Re: -data packages and recommends?
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On Thu, 14 Feb 2008 at 18:20:54 +0100, Miriam Ruiz wrote:
> 2008/2/14, Ivan Vucica <ivucica@gmail.com>:
>
> > A good example are multiple Doom implementations that were present in
> > Debian. They all used same data files, right? At least they should
> > have. So, making the -data package for Doom depend on, e.g., prboom,
> > would actually force users of other implementations to have prboom
> > installed as well.
>
> That's something ideologically complex, as you might be able to handle
> data and games separately:
>
> 1) The game engine uses the data, but it could use different data
> (Doom, Quake, Frets on Fire) to play the same game with different
> "worlds".
> 2) The data "uses" the game engine to be played, in the same way that
> a Python script "uses" the python interpreter to be executed. A
> dataset could be used from different programs (Doom or Quake worlds,
> Ultrastar songs, FoF songs)
Since the "identity" of a game is all about the gameplay, graphics etc.,
it might seem to make sense for the .desktop files (and possibly also
wrapper scripts in /usr/games) to be per dataset rather than per engine,
so your GNOME menu or whatever has separate entries for id Doom and
Freedoom, id Quake 3 Arena and OpenArena, and so on. If the engines are
basically interchangeable but just have some versions that are "better",
they could perhaps use alternatives.
As I understand it, the Openarena engine is basically just icculus.org Quake 3,
right? If it is in fact 100% "gameplay-compatible" with the retail
Quake 3 Arena, I could see an argument for having this packaging scheme:
ioquake3-engine (arch-dep)
Contains /usr/lib/games/ioquake3 and /usr/share/doc/ioquake3-engine only
Recommends: openarena | quake3-data
openarena (arch-indep)
Contains /usr/games/openarena (wrapper script that runs
/usr/lib/games/ioquake3/ioquake3 with appropriate arguments), .desktop
file, and free data
Depends: ioquake3-engine
Provides: quake3-data
quake3-arena (arch-indep, non-free)
Contains /usr/games/quake3 (very similar to /usr/games/openarena), .desktop
file, a copy of the patch pk3s (if they're distributable), and scripts
that grab pak0.pk3 from a retail CD or other source (plus the patch
pk3s if they're non-distributable)
Depends: ioquake3-engine
Provides: quake3-data
urban-terror (arch-indep, non-free)
... like openarena again ...
world-of-padman (arch-indep, main? non-free? dunno)
... like openarena again ...
Obviously, if a game has forked the underlying engine then it might need
its own engine package (Urban Terror has ioUrbanTerror, an ioquake3
fork, but is runnable on retail Q3A so presumably it'd work on stock
ioquake3; World of Padman I don't know about).
Something to think about, anyway.
Simon
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