FREE!ship continues as DELFTship

[Mikey]

Martijn has put in an enormous effort and he deserves some money for it, I am a MIS dinosaur myself, wrote my first piece of code 1980 on a 8086 so I know.

It would be interesting to know how many (thousands of) hours that the author himself estimates that he has spent on this project.

Martijn, what's your estimate

Mikey

[PI Design]

Thanks for explaining that Marshmat.
I still don't fully understand how Delft Uni can take open source code, modify it, and sell it as closed source, but I'm no lawyer and it seems to be common practise. Presumably they just need to get the permission of the open source developers, which in this case was probably just Martijn. Still, I know there were others involved in bug testing and suggesting features - do these count as 'developers' even if they wrote no code? Just curious.

[fcfc]

Originally Posted by PI Design

Still, I know there were others involved in bug testing and suggesting features - do these count as 'developers' even if they wrote no code? Just curious.

Bug testing and suggesting features do not count.

Doc writing or translation do count, as writing code. That's probably why there is no localization of Defltship.

Originally Posted by BillyDoc

A very good start would be to convert it to compile on gcc, so that anyone could get in there and play with it without investing in a proprietary compiler (Delphi).

A joke . The problem is not the language, it is the class library used. Free!ship is not even compilable with Delphi Free Edition, because a bunch of class of the Pro version are missing.

[Martijn_vE]

I think I need to step into what's becoming quite a discussion here.

Fist of all let me make one thing clear: It is not the Delft University of Technology selling open source software here. I've been an employee of the Delft University for more than a decade and my task was (amongst other things) to develop a software system that was easy to use by the University's students and it should have full 3D support. The University also had the need of access to the sourcecode of the program in order to plug in all kinds of research software developed by the Uni. Those were the main goals of starting the development of DELFTship, which actually started in 1996. The original DELFTship program does a lot more than just hull modeling.

I've been trying out all kinds of methods for hull design, including wireframe modeling, NURBS modeling and other methods and it proved that Subdivision Modeling was by far the easiest and most flexible way to do this. I was so taken by this way of surface modeling that I wanted to share and promote this by writing an open-source program to demonstrate it's capabilities. I decided to write a new hull modeling program from scratch. It was inspired by the technology I had adapted in DELFTship but improved it many fronts. In almost two years time I invested 1300+ hours of my spare time into the FREE!ship project, an avarage of almost two hours a day, every day and I consider that my contribution to the open-source community.

By no means I had foreseen the way the project was recieved and the speed which with the popularity of the program grew convinced me there was indeed a need for such a program. Surprisingly (to me) this was confirmed by the fact that FREE!ship is competing very well in the poll "Best Marine design software" as the sole free version between some commercial giants. After 11 years with the University I decided it was time to take a leap of faith and quit my job and start my own business. I have a business agreement with the Delft University which allows me to commercialize the technology that I've been developing for them over the years as well as the name DELFTship.

The most logical way for me to do this is to improve and incorporate it into what used to be FREE!ship. The first steps have been made by incorporating intact stability and tank modeling. Currently I'm working on longitudinal strength and damage stability which I'm hoping to release soon also. My decision does not mean that FREE!ship is no longer open-source. As others have pointed out already the published sourcecode is still available to anyone to modify, publish or do with it whatever they feel like. I just decided to make my new DELFTship project closed-source for obvious commercial reasons.

I just want to finish this of by thanking all of you who have been so supportive over the last two years, and hope this will put some rest in the discussion.

[PI Design]

Thanks for that Martijn. I wish you all the best, it is a great programme.

[BillyDoc]

Originally Posted by fcfc

A joke . The problem is not the language, it is the class library used. Free!ship is not even compilable with Delphi Free Edition, because a bunch of class of the Pro version are missing.

Yup. That's the problem, all right. A nasty one, to be sure! But class libraries can be duplicated if you want to put the time in to do so, or they can be circumvented with native code that performs the same function. It isn't an impossible task, just a tedious one.

BillyDoc

[Mikey]

Martijn, you didn't have to defend your decision but you did, thanks for that. I wish you all the luck, you have earned it. Live and prosper

Mikey

[smartbight]

I ordered my copy of DelftShip Pro today. Martjin; I am glad you turned it into a Professional version as you had hinted on the forums. My clients were starting to ask if there was a "Free" Trim & Stability booklet module for their boats.

Bill Hunt, NA

[jpb]

Is Delfship free (almost) identical to Freeship? Does Delfship prof. has more features then Freeship?

jpb

[Raggi_Thor]

Yes it's almost the same.
The pro version has som extra features like import/export.

[ricardoribeiro]

Why don't I get to open a delftship file in my old freeship?

[daiquiri]

Hello,
I hope I'm wrong about it, but I don't see any planing hull example in the demo of DelftShip Pro, and I also can't see the option for the calculation of resistance for planing hulls.
Also, the resistace calcs are just that - pure resistance, no power curve. Is there some option I didn't see?
I'm asking this because Free!Ship has a lots of models for calculation of resistance, in this demo version I see only Kaper and Delft Series. I don't want to believe DelfShip has become less powerful.

[Martijn_vE]

Holtrop and Mennen has been added later by someone else. It has never been in Free!ship when I was working on it. It's pretty useless for the type of vessels most people are creating with FREE!ship anyway. Delft series and Kaper are the only methods available in both versions of the software.

[Martijn_vE]

Originally Posted by ricardoribeiro

Why don't I get to open a delftship file in my old freeship?

DELFTship is backwards compatible with FREE!ship, but not the other way around due to the new features available in DELFTship.

The first version of Word probably won't open files created with the latest version of the software........

[marshmat]

Even the second-newest version of Word screws up when trying to read files by the newest version Microsoft, the masters of planned obsolescence.... but yes, Ricardo, the file extension (*.fbm) may be the same but the format is different, and older Freeship versions can't read the additional data in a Delftship file.

After Freeship 2.6, Martijn (who was responsible for pretty much all of the development of the code to that point) stopped working on the open-source Freeship and moved to closed-source development, and now calls his new software Delftship (see post 19 above). Holtrop-Mennen, etc. methods are found in Freeship Plus, which is an ongoing open-source development under the GNU GPL of Freeship 2.6. This is no longer the same program as Delftship or the original Freeship (although it shares much of the same modelling code), and to the best of my knowledge the files of the two programs are not compatible. Frankly, I agree with Martijn that some of these resistance methods are really of no practical use to Freeship users, and are there just to play around with.

daiquiri, a power curve is just a resistance curve multiplied by velocity. Just multiply the resistance you get at each speed, times the speed, to get indicated power. (make sure the units are consistent! resistance in kN and speed in m/s will give you power in kW. But if you use other units, you'll need to work out correction factors.) Note that this is indicated power, ie. the power needed to tow the hull- divide by the propulsive efficiency of your powertrain to get actual engine power.

I hope business is working out well for you, Martijn