Hello Jon Ciesla,
My name is Artiom, and I'm happy Fedora user :)
I've noticed that wesnoth version 1.4 has been released, but unfortunately in repo we have 1.2.8. Here http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/WesnothBinariesLinux#Fedora I found your contact, and I ask you, please, build update for this version too. I'm sure many others wesnoth's lovers waiting for it.
I've got it built for F9/rawhide, but since it looks like 1.4 breaks saved game compatibility, I'm not sure I'm going to build it for F-8.
Since you're not the first person to ask me about this, I'm CCing the rest of the Games SIG.
SIG, what do you think? Build 1.4 for F-8, or leave it in rawhide?
Thank you!
Jon Ciesla wrote:
I've noticed that wesnoth version 1.4 has been released, but unfortunately in repo we have 1.2.8. Here http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/WesnothBinariesLinux#Fedora I found your contact, and I ask you, please, build update for this version too. I'm sure many others wesnoth's lovers waiting for it.
I've got it built for F9/rawhide, but since it looks like 1.4 breaks saved game compatibility, I'm not sure I'm going to build it for F-8.
Since you're not the first person to ask me about this, I'm CCing the rest of the Games SIG.
SIG, what do you think? Build 1.4 for F-8, or leave it in rawhide?
I am not a regular Wesnoth player (just enjoy it from time to time in single player mode), but from what I understand, network playing is a very important reason people enjoy it. AFAIK, to play on the official servers one must have to have the latest version.
That should be weighted against the breaking of saved games. Don't know which side of the balance should prevail, as I already said, I am not a regular player.
Jon Ciesla escribió:
Hello Jon Ciesla,
My name is Artiom, and I'm happy Fedora user :)
I've noticed that wesnoth version 1.4 has been released, but unfortunately in repo we have 1.2.8. Here http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/WesnothBinariesLinux#Fedora I found your contact, and I ask you, please, build update for this version too. I'm sure many others wesnoth's lovers waiting for it.
I've got it built for F9/rawhide, but since it looks like 1.4 breaks saved game compatibility, I'm not sure I'm going to build it for F-8.
Since you're not the first person to ask me about this, I'm CCing the rest of the Games SIG.
SIG, what do you think? Build 1.4 for F-8, or leave it in rawhide?
Thank you!
There have been earlier updates for Wesnoth that also broke save-game compatibility, and to my knowledge, it wasn't so much of a problem. I'd like to have the latest available for F8 as well as for F9, I know I wouldn't mind playing through the campaigns again, but I'm not sure about other users... I wish there was a way to get more player awareness of this... Maybe a poll in fedoraforum.org's gaming forum?
Hello All!
2008/4/1, Jon Ciesla limb@jcomserv.net:
I've got it built for F9/rawhide, but since it looks like 1.4 breaks saved game compatibility, I'm not sure I'm going to build it for F-8.
Since you're not the first person to ask me about this, I'm CCing the rest of the Games SIG.
SIG, what do you think? Build 1.4 for F-8, or leave it in rawhide?
Although I'm not a wesnoth player, I vote for updating.
Hello All!
2008/4/1, Jon Ciesla limb@jcomserv.net:
I've got it built for F9/rawhide, but since it looks like 1.4 breaks saved game compatibility, I'm not sure I'm going to build it for F-8.
Since you're not the first person to ask me about this, I'm CCing the rest of the Games SIG.
SIG, what do you think? Build 1.4 for F-8, or leave it in rawhide?
Although I'm not a wesnoth player, I vote for updating.
Sounds like all the feedback I need. I'll update for F-8.
-- With best regards!
"JC" == Jon Ciesla limb@jcomserv.net writes:
JC> I've got it built for F9/rawhide, but since it looks like 1.4 JC> breaks saved game compatibility, I'm not sure I'm going to build JC> it for F-8.
I have always avoided breaking Nazghul saved games in stable Fedora releases, because the updates happen automatically and you don't want users being broken overnight because they happened to let an update happen.
I also work to make my upstream aware of this kind of thing, because in their mind you just don't build a newer version if you have a game in progress and that doesn't really mesh with how distros work. So far they've been receptive and helpful.
If someone really wants new features, I'm happy to give them a koji build they can install manually with the understanding that it breaks their games. But overnight breakage of existing games is right out.
- J<
01 Apr 2008 12:05:19 -0500, Jason L Tibbitts III tibbs@math.uh.edu:
I also work to make my upstream aware of this kind of thing, because in their mind you just don't build a newer version if you have a game in progress and that doesn't really mesh with how distros work. So far they've been receptive and helpful.
