Contributing performance improvements to SweetHome3D

[kretyn]

Hi all,
As it shows, I'm new here, so please forgive if I'm (not) supposed to do something. Long story short, I have checked out the project from SourceForge which seems to be 'read-only' and I have made some "improvements". Reading through a few threads it seems that the developer of SweetHome3D isn't much interested in contributing anymore to the desktop app and is now focusing on the webapp. (Good for them, hope they can make some money based on their skills and experiences.) Is there a "canonical" / preferred place that I could contribute to? I have forked the code and made some improvements to: https://github.com/laszukdawid/SweetHome3D/.

I can't promise to support it for a long time but if there's a need for something I can try to contribute more. We're in a process of house renovations so for the next few weeks I'll be modifying a bit to make it easier for me.

Thanks!

[sjb007]

While you are entitled to fork the 7.5 release under the terms of the GPL, what you cannot do is continue using the Sweet Home 3D name or logo in your fork. Those are the separate IP of Space Mushrooms now.

Good luck with your fork. I'm mostly moved away from SH3D, but there are some other long term users here who might be interested in turning your repo into a new community supported project.

[kretyn]

Thank you @sjb007! I have rebranded the fork to "DobryDom3D" - in Polish that means "good house". It's been updated to have "original" assets and not point at Space Mushrooms as the current maintainer, though making sure to give them enough credit as the source for the fork. Both repos (one above, and https://github.com/laszukdawid/DobryDom3D/) resolve to the same code.

Out of curiosity, since you moved away:
1) are you using something instead? If so, what?
2) then how come you're on this forum? Does this forum have more than SweetHome3D community?

[sjb007]

If you branched 7.5 you owe credit more to Emmanuel Puybaret, the original author before SH3D was sold to Space Mushrooms.

To answer your questions...
1) I'm using an architect developed BIM/IFC Blender extension called Bonsai Much more complicated, but more professional output. Also, properly Open Source, with no risk it goes closed like SH3D seems to have done. I'm now using AI to contribute features to improve the rendered drawings. One of the negatives from my perspective is that because Emmanuel never accepted contributions into the SH3D application, he was free to sell the IP to a company which, once they owned all the rights, can stop redistributing the sources. That is why 7.5 is the last version you can pull from SF. It was his work to sell, but it still stings, and feels like a bit of an misuse of the GPL and OS licensing.
2) Sentimentality. Lingering curiosity. There's nothing other than SH3D here.

[sjb007]

This is the release page for Bonsai. Go back and look at the release notes from Moult. It'll give you a better idea of just how much functionality there is. But like I said, pro tool aimed at pros.