[crossfire] Crossfire+/Crossfire2 Versioning and Metaserver

[Yann Chachkoff]

> But to the _user_ there isn't a big change. I mean, if the current
> crossfire server is rewritten in for example scheme and speaks the same
> protocol and has the same or similar rules, would it be crossfire?
>
No, unless the rewritten version is made by the people of the original crossfire project as a new version of it, superceding the C code. That case would be a replacement/new version, and not a fork.

> The project is indeed different, but why shouldn't it have 'crossfire'
> somewhere in it's name when it's inheritance is still so much visible?
>
Because it is confusing.

> So the difference that makes us Un-Crossfire is something that can't
> be noticed by players/users!?
>
Yes. If I code a clone of vi, even if it perfectly mimicks the original, it would still not be the original, and I would still have no right to call it "vi" - it would still be a clone/rewrite, regardless on how users perceive it. Telling them it is "vi" would be dishonest, but also a bit dangerous: can I really guarantee that the behavior is absolutely identical in all cases ? I doubt so.

> Could you re-read my question? I'm not asking about 'Crossfire2', I was
> asking about the confusion that is created when we have 'Crossfire' in
> our name. Eg. 'Crossfire+' or 'Blabla-Crossfire-BlubbBlubb'.

No need to re-read your question, I understood it pretty well. But Crossfire-whatever definitely seems confusing to me, whatever is that -whatever.

> I understand that 'Crossfire2' might cause confusion. But the question
is: who is really confused? Is a user/player who just runs cfplus or
> gcfclient and connect to cf.schmorp.de confused because the server
> software that runs there has a similar name to the server software that
> runs on metalforge? - I guess not.
>
Actually, such a user is fooled. If I'm a new CF player, I'll not pick a server randomly, but will probably select the latest one, because it probably got the most interesting features. Hence, of course, if I have the choice between an "1.10" and a "2.1", I'll definitely select the 2.1 one, and label the 1.10 one as "outdated server".

> a name like 'Crossfire+' or 'Crossfire-ng' is pretty different from 'Crossfire' and shouldn't cause confusion.

Except that with those both examples, one gets the idea that the project is the next version of an older software.

> Similar as 'syslogng' isn't confused with 'syslog' or 'quake' with 'quake2'.
>
syslog-ng is a tool for system administrators, not lambda players. I think there is a rather important difference between both publics.

And AFAIK, quake2 is the second version of quake; so this is similar as if we decided to name "crossfire" "crossfire2" for our next major release.

> In the jabber community there is jabberd14 and jabberd2. <snip>
>
But again, those are software that already require some understanding of the computer world - installing a Jabber server is not something very common. Even so, it already created confusion. I'm not convinced that players will not be confused when server administrators sometimes were.

> We don't object to change the project name to 'Crossfire+' again. But
> some rationale or explanation why that still is confusing would be nice.
>
Note that the confusion is not limited to the name of the project - the discussion started because of the displayed version number (remember that the project name appears nowhere in the metaserver infos). Even if you estimate that "Crossfire-xxx" is not confusing, having a "2.1" number without anything else definitely is.