If someone really wants new features, I'm happy to give them a koji build they can install manually with the understanding that it breaks their games. But overnight breakage of existing games is right out.
Not in that case - average user wants network gaming but w/o this update it will be impossible AFAIK. So every player would need to get and install Koji build.
"JC" == Jon Ciesla limb@jcomserv.net writes:
JC> I've got it built for F9/rawhide, but since it looks like 1.4 JC> breaks saved game compatibility, I'm not sure I'm going to build JC> it for F-8.
I have always avoided breaking Nazghul saved games in stable Fedora releases, because the updates happen automatically and you don't want users being broken overnight because they happened to let an update happen.
I also work to make my upstream aware of this kind of thing, because in their mind you just don't build a newer version if you have a game in progress and that doesn't really mesh with how distros work. So far they've been receptive and helpful.
If someone really wants new features, I'm happy to give them a koji build they can install manually with the understanding that it breaks their games. But overnight breakage of existing games is right out.
Even to preserve other existing functionality, i.e. network play?
- J<
> "JC" == Jon Ciesla limb@jcomserv.net writes:
JC> I've got it built for F9/rawhide, but since it looks like 1.4 JC> breaks saved game compatibility, I'm not sure I'm going to build JC> it for F-8.
I have always avoided breaking Nazghul saved games in stable Fedora releases, because the updates happen automatically and you don't want users being broken overnight because they happened to let an update happen.
I also work to make my upstream aware of this kind of thing, because in their mind you just don't build a newer version if you have a game in progress and that doesn't really mesh with how distros work. So far they've been receptive and helpful.
If someone really wants new features, I'm happy to give them a koji build they can install manually with the understanding that it breaks their games. But overnight breakage of existing games is right out.
Even to preserve other existing functionality, i.e. network play?
FYI, it is now built in Koji, but I've not done a Bodhi update for it yet, so the kittens are safe.
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=44545
Can any regular players comment? And possibly d/l the koji build and test against their saved games? My assertion that 1.4 broke saved games is based on anecdotal evidence, not direct observation.
- J<
-- novus ordo absurdum
Jon Ciesla пишет:
>> "JC" == Jon Ciesla limb@jcomserv.net writes: >>
JC> I've got it built for F9/rawhide, but since it looks like 1.4 JC> breaks saved game compatibility, I'm not sure I'm going to build JC> it for F-8.
I have always avoided breaking Nazghul saved games in stable Fedora releases, because the updates happen automatically and you don't want users being broken overnight because they happened to let an update happen.
I also work to make my upstream aware of this kind of thing, because in their mind you just don't build a newer version if you have a game in progress and that doesn't really mesh with how distros work. So far they've been receptive and helpful.
If someone really wants new features, I'm happy to give them a koji build they can install manually with the understanding that it breaks their games. But overnight breakage of existing games is right out.
Even to preserve other existing functionality, i.e. network play?
FYI, it is now built in Koji, but I've not done a Bodhi update for it yet, so the kittens are safe.
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=44545
Can any regular players comment? And possibly d/l the koji build and test against their saved games? My assertion that 1.4 broke saved games is based on anecdotal evidence, not direct observation.
It's break old saves. Just tested.
- J<
-- novus ordo absurdum
I wanted to add some other notes to this thread since there was at least some hint of back porting. First is that there was some discussion a while back that Wesnoth should try to put out major stable releases about every 6 months instead of about every year. This means the save game versus network play issues are going to be coming up more often.
Another thing to note is that the wesnoth build system has a way to override the preferences directory (that includes saved games) so that you can reasonably have multiple versions installed at the same time that don't conflict. I do this since I do a lot of build testing with typically the last stable release tree and trunk. (Though recently I have separate installs for testing automake builds and scons builds separately.)
While I don't know if the current maintainer would want to do this, but it certainly be possible for the maintainer to use versioned install locations and preference locations, so that players could finish up their existing games with the older version while still being able to play multiplayer games with the current version.
I am personally disappointed that we would avoid upgrading wesnoth in order to maintain saved game compatibility. I believe that maintaining the ability to play on the network is more important.
This also brings up a few new problems:
1) What about security maintenance? A security hole could be found in 1.2.8 either client or server. Will upstream continue to maintain that version? If so, for how long?
2) It was suggested in the bodhi ticket that users of older distributions should use a manual 3rd party repository in order to obtain a newer save-game incompatible version of wesnoth. This method seems undesirable to me for a number of additional reasons (guaranteeing that users of this repo actually get updates, security considerations).
