[crossfire] Importing the GTK+ editor in SVN

[Raphaël Quinet]

On Sun, 20 Jul 2008 14:14:52 +0200, Lauwenmark <crossfire at ailesse.com> wrote:
> Le Saturday 19 July 2008 21:57:35 Raphaël Quinet, vous avez écrit :
> > using crossfire SVN, then again the same reasoning would have prevented
> > jxclient from being included.  Why include jxclient which had less
> > features than the existing clients, especially when a lot of code was
> > already written for the existing clients and they were actively
> > maintained?  Well, because some developers were interested in working
> > on something different (in that case, a Java client).
[...]
> So no, the purpose was not to work on a "Java client" - the purpose was to 
> work on "a better client", regardless of the technology used behind it. Use of 
> a specific language never was part of the initial design requirements.

I agree and I respect your choices.  However, to put this in perspective
for this discussion, you could have opted to improve the existing gtk2
client, considering that gtk2 works well on all platforms (including
Windows and MacOS X) and the "more immersive experience" is mostly a
matter of how you design the user interface.  You could have decided to
add a full-screen mode to the existing client, allowing more freedom in
the placement of the various elements of the user interface (for
comparison, GIMP is also based on gtk2 and supports a full-screen mode
for editing).  Yet you have decided to start something different.
That's fine by me and I wasn't among those who argued against its
inclusion in SVN.  But please don't claim that importing gcrossedit
into SVN is significantly different from what happened back then.

> I also question the goals pursued by the new editor - so far, the only solid 
> one advanced seems to be: "get rid of Java". What makes me think so is that 
> all the possible UI advantages it comes from were obviously never discussed 
> with the Gridarta developers before this discussion (Ragnor may need to 
> correct me on this); if they were the real, most important reason for the 
> change, then I admit I'm quite surprized nobody ever asked for such important 
> features to be included in Gridarta.

The dependency on a non-free version Java has been a problem for me.
This is what encouraged me to look at gcrossedit more than a year ago.
And then I discovered that it had several features that were better
than gridarta (faster "painting" of maps, especially for the initial
layout) and that allowed me to stop using the old X11 crossedit or
using gridarta from machines running non-free software, and to switch
to gcrossedit instead.

So although my initial motivation was to look at something that did not
depend on non-free software, it has shifted now to more technical
motivations because I saw that some differences in design could improve
the workflow.

And regarding Java, there is a subtle difference between "get rid of
Java" (I don't remember ever saying that) and "I prefer to work on
something else" (which is my personal opinion).  I should also add that
I spend many of my days at work writing proprietary code using Java and
Eclipse.  But when I'm not working and when I'm wearing my free software
hat, I prefer to stick to the ideals of free software and avoid
anything non-free.  And I am passionate about it, as you can see...

> So does Gridarta, as Sun's JDK/JRE works fine with Debian stable.
> As a side note, the JRE6 is available in the official etch backports, so 
> installing it is not really an issue; [...]

This is not correct.  JRE6 is not available in the main Debian
repositories.  It is only available in the non-free repositories (for
Debian testing/unstable, or as a backport for etch).  So installing
Sun's JRE6 is still an issue for those who only use free software.

[...]
> At the risk of sounding rude (but I've a Registered Evil Lad(tm) reputation to 
> defend), I really wonder why you asked if there was any objection, since you 
> obviously already made up your mind. If you plan to include it in the SVN 
> regardless of any counter-opinion given, then by all means do so, and stop 
> wasting time in what appears to be a purely rhetorical question by now.

It wasn't a purely rhetorical question, although it may be now.  There
are several arguments that I would have accepted.  For example, if Mark
(as the official maintainer of crossfire) had said that he would have
prefered to see gcrossedit living as a separate project, then I would
have accepted that regardless of his reasons.  If someone had said
that creating a separate project on sourceforge would be better to
encourage the usage of gcrossedit by more projects (e.g., daimonin)
then I would have considered that as a useful objection.  I might have
argued that I prefer to focus only on crossfire, but still this would
have been a useful comment.  Also, if someone had said that there are
already too many sub-projects in crossfire SVN and we should focus on
removing some of them rather than adding new ones, then I would also
have considered that as a valid reason for importing gcrossedit
elsewhere.

But so far, all the objections have been from developers involved with
Gridarta and saying basically "don't work on a new editor".  I do not
consider these as valid arguments, because the editor exists and is
mature (this is not something new) and because I am interested in
working on it.  As I said earlier, I wasn't asking if I should be
allowed to work on it or not, but whether it should be part of
crossfire SVN or if it would be better to create a new "crossfire
editor" project on SourceForge or elsewhere.  The few negative opinions
received so far have been rather misdirected.  But I also got some
positive comments and some developers told me that they were interested
in improving gcrossedit, so I think that it will be a useful addition
to the crossfire SVN repository.  But if that effort doesn't work and if
gcrossedit becomes unmaintained a few years from now, then there is
always the option of removing it from the repository.

> (Yes, once more I sound overly negative and bashing - I guess somebody has to 
> play the role of the bad guy in every discussion :))

Well, that's fine for me.  I prefer to have a honest discussion now
about this, rather than facing initial silence and unspoken
disagreements that blow up later and cause even more tension.

That being said, please try to criticize without trolling. ;-) Several
times you spoke of gcrossedit as a "new editor" as if that was something
yet to be designed, while it has existed since several years.  The only
new thing is the import in SVN.  Also, you referred twice to the GTK v2
client as a "Gnome2" client, which is obviouly incorrect because it does
not depend on any GNOME code.  And no, I will not be dragged into a
KDE vs. GNOME troll, if that is what you were hoping for. :-)

-Raphaël