ZFM Development Team - Want to help develop, translate, expand ZFM? Important info here.

[ZamboniBambino]

Our development team
 
Release co-ordination & management

•  Phobix  

Developers

• ZamboniBambino - Lead Developer, founder & contributor of 99.97% of current existing code. (Now roughly around 3000+ LOC)
• Darihon - Junior developer & feature support.

Translators

• Creep - German translator
• freakystyle - German translator
• Crckdns - Russian translator
• Darihon - Dutch translator

Testers

• BetterDeadThanZed - Lead tester

Offshoots, development & "email me for permission" bullshit
Firstly, if you want to use any part of the source code, use it. However, if you want to improve ZFM, develop for it and submit patches rather than make your own spin-off of ZFM. If you have features to suggest, things to add, things to change, or any concerns, tell us. We're friendly, we're approachable, and we prefer to work together -- forking and making a new ZFM means two teams are working against eachother. However, there is a level of code quality in ZFM that is expected, so if you submit patches, do not expect them to be accepted unquestioningly, and don't be mad if we ask questions or ask for a few changes to be made.
 
With that said, we will not accept whorishness over code. When you submit code to ZFM, it is open source and available for others to hack on, expand, improve, remove, or do as they see fit. We believe that code shared is code used, is benefit to the whole DayZ and software community. When you say "My code can only be used if you e-mail me", I would say first of all -- this is useless as people will still use or re-purpose your code, and secondly, this is a kind of "soft-DRM" which I'm opposed to. If you're concerned about someone stealing your work, then the best way is to make clear what is your work and then, with it published on GitHub, the whole world can see what you have done.
 
If you want to keep your work to yourself, keep it to yourself. If you want it made public, be a lovable little munchkin and open source it. Everyone will thank you.
 
 

 
Developing ZFM
There are a lot of features that have been added, and are planned for ZFM. At the moment, ZFM is between 85-95% done towards the Alpha Release, and is technically in the pre-alpha phase. ZFM already has the features that other mission systems have, is more dynamic, and will have more when the Alpha release is out, which we're working super-hard to get done. Development is done at least a few times per week, and updates are placed in forum posts to let you see new, cool features appearing in ZFM.
 
ZFM has a page on GitHub, which has 3 forks:

• Master - Contains major releases of ZFM. Named releases (i.e. ZFM Alpha, ZFM Beta, ZFM Release Candidate and ZFM-1.0) which are tested for use on live servers. The first production build will be for Alpha release.
• Testing - Contains testing releases build for ZFM testers to debug before release. Not recommended for live servers, but you can have major fun on a test server with these ;-)
• Devel - Contains bleeding-edge code which is not recommended on a live system. Not recommended for anyone other than developers or people familiar with SQF.

The process of development will move from Alpha to Beta, from Beta to Release Candidate, then from Release Candidate (1,2,3) to Release.
 
After release:

• ZFM Community Version - This will be the publicly-available version of ZFM where major features agreed for releases will be included. This will be supported long term and it is hoped that capable coders will get on board to help us.
• ZFM Premium Version  - This will not withhold any content from ZFM at all (i.e. Like Capcom Day-One DLC does.. ;) ). It's not "buy me for stuff left out of ZFM on purpose", it will be a release which includes premium additions for a very fair price and the following features:
  • SQL storage of missions so that real-time mission information can be made available.
  • Tools for integrating mission information into your websites/forums/etc
  • Online control panels for controlling and altering missions, adding custom missions through web interface