Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.adom (More info?)
Dear group,
as discussed recently, I have sent an e-mail to Thomas to discuss
various issues important to the ADOM community. Since e-mail is not the
most efficient mode of communication for this purpose, I suggested
discussing the matters over the phone, to which Thomas agreed. The
conversation circled around three main topics:
1. The Future of ADOM
2. The Bug Database
3. Reverse Engineering
I will now provide a topic by topic summary.
1. The Future of ADOM
The good news first: ADOM is not dead!
At the moment, Thomas has only very limited time, but a new release is
definitely planned. Rumours that no new features will be added to ADOM
are unfounded, although the next version will likely only have minor
additions and mostly focus on fixing bugs. Thomas is reluctant to
announce anything definite because in the past it has turned out to be
nearly impossible to predict such things, but a new release should
likely emerge around this summer.
To dispel some other rumours, this new release will *not* be a final
release of ADOM. Thomas told me that even now, after two years without
an update, there are about 10000-15000 downloads per month on
www.adom.de, and this is sufficient reason to continue working on the
game. However, in the future Thomas would like to devote more of his
development time to JADE -- JADE development is fun, while ADOM
development is hard work due to the way the source code has developed
into a writhing mass of programming chaos over time.
Therefore, it is likely that after the next release, there will be a
change in procedure. In order to allow Thomas to focus on JADE, he plans
to change the development model of ADOM. Instead of the current one-man
system, he would like to turn into an effort by a small, closed group (a
kind of DevTeam, if you will) of maybe 4-5 people under his supervision.
Thomas will make all decisions regarding which features will or will not
be added to ADOM, but actual implementation, bug fixes and the like will
be delegated. ADOM will *not* go Open Source -- more regarding this
under the third topic.
With ADOM moving to a group development model, changes are also planned
for www.adom.de. Ideas include adding a Wiki, overhauling the bug
tracking system and turning the "Ancient Scroll of Mystery" into a real
blog with comment features. An often requested feature which is *not*
planned is a forum -- Thomas prefers good old newsgroups [and if a
personal comment is allowed here, I agree
]. However, all this
requires work that would detract from actual development, so it is not
clear if, when and how all this can be turned into practice. Do not hold
your breath.
2. The Bug Database
Again, the good news first: You can help with the bug database!
I have brought the discussions we had about the bug database to Thomas'
attention. I also mentioned that some people are no longer willing to
add bugs to the database because they do not think it is any useful. In
other words, something should be done.
I have recommended closing the bug and RFE databases for new submissions
for the near future, and to gather resources for consolidating the bug
list. Thomas has basically agreed to this procedure. Some time soon, he
will send me a text version of the bug and RFE databases. He asked me to
select some trustworthy people to go through the database and bring the
wealth of information into some useful shape. At this time, the best
process for this has not been decided, although some ideas have been
discussed. In any case, this is something to worry about once we get
rolling.
So, if you consider yourself trustworthy, go ahead and volunteer right
now! Both newsgroup postings and e-mails are fine. Please understand
that it might be the case that not everybody will be able to contribute
because we must strike a balance between the bug-weeding effort for
everybody involved and the communication effort. Once most of the
weeding out has been done, there will certainly be a public phase when
everybody can contribute, but for the bulk of the work, it is better not
to get bogged down in lengthy group discussions.
While the database is being consolidated, the submission features at
www.adom.de will be disabled so that we are not aiming at a moving target.
3. Reverse Engineering
Regarding this topic, Thomas stated his opinion very clearly: He does
not want people to disassemble ADOM for any purpose. He had already
planned to revised the ADOM license so that his opinion on this issue
will become very clear to everybody. He also briefly discussed the legal
aspects of this, mentioning the effort involved in international
lawsuits. So much for the summary, now for some details.
Most significantly, Thomas expressed his contempt for patches that
change the rules of the game. Patches that fix bugs might be acceptable,
but the line must be drawn very clearly. Of the existing patches, only
the one that fixes the ingot crash bug can be considered a bug fix. He
is considering making it publicly available on the ADOM web site before
the problem can be properly fixed with the new ADOM relase and asks
Vladimir to send it to him.
In addition to patches, he does not like programs that can be used for
cheating, and he has already implemented new countermeasures into ADOM
to detect if the state of the game has been tampered with. He said that
even though all protection can be cracked, it will take the cracker more
time to circumvent the protective measures than it took him to implement
them, and he hopes that they will eventually tire of such efforts.
Finally, Thomas is also very much against disassembling the executable
to discover game mechanics and secrets. He referred to the section in
readme.1st where it is stated that the good effect of ADOM staying
closed source is "that ADOM will remain the most challenging and
mysterious of all roguelike games, simply because you just can't take a
look into the sources and find all the secrets right away once a new
version is released".
That's it. I could comment on some of the issues, but want to keep the
summary and personal opinion separate, so I'll contribute to the
discussion later.
