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

[Josef Spillner]

Am Dienstag 22 Januar 2008 05:21:52 schrieb Ian Wadham:
> 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.

With modern clients, no commands are necessary at all, it's all menu-driven. 
Even with command-line clients such as irssi, it is usually not more than:
	/CONNECT irc.kde.org
	/NICK ian_whatever
	/JOIN #kdegames

Of course that doesn't help with your timezone issue for the meetings. But it 
might still be fun to check the channel from time to time, as there are 
always some people in there.

We could add such information to the "Team" page on games.kde.org, under the 
title of "how and where to contact the team", mentioning the mailing list and 
IRC and the signup instructions. This is indeed missing from the page now, 
and it shouldn't be hidden in techbase.

> 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.

I agree that a log would be useful, there are some services to create logbots 
automatically, but it should be restricted to the meetings only. Recently I 
saw a freenode logbot but I cannot remember its URL.

> 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.

Yes, definitely. I would also point out that this is still KDE and so there's 
never such a thing like "final decision" if it has disadvantages for some 
people that were not considered before :-)

> 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.

This feeling is shared by many. The problem with KDE 4, its many API changes 
etc. drained a lot of man power. Now is indeed the time to be more creative, 
and maintenance will be at a normal level. When I remember simple games such 
as KTron, which was shipped many years, it is clear that we don't have to add 
features to all games constently and restructure the module every couple of 
months now.

Josef