All
Since my plea last week for more participation in the FDS 5 beta test, I am pleased to report that you have responded most enthusiastically, and our bug reporting traffic has increased significantly. It sounds to me that part of the initial sluggishness of the beta testing has been the SourceForge pages. While the SourceForge system of source code archiving and bug tracking has been extremely useful to us developers, it has also been confusing and intimidating for those unfamiliar with it. So much so that I fear people have been turned off, and turned away. If this is annoying for experienced users participating in the beta test, it will be a disaster for new users once we release FDS 5. Part of the problem has been that we've expected users to navigate the SF pages more than they really need to. In a sense, what we want most users to be able to do easily is (1) download new releases of FDS-SMV, (2) easily report problems or bugs, and (3) participate in group discussions. Those interested in obtaining and working with the source code will have to endure more of the "developer's environment," but that is to be expected from those who would actually edit and compile Fortran code. If we do our job right, there should be a simply designed FDS/SV Home Page, with easy clicks to get what you need and get on with your job.
We have identified an alternative to SourceForge called GoogleCode (yes, yet another Google app!). It is free like SF, but has no ads (unless you count the big Google logo at the top of the page an ad). It is cleaner, faster, and simpler than SF, probably because there is so much less clutter. We are already using GoogleGroups for the discussion forum, so there is only one "account" that users need to establish. Many users already have one type of Google account or another anyway. So there appear to be a number of advantages presented by GoogleCode over SF. Long term, we do not see Google going away, even though at some point we might have to pay for this service. I don't suspect that FDS/SV would ever grow so big that we would require a very expensive support package. Some have asked me why we're not hosting the FDS/SV site here at NIST. Several reasons -- first, NIST has web services, but nothing like the archiving/revision control that would allow non-NIST participants to access the source. Nothing like the discussion forum either. And it would seem pointless to try to create here something that already works well and does what we need it to do.
So in the next few days, we're going to transition to our new system. For most of you participating in the beta test, this will not really change things all that much, other than a resetting of links. Early next week, I'll send out further instructions. For now, I would ask that you not submit any new issues to the SourceForge "Trackers". For those already submitted, we're going to work to resolve them and then close them out. We ask those who've submitted to follow up on any questions we might have for you. Along with the new web site(s), we'll also prepare a new version of the code, a so-called "RC3". For those who've submitted bugs that we have claimed to fix, we'd ask that you check to see if we really did fix the problem, and start new bug reports if we haven't.
Thanks for your patience in all these matters. This is exactly what a beta test ought to be, as we want to fix annoying problems now before we go to an official release.
K
Kevin McGrattan
National Institute of Standards and Technology
100 Bureau Drive, Mail Stop 8663
Gaithersburg MD 20899
Phone: 301 975 2712
Fax: 301 975 4052
