[crossfire] Crossfire+/Crossfire2 Versioning and Metaserver

[Yann Chachkoff]

> Obviously (all of) "you" are not confused about it at all, so who is, and
> how? We asked our players, and they do not seem to be confused by that.
>
"We" (as in the CF devs) are not all the players by far. I think the most confused ones will be the newcomers, of course - and those hardly express themselves on the ML or on the IRC channel about that.

I'll not comment about your player base - I have not enough knowledge about them to estimate the value of that answer they gave you.

> Then wouldn't it make to keep it as it is? Looking at all servers on a
> "most interesting feature" basis clearly makes the 2.x servers "more
> interesting", both for internal features as well as player-visible ones.
>
That's your opinion, which is subjective. I myself don't state one project is better than another - and thus, I don't think it is appropriate to label one as "superior" to the other (as the "+" suggested), or "newer" (which the 2.x numbering implies).

Even if I accept the hypothesis that "CF+ is better than CF", CF is not a dead project, and CF+ is in no way its successor. The current version numbering system leads to think exactly that.

> So if you want to make a discussion about technical merrit,

No. It is not the point, and I'll go no further in that direction, which involves lots of subjective views and personal bias on both sides.

> If you think version numbers should reflect "most interesting" features,
> then the current situation is your goal, and no confusion could come from
> it.
>
You misunderstood what I meant: it should reflect "the most interesting/advanced features *for the given application*". It seems logical that Crossfire 1.10 is an improved iteration of 1.9, which in turn is an improvement of 1.8, and so on.

Now, CF+ is *not* the same project. It is a fork, and is now developed in parallel. Hence, "Crossfire+ 2.0" is *not* the next improved iteration of "Crossfire 1.10", but the start of a new branch. And as time passes, both projects will diverge more and more.

> That is an empty claim. People did not get the impression that "C++" is
> the next version of "C", either, similar for other cases. People will
> think it might be an enhanced version, or a new generation of something,
> which is actually what is the case.
>
Except that C and C++ are languages made for developers, not a game for a wide audience. Moreover, when C++ initially came out, it wasn't called "C++", but "C with classes", which clearly removed the possible confusion. And, as Stroustrup itself expressed, C++ is an extension of C.

CF+ is not an extension of CF, but a diverging branch. Unless you can guarantee that CF+ will forever stay compatible with CF, and keep all the features CF has; that, I guess, would be a rather bold assumption.


> Thats your opinion, but there is no evidence for that so far. I find it
> interesting to get that claim repeated without any evidence, and when
> challenged for evidence, we never get any reply.
>
And what do you want us to do ? Get ten testing people at random, show them the game, and ask them the question ?

And when the 2.x series of CF are out, how will we distinguish both ? Or maybe Crossfire should use odd version numbers (3.x, 5.x, etc), while CF+ would be using even ones (2.x, 4.x, etc) ?

> Honestly, I am a bit annoyed at crossfire 1.x. We wanted to use the "+", and
> we constantly being told that the + should go from the version number. Now
> that we did we are asked (or some cases commanded) to add it again.
>
Where was that asked ?
I do remember that it was asked to use something else, as "2.0+" was not clearly enough different - it looked like a regular 2.0 version with some add-ins.
I doubt anybody ever asked you to remove the "+" and simply use "2.x" - and if somebody did, I'd be curious to see the log of that conversation.

> Before shoving perceived or made-up problems into our direction, couldn't
> all of you first agree on what you really want and then ask us? Obviously
> we are happy to comply, but it is no fun if you make a full 180 every few
> months. Could it be that the reason you are annoyed at us is actually of
> your own making? I think it is unfair to call us "arrogant" when all we do
> is try to play nice but only earn arbitrariness in return?
>
The request is pretty easy to understand, though: change the version number displayed and the project name so that it cannot be perceived as a newer version of Crossfire. 

We never asked anything else than that, and there was no 180° turn. "Make your project name clearly distinguishable from ours" was always the only request we ever made.

I guess that if your only goal is to "play nice", then you'll happily change the version number displayed to something clearly distinguishable - a change that has no impact on the game itself, and that requires less than 5 minutes to achieve.