[ubuntu-us-ma] Ubuntu Gaming Team

[Scott Kitterman]

First, apologies for the off topic cross-posting to many lists, but it was
really hard for me to tell which one to drop.

> In recognition of the value of FOSS gaming, the Ubuntu Gaming Team has
> been
> formed of mutual benefit to Ubuntu and FOSS gaming. As of today, the team
> is
> now open for anyone to join and participate in. Working towards improving
> FOSS games and developing its community will turn a significant barrier
> against Ubuntu adoption into an appealing reason to switch.
>
> The Ubuntu Gaming Team will work to address the obstacles hindering growth
> in FOSS gaming such as the need for effective distributed content
> management
> or significant investment in free content development in order to promote
> FOSS gaming through Ubuntu and Ubuntu through FOSS gaming. New ideas are
> encouraged and appreciated.

I appreciate the enthusiasm, but with your choice of names is going to
cause problems.  First, while an effort like you are describing might
benefit Ubuntu, it is not about doing anything within Ubuntu (the distro),
it seems to be about trying to leverage the Ubuntu community towards a
goal.

As it happens, Ubuntu (the distro) already has a team that works with
Debian on packaging FOSS games for Debian and Ubuntu.  This team is the
Debian Games team.  Based on the first reply to your message, you've
already created a point of confusion.  Ubuntu (the distro) doesn't need a
team to cooperate with the Debian games team as it is already a joint
Debian/Ubuntu team (this isn't the only case of this - another example is
the pkg-clamav team that works on packaging clamav and related packages).

I would encourage you to reconsider your choice of names and select one
that isn't going to cause confusion.

> FOSS gaming is important to Ubuntu as a lack of quality games is one of
> the
> most cited reasons preventing users from switching from Windows. Gamers,
> who
> currently feed off of the proprietary software model, represent a large
> and
> valuable user base. They will not even begin to gradually migrate to
> Ubuntu
> until their needs are met. They are very capable of understanding the
> ideological and technical benefits of using a free operating system like
> Ubuntu, and are often interested in switching, but higher value is placed
> on
> high quality gaming and the entire demographic will not budge until the
> pragmatic advantages of open source actualize through FOSS gaming.
>
> The team is dedicated to FOSS gaming, and will not push for commercial
> games
>  on Linux as significant effort is already put into the development of
> Wine
> and pressuring video game publishers to port their work to Linux. Once
> FOSS
> gaming reaches its "tipping point", code and content will be easily reused
> to foster the development of new games and innovative ideas in gaming. The
> Ubuntu Gaming Team fills a great need for an organized effort to support
> FOSS gaming.
> http://pinstack.blogspot.com/2009/04/announcing-ubuntu-gaming-team.html

I think you are using the name Ubuntu here is a way that is really
confusing.  This isn't about Ubuntu gaming, it's about FOSS game
development.

> Launchpad: https://edge.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-gaming
> Wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GamingTeam
> #ubuntu-gaming <http://java.freenode.net//index.php?channel=ubuntu-gaming>

> Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list

Finally, you sent this to an Ubuntu development list.  This list is to
discuss development of Ubuntu.  Your announcement seems to be at most
about development ON Ubuntu, not development OF Ubuntu.  I think it's off
topic.

I would encourage you to consider your goal and brand your team more
appropriately to that goal.

Scott K