[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Why are you cloning Civ II? (was Re: Migration)

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Dec 18, 2003 at 04:58:01AM -0800, Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> > experience about what works and what does not.
> 
> What are your goals then?  Really.  State them plainly in your own
> terms.
> 
> I can tell you one thing.  Right now, nobody at the Game Developer
> Conference would ever give you guys a standing ovation for what you've
> done.

They probably wouldn't give developers of Infocom games a standing
ovation either.  Yet those games can be engaging as well.  Fact is,
there is nothing else quite like FreeCiv out there.  If I were to
compare it to something, I'd compare it to The Sims or SimCity -- all
three are very open-ended with extreme flexibility as to how the game is
played.

Anyway, having said that, another benefit of FreeCiv is that it's free
software.  If you don't like the direction the project leaders are
taking the project, you have all the code, and thus are empowerd to fork
off and start your own project.  Version control systems like Arch/tla
(www.gnuarch.org) make it easy for you to integrate upstream FreeCiv
patches into your tree (and likewise, for FreeCiv developers to
integrate your patches into theirs if they so choose).

As a final point, nobody is getting paid to work on FreeCiv.  Everyone
is a volunteer here.  One thing you must understand is that people
volunteering their time to hack on projects will only hack on things
that interest them.  If what you want people to do has no interest for
them, it will not happen unless either 1) they get paid to do it
somehow, or 2) you convince them that it is interesting, or 3) you do it
yourself.

Constructive criticism is generally welcome in Free Software projects.
"You guys suck," which is what your more recent comments boil down do,
seems rather pointless to me.

-- John