Re: Truth in Software: Alexandre François Garreau: Will you try my free-software before condemning it. --What was desired for a Gnu empire game in the 1983 announcement email?

[nipponmail]

On 2019-11-11 22:29, Alexandre François Garreau wrote:
> It’s not for me.  It’s for you.  You first talked about GNU’s lack of 
> empire
> game.

I was just responding to RMS' 1983 email announcement of GNU, which I 
had read recently as an image. I was saying: hey, here's one: you can do 
those things in it, and it's free software. He didn't specify anything 
about the desired game in said email. 3D did exist in the 80s.

[ (Mostly it (3D) was used to assist pilots in learning how to better 
torture the enemies of the USA using chemical and incendiary weapons. 
The USA prefers to torture, rather than kill cleanly: it's seen as a 
waste of money if no pain anquish and dispair is felt.) ]

> > See the zip file containing the engine source?
>
> Not until then.  Putting an archive into an archive is useless and 
> uncommon.

No. You are incorrect: see tar.gz (archive in an archive). Different 
formats have different attributes, some can safeguard data (ECC etc), 
others just stick things together.


> Further: usually you distribute sources, not binaries with sources 
> compressed.

I distribute both: that way you have it all and can do whatever you 
need.

> Not really precise.  I don’t see any instructions anywhere.  Rather: in 
> any
> standard place.  Normally you should put instructions for modifying 
> into
> HACKING, for compiling and installing into INSTALL, or, if it’s short 
> enough,
> everything in README (that should contain general description anyway).

darkplaces....AES...source.zip/darkplaces/
makefile
makefile.inc

Read them (esp .inc), to understand how the engine desires to be built


(You know, before you mentioned it, I was dreaming of a true textmode 
for the engine. Like they used to have in the 80s for 3d games. Since 
the engine knows all about the surfaces, the data could be used to 
create a text mode 3d interface (where the edges of the surfaces are 
drawn with ascii, but only the edges: wireframe: the engine also 
supplies info on the approximate colour and colour of the lightmaps on 
any surface, as a precomputed variable: that could be used to colour the 
edges). It's possible. If anyone had the inspiration)

> None
> of these convention of this is respected.  It’s the whole point of GNU
> autotools to help with configuring, hacking and installing of free 
> software.

Maybe, Gnome abandoned autotools and went it's own way though: I wonder 
why. Also you must understand that in 3d game dev the Engine and the 
Game-Logic code are /separate/.

You can run many different games on the same engine executable. Or other 
code even.

The game engine is the program: you don't need to compile anything else 
on your machine. If you desire to change the game code: you can 
decompress the QuakeC and compile that too (using gmqcc etc).

> If you just let users with no help about installing your software, 
> little
> wonder why it isn’t known.

Anyone who knows C, knows how to compile engines like these.


> Travel asks sometimes visa, and always money and time (which could be 
> harder
> to get than a visa).  That’d require both of these for you, and belief 
> these
> are worth it.  I don’t believe they are.  Or you surely have a lot of 
> time to
> loose, and give really uncommonly high or low (depending on pov) to
> insignificants things.

In my country men are brutal bvll like beasts, always desiring to 
dominate others to show the wuhhman that they be Muhaaahn. Most men have 
48 inch biceps. Milk is the drink of choice (because it's "fortified"). 
If a man wishes to mate with a woman, usually this requires him to 
defeat about 20 other men. Completely. Women won't choose any lesser 
man. The Women control everything, and the men are leashed but violent 
beasts of burden.

This is why my country's men are allowed to roam your county with 
abandon: so they can behave as bvlls there too. It's considered a grace 
for the women there: a favor my country does for yours.