a suggestion.
Well… I don’t see why it needs to be on the panda3d.org servers. I mean, we’re not a free hosting service. It’s like asking Microsoft to host SuperTux daily builds on their server.
Not really. Microsoft is based on competition, Open Source should be based on helping each other and cooperation.
I’m not saying that Panda3d should provide hosting for them forever, but helping them a little while they search for a new hosting service would be a nice thing to do. Obviously only if it doesn’t hurt Panda’s servers - helping doesn’t mean sacrificing. But if you could help, why wouldn’t you?
And it doesn’t need to be Panda’s servers, but it’s sometimes good to say “I can give you a hand so I will” instead of thinking “why am I supposed to help? Someone else can do it”.
Well, Panda3D is hosted on Carnegie Mellon University servers. We are already generating a lot of traffic - we have many visitors, big downloads, nightly builds, and most importantly the rtdist build that is downloaded by the web plugin at runtime.panda3d.org.
I can forward this thread to the ETC server maintainer, but don’t expect much.
Well, first of all, competition is healthy in the market. Without competition, the drive to improve goods and services is minimal. Cooperation and competition are not direct opposites regardless of development models. Two suppliers can cooperate while also being competitive so that both sides end up ahead of the game. This is especially true when crossing over market sectors, which covers the case of Panda3D and MakeHuman. This leads to the next point, though.
Why not host everything everyone wants hosted temporarily? Why is MakeHuman special? There is limited space on the server, so if we’re getting into the mentality of helping when it’s possible, then someone is going to win our favour. This immediately creates competition over Panda3D’s server space offer. So my question to you would be this: what would Panda3D gain by helping MakeHuman out? What would be the selling point in the deal? This is even disregarding the fact that the choice is up to the owners - CMU ETC, but that’s irrelevant to my question.
You own your computer, right? You can decide to offer the very same thing then. You can install server software on your machine and offer to share the load for MakeHuman. It seems that you’ve put yourself into a position in which you now must follow through with that course of action unless you have solid reasoning to not do so. I mean, you said it yourself; sometimes it’s nice to offer help instead of asking, “Why am I supposed to help? Someone else can do it.”
That said, if I owned the server, then I’d go to MakeHuman and ask if they have anything to offer in exchange for my service. (Maybe freely licensed high-quality human models to improve Pand3D’s look? Or perhaps advertisement for the engine on their services? Just examples.) And if their offer is valuable enough to me to compensate for the server load I’d be offering, then I would consider it. If not, then they’d just have to find someone else.
I saw they only have a problem with distribution, as the bandwidth usage sky-rocketed since they made the nightly builds available for download.
So in this case let me ask: Why don’t they use torrents? It’s the perfect legitimate usage of the technology.
They could seed for 24 hours with a limited UL speed and as soon as the torrent is picked up by others any new downloader would get 10x to 100x the speed of the original seed.
I think the case is solved - Rdb said he can ask, but he can’t promise anything. And that’s great. As is Radu’s suggestion. Torrent might actually solve the problem perhaps.
Still, I feel like I should answer Xidram.
Actually, I think competition is always harmful, but I guess this is not the place to discuss that, is it? I have a rant about that on my web log if you’re interested - not advertising, just don’t want to spam this forum too much with unrelated topics.
This is an absurd argument. Only because you can’t help everyone you’re not going to help anyone? I think that helping means doing what you can. If it’s within your capabilities you should do it, if it’s not, you should say “sorry, I can’t help”, but not even considering help is just wrong.
It’s not.
Of course there is. This is why if there is space and bandwidth on one’s server and somebody comes asking for help, one should consider providing the unused resources.
I’m not saying Panda should start posting “We provide servers” all over the net, come on…
Ok, maybe it’s just my zeitgeist movement mentality, but does there really need to be a selling point? A deal? A gain? Profit mentality is generally destructive, but when you search for gain every time you’re asked to give someone a hand, this is just up side down.
Again, to make things as clear as I can, I’m not saying Panda’s servers should be open to everyone, come and get some. What I’m proposing is this: When somebody asks if you have some spare server space you don’t tell them to “get lost” without giving it any thought. Instead, you say “wait, I’ll check/ask”, and then you answer. You can say “no, sorry”, you can say “sure” and you can say “yes, but only for a month”. It’s not like you should give your servers out to people regardless of the servers melting down…
Of course, and I have thought about it. Unfortunately, I only have a fairly old PC with a very slow upload connection.
Besides, I’m not trying to boss around, I just proposed to consider giving a hand to a fellow OpenSource project.
I really don’t agree with that. I think competition is rather healthy. It stimulates people to improve software. Without competition with other open-source engines, Panda3D would lack many features it has now. I could name many examples.
Of course, if competition turns into hate and disrespect towards other software, then it can be harmful. For instance, even though Panda3D tries to compete with other open-source engine, you don’t hear us say that engine Y sucks without proper arguments to support it.
It’s not a surprise you think competition is healthy. This is the prevailing opinion (opinion is the key word here) and this is what we’re all taught.
I’m not going to go into the details of my reasoning here, since I believe it’s not the right place. Besides, as I said, I have an article about competition on my weblog (a link to which is in my profile here) and I don’t think there’s a point in writing the same twice. Unless of course you want me to write down it here.
