[crossfire] Crossfire+/Crossfire2 Versioning and Metaserver

[Yann Chachkoff]

>Some time ago we heard on the irc channel (some month/weeks ago) that some users find the '+' suffix of the crossfire+ servers confusing.
> Now that we removed it, it seems to be even more confusing (as far as gros or others on the IRC channel are concerned).
>
Let's be clear: people found it confusing in the first place because it was not obvious enough that the
software was different. People thought that 2.0+ was the version following the 1.9 one.
It seems somewhat obvious to me that even if the '+' was not giving enough clues about the difference,
removing it only made the problem worse.
I believe distinguishing both projects is important - after all, they are two different projects, with different goals and ways to achieve them.

> So, now the question: What version should we send to the metaserver?
>
In the short term, I'd say that having a marker that clearly says: "this is CF+" would suffice.
Hence, I think that "CF+<version>' is not a bad idea - it is short, yet clearly shows this is
a CF+ server.

On the long term, I think having a "Gamebase" column would be a good thing for sure.

> Also w.r.t. to our project name that we lateley changed to 'Crossfire2':
> What should we name us? What would you like most? We would be fine with
> going back to 'Crossfire+', but we changed it in the first place in
> response to the discussions on #crossfire.
> It would help to have an official position from you.
>
I'm not an "official". But I think that "Crossfire2" is not a good choice, as it gives the impression that it
is the next version of the original Crossfire game. Probably a more distinctive name would be a better
choice for both sides - it would solve the issue of confusing both projects, and would also allow CF+ to
get a more independent "self-identity" feel.

>Also, an official decision on what 'Crossfire' is and what not would be
>nice. Not long ago in the decision about the metaserver w.r.t to the
>playercounts and misinformation it was decided that 'Crossfire' is what
>speaks the protocol.
>
(Again, I'm not an "official representative", so I speak only in my name here).
I think there is a misunderstanding there, or more exactly a mix between the
"protocol standard" and the "server software". Any server that "talks" the same
protocol as the original Crossfire is indeed "Crossfire-compatible", and should
probably go into the metaserver lists.
Yet speaking the same language does not make the server software the same. The
code is sufficiently different between CF and CF+ to clearly point them as different.

I understand the will of CF+ to clearly mark its common roots with Crossfire; however,
I believe that giving your project its own name would be a good idea, for the sake of
clarity, and maybe for the "cultural identity" of both :).