[crossfire] Yet another crossfire fork. Recruiting.

[tchize]

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Some of you might have noted in the last few months I was not very
active as a devel in the crossfire community. Various reasons
surrounded it. If you dig a bit, you'll remind i was planning a french
based crossfire server. This mean a lot of work in term of code and
quest design. (protocol modifications, map format, string
translations). I couldn't do it alone.

But luck was on my path in november 2005, during a trip in Africa.
Amongst trip mates there was someone with too much money. I explained
him about GPL, the interresting future of opensource products in
general and the buisness model behind it. I managedto convince him
this could *not* be applied to the gaming industry. We discussed
marketing strategy during a few days, just for the fun, putting aside
all possiblities to make money with a GPL game. This overall was just
a fun discussion.

While for other softwares you can rely on the service, it's more
difficult to do it in game industry. Even the wow based model with
fees didn't look viable (and i understand know why you must also buy
WoW). Guildwars was a proof it's better to make money on the game than
on connection. Then i remembered of that old commercial game based on
cf lib and i got a really stupid idea (I get about 20 stupid idea a
day). This one was not as stupid as flying by night with an ultralight
but it was not far.

Around half of december, He created a company that would drive a
projet based on that stupid idea, located in Toulouse France. He
phoned me and we got about this conversation.

- - You remember that idea you had in Niger? He said me.
- - Which one?
- - The one you had last friday evening.
- - Ha yeah, *that* one? (Laughings)
- - Yes, that one.... I did it!
- - ...?
- - It's viable, I checked it, we just targeted the wrong audience

Following was a lenghtly explanation of it's targeted audience, he
thought of a target i never thought about and indeed it's a well
paying target :)
Imagine my surprise :) He asked me to lead the project. However, for
personal reasons, i did not want to leave belgium and my job at that
time and we agreed i'll do a part time consultancy work on the project
while he would pay a few experimented people and a bunch of juniors to
work on an opensource game. We also decided to use crossfire as the
basis of our code.

The project is far from reaching the shelves for now but it's in a
good shape. Most important, it has the money to survive at least until
2010. The problem now is to have those modification respect the GPL
standards. I studied the possibility to integrate it in the crossfire
main cvs, but lenghtly disscussions on mailing list for every change
in code did not have a good impact. Unfortunately, the best solution
was similar to the one used by Cedega:
- - forking from original project to keep control on revisions
- - move patch from crossfire project to ours as they are commited,
using a special email account which shedule them for integration
- - no release of public binary packages (well in fact it doesn't really
matter considering the commercial model designed)


I'd like to explain more, but information is currently still quite
sensible.



Now, enough for background story, i get to the point of this email!


For the project we want to hire 3 people having a knowledge related to
the crossfire project. Additionnal information on the company /
project can be given to candidates, providing they agree first on a
non disclosure agreement.



Title: Alien code integration leader

Available positions: 1

Role:
You will be responsible to document and survey all processes of
integrating patches coming from external projects to the company
internal repository (downpatching). You will also select and prepare
patches to submit to the external project as bug fixes or improvements
(uppatching). You will select the data to be uppatched by balancing
company confidentiality requirement and code maintenance facility. You
will be the central communication point with other open sources teams,
and the crossfire team in particular. Your political skills will be
very important. You will be part of the project leading staff and you
opinion about balancing confidentiality and GPL restriction will be
very important to the success of project.

Required knowledges:
Good knowledge of crossfire project and proven activity in the last 2
years
Strong proven skills in C language
Very good relational skills
Fluent in English
Able to express itself in a French on technical programming and legal
subjects

Contrat duration: 3 years

Salary: 5000 brut euros/month (can be negociated)

Location: Toulouse, France




Title: Quest leader

Available positions: 2

Role:
You will be responsible for the coherency of all game quests. You will
design the long run plots and organize the job of the various map
makers. You will communicate explicit requirement to the developpement
team for map add-ons requiring coding. You will gather with the other
quest leaders once a week for the cohesion of the different quest
branches. You will provide clear documentation on every quest your
team is working on, as long as their development status. You will also
have to interact with the graphical design team to ensure a good
balance between quest requirements and design team scheduling.

Required knowledges:
Proven experience in game story writing
Ability to drive a team and respect scheduling
Strong written communication skills
Fluent in French
Basic knowledge of English

Assets:
Experience with the tool 'Questflow' is a plus
Basic knowledge of current crossfire game limitations is a plus

Contract duration: 3 years

Salary: 4000 brut euros/month (can be negociated)

Location: Toulouse, France




The company can provide an appartment to foreign applicants.

End of applications: 1st may, 20:00 GMT

For organisational reason and to prevent abuse, please send response
to mailing list, you will be recontacted with practical information on
where to send your CV.
If you want additionnal information under non disclosure agreement,
submit your request to mailing list, we will take appropriate measure
to recontact you.



Regard
David Delbecq "Tchize"
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