Experimental binary release - thoughts?

[jamespetts]

As regulars of the forum may know, I have in the last month or so produced a number of patches for the code that are designed to have a substantial effect on gameplay. They have not yet been incorporated into the trunk, and are thus currently only available to those who want to and are able to compile the code themselves. I thought that it might be helpful if I released all of my changes to the code in a single experimental release, both as a single code patch for those who still want to compile, and as a binary for those who are not in a position to do so, to enable people to play-test the new features to see whether they work well in practice. It would also help Pakset authors who are not interested in compiling code to produce assets compatible with the new code patches, and test them in game.

Some thought would have to be given to the name of the experimental release, since the Artistic Licence under which Simutrans is released provides,

...The Modified Version must bear a name that is different from the name of the Standard Version.

I had thought of using the name "Simutrans Experimental" (Linux name: simutrans-experimental), but I thought that I should ask whether the current developers have any objection to that before I do so, and also whether there are any particular licensing concerns that anyone has about my proposed distribution method (modified binary executable file and a single patch file for the code). I should also be interested in any general feedback about the idea.

[z9999]

And also containing your test savegames and new tilting vehicle's pak are welcome.

[ansgar]

Hi,

The Artistic License does only require you to rename the executables if you do not meet one of the other conditions (e.g. by allowing the Copyright Holder to include your modifications in the Standard Version of the Package).  I do not think it is worth the effort unless one of the developers insists on this.

The Debian packages also have several small patches and no renamed binaries.  So far nobody has complained

Also note that Simutrans is released under the Artistic License 1.0 (at least that one is included in simutrans/license.txt) and not version 2.0.

Ansgar

[jamespetts]

And also containing your test savegames and new tilting vehicle's pak are welcome.

Yes, indeed, when such things exist :-) I am currently in talks with the developers of PakBritain for them to make the next version of that pakset compatible with the experimental version of Simutrans on which I am working (without making it incompatible with the main version), so there should, at least, be a pakset optimised for the experimental version available for full testing.

And Ansgar - thank you for your information :-)

Edit: Further thoughts on the licence agreement: version 1.0 of the Artistic Licence contains this clause:

8. The name of the Copyright Holder may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

It is, unfortunately, a little ambiguous. Presumably, none of the developers will object if I leave their name in its rightful place in the credits? Also, it seems, as Ansgar stated, that renaming is not necessary provided that I do one of a number of things, including:

a) place your modifications in the Public Domain or otherwise make them Freely Available, such as by posting said modifications to Usenet or an equivalent medium, or placing the modifications on a major archive site such as ftp.uu.net, or by allowing the Copyright Holder to include your modifications in the Standard Version of the Package.

and, for binaries,

b) accompany the distribution with the machine-readable source of the Package with your modifications.

Would any of the developers not be satisfied that either this forum or the Simutrans files site was an "equivalent medium" for the purpose of clause 3(a)?

[wernieman]

If you want, I could make your simutrans on the nightly-build-Server. But .. it would be make by hand, so I need time (1 week) and it will not be very often!

So ... 1 big patch is easyer vor me ... but for yiu, there could be many bugs ;o)

[jamespetts]

Wernieman,

I am not sure that I quite understand what you are suggesting (although thank you for your offer, whatever it is...). Can I ask you to clarify?

[Dwachs]

He is offering to build a patched simutrans for you on his nightly-server.

[jamespetts]

Dwachs,

thank you for interpreting. In which case, Wernieman, that's very kind - when it's ready, I think that I'll take you up on that :-)

[Spike]

... version 1.0 of the Artistic Licence contains this clause:

It is, unfortunately, a little ambiguous. Presumably, none of the developers will object if I leave their name in its rightful place in the credits?

You are free do make your own versions of Simutrans. At the current state of the project I'd even encourage this.

I think a good strategy will be to tell something along the lines of "Simutrans Experimental by James Petts, based on Simutrans, 1997-2005 (C) Hj. Malthaner, 2005-2009 maintained by Markus Pristovsek and the Simutrans team."

This will tell:

- It's not the original release and you are responsible for this special release.
- It's not entirely your work, but based on former work.
- It will tell the names of the people responsible for the former work.

I assume the wording needs be honed a bit, but I think you get the idea.

[wernieman]

thanks to Dwachs ....  that I whant to say ...

But ... there is no automatism for this, so I don´t make very often a new Version ....

[jamespetts]

Hajo,

thank you for your thoughts :-) I will probably do something like that.

Wernieman,

ahh, I see what you mean now. Yes, that would be very kind, even if the releases were infrequent. That would at least let people with Linux, for example, have a release, even if I don't set up cross-compilation support (and I don't even know how to do that at present).

[wernieman]

cross-compiler for Linux->Windows (Compiling on Linux for Windows) is easy ... if you need help ;o) I can give you ..

cross-compiler for Linux->Mac ... I don't get to run  :'(

[jamespetts]

Ahh, I'd need cross compilation the other way around - on Windows for Linux.