Game packages starting servers?

[Daniel Burrows <dnb114@psu.edu>]

  Hi,

  I know, of course, that the question of whether servers should be
started on installation comes up periodically, invoke-rc.d will fix it,
etc, etc.

  I'm wondering, though, what people think should be done about GAMES
that have network capability and separate server binaries.  It recently
came to my attention that several games on my system started global servers
upon being installed.

  This is inconsistent with what I'd expect for most games.  For
crossfire, ggz, and lambdamoo it makes sense, as these have semi-persistent
worlds (or at least are meant to be played fairly continuously), and I
would be surprised if they *weren't* started by default.
  However, most games are generally started by a single user for a private
game or a single game with a small number of other people.
  Not only does silently starting the game in the background open
ports unexpectedly, users will get obscure error messages from many
games if they try to start their own server (which will be necessary to
use custom options) on the default port.
  (being able to easily run a global server would probably be useful for
   some people, but I think it would be better to ship a file in
   /etc/init.d and require that the user enable it by hand, similarly to
   fetchmail [0])

  I'm posting here because I want to know if I'm completely off my
rocker, or if other people would expect this as well.  If the feeling is
that some games shouldn't start by default and others should, can we
write that down somewhere?

  For reference, here are a few games that do not start servers
by default:

  freeciv
  bzflag
  doom/quake
  teg
  overkill
  xscorch
  xkoules

  Here are some that do:

  crossfire
  lambdamoo
  ggzd
   (the above are unsurprising to me, as their primary intention is to be
    run daemonized)
  xpilots
  tetrinetx

  Daniel

  [0] only without the debconf prompt, please.

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