Release early, release often

Discussion about the project in general, organization, website, or any other details that aren't directly about the game.
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xahodo
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Release early, release often

#1 Post by xahodo »

Why not follow this principle in the release progression of freeorion?

This allows for all those that don't have access to the source code to participate in development by helping out with scripting, graphics and sound and they can quickly see the results of their work in the next release.

It's ok to not have awaited feature X in the next release, as long as there are some changes of benefit (bugfixes, performance improvements, perhaps some other features) in there. Releasing often (say monthly) also makes sure website visitors are less likely to think the project is dead.

I guess that when you release more often, the project will attract more people interested in contributing.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Release early, release often

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »


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Oberlus
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Re: Release early, release often

#3 Post by Oberlus »

xahodo wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 4:57 pmThis allows for all those that don't have access to the source code to participate in development by helping out with scripting, graphics and sound and they can quickly see the results of their work in the next release.
FreeOrion is opensource, everybody has access to the source code, can copy it and modify it as they like and instantly see the results of their work (at least on their local machine).
Even if "all those that don't have access to the source code" means "all those that doesn't have programming skills" and with "helping out with scripting, graphics and sound" you mean contributing to the only-FOCS, visual and sound (art) content, then there is another obstacle to overcome: to contribute with any kind of content (C++ related or not) to the actual project, you need to sent PRs (Pull Requests) to the FreeOrion GitHub repository. Otherwise, you'd be expecting current developers to "quickly" take care of others proposals, introduce them in the game, test they are correct, merge them into the main (master) project... and they are already busy working on the main features of the game and bugfixes.
If anyone has the will to contribute, s/he should consider learning some git/github.

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Vezzra
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Re: Release early, release often

#4 Post by Vezzra »

xahodo wrote: Fri Jan 18, 2019 4:57 pmWhy not follow this principle in the release progression of freeorion?
Depends on what you're talking about - stable releases or just providing reasonably current pre-built packages?
This allows for all those that don't have access to the source code to participate in development by helping out with scripting, graphics and sound and they can quickly see the results of their work in the next release.
Well, as has been already pointed out, for that purpose the weekly test builds are your friend. ;)

If, however, you're talking about stable releases: because making a stable release is a lot of additional work we simply do not have the manpower for to do it more often. Stable releases, as the name implies, require more thorough testing and polishing than simple test builds (which often can be quite broken). That takes considerable time and effort.

o01eg
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Re: Release early, release often

#5 Post by o01eg »

Compared to freeciv freeorion is released quite often:
  • 2.4 - 2013-09-14
  • 2.5 - 2015-03-14
  • 2.6 - 2018-07-21
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EricF
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Re: Release early, release often

#6 Post by EricF »

Bad comparison, sorry. FreeCiv is a completed game. FreeOrion is still in Alpha.

xahodo
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Re: Release early, release often

#7 Post by xahodo »

What I mean is releases, not per definition stable releases.

Have, for example, nightly builds on the website. This way people can see the project is still alive. That's a lot better then having to visit the forums (something most visitors of the website don't do).

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Oberlus
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Re: Release early, release often

#8 Post by Oberlus »

The URL for test (nightly) releases is https://sourceforge.net/projects/freeorion/
Users that don't visit the forum can go there to get the latest.
Maybe, if that address isn't included in the FreeOrion project website it should.

If you mean having nightly releases on the repositories of Linux distributions like Debian, Ubuntu, etc. That won't happen, at least until FreeOrion gets to a more complete version. The workforce needed for that is better invested on the development of the project.

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Re: Release early, release often

#9 Post by o01eg »

Oberlus wrote: Tue Jan 22, 2019 7:26 am If you mean having nightly releases on the repositories of Linux distributions like Debian, Ubuntu, etc. That won't happen, at least until FreeOrion gets to a more complete version. The workforce needed for that is better invested on the development of the project.
Not sure about Debian but for Ubuntu it possible to have a PPA: https://freeorion.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10942
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Oberlus
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Re: Release early, release often

#10 Post by Oberlus »

I was referring to packages in the official repositories, but PPAs are also great. It is not announced at www.freeorion.org, right? Maybe it should.

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Vezzra
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Re: Release early, release often

#11 Post by Vezzra »

xahodo wrote: Mon Jan 21, 2019 7:12 pmHave, for example, nightly builds on the website. This way people can see the project is still alive. That's a lot better then having to visit the forums (something most visitors of the website don't do).
Well, there is a link on the FO homepage to the weekly test builds, which should fit the bill. We don't have nightly builds though, mainly because I don't know how to set up an automated build system. And I don't have the time to provide test builds on a daily basis, weekly is the best I can do.

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