3) Keeping Fedora versions on older wesnoth releases might be less of a problem due to the only ~13 month lifecycle. But what about wesnoth in EPEL? Big can of worms.
4) Downloadable content (maps, campaigns, etc.) for the older version became abandoned and more scarce as 1.4.x supplanted 1.2.x. New wesnoth users in the coming months will be increasingly frustrated that content they see on the websites/forums do not match what is available/usable in Fedora. This increases the perception that Fedora is not properly maintaining wesnoth, and perhaps you want to use another distro instead.
There are a number of difficult drawbacks and hoops we have to jump through if we refuse to upgrade wesnoth to the latest stable as a matter of policy. Is this refusal worth these many drawbacks?
Perhaps we should upgrade wesnoth to the latest stable, and provide the current older version *somewhere else* unsupported in case people want to play their older save games. The release notes of the update and elsewhere (wesnoth.org and fedora wiki) can mention how to downgrade and avoid yum upgrades.
I realize this is a balancing act, but the reasons against upgrading are in the minority compared to the benefits both short and long-term.
Warren Togami wtogami@redhat.com
Warren Togami <wtogami@...> writes:
I am personally disappointed that we would avoid upgrading wesnoth in order to maintain saved game compatibility. I believe that maintaining the ability to play on the network is more important.
There are still servers for 1.2, and in fact you automatically get redirected to one when you try connecting to the default server with a 1.2.x version. (I tried it a few hours ago.) There are few people on it, that's sure. But the server does exist.
- What about security maintenance? A security hole could be found in
1.2.8 either client or server. Will upstream continue to maintain that version? If so, for how long?
That's a good question. On the other hand, security fixes can be backported, and there might even be other people (e.g. Debian) doing the work for us.
- It was suggested in the bodhi ticket that users of older
distributions should use a manual 3rd party repository in order to obtain a newer save-game incompatible version of wesnoth. This method seems undesirable to me for a number of additional reasons (guaranteeing that users of this repo actually get updates, security considerations).
To me, it looks like the best solution. There are arguments both for upgrading to 1.4 and for keeping 1.2. If there's a repository on e.g. fedorapeople.org with 1.4, it allows users to make an informed choice.
And of course, there's also the option to upgrade to Fedora 9 which is around the corner, though that may be undesirable for other reasons, which is the point of a backport repository.
- Keeping Fedora versions on older wesnoth releases might be less of a
problem due to the only ~13 month lifecycle. But what about wesnoth in EPEL? Big can of worms.
You have to be even more careful with upgrading things in EPEL. People who use an enterprise distribution really don't want the software to break things under them.
- Downloadable content (maps, campaigns, etc.) for the older version
became abandoned and more scarce as 1.4.x supplanted 1.2.x. New wesnoth users in the coming months will be increasingly frustrated that content they see on the websites/forums do not match what is available/usable in Fedora. This increases the perception that Fedora is not properly maintaining wesnoth, and perhaps you want to use another distro instead.
On the other hand, there's a lot of existing content for 1.2 which users may have already downloaded and which will break with the upgrade. Not only the savegames are backwards-incompatible, but also all the downloaded content. And there isn't even always a 1.4 version available (and even if that was the case, redownloading dozens of addons is a PITA).
There are a number of difficult drawbacks and hoops we have to jump through if we refuse to upgrade wesnoth to the latest stable as a matter of policy. Is this refusal worth these many drawbacks?
This isn't just a matter of policy. Breaking savegames in an update to a stable distribution isn't something to be taken lightly. Sure, if you primarily play multiplayer, you'll want to always have the latest version because that's what most people on the multiplayer servers will be running, but if you primarily play campaigns, you really don't want an automated upgrade breaking all your savegames and all the third-party campaigns you had installed! Campaigns are something you can be playing for weeks. Wesnoth isn't just a multiplayer client!
Perhaps we should upgrade wesnoth to the latest stable, and provide the current older version *somewhere else* unsupported in case people want to play their older save games. The release notes of the update and elsewhere (wesnoth.org and fedora wiki) can mention how to downgrade and avoid yum upgrades.
Upgrading by default and providing the older version elsewhere is only feasible if they can be installed in parallel and if the new version is changed to use a versioned data directory so the existing savefiles will work with the compat package. Or at the very least the older version provided elsewhere has to use a higher Epoch than the official package, but IMHO that's an ugly hack.
You can't really expect end users to: 1. manually downgrade a package and 2. manually exclude the package from upgrades.
I realize this is a balancing act, but the reasons against upgrading are in the minority compared to the benefits both short and long-term.
