Future AGS development

[Iliya]

I would buy AGS. If it goes commercial, I'll buy it.

[AGD2]

Just gotta say that I'd also be more than willing to pay for AGS updates, regardless of whether it'd be a once-off payment, or an ongoing subscription fee for each new version released.

In consideration of all the great free work CJ has done on AGS over the years, I'd actually feel better about reciprocating in a financial sense if this would enable him to keep working on engine improvements in a timely fashion as well as keeping it "closed source", if that's his preference.

But again, I'm good with whatever decision is made.

[Wonkyth]

Even though I agree with Calin that this is purely academical, I would pay for it, despite very limited funds, as I believe this is a project that is worth supporting wherever it may go.

[abstauber]

From the faqs:
Q: Why don't you want people to register?
A: I'm not in this to make money, I'm in this to do my bit to help revive the 2D adventure genre.

Q: Won't you at least accept a donation?
A: If a future situation was to leave me in financial hardship, I would consider accepting donations. However, for now, I have a full-time job and it's not an issue.


I'm sure time is a bigger issue than money here, so please start a poll for deciding whether to pay or not

[Dualnames]

Are we yet on the war that was caused by AGS topic?

Why is everyone constantly saying random things expressing their fears and doubts, when CJ has actually told on his first post, exactly the direction he'll be somewhat taking?

We're all concerned about the course of actions CJ will take, but suggesting over imaginary things without actual actions happening is just really silly. Calm down, and take a walk on the wild side.

We're all here to support him and his actions. So for once let the man step down and do something that at this point we all rather agree is a positive step in AGS development.

Ahem.

Can we stay on topic. Really.
This started from open-source to panels to commercial. So I'm starting the next part. Akira and AGS. Yes, akira the movie. The anime one.

[Sslaxx]

Are we yet on the war that was caused by AGS topic?

Why is everyone constantly saying random things expressing their fears and doubts, when CJ has actually told on his first post, exactly the direction he'll be somewhat taking?

We're all concerned about the course of actions CJ will take, but suggesting over imaginary things without actual actions happening is just really silly. Calm down, and take a walk on the wild side.

We're all here to support him and his actions. So for once let the man step down and do something that at this point we all rather agree is a positive step in AGS development.

Ahem.

Can we stay on topic. Really.
This started from open-source to panels to commercial. So I'm starting the next part. Akira and AGS. Yes, akira the movie. The anime one.

The topic is the future of AGS. Discussion about what form AGS's development should take in the future - from open source to commercial - is therefore valid. This thread doesn't look like it's gone off-topic from here.

[Dualnames]

The topic isn't that. If you say the first topic Chris asks feedback on the course of action he's thinking. I mean yeah its fun to stray off, but we're missing a point.

[Iliya]

I'm changing my opinion from "I would buy AGS. If it goes commercial, I'll buy it." to "I WANT AGS to go commercial. I'll buy it.".

[Denzil Quixode]

I don't want AGS to go commercial, but I'd still buy it.

[FSi++]

I don't want AGS to go commercial, and I won't buy it.

[Iliya]

CJ: "So, over the last year or so it has been becoming increasingly clear that I no longer have the time to maintain and improve AGS"

The time is the problem... and when the time is a problem.. it's a real problem. In some cases the time problem can be solved with "giong commercial"...

[Dux]

CJ: "So, over the last year or so it has been becoming increasingly clear that I no longer have the time to maintain and improve AGS"

The time is the problem... and when the time is a problem.. it's a real problem. In some cases the time problem can be solved with "giong commercial"...

Unless you already have a fulltime job your satisfied with, and which pays more, which seems to be the case here.

Edit: I´d like to suggest a middle-road alternative. Appoint a panel and get them accustomed to the engine. Once Chris feels the engine is in good hands, then release the source code and invite others to contribute.

[Iliya]

CJ: "So, over the last year or so it has been becoming increasingly clear that I no longer have the time to maintain and improve AGS"

The time is the problem... and when the time is a problem.. it's a real problem. In some cases the time problem can be solved with "giong commercial"...

Unless you already have a fulltime job your satisfied with, and which pays more, which seems to be the case here.

I'm saying "in some cases"... cause I don't know the financial state of CJ...

[Sslaxx]

Needs of the developer versus the needs of the community.

The developer is lacking time and motivation to continue to develop AGS as it is. Whatever course of action he wants to take has to take into consideration the existing community and the effects his decision will ultimately have upon it.

Assuming that AGS development as-was can no longer continue.

"AGS is cancelled" - one person (at least) appears to support this. While NWN1 and Morrowind have not been commercially sold or supported for several years now, they still have reasonably active communities. But the games are aging, and compatibility is increasingly an issue - Windows 7, for example, has known issues with both games. An AGS that is no longer developed or supported might not necessarily have the community to ensure its survival. And even if it does, eventually it will begin to hit the same issues older games are having with modern operating systems (as indeed it already has with the old DOS versions). Unlike AGS, Morrowind's file formats are at least well documented enough to allow at least one open source project to exist with the aim of allowing the game to be playable on modern/future OSes (and perhaps more). An OpenAGS on this basis could still be created though, but it would take more time to reverse-engineer the existing file formats. Either that, or (more likely) something else would take its place.

AGS as open-development (not open source) - Inform 7 broadly follows this model. It is still, ultimately, under the control of Graham Nelson (and the code for the compiler is closed source), but there are also a team of developers, working on the UIs (which are open source), standard libraries etc. This might be the best compromise concerning Chris's mistrust of open source licenses and loss of control. This would allow the community to be more broadly involved with the project. It might require decoupling of the compiler from the editor (to help allay Chris's concerns regarding file formats) if open-sourcing the editor was to be considered - this would have the side-effect of making the editor more cross-platform (with the proviso that Chris could or would supply (or allow to be supplied) compilers for those platforms).

