[Kde-games-devel] Gsoc

[Ian Wadham]

Hi guys,

I am mainly replying to Roney, but I would also like to support and add
to some of the things Albert said.

On 28/05/2013, at 8:26 AM, Albert Astals Cid wrote:
> El Dilluns, 27 de maig de 2013, a les 19:04:52, Roney Gomes va escriure:
>> On Mon, May 27, 2013 at 6:19 PM, Albert Astals Cid <aacid at kde.org> wrote:
>>> What do you mean by "KDE Games doesn't get the right attention from the
>>> KDE community."?
>> 
>> Reduced number of mentors is a sign of that. You can say it happens
>> just because people are not interested in the project. That's right,
>> and justifies my point. We lack contributors and we need the help of
>> the community to fix this problem.

Roney, nobody owes KDE Games a living and, realistically, there is not
a lot of attention to be had from the "KDE community".  I guess every KDE
group has its own problems to contend with, but some individuals are
very helpful.

KDE Games has contributed several developers to the rest of KDE and
its finest moment, perhaps, was when KDE 4.0 was released and we had
20-30 games ready.  Very few other apps had been ported.  I believe the
games saved KDE from a rather embarrassing moment …  But such
things are quickly forgotten.  We were properly thanked at the time.

>>>> We lack leadership, we have no goals, we have no measures to attract more
>>>> people to us. We had a maintainer, but he disappeared without
>>>> explanation and a few ideas and goals have also gone with him.
>>> 
>>> All of that is true. How do we fix it?
>> 
>> Not so simple to answer. But I believe this debate is a good
>> beginning. Maybe from here we can begin to address those problems one
>> by one; proposing solutions and committing ourselves to work on them.
>> 
>>>> See, I'm also frustrated and at least irritated about how the project
>>>> has been treated in the last months.
>>> 
>>> What do you mean "how the project has been treated in the last months."?
>> 
>> The same meant in the first paragraph. See, if it wasn't you reviewing
>> every patch that comes here what would be of this project? We need
>> contributors and we need help to seek them.

Yes, Albert is a tower of strength, but  outside what appears on this list and
on kde-games-bugs at kde.org, have a look at the last few feature plans:
    http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.6_Feature_Plan#kdegames
    http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.8_Feature_Plan#kdegames
    http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.9_Feature_Plan#kdegames
    http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.10_Feature_Plan#kdegames
    http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.11_Feature_Plan#kdegames
Maybe you could do more in this regard, Roney.  Maybe you could interest
some of your fellow students.  I believe KDE is big in Brazil and should offer
career opportunities and attractions.  It's not in Australia.

OTOH, I think this was a low point and things have improved since then.
    http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.7_Feature_Plan#kdegames

>>>> not to mention that -- AFAIK -- we've
>>>> got only one mentor this year. This project deserves more and I wish I
>>>> could do more to the games I decided to maintain.
>>> 
>>> I wish we had more developers too, how does one find them? That's the hard
>>> question.
>> 
>> That's really hard, I know. I may not be the more indicated person to
>> manage a big project like ours, but I believe we could make a campaign
>> in order to solve that problem. Let's improve our website, let's sell
>> ourselves better.
> 
> Good, you have ideas, let's make them reality :-)

Well, two years ago and for as long as I can remember before that, we had
ZERO mentors.  GSoC is supposed to be a way to get students into Open
Source.  Last year KDE Games had three GSoC students, of whom two are
still with us --- you and Viranch.

There is no "deserves" here.  I'm with Albert on this: you make your own reality.

>> Come on. Isn't it clear enough? I was talking about discussing the
>> decision of porting the games to QML. That's it
> 
> There is no such "decision", as said some games seem to be well fit to be in 
> QML and people is willing to work on it, so why not do it?

Porting all games to QML was Stefan's pipe dream, but he is no longer around.
As Albert says, there IS no decision.

>>>> How transparent and open about GSoC KDE is?
>>> 
>>> You said you weren't arguing but you are now throwing accusations of not
>>> being transparent and open, care to elaborate?
>> 
>> I'm not, at any moment, saying that I should be approved and that I
>> believe the decision about it is unfair and so on. I'm not
>> complaining.
>> 
>> Raising a doubt is far away from being the same as "throwing an
>> accusation". If informations such as numbers of slots available for
>> each project, how KDE evaluates the activity of each project during
>> GSoC etc. are publicly available, then please, give me a link to it
>> and there will be no more questions on this topic.
> 
> Ask the GSoC organizers about that info, I'm only tangentially involved as a 
> mentor for Okular.

No, Roney, that information is not publicly available, and until a day or two
before the successful candidates are announced, it is highly dynamic, since
KDE itself does not know how many slots Google will give it.  Within KDE,
the information is available to all mentors but must be kept confidential
while candidates' proposals are evaluated, for obvious reasons.  How
many slots KDE Games gets depends on how many mentors it has and
how many students they think they can handle, then on how many slots
KDE itself gets versus the total asked for by KDE Games and other groups.

Two years ago, KDE Games had zero mentors, slots and applicants, i.e.
it did not try to get any GSoC students.

Last year, Stefan Majewsky posted a GSoC ideas page for KDE Games,
but did not offer himself as a mentor.  I stepped up and so did Pankaj
Nathani.  Unfortunately I did not know QML and most of the proposals
that came in were for porting to QML.  By canvassing the mentor's list,
I was able to get a co-mentor, David Edmundson, who knows QML, so
I applied for three slots and got them all, because KDE got all its slots.

As you know, Roney, GSoC is Winter of Code (colds?) in Australia, and
I got very sick at one stage, more due to age and infectious grandkids
than to being a mentor, so I decided not to be a mentor again this year.

All the best, Ian W.