Still, I feel like a quick summary is needed, so my point is as follows. People typically say that “competition drives innovation”. This is a mantra and it might seem it’s true. However, ask yourself a question, would you really not develop Panda, and add features to it, if you had nobody to “compete” against? Do you really do it for the sake of competition and not in order to make it a good piece of software? Which should come first - winning a race of some kind or making a good software for yourself and others to use?
Also, ask yourself what could be achieved if engines (or anything else for the matter) cooperated instead of competing. Of course you might say that there are different approaches to things in Panda and, for example, OGRE (or other FOSS engines) so the philosophies are incompatible. But then there really is not competition here because the target audience is different (Python-loving game designers versus C/++ techies).
What I say might, and probably does, sound idealistic (even though it’s not) but I think there is a point to it.
Why not just build a p2p for the nightly builds? With 500 visters it shouldn’t take long to download the builds and lower banwith by a lot.
Thats why I like this forum and its people:)
indeed you sound idealistic coppertop, alas. In the real word ‘competition’ or ‘cooperation’ are words that have lost their meanings - when you see a politician or a CEO talking about competition or cooperation he mean “with which I’d to cooperate to wipe my competitors, increase incomings and spend less money?”.
The problem is that all modern economics is based on unbalanced competition - either is fake (cartels and mega joint ventures) or is too harsh, corrupted and unfair. A good balance of competition+cooperation always drove the world to evolution.
Anyhow the P2P option is too good to not follow it - I guess that the MH guys already thought that so probably we ain’t to worry about it.
I’m really confused about why nobody mentioned the obvious yet. Makehuman is OSI-compliant FOSS, that means they can have nearly infinite bandwidth at Sourceforge, Berlios or Google Code. They don’t need to move everything there, they can open an account just to host the downloads.
Also, while we are at it, there’s not a lot of synergy between Panda3D and makehuman anyway because makehuman is GPL, IMHO.
EDIT: I’ll add: the only reason they wouldn’t use one of these services would be if they were planning or considering to go commercial with dual licensing or something like that, in a way they wouldn’t be able to put everything into sourceforge or similar (the fact they claim a trademark on “makehuman” hints to this) in which case it would make even less sense to donate bandwidth to them.
Gogg makes some good points. Us BSD-fans aren’t generally too fond of GPL fanatics 
It’s what I see all around me.
Actually, I wouldn’t. I develop Panda because it needs features. Why does it need new features? To keep up with the latest technology in 3D rendering. I added shadows support because other engines have it, for example.
If there was no competition, 3D technology would have never made it this far.
No, it’s not about winning a race in the first place. It’s just the competition that drives us, that makes us want to improve the engine. It’s about making it better than other engines.
Questions for you: would you hate it if Panda became the most-used and best engine out there? Would you not hate it if Panda wasn’t really used that much because it lacks unique features that other engines do have?
I’m really not seeing this. Help me with an example of how all engines could improve by cooperating rather than competing.
Note that if two engines cooperate, there is still competition with the engines that don’t.
I did not know that panda3d and cmu fall in same basket as Microsoft…
And coop is MUCH better than competition.
For example, i havent played any single game where individual skill is better than teamplay.
6 noobs can own 6 pros if pros dont work together, if they all compete.
Anyways, they “solved” problem so this discussion is over 
Well, the mistake you are making is that you make no distinction between the case of two people trying to solve a problem, and the case of two people building a product. This is also where the image from coppertop’s blog post doesn’t work.
In the first case, it is indeed beneficial that they cooperate to solve the problem. Because once the stone has been pushed out of the way, the problem is gone and they can continue with their journey.
However, a game engine is designed not to solve a problem, but to be useful to others. In order to be used by people, it has to have advantages above other engines. Hence the competition.
puts on teacher hat
Competition is what drives every student I taught forward. Even in cooperation such as group assignments. If it isn’t competition against another project it is competition with the previous incarnation of themselves. There is a reason why competition is seen in evolution processes and not altruism (to the same degree at least). In some schools everyone gets a first place trophy for participating.
Or look at this case, Windows vs Linux. Windows is something of a cooperative work. One team on one project and other companies or projects are often bought so those technologies can be included. Device makers, driver coders, everyone makes stuff for Windows. Linux is very competitive, just look at the sheer number of distributions out there. If it was as cooperative as many people initially think why isn’t there just one? In order to win over more users, and in turn more developers, it needs to compete with the limited pool.
Or look at web browsers. In my probable not accurate memory IE 6 was, essentially the only web browser in a long time and did not progress much until Firefox came around. IE 7 and 8 were improvements because of the competition firefox provided. Firefox 3.6 and upcoming 4 is response to the competition google chrome provides.
Competition and cooperation are not mutually exclusive and, when combined in a healthy manner, produces a product far superior than either philosophy alone.
I agress with croxis.
When I was in school. I didn’t feel like doing things unless there was some sorta competition to win something. Even on group projects, if everyone won, neither group would really try their hardest while if you did win something, more groups put more work into their project.
Now if it was us as a (noob) group vs the (pro) teacher on information, we would put our information togather (cooperative) into beating the teacher on a subject (competiton) to look better and show what we know.
The downside to cooperative work is that the signal person doesn’t really learn as much as a singal person working on their own does. This is due to students just asking for help but not really retaining what he or she saw when they got the help from their team mates. This happen a lot in my programming class. I would show someone how to do something, but would end up having to reshow them a few times before they knew what I was doing. So this only showed what I knew, not what the other student knew sadly. (Mostly, I can’t say all my friends didn’t learn from what I showed them.)