Bug#766185: support of different Freeciv clients

[Markus Koschany]

On 23.11.2014 14:40, Jacob Nevins wrote:
> This sounds like a good plan to me.
> 
> Markus Koschany writes:
>> 1. The virtual package "freeciv" should be dropped and be replaced with
>>    a metapackage. [...]
>> 2. The metapackage freeciv should always depend on the recommended and
>>    most sophisticated Freeciv client which is currently
>>    freeciv-client-gtk2 thus »apt install freeciv« will avoid any
>>    confusion among users and will always ensure the best gaming
>>    experience.
> 
> If we ever do change our recommended client, presumably the experience
> for existing users upgrading with the 'freeciv' metapackage installed is
> that they keep their existing client, but the new one (which might be
> quite different from what they're used to) will be installed alongside
> (so they see two menu items, etc)? This seems like a reasonable
> compromise.

Yeah, there would be two menu items then but of course I could change
the freeciv wrapper script to point to the new default client and rename
the desktop/menu entry to a generic "Freeciv" menu entry which would
always launch the default client. I'm also going to assume that the GTK2
client will be superseded by GTK3 sometime, so there shouldn't be too
many surprises for users.

>>    freeciv-client-xaw3d (big question mark, I'm not sure if it is worth
>>    to support xaw anymore since it lacks many features. It seems there
>>    are still some users who use this client. So one may argue that we
>>    should keep it as long as it is maintainable.
> 
> I don't know about the Debian version, but whenever I run it upstream it
> is often completely unusable (e.g., <http://gna.org/bugs/?22985>,
> <http://gna.org/bugs/?21609>), and no effort is going into it currently.
> 
> If I'm reading popcon graphs right, there's support for ~25-40 active
> popcon-using xaw3d users, as compared to ~150-200 active gtk users and
> ~50 active sdl users?
> <https://qa.debian.org/popcon.php?package=freeciv>
> 
> It might be time to drop it from Debian.

Yup, "completely unusable" doesn't sound very encouraging.

>> Obviously Freeciv has to go through NEW for this change and it should be
>> implemented for Freeciv 2.5.
> 
> (Ah, that's another reason my last-minute plan for Jessie was doomed
> that I should have thought of.)

Never forget the FTP team. :)

Markus



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