<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Hi again,<div><br></div><div>now to the second point you address: Communications, how decisions are made in this project, in particular regarding engine additions and (to lesser degree) whether to merge FreeSCI.</div><div><br></div><div>Let me start at the end, with FreeSCI, and somewhat independantly of the major points you raise. Mainly because as I understand it, your mail is not about being opposed to merging FreeSCI, but rather addresses meta-issues (valid ones, too), so I'd like to clarify the details on that before turning to the higher level.</div><div><br></div><div>Yes, there have been very active talks with the FreeSCI guys on whether (or rather: how and when) to turn FreeSCI into a ScummVM engine. All of this can be read in <<a href="http://www-plan.cs.colorado.edu/reichenb/freesci-logs/">http://www-plan.cs.colorado.edu/reichenb/freesci-logs/</a>> and in the mail archives of their mailing list <<a href="http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/freesci-develop/">http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/freesci-develop/</a>>. This contains more or less all the information (at least all that I know off - I made sure to discuss things only in logged places most of the time). Granted, this is not very visible for the ScummVM team, but at least you can still read up on it.</div><div><br></div><div>Strictly speaking, the whole merge thing is nothing new, but rather more or less an extension of the GSoC 2008 project, and Jordi's well-known (I think?) work on making FreeSCI more "ScummVM compatible" (the GSoC project built on that).</div><div><br></div><div>All in all, I think FreeSCI would be a great addition to ScummVM, and IMNSHO one that fits much better into ScummVM's original spirit than some of the other more recent engine additions ;-). I personally see no reason not to add it, as long as the original developers are OK with it and actively participate, which right now seems to be the case. Well, if they ever manage to get around finishing that cleanup they first wanted to make, right now it seems to be back to sloooow mode with them.... ;-).</div><div><br></div><div>You wrote:</div><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: -webkit-monospace; font-size: 10px; ">* Why was there no word about FreeSCI merge on this mailing list? Is <br>there anything to hide?<br></span></blockquote><br></div><div>From my point of view, there is nothing to hide. I think the main reason scummvm-devel has not been informed is that nobody thought about doing it. Yup, that's not good! It's bad, in fact. Just as it was bad to not announce the gog.com changes before hand, and I guess the MADE/M4 merge was handled. And I am sure there are more examples, too.</div><div><br></div><div>I can only speak for me personally, of course: I am not happy about this. In the case of FreeSCI, I certainly am one of those to blame for not talking to scummvm-devel. Truth is, it never occurred to me to email scummvm-devel. Bad. No excuse for it, either.</div><div><br></div><div>Part of this is because I myself have little spare time (having a "real" job these days, even though it's "only" at the uni). I get so many mails behind the scenes that want to be taken off, so many bugs that pop up, so many porters and engine authors that need to propped... I am tired of this. One thing I just have decided to try to improve the situation. From now one, I will send all the email I send to prod people or to handle issues that are not confidential, to scummvm-devel with CC. All. Including those "hey I sent you a trivial fix for a bug in your port 4 weeks ago, could you at least ack it?" mails. By doing that with all mails, I don't have to decide for a mail whether to do it, and maybe this will help a bit with comm.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: -webkit-monospace; font-size: 10px; ">* Are we still one team? Or is it nowadays rather that "the ScummVM <br>team" as an umbrella team and various single engine teams?<br></span></blockquote><br></div><div>I am not sure. I don't quite know what the difference between the two is, either... We always have been a loosely grouped bunch. There are a handful people who care about general stuff in ScummVM. The majority, though is happy to work on their engine and/or port, and seems to little care about anything else. Going so far that over the years, I repeatedly found code where engine authors or porters would hack around issues in ScummVM instead of talking to "the team" to figure out together how to solve things properly. Many porters only pop in (in the sense that I see commits & mails from then) when a new release is imminent (often that means "the day before"). So, that seems to make us an "umbrella" team?</div><div><br></div><div>If you meant: "Hey, are we not a team and make all decisions together, in consensus?" then my answer would be: Nope, and we've never been that. As I see it, we always have been a meritocracy. I.e. "he who gets something done has far more to say than the idle bystanders" ;-).</div><div><br></div><div>In the past, I very often tried to email scummvm-devel about something, to get feedback and help me decide how to do something. My experience is that usually this didn't work out at all, or if, then essentially with a tiny group (usually 1-3) of people actually talking. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>I do think that we should talk about merge decisions etc. earlier on scummvm-devel -- out of politeness / courtesy, at the very least. Although I don't think this will actually change the way decisions are made much, because most people will stay silent, and we will not always end up with consensus decision either. But at least everybody can have the feeling of having been informed in due time. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Bye,</div><div>Max</div><div><br></div></body></html>