I disagree, for reasons explained above (Wesnoth isn't only networked multiplayer).
I'm usually in favor of upgrading applications to the latest versions (I like how Fedora usually does that) unless there's a good reason not to, but IMHO game upgrades which break savegame compatibility are such a good reason, and in this case, there's also the issue of downloadable content. It's not like Fedora 9 is so far away.
Kevin Kofler
Warren Togami <wtogami@...> writes:
I am personally disappointed that we would avoid upgrading wesnoth in order to maintain saved game compatibility. I believe that maintaining the ability to play on the network is more important.
There are still servers for 1.2, and in fact you automatically get redirected to one when you try connecting to the default server with a 1.2.x version. (I tried it a few hours ago.) There are few people on it, that's sure. But the server does exist.
- What about security maintenance? A security hole could be found in
1.2.8 either client or server. Will upstream continue to maintain that version? If so, for how long?
That's a good question. On the other hand, security fixes can be backported, and there might even be other people (e.g. Debian) doing the work for us.
- It was suggested in the bodhi ticket that users of older
distributions should use a manual 3rd party repository in order to obtain a newer save-game incompatible version of wesnoth. This method seems undesirable to me for a number of additional reasons (guaranteeing that users of this repo actually get updates, security considerations).
To me, it looks like the best solution. There are arguments both for upgrading to 1.4 and for keeping 1.2. If there's a repository on e.g. fedorapeople.org with 1.4, it allows users to make an informed choice.
And of course, there's also the option to upgrade to Fedora 9 which is around the corner, though that may be undesirable for other reasons, which is the point of a backport repository.
- Keeping Fedora versions on older wesnoth releases might be less of a
problem due to the only ~13 month lifecycle. But what about wesnoth in EPEL? Big can of worms.
You have to be even more careful with upgrading things in EPEL. People who use an enterprise distribution really don't want the software to break things under them.
- Downloadable content (maps, campaigns, etc.) for the older version
became abandoned and more scarce as 1.4.x supplanted 1.2.x. New wesnoth users in the coming months will be increasingly frustrated that content they see on the websites/forums do not match what is available/usable in Fedora. This increases the perception that Fedora is not properly maintaining wesnoth, and perhaps you want to use another distro instead.
On the other hand, there's a lot of existing content for 1.2 which users may have already downloaded and which will break with the upgrade. Not only the savegames are backwards-incompatible, but also all the downloaded content. And there isn't even always a 1.4 version available (and even if that was the case, redownloading dozens of addons is a PITA).
There are a number of difficult drawbacks and hoops we have to jump through if we refuse to upgrade wesnoth to the latest stable as a matter of policy. Is this refusal worth these many drawbacks?
This isn't just a matter of policy. Breaking savegames in an update to a stable distribution isn't something to be taken lightly. Sure, if you primarily play multiplayer, you'll want to always have the latest version because that's what most people on the multiplayer servers will be running, but if you primarily play campaigns, you really don't want an automated upgrade breaking all your savegames and all the third-party campaigns you had installed! Campaigns are something you can be playing for weeks. Wesnoth isn't just a multiplayer client!
Perhaps we should upgrade wesnoth to the latest stable, and provide the current older version *somewhere else* unsupported in case people want to play their older save games. The release notes of the update and elsewhere (wesnoth.org and fedora wiki) can mention how to downgrade and avoid yum upgrades.
Upgrading by default and providing the older version elsewhere is only feasible if they can be installed in parallel and if the new version is changed to use a versioned data directory so the existing savefiles will work with the compat package. Or at the very least the older version provided elsewhere has to use a higher Epoch than the official package, but IMHO that's an ugly hack.
You can't really expect end users to:
- manually downgrade a package and
- manually exclude the package from upgrades.
I realize this is a balancing act, but the reasons against upgrading are in the minority compared to the benefits both short and long-term.
I disagree, for reasons explained above (Wesnoth isn't only networked multiplayer).
I'm usually in favor of upgrading applications to the latest versions (I like how Fedora usually does that) unless there's a good reason not to, but IMHO game upgrades which break savegame compatibility are such a good reason, and in this case, there's also the issue of downloadable content. It's not like Fedora 9 is so far away.
I've been asked by multiple parties off-list in the past weeks, including Warren, to upgrade F-8 to 1.4. Warren has also asked for F-7. I also feel that F-9 is not far off (though now moreso). As a former SimCity 2000 player with a city over 5 million people, I understand the value of saved games. I see from poking around that upstream intends to break savegame compatibility again for 1.6, though possibly for the last time.
