Templates distribution process

[Crimson Wizard]

So, there is this problem which I need an advice (and possibly help too) with.

We ship number of game templates along with AGS Editor. When we upgrade Editor, some templates may refuse to compile and need certain fixes (like switching backward compatibility option, or renaming script functions).

How do I organize this process?
Should I report this in the template thread and wait until template maintainer fixes it? What if they never do that - should I remove template from the package to let users download templates on their own if they want to go with the trouble fixing it themselves?

The worst thing is that I am already so overwhelmed with various tasks, that I keep forgetting things. The templates are not part of the Editor nor engine, they are contributions by other people, so I am logically not the one who should be caring about these. While I am trying to ensure that there is always a compatibility switch, and sometimes even make Editor turn this switch automatically if it loads an old game project/template, that does not always work (for example, currently we are lacking a proper script API version selector, so there is no way to fine-tune the version of script functions game is using).

[Billbis]

Here my humble opinions:

• We could start by only including with AGS templates with a clear Open Source licence that allows anyone to update it. That way we won't have remorse if anyone (i.e. not the author) is updating it to keep it up to date. So we could start by asking the remaining active template authors to choose a licence for their template.
• I also think *default* templates are part of the editor, and should be in the editor repository. It is really an awful idea to bundle default templates that do not compile with editor/engine they come with. Making sure every default template do compile could also be part of the automatic AGS code test, if those tests are still in the loop.
• Keeping an independent repository of available template is also a superb idea, but it takes time to manage it.
• Many AGS users are not C++/C# wizards, but are completely capable to edit an AGS template, so I expect finding volunteers to update templates will be much easier than finding volunteer to maintain the editor/engine code. So it is mostly about gathering a few motivated volunteers and keep them informed of what are the needs, using either a issue tracker, a mailing list, a wiki page or even a forum topic.

[Crimson Wizard]

One thing that we should certainly do is not accept any new templates or even template version upgrade unless at least several users confirmed that it worked for their game...