Rong Said:

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BTW, I am still hoping this project can turn into an Open Source project. There is a nice paper about this development model called The Cathedral and the Bazaar.

If you decide to join the future , you can take a look at JOS, maybe even use their web site and CVS server.

Ok, that's enough URI's for one message.

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I've read "the Cathedral and the Bazaar" a while ago. I think our model is similar to the Bazaar (open source) with the alteration that at some point parts of the code will become closed so that team members have some chance of getting some monetary rewards for all their efforts. What do others on the team think?

I personally would like to see if Clash is commercially viable to gauge if I could switch to this as a career. Clash would be in a niche market, but a niche of the civ-type game market can still be pretty big . Allowing access to the code to some hard-core programmers might not preclude making money on it, but a gnu-type open code makes it pretty hopeless unless you want to make money in services involving the code (based on what I have read in newsgroups).

But then again, *g*, I'm not producing any source for this product.

I support the open source because:
1. We decided to use the Java system. To decompile a Java system for a good programmer cca. 2-3 days. So I think we can defend not the code, but the ideas and design.
2. If we produce an open source game we can get the support from various Linux and open source people (and free advertising in various forums).
3. I somebody can impove our system a little bit, he can not sell the improved product, if somebody else can do a big leap, anyway that will be a different product. We need to ask to pay royalty for our game system, and everybody happy.

The concept of 'closed-source' is like the recording studio's desire to charge people every time they listen to a song.

BTW, this rather long article about open source games has some interesting things to say. You probably won't agree with all of it (I don't), but it's an excellent read, I think.

I think we want to make a substantial part of the code open Anyway. Especially those parts the community would most like to tinker with. And generic tools would certainly be a good thing for which to make the source available. I just want us to be able to gauge the commercial success of the project, and, if Clash is a reasonable success, be able to return something in the way of cash to those who worked so hard to make it so. If after some period of time Clash turned out to be a commercial failure with a small core of enthusiasts, I would certainly be willing to release the entire code also, depending on the wishes of others in the project of course.

Now, to make any of my desires work we need to come up with a marketing model over the web, where the market is not immediately destroyed due to pirating. I'm not sure I have the answers for how to do this, so the whole point on commercial success may be moot.

In Clash's case, I don't think it is possible to have separate licenses, because both the source code and the "binaries" (the compiled Java classes) are the same for all OSes.

Instead, I think that some parts of the game will be open, and others semi-proprietary, depending on the originators' philosophical alignment.

But the main technical advantage of the bazaar programming style can be seen in the process of development (if we are to believe E. S. Raymond, anyway). Open-source the bazaar way allows for fast debugging-release cycles, speeding the development.

I'm saying this because I've volunteered to code for Clash like a month ago, and I'm still waiting for the code to arrive. It seems contradictory, since here and there I see complaints about the lack of coders, and meanwhile I've done nothing for the project. It's rather frustating: the code could be posted in the web page (if it is an I didn't find it, please ignore me). In the thread about Project management, Druid2 writed about version control and debugging databases: what happened to that?. The models are built in a full open-source bazaar style way. Someone posts the idea, and the model gets rapidly corrected and commented. On the contrary, code production seems to be happening behind the scenes. The current Coding thread (according to The Clash homepage) ends a long a time ago, with the invitation to an ICQ meeting. I've read the thread with the meeting, but that kind of discussion seems to have ended last year. There is little discussion about the architecture of the program (and the discusion ends October '99). There is certainly no "release early, release often": the gap between Demo 4 and Demo 5 is still growing. The set-up time for coders, about which Mark complained in another thread, could be significantly reduced by having a thread with the documentation for each package. In Mark's and Druid2's words, the game is 'quasi-' or 'semi-' open-source. I think Clash is not getting the benefits of it. While the models are being discussed to an incredible level of detail, the program itself seems to be stalled. F_Smith made same very interesting remarks about this in the OOA/OOD thread, but there was no answer.