AGS as open source - this would require careful planning with regards to licensing. It would have to be fairly conservative with regards to permissions granted, in order for Chris to retain overall control. A copyright assignment agreement might help allay any fears here. The file format issue would have to be addressed as well, perhaps even more importantly from Chris's perspective. The GPL might be considered by Chris to be too liberal in this regard - the LGPL might be acceptable. Any licensing along open source lines would have to take into account the licensing agreements for any third-party software or libraries used by AGS, and issues caused if they would need to be replaced. As with open development, this would allow the community to be more actively involved in AGS's development - perhaps more than Chris would like, as the issue of code forking would exist (although code forks are not necessarily bad, viz EGCS-versus-GCC, XFree-versus-XOrg etc).

AGS as commercial - this, along with AGS as open-development, appears to have the broadest support (at least in this thread). It also has the potential to damage the community the most - at least one person has indicated they would not use AGS if they had to pay for it. There may be a feeling of "second class citizen" if there are (older/more restricted) free versus (certain platforms available only via/newest version) commercial edition issues - certainly, any commercial issues would get the lions share of support/development. Depending on Chris's circumstances, this still may not fix the time issue (even if it would fix the motivation issue), although it might allow Chris the opportunity to hire paid developers - on the (very important) proviso that it would be financially viable to do so (or indeed, any of this).

[homelightgames]

After rereading Chris' original post, the most preferred option would be to have an assistant, which I'd agree probably isn't very feasible unless financial incentives were involved.
But in the spirit of that, as has already been suggested, I'd say the next best thing would be to release the code to a panel/group of dedicated programmers who are all motivated to move AGS forward.  I'm not sure how realistic/feasible this is either, but spreading out the load in a controlled environment sounds like it would be the most similar to having a single assistant, without involving money.  IE instead of recruiting one assistant with limited amount of time, recruiting multiple assistants with limited amounts of time.

In my opinion, I'd say that is the best way to go to best progress AGS with Chris' vision.

[Mehrdad]

If it goes commercial, I can not buy it.because my country is boycott economic(Iran).
and we can't buy anything from internet.

CJ.please dont commerical for AGS.I Love AGS and this community.
AGS is excellent free software for me.I really dont want leave it..... :'(

[RickJ]

@Visionmind:  I have also went back and read the original post and agree with much of what you say.   

To expand upon the "panel" and "controlled environment" a bit...  I would characterize the panel as being made up of community volunteers rather than an elite selected group.   The controlled environment would mean that CJ remains our fearless leader and mentor and that there is an orderly process by which contributions are included in the official release.

I would think the challenge is to bring enough people up to speed so that they would be able to help each other rather than depending upon CJ to answer everyone's questions.   Someone asked "What negative is there with going whole hog open source?" and perhaps the answer is that if widely announced it would attract multitudes of developers with multitudes of questions, ideas, etc.   A good problem to have in the long run but hardly a solution to CJ's current time problem.     

A good question to ask is "Is the editor source code sufficently modular and organized so as to facillitate parallel development by multiple developers or would some refactoring be helpful and a good first step in this process?".   How can AGS be seperated into relatively independent parts?   For example, just to get an idea of what I'm talkling about, something along the lines of ...

- User Interface
- Language/Compiler
- Resource Handling
- File/Project management
- Runtime/Target Selection

IMHO, there would be no point to recruit mulitple developers if they are not able to work in parallel.  At one point in time DemoQuest used a serial development model where one developer took the files, added their contribution, and then passed them on to the next developer.   It's my understanding this didn't work out as well as hoped.  So I think this ought to be the first order of business should this prcess go forward.   This could be the first task taken on by the volunteer staff?

Hope this is helpful.

[edmundito]

Whoah I just found out about this! I blame SSH's vacation and not updating the blog til know! (j/k <3 SSH)

Anyway, my two cents:

Well, you definitely have a few options out there. I'm certainly impressed that you've worked on this for 10 years on your own, with the help of quite a few running the community. There is an amount of great things from AGS that would benefit a community. I think one of the strongest points has been the very full-featured editor that comes with it. Opening up those tools would not only help them stay fresh, but it might help others with their game creation process too, beyond making adventure games (making tools is tedious for the rest of us... I'd be about borrowing them.

Fully opening up the engine could definitely lead to some great things:
- Current Mac runtime support
- New devices (pads, pods, phones... you know, that wave of the future stuff)
- More robust editors
- Better, faster, stronger

This could be an interesting phase for AGS, although a dangerous start, too. I'd say... have a simple plan. You could open up some of the portions of the engine as you mentioned and then keep the compilation of the scripts and assets your trade secret (similar to the Webkit project). You should also scout for some people you'd trust to help you keep AGS awesome or to a good vision. Maybe early development is slow, like just getting a flow for people just fixing bugs rather than adding features to the engine until you find the right people for the job, then the road for 4.0 can continue. Luckily I feel the engine for what it needs to do is pretty robust as it is, so you should take your time for the next step.

[Knox]

I would suggest you get some dedicated programmers to help you fix bugs and add features...and if you need money to get that done, start charging...or atleast accept donations to help pay for programmers? Id pay for AGS + updates...I love this program, and the community!

Just dont let it die 

[Dualnames]

I have to agree with well all of you. I'd totally pay for AGS, and I'm sure that even donations would work great. Perhaps something bonus for people donating? Anyhow, what knox and Edmundito said.

Take AGS and make it:

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.