[Kde-games-devel] Memorandum. RE.: KDEGames monthly meeting.

[Ian Wadham]

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008 09:56 am, Eugene Trounev wrote:
> Please be advised that our regular monthly meeting may take place on
> February the 1st, which is Friday. Alternatively, we may reschedule it for
> February the 2nd as it is Saturday, and therefore may be a better choice.
> Please do advise us of your availability beforehand.
>
> Remember, the coming meeting is quite important as we will be discussing
> the roadmap to KDE 4.1 release. We will have to set up goals and targets
> and discuss the objectives we wish to pursue. As 4.1 is only a few month
> away, we have a lot to do and less time to do it.
>
Eugene, thank you for giving us plenty of notice and plenty of time to
think about this meeting.  As usual, I doubt if I will be able to attend,
owing to being in a difficult timezone.  I am usually sleeping when the
meetings are on.  In any case, I do not speak IRC and do not know where
to start learning: e.g. what app to use, how to configure, how to connect
and what the commands are if/when I do connect.

Since some rather serious things often get decided at these meetings
and there is not always a log available, I get to feel rather disenfranchised.
That is a long English word meaning that things that affect me can be
decided without me having a say or having a vote.

So in case I am unable to attend this time, here is my 2c worth:-

Procedural: Major decisions at IRC meetings should be published,
discussed and confirmed on this list, for the benefit of those who
were unable, for whatever reason, to attend the meeting.

General: KDE Games is and always has been a "module", so we should
start acting as though it is a true module, not just a convenience for
compiling and packaging.  We should accept collective responsibility
for the *contents* of the module, particularly if/when the module's
requirements change, as they have done so dramatically in the last
two years.  If the original author or maintainer of a game is still
around, well and good - then no doubt they can "maintain" the
game to the module's requirements.  But if they are not around, or
if they have other programming priorities, then the group should
feel honour-bound to step in and meet the new requirements.

It is up to us collectively to keep all the games alive, for as long as
they have value to players and end-users.

Individual: Now that KDE 4.0 is released, I would like to fix a few
problems in KJumpingCube, make a lot of changes to KGoldrunner
that I have been wanting to make for quite a while and introduce
a new 3-D game called Kubrick.  I have posted some details of my
plans on  http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Games/Ideas, under
the "Application level" heading.

I would *not* like to spend the majority of my time "maintaining"
KJumpingCube and KGoldrunner, to keep them in line with the look
and feel of other games or changes in the libraries, as promoted
in KDE Games module requirements, in IRC meetings and in this
list, from time to time.  So let's have some *stability* in our module's
environment for a while!

I am weary and dispirited from all the "maintenance" that has
been necessary in the last two years, but more importantly I wish
now to be more "creative", in the sense of adding new features
and new games or even branching out into other KDE application
areas, such as Education.

> Generally there currently are two tendencies. First is to focus on refining
> of the existing games in the module. The second is to focus on bringing the
> playground up to the rest of the project. Either way it's a tough job, that
> will require a lot of time and effort from each and everyone of us.
>
So my vote is to do *both* of the above, refine existing games, add
new games and revive KDE 3 games that were passed over, but avoid
too great a burden of cosmetic and new-GUI features, such as those
proposed under "Visuals changes", "User interaction" and "On screen
interface" in the above-mentioned Ideas page.

All the best, Ian W