Re: Maintainership of gnome-games

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Thu, 25 May 2006, Heretik wrote:

> Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 16:46:07 +0200
> From: Heretik <heretik tuxfamily org>
> To: Andreas Rosdal <andrearo stud ntnu no>
> Cc: games-list gnome org
> Subject: Re: Maintainership of gnome-games
>
> Le jeudi 25 mai 2006 à 12:44 +0200, Andreas Rosdal a écrit :
> > - Look into porting gnome-games to win32.
>
> I see absolutely no interest in this.

No one is forcing developers to work on a Windows port of Gnome games.
Writing portable code is always good discipline, if only to make it easier
to port to future versions of Gnome.  No sane developer would
intentionally make a port more difficult, it would be like "cutting off
your nose to spite your face".

> Do you just want to make win32 better ?

Emacs is available for windows, as are many other Free Software projects.

Not everyone has a choice about what operating system they use at work or
in university.

If a developer chooses to work on making the code more portable it can
often be helpful in turning up bugs in other areas of the code.  When
users are using a few different GTK programs and they have the GTK stack
installed on their computer the underlying operating system becomes
increasingly irrelavant.  (Microsoft were terrified Netscape would create
a platform and undermine their dominance.  The web has provided a
reasonably neutral platform but it could have been and still could become
so much more.)

> I think games in general are the type of software we shouldn't port to

The GNU General Public License makes no judgements about what should and
shouldn't be ported.

> proprietary systems because every game is unique, so we have no

Gnome Games are great in many ways but none of the games are unique.
Alternatives exist on windows, so any port would be bringing greater
attention to _Free Software_ in general.  I know it was the windows
version of the GNU Image Manipulation Program that first introduced me to
GTK and Gnome.

On a practical level I find development more comfortable under linux and
there may be little I can do to help.  However attempting to oppose anyone
interested in working on Gnome Games in any capicity add big ugly stop
energy and demotivates everyone, and if anything a port should help
improve code quality and maintainability.  The only risk is gnome games
becoming too popular!
:)

-- 
Alan