[Kde-games-devel] Status of games in SVN

[Ian Wadham]

On Wed, 11 Apr 2007 05:36 am, Kleag wrote:
> Le mardi 10 avril 2007, Mauricio Piacentini a écrit :
> > Kleag wrote:
> > I would very much prefer to have fewer games of higher quality and
> > polish available with KDE 4.0, and gradually add newer ones (or rescued
> > ones with improvements) in KDE 4.1, 4.2, 4.3.
> >
Agreed, up to a point ...

> > Specially for the games 
> > already available in KDE3, I do not see why we should hurry, as users
> > can continue to run them as they are! I think this approach is
> > consistent with the answers we get in the poll last November (quality
> > over quantity.) But it is up to the review team to decide, of course.
>
> I agree. What I wanted to say (and it is just a remark) is that an
> acceptable (and even funny I feel :-) ) KDE3 game like ktron will likely be
> absent from next versions of the distributions if they are in playground or
> unmaintained. But it is also true that creating another category like
> "unported but still valuable" is not an option.
>
But I just do not get this ... is there something I am missing?

I am trying to put myself in the position of an afficionado of KTron and
Atlantik, let's say, who receives a spanking new distro (of SuSE 11.x say)
which includes KDE 4.0.  If previous experience is anything to go on, all the
KDE 3 and Qt 3 stuff gets wiped and replaced by KDE 4 and Qt 4 when you
install the distro.  Gee that new desktop is nice ... all that oxygen ... but
aaaarrrggghhh!  Where are KTron and Atlantik?  Don't tell me they've
dropped them!

So how can I "continue to run the KDE 3 versions as they are"?  Even if
somehow I get hold of an old executable, what about the shared libraries?
If I run KDE 3's KGoldrunner in my KDE 4 account, I get:

/opt/kde3/bin/kgoldrunner: symbol lookup /extra/kde4/kde/lib/libkdegames.so.1: 
undefined symbol: _ZNK12KConfigGroup9groupListEv ... :-(

In a previous incarnation I used to manage a big academic computer centre
and one thing I learned, as we changed over to a new central computer,
is that the surest way to upset your users is to withdraw a facility: unless
you replace it with something equivalent or better.

At the very least, I think we have to provide versions of all the existing
KDE 3 games, that will at least compile and run under KDE 4 and are installed
with KDE 4.  Maybe we also include a notice that says "work in progress" or
"no longer supported" with each old one.  I do not believe the "playground"
idea will work, with respect to distros.  Playground is supposed to be for
new, untried applications (e.g. Bovo?), AFAIK, so how is a distro to know
that some of them are "old and tried"?  He will want to pick up KDE Games
as a complete module, surely, not spend time picking and choosing games
to distribute.

Rob Kaper announced that he would no longer maintain Atlantik years ago
and went off to a new life with fewer computers in it IIRC: "gone walkabout",
as the Australian aboriginals say.  Rob did a hell of a lot of work on it and
I think it would be irresponsible of us to junk all that just because WE have
decided to take on board radical changes to the libraries and game graphics
and none of us is willing to "maintain" Atlantik.  This is a problem not of
Rob's making, nor of the Atlantik players (I am NOT one - nor of KTron, BTW).

I think we owe it to the Atlantik and KTron players, provided there are more
than a handful of them, to take collective responsibility for keeping these
and other old games alive, even if we cannot SVGize and themeize them
in the time available.  Just how we can handle that, I don't know.  Atlantik
is huge, for example.  But we should try ...

All the best, Ian W.