What's slowing the fixes to Oceanlog?

[mlevi98]

Add me to the list of dissatisfied customers. I love my veo 250, and can't stand the PC software. I loaded it to the parallels portion of my Mac where I run winxp and while it works, i can download data, I cannot add gear bags, dive sites, locations, basically anything that requires you to use the + or - buttons, which I discovered when I loaded the software on my old PC. After inputting all the locations i saved the file and opened it on my Mac and none of the added locations or gear bag info loaded.

 

[mlevi98]

Oceanic: Any response? Any help? Mac Support Soon?

 

[vondo]

Actually I disagree. Once you pass it to open source you cannot be expected to be responsible. The community is responsible. You may be responsible to maintain the interface/api, but the code? I don't think so. Now if what you mean is opening up your architecture for people to extend, thats different.

This just isn't true. Most open source projects do not relinquish "control" to the community. In fact I can't think of one that has. There remains a central point where enhancements and bug fixes are collected and the original authors continue to program, take the bug fixes, and take enhancements that move the product in the direction they want it to go.

This is not going to be a way for Oceanic to stop spending effort on supporting Oceanlog, it will be a way for them to shift some resources into managing the software rather than programming AND to get a better product faster.

If they just opened the specs and did a dump, yeah, you might see a new product (not Oceanlog) come along and eventually supersede it, but that's not what most of us want, I think.

On topic: I'm one of those somewhat disappointed with OceanLog. I've made lots of bug reports & suggestions. Some have been addressed but most have not.

 

[Doug Krause]

Open source, mac compatibility, increased development resources are being discussed a great deal currently. Good things are on the horizon...

Both open source and Mac compatibility are being evaluated - no new news to report at this time...

 

[Torkm]

Although I would have liked to made my first few posts on this forum that are not about complaining, I must add my frustrations about OceanLog to this post.

I found this thread while looking for help with my OceanLog and the weird behavior that it displays.

In the last few days I have lost all my dive data that I have added not once - but 4 times! I only have 13 dives so far and I could imagine how I would feel if I had had 100+ recorded dives destroyed. For some reason my 'Lifetime Dives' values would change as well as the locations, times and dates for every dive I selected pretty much mashing up all the data I had.

I understand that the software is free for download and it is still a work in progress, but I don't understand how software could be released that has so many bugs! I paid $1600 dollars for my ATOM 2.0, and being a computer science post graduate, having the ability to upload my dive data to my computer was one of the things that I looked for when looking at dive computers.

I'm just really lucky that I had written out all my dive details in my dive log book, else I would have lost all of my pre-ATOM dives that I manually entered.

I think the idea of making OceanLog open source is a terrific idea. I would bet money that in less than a week of releasing the source code that all the little nagging problems would be fixed and progress in other areas would be made. I have had the privilege of helping with several open source projects over the last few years and the results were nearly always outstanding!

I just hope that OceanLog will improve soon, either open source or not, as I think the idea of OceanLog is a good one and will make my use of my ATOM 2.0 so much more satisfying.

~Torkm

 

[DiveMaven]

I hope they get the bugs out soon too! It drives me crazy when I add a new dive and the stupid program decides it doesn't like the dive site name I selected and puts whatever it wants in the slot instead! ARGH!!!!!

 

[ryssyr]

maybe open source is something oceanic is loathe to do, but could I suggest an intermediate step? How about adopting a published standard and releasing a developer kit for the data output?

That way you would create a small ecosystem of folks who would write apps for the computer and it would probably increase the retention of your customers. My dive buddies all dive with uwatec and gekkos. The software thats offered by those manufacturers and the 3rd parties for those computers is really making me think of switching.

 

[AndyDragon]

I personally don't think opening OceanLog as open source is the ultimate answer. What I would love to see is a published specification for the computers with the commands, timings and formatting of the data so other application and open source projects which support multiple dive computer downloads to have native access to the download data. As a software developer in the biz for well over 20 years, some of the biggest flops happen when terrible software is opened as open source and then a bunch of less-than-spectacular developers start sticking their less-than-spectacular code in an already unstable mess.

By publishing the standards and specifications for the computers open source libraries as well as closed-source native functions can be added to otherwise solid projects. Take for example Diving Log. While this is perhaps not perfect software, it is one of the best dive log applications I've used but it is currently hampered with lack of native download capability because of the closed nature of the dive computer hardware manufacturers.

Now, before I hear the argument of liability, remember that this is not for planning dives or any other risk-based function. This is simply the ability to download existing dive data for logging reasons. There is no life-support function here, it's simply taking a snapshot of what has already transpired.

I and a few other talented people have been working on an open source library but without the specifications and standards, too much of the work is based on trial-and-error and educated guessing. Having published specs would make the results so very much more accurate and reliable. However, until the specs are released, we must continue with the current approach.

 

[RAWalker]

Bottom line at least for most of us is...
We don't need any more bells and whistles than Oceanic has attempted to put into the present version of Oceanlog.
What we do need is for the features that have been incorporated into the software to work properly, completely and be stable.
This shouldn't be to high an expectation. This is what we paid for and what we are entitled to. The fact of the matter is this isn't anywhere near what we user/customers have received from Oceanic. We haven't even seen an attempt to clear up this mess in quite a few months. This is just plain poor service to it's customers. As a customer that owns 3 Oceanic AI computers and 2 of their high end regs I'm very dissapointed and may have to think twice before making any further Oceanic purchases.

 

[vanduse1]

I do agree. There has been nothing since late summer time frame from Oceanic. Doug, I know that you read all these messages and the decisions is not entirely yours (or maybe yours at all) but if we could just get the standards or have Oceanic provide some type of export into a standard format (XML, etc.) that would allow those on this site to develop a program that would be great!!! I normally just lurk in the forum but thought that this topic deserved another voice.

Thanks for listening Doug.

Dan