Malte
Dear group,
as discussed recently, I have sent an e-mail to Thomas to discuss
various issues important to the ADOM community. Since e-mail is not the
most efficient mode of communication for this purpose, I suggested
discussing the matters over the phone, to which Thomas agreed. The
conversation circled around three main topics:
1. The Future of ADOM
2. The Bug Database
3. Reverse Engineering
I will now provide a topic by topic summary.
1. The Future of ADOM
The good news first: ADOM is not dead!
At the moment, Thomas has only very limited time, but a new release is
definitely planned. Rumours that no new features will be added to ADOM
are unfounded, although the next version will likely only have minor
additions and mostly focus on fixing bugs. Thomas is reluctant to
announce anything definite because in the past it has turned out to be
nearly impossible to predict such things, but a new release should
likely emerge around this summer.
To dispel some other rumours, this new release will *not* be a final
release of ADOM. Thomas told me that even now, after two years without
an update, there are about 10000-15000 downloads per month on
www.adom.de, and this is sufficient reason to continue working on the
game. However, in the future Thomas would like to devote more of his
development time to JADE -- JADE development is fun, while ADOM
development is hard work due to the way the source code has developed
into a writhing mass of programming chaos over time.
Therefore, it is likely that after the next release, there will be a
change in procedure. In order to allow Thomas to focus on JADE, he plans
to change the development model of ADOM. Instead of the current one-man
system, he would like to turn into an effort by a small, closed group (a
kind of DevTeam, if you will) of maybe 4-5 people under his supervision.
Thomas will make all decisions regarding which features will or will not
be added to ADOM, but actual implementation, bug fixes and the like will
be delegated. ADOM will *not* go Open Source -- more regarding this
under the third topic.
With ADOM moving to a group development model, changes are also planned
for www.adom.de. Ideas include adding a Wiki, overhauling the bug
tracking system and turning the "Ancient Scroll of Mystery" into a real
blog with comment features. An often requested feature which is *not*
planned is a forum -- Thomas prefers good old newsgroups [and if a
personal comment is allowed here, I agree
]. However, all thisrequires work that would detract from actual development, so it is not
clear if, when and how all this can be turned into practice. Do not hold
your breath.
2. The Bug Database
Again, the good news first: You can help with the bug database!
I have brought the discussions we had about the bug database to Thomas'
attention. I also mentioned that some people are no longer willing to
add bugs to the database because they do not think it is any useful. In
other words, something should be done.
I have recommended closing the bug and RFE databases for new submissions
for the near future, and to gather resources for consolidating the bug
list. Thomas has basically agreed to this procedure. Some time soon, he
will send me a text version of the bug and RFE databases. He asked me to
select some trustworthy people to go through the database and bring the
wealth of information into some useful shape. At this time, the best
process for this has not been decided, although some ideas have been
discussed. In any case, this is something to worry about once we get
rolling.
So, if you consider yourself trustworthy, go ahead and volunteer right
now! Both newsgroup postings and e-mails are fine. Please understand
that it might be the case that not everybody will be able to contribute
because we must strike a balance between the bug-weeding effort for
everybody involved and the communication effort. Once most of the
weeding out has been done, there will certainly be a public phase when
everybody can contribute, but for the bulk of the work, it is better not
to get bogged down in lengthy group discussions.
While the database is being consolidated, the submission features at
www.adom.de will be disabled so that we are not aiming at a moving target.
3. Reverse Engineering
Regarding this topic, Thomas stated his opinion very clearly: He does
not want people to disassemble ADOM for any purpose. He had already
planned to revised the ADOM license so that his opinion on this issue
will become very clear to everybody. He also briefly discussed the legal
aspects of this, mentioning the effort involved in international
lawsuits. So much for the summary, now for some details.
Most significantly, Thomas expressed his contempt for patches that
change the rules of the game. Patches that fix bugs might be acceptable,
but the line must be drawn very clearly. Of the existing patches, only
the one that fixes the ingot crash bug can be considered a bug fix. He
is considering making it publicly available on the ADOM web site before
the problem can be properly fixed with the new ADOM relase and asks
Vladimir to send it to him.
In addition to patches, he does not like programs that can be used for
cheating, and he has already implemented new countermeasures into ADOM
to detect if the state of the game has been tampered with. He said that
even though all protection can be cracked, it will take the cracker more
time to circumvent the protective measures than it took him to implement
them, and he hopes that they will eventually tire of such efforts.
Finally, Thomas is also very much against disassembling the executable
to discover game mechanics and secrets. He referred to the section in
readme.1st where it is stated that the good effect of ADOM staying
closed source is "that ADOM will remain the most challenging and
mysterious of all roguelike games, simply because you just can't take a
look into the sources and find all the secrets right away once a new
version is released".
That's it. I could comment on some of the issues, but want to keep the
summary and personal opinion separate, so I'll contribute to the
discussion later.
Malte
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