Re: [gentoo-dev] games.eclass

[James Le Cuirot]

On Fri, 21 Aug 2015 12:42:07 -0700
"Daniel Campbell (zlg)" <zlg@g.o> wrote:

> > Sure, we did drop this, but I don't really see this line of
> > argument actually accomplishing anything productive.  Creating a
> > games team that fixes these issues would be productive.  Letting
> > others fix them is also productive.  Nobody is opposed to having a
> > games project - it just seems like nobody cares enough to actually
> > make it happen. That's ok - we can still get things done.
>
> What would be required to revive the games project? One of the reasons
> I became a dev was to help out the games team, and if it's defunct, I
> want to see what's necessary to fix it. I'm still a new dev (May
> 2015), but I wouldn't mind doing some dirty work if it means we can
> put squabbles like this behind us and get enough devs together to give
> game ebuilds the attention they deserve. I don't have a lot of free
> time, but sitting here discussing stuff isn't fixing anything,
> either... If I can spend what little Gentoo time I have on fixing
> things, I'd be glad to.

At last, some positivity! As I said before, I would like to work on a
few games too. I would certainly take up any Java-based ones and I have
four of those in mind already. I've dabbled with ebuilds for many other
games in the past, some already in the tree and some not, and some from
source, some not. The Humble Bundle games are of particular interest to
me. I'm obviously bogged with the more boring Java stuff for the
foreseeable future though so as much as I'd like to, stepping up to be
a lead would be unwise.

Do we actually need a team? Games come in all shapes and sizes so I
think the assertion that they should be handled like any other
application is somewhat valid. Many games are commercial so it's
likely that certain games would only be handled by one or two team
members anyway. The main thing I've been concerned about in the past is
how to handle data. Should it be packaged separately? How do we handle
the cdinstall flag these days when there are also multiple online
sources like Humble Bundle and GOG? Do we just do whatever seems best
for the game in question? I'd be happy to hold such discussions in a
distro-wide fashion though.

-- 
James Le Cuirot (chewi)
Gentoo Linux Developer