I know that it's easier to make a comment than to patch a package, and that there are more Civers than Civ-programmers. I know also that the Clash case is very different than the Freeciv case, for example, were the game was fully designed before the project even started. But IMO the Clash design is already strong enough to allow a freer coding approach. Many of the discussions are ending with a "will have to test the gameplay to decide it".

I have to run to work, so this may be a little jumbled due to lack of proofreading...

Everyone wants to make comments, few actually code anything. I can't believe that you did nothing for a whole month without even emailing me and promting me... I simply forgot, for which I apologize. But it Will happen again, just take some simple action man!

I am not a professional programmer, and do not feel competent to administer a version control system either. People have made suggestions about such a thing, but nobody ever Did anything even though I have encouraged several to... Also we have never had more than two coders actually working at the same time, so It never got really necessary IMO. Would you like to look into this, and work to set up something?

All the discussions on coding that end abruptly, are caused by people showing up with (apparent) fire in their belly to do something. They talk a good game, and then usually do little to nothing. So I hope the discussions can be picked up at a later date.

My point is that I don't want to bug you to see how the code is doing. I said I would make diplomacy, but I'd like to see how the other sections are doing as well, without having to make a public commitment about what I'll do with them.

I agree: if you only have two coders working at a time, there's little need for version control. But I still think the code should be available. You can go closed source when you're nearer Alpha (which, for what I gather, is far away). On one hand, you complain about the newbies taking your time; on the other, you ask me to mail you three or four times and make commitments before having the chance to even look at the code. You seem a little bitter about people talking and not doing anything: I know it's not nice, and maybe I'm just doing that. But if you have a working a game with the code available (the well documented models are already there), there would be no 'set up time'. I wouldn't even be talking. Either I can do something on my own, and then show it to you and discuss it, or look at it and say I can't. There's seem to be little chance that two programmers start working on the same thing at the same time. Maybe you are used to the idea that you'll made 90% of the coding yourself. If that's the case, well, maybe this discussion is pointless.

Aw, (many bad words). Thanks for filling us in... If you still see some java in your future, I'm sure you can get largely up to speed (and probably do large chunks of coding) with earlier java versions over the summer. Let me know if you're interested...

SD:

You are quite right, we could just put the whole source up on the web site, and probably should. We did for demo3, it just didn't happen IIRC for demo 4. I didn't mean to give you the impression that I was waiting for a committment before sending you the code. I will send Anyone that wants it the whole code, sending them the code only takes 5 min. I just Forgot to send it to you... What I won't do is spend hours telling people what I think is the right next thing to do in X area unless I think they are Really committed and have the time. Because I have literally lost Days of productive time talking to losers who never do anything .

IMO your proposal about having all the models presented so clearly that any coder can walk up and take a shot at coding them up is simply not realistic. Things just aren't that well refined yet. The technology model is probably the closest. But the models are intertwined with lots of TBDs. Anyway, I don't think your suggestion is realistic, but we can see what others say.

Personally, I would much rather have you actually coding on the diplo model than trying to write up an overview of the whole project. But since we are a team, If you think that's the critical thing keeping us from getting other coders, I value your judgement.

I would just like to repeat my agreement with Stephen.

To my mind, that is largely the reason coders are coming and going. I understand if you still disagree with me, but the basic framework was there over a year ago and should have been designed and coded up already. Once that architecture is done, then functions (individual models) can be added/improved far more easily, hung on the frame in a 'component' approach. The house can only be as solid as it's foundation.

IMO the real problem is deciding when a model has what's needed to go into coding phase. I could just invite Stephen to work with me coding the govt, social and riots models, but we still haven't yet discussed these models, not even in a general way. The bad thing is when discussions start, they never get to a point where you can say "well, at least we have the core of what we want... the rest are details we'll need to solve in the way". If we could reach that point, we can start coding and get the most from available coders. My suggestion would be to create a simple and quick method to take that decission. IMO our team lead, Sir Mark Everson, is the right person taking the decission. I know Mark'd prefer to know everybody's opinion on a given model before taking a decission and in that case some kind of poll or short thread can be made. But someone HAS to take the decission at some point. Otherwise we'll never advance to coding phase and we'll keep losing coders.

