[Scummvm-devel] What is happening to the ScummVM team?

[Max Horn]

Hi again,

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.

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.

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 <http://www-plan.cs.colorado.edu/reichenb/freesci-logs/ 
 > and in the mail archives of their mailing list <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/freesci-develop/ 
 >. 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.

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).

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.... ;-).

You wrote:
> * Why was there no word about FreeSCI merge on this mailing list? Is
> there anything to hide?

 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.

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.

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.




> * Are we still one team? Or is it nowadays rather that "the ScummVM
> team" as an umbrella team and various single engine teams?

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?

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" ;-).

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.


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.


Bye,
Max

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