[Freeciv-Dev] Re: the lack of respect for cloners

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: John Goerzen [mailto:jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
>
> Fine.  I don't give a damn, and you have failed to show why I should.
>
> I am taking bows for nothing.  I am not a FreeCiv developer.
> I am just a happy FreeCiv user.

What I have explained to you, is why your analysis of Freeciv's
popularity is completely and utterly wrong.  Freeciv is popular because
Civ II was popular.  You have completely ignored the amount of hard
commercial cash that went into manufacturing that popularity, it was not
done by the Freeciv developers.

If you doubt this, look for example at Xconq.
http://sources.redhat.com/xconq/
An original game of comparable complexity and age, that can actually
function as a game design engine and has some Civ-like games implemented
for it.  Pity their C code is a PITA to try to understand and their AI
is boring.  They don't seem to have as many people working on it as you
do, I'd say their development is a shade less healthy than yours.  I
seriously doubt it's as popular as Freeciv, and the Freeciv developers
would be wrong to take the bows for the difference.

> You asked me earlier if I had ever played Civ II.  No, I have not.  It
> does not run on my platform, and therefore, I have no
> opportunity to use it.

That's a false statement.  The opportunity is available, you simply
haven't availed yourself of it.  Nowadays you could buy Civ II: ToT for
$10 at full retail, and a PC to run it for $40 at a junk store.  Or you
could pop over to a friend's house and use their PC.  If you are
ignorant of Civ II, and where Freeciv sits in relation to it, you
shouldn't talk about where Freeciv's popularity "obviously" comes from.

> Again, I am not a FreeCiv developer, but I am a prolific Free Software
> developer, so bear that in mind for the following comments:
>
> As a Free Software developer, I don't give a damn if somebody is a

Do you, as a committed FSF kind of guy, have any respect for blatant
copyright violation?  I would hope not, otherwise your attitudes towards
licensing are exceedingly hypocritical.  Or are you the kind of FSF guy
who thinks that people aren't entitled to issue proprietary licenses,
and so all such licenses may be freely violated?  Note here I'm not
referring to the code, I'm referring to the Civ II game rules, which are
protected by copyright.  Rather much like if I were rip off Freeciv
artwork, ship it in a commercial product, and forget about the GPL it's
under.  Admittedly, right now that would be a very low budget title, but
you did have a real artist getting everyone excited here recently.

> So saying that FreeCiv developers suck because they
> are closed makes no sense to me.

CLONED.  Was there some typo somewhere?

> > I've offered to add Python.  Turned down.
>
> WTF do you expect?  Did you have any actual code?

What a bullshit response!  I felt them out about whether they were even
willing.  *Of course* I didn't have any code.  I'm not about to pour
that kind of blood on the table if it's not even going to be allowed
into CVS!  And I found out lots of interesting things: Python was
*already* tried, and languished, under current project leadership.  I
found a developer who *is implementing* support for Python and several
other scripting languages.  I have some doubt as to whether he's really
dealt with the Gatekeeper issue adequately.

What I *did* expect, was to find out what kind of developer culture
Freeciv has.  I did.  Mission accomplished.

> Why don't you just *DO* it?

In the case of that particular problem, because it's an enormous amount
of expensive work, and it's foolish to do that when Administrators are
going to shoot down what you have in mind.

In the current case, the circumstances are different.  The goal wouldn't
be to work with extant Freeciv developers, but to go it alone and to get
help from whomever shares my priorities.  I have yet to evaluate the
Freeciv codebase, and my decision will depend upon that evaluation.  If
it's like the Xconq codebase, the project is DOA.

> Hell, I publically offer right now to host
> a tla server for you to use to maintain your own FreeCiv
> tree, to use to implement these features.

Offer noted, and I may take you up on it.

> I love Python.  Python in FreeCiv would be cool.  Where's the code?

Read the archives of our previous discussion on the Python issue.

> I don't understand how you complain that a contribution was
> turned down when you HADN'T EVEN WRITTEN IT yet.

Then you have never managed a software project in your life.  You have
never been directly responsible for time and expense.  You have never
lost your own money on a project.

> We are not Microsoft.  You do not have to get permission from the boss
> to hack on code.

This would not be a *hack*.  It would be a *rather large rewrite*.  With
me at the helm the goal would be, over time, to migrate the code from C
to Python.  The question is whether I get to leverage the labor and
ongoing work of an extant team, or if that extant team is useless.
Projects have rather different labor dimensions in those two cases.

> BTW, the best way to get "the boss" to like your work is to
> show him the code.

I am self-employed.

> If this Ocean Mars thing is GPL'd, I sincerely wish you the best of
> luck,

It is not, and never will be, GPL'd or any other kind of open source
license.  Does that change your wishes?  Is that how you feel about Civ
II and III?


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

"Desperation is the motherfucker of Invention." - Robert Prestridge