What do you say, Mark?

If I understand what you're saying, then I think we already have a framework for much of the game. Things like the government and characters parts of it would be an exception. If you would like, I can send you a current version of the source code, and you can generate the Javadoc for it. Then perhaps you could look at the class structure and tell me if what we already have is what you are talking about or not. Alternatively, if you would be interested in working with Rodrigo and axi to specify what the architecture for the social/government/riot models is, then you would both do the project a service, and give me a direct example of what you're talking about.

Rodrigo:

We have cut off debate on several models, or at least the basic aspects of them, when they reached a sufficiently mature state. It just hasn't happened in the government model yet, although I think it will soon with respect to the framework! The reason I have not cut off debate in more areas, is that we haven't had the coders to actually do the programming. So, my reasoning has been why stop discussion and exploration of the model when nothing solid is going to be done in the near future anyway... In my opinion, we have never lost a coder because of lack of some work for them to do. However, I can't say this with certainty because a lot of them disappear and never say anything! Even when I asked them why they split. But I always give them a choice of what they would like, and state that I can push to have something sufficiently finalized in any given area they choose, so I don't Think that's the problem.

I did help do an OOA for the new combat model (which everyone seemed to like, altho they then went back to discussing in terms of formulae) and for the Tech model (which was soundly rejected -- remember the 'we don't do object design' discussion?). A search should turn those up easily, if you're interested in an example of what I mean. But still, I'd be happy to help do an OOA of any individual model, if anyone would be interested. It's just frustrating when all that gets done and then never used . . .

If the code is significantly different from when I saw it last, then perhaps I'm mistaken. But the design I last saw could have really benefitted from more eyeballs. Behaviors (interactions between objects) were not modelled as interfaces, I think, and some liberal use of the Mediator and Command pattern would likely have helped simplifiy much.

Yep, I remember the discussions. I would characterize the Tech model one as more "why do we need to do object design Now?"... I think your going ahead in working with the government model people on the OO design is great. Hopefully I can learn something from what you are doing about the way it should be done! It's also an ideal place for you to do it, because no coder is yet lined up for it, so there is no possibility of conflict with the coder...

On the overall code structure, it's probably still pretty much as bad as you remember it! At least all the stuff you say about interfaces is not something I understand. Before demo 4 I did go ahead and rework the higher-level structure of the existing code more or less according to your suggestions, so at least something should be better than way back when... and since demo for there has been a lot of improvement in the area of adding getters and setters, privatizing variables and other low-level things.

What little I know about design could fit on the head of a pin, but I'm more than willing to take a stab at organizing a Linux-style OOA hashfest. With enough eyeballs, someone out there can fix almost everything. I'll try and start one for a few of the models, and we'll see how it goes.

The basic rule to designing and coding any big program (which has many objects interacting in complex behaviors) is to list all the 'objects' in the program, then to list all the 'behaviors' of those objects. The idea is that 'behaviors' of objects (like a govt -- the behavior of people or social classes) should work like 'listeners' do in Java. Or like 'Runnable'. After doing this analysis and design, coding becomes a short, simple thing that anyone can do quickly. And the objects and interfaces can evolve, and be improved, from that point, as the model evolves. And you automatically have a prototype available to test ('release early, release often').

And then there are 'patterns' -- more about that later. That's a topic in and of itself.

I also came across the name 'mca' -- is he still with us? Can we get ahold of him?

mca pulled out long ago, after making really good progress on a map generator using plate techtonics... Henrique said he would try to pick that up, but we haven't heard much from H in the last several months.

shimmin is working on the merchant model, if he ever gets free time again. He isn't a coder that I know of.