There really is no good answer here. I, like Warren, love that Fedora is usually the (b)leading edge of FLOSS software, especially games. I also, like Kevin, loathe the idea of breaking anything for users without a really compelling reason. I've found no way to convert a 1.2 save to a 1.4 save, and it sounds like in the larger group of Wesnoth players, inside and outside of Fedora, there is equal division between those wanting to keep compatibility and those wanting to move forward.
I've been mulling over the best way to handle this in the last few days, and I'm leaning toward a repo on fp.o for 1.4 for F-8. I can take the koji builds for F-8, create a repo and an rpm for it, rsync it to fp.o, and place a link to the whole business to my wiki page and send something to f-announce.
A bad solution, but, I think, the one most satisfying whilst endangering the fewest kittens.
Thoughts?
Kevin Kofler
Fedora-games-list mailing list Fedora-games-list@redhat.com http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-games-list
On Mon, 2008-04-21 at 09:05 -0500, Jon Ciesla wrote:
A bad solution, but, I think, the one most satisfying whilst endangering the fewest kittens.
Thoughts?
I think this is a situation where we have to bite the bullet and maintain multiple parallel installable versions.
Callum Lerwick seg@haxxed.com writes:
I think this is a situation where we have to bite the bullet and maintain multiple parallel installable versions.
I really don't think there will be many users who need BOTH savegame compatibility with 1.2 AND multiplayer 1.4. IMHO the people who need multiplayer in Fedora 8 should just yum --enablerepo=development upgrade wesnoth. Similarly, users who need 1.2-compatibility in Fedora 9 should install the Fedora 8 package. I just checked, and there aren't any dependencies which could make this a serious problem.
Multiple parallel installations invariably go wrong somehow. unison is the latest example of that.
/Benny
"JC" == Jon Ciesla limb@jcomserv.net writes:
JC> Even to preserve other existing functionality, i.e. network play?
Yes, because that functionality doesn't break due to the fact that an update was pushed. I feel that taking an affirmative action to break things is worse than taking no action and having other things broken.
If you like, push an update that, when started, opens a dialog explaining the situation. It is also theoretically possible to push a wesnoth14 package which users could install after removing the existing package, but that gets a bit complicated and isn't really pleasant.
- J<
"JC" == Jon Ciesla limb@jcomserv.net writes:
JC> Even to preserve other existing functionality, i.e. network play?
Yes, because that functionality doesn't break due to the fact that an update was pushed. I feel that taking an affirmative action to break things is worse than taking no action and having other things broken.
If you like, push an update that, when started, opens a dialog explaining the situation. It is also theoretically possible to push a wesnoth14 package which users could install after removing the existing package, but that gets a bit complicated and isn't really pleasant.
So it'd be preferable to leave it in rawhide, add something to the release notes for F9, and call it done?
- J<
"JC" == Jon Ciesla limb@jcomserv.net writes:
JC> So it'd be preferable to leave it in rawhide, add something to the JC> release notes for F9, and call it done?
Well, remember that this is my personal opinion, molded by experiences with one of my packages. You as the maintainer need to weigh all of the issues; how much harm is done when a save game is invalidated? In my case, users could have played for weeks. If you lose a save of a single Wesnoth battle then there might not be such a significant problem.
You definitely want to get the new version into F9, though. My upstream asked me to push a CVS snapshot just to get the save-breaking changes out previous to F9.
- J<
"JC" == Jon Ciesla limb@jcomserv.net writes:
JC> So it'd be preferable to leave it in rawhide, add something to the JC> release notes for F9, and call it done?
Well, remember that this is my personal opinion, molded by experiences with one of my packages. You as the maintainer need to weigh all of the issues; how much harm is done when a save game is invalidated? In my case, users could have played for weeks. If you lose a save of a single Wesnoth battle then there might not be such a significant problem.
True. Thinking back to my heavier gaming days, if I'd suddenly lost my city in SimCity 2000, there would have been blood.
You definitely want to get the new version into F9, though. My upstream asked me to push a CVS snapshot just to get the save-breaking changes out previous to F9.
It's already in F9. I'll think I'll just add something to the F9 release notes, and leave the koji build for F8 to succumb to eventual garbage collection.
Thanks everyone for the input!
- J<
-
Artiom Diomin -
Benny Amorsen -
Bruno Wolff III -
Callum Lerwick -
Gain Paolo Mureddu -
Jason L Tibbitts III -
Jon Ciesla -
Kevin Kofler -
Nicu Buculei -
Peter Lemenkov -
Warren Togami