LWN: Comments on "The Battle for Wesnoth hits 1.0"

nesuixn't is now

pdundas — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 08:44:46 +0000

I agree - so I asked them nicely, and they fixed it :-)
http://www.nexuiz.com/

How do you pronounce Linux

amazingblair — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 20:09:37 +0000

Joachim,

You're quite right about my anglo-centricism regarding this pronunciation issue, I must admit. (And your deciphering of my quick-and-dirty glyphs is perfect.) It's interesting that "Gnu" has two syllables in German, and fitting. In English, however, it's an ugly sound and stands out as unnatural. Funny how the same sounds in a different language setting can have a different effect, but that's the case. /guh-noo/ is cringe-inducing in English, to those with a sensitive ear. :-)

Besides, Richard Stallman is an English-speaking American. He invented Gnu the project. He's exactly the sort of geek who would come up with the wrong (for English) pronunciation of the word. Probably played Dungeons & Dragons and pronounced "scepter" and "specter" BOTH as /skep-tur/! Ha!

On a side note: it never occurred to me that "Freax" might be pronounced the same as "freaks". Looking at the two-syllable model of Unix, Minix, Linux, etc, I took Freax to be something like "Free-axe", another linguistic whopper. The name Linux is so clever, combining Linus with Unix. So "Free-axe" would combine Free with the -x from Unix. But "Freaks"? That doesn't imply anything but oddity on display! Oh well... as I say, glad he opted for Linux.

-Herr Blair

Why don't they say what it is?

alext — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 19:53:51 +0000

Agreed.

I took one look (like I do to sites with that arrangement) I left bevause life is too short to try to pick which link tells me about the thing. Anyone mainly interested in the news will surely just bookmark straight to it or have an aggregator if they support it.

klik://wesnoth-latest

quintesse — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 14:57:44 +0000

Which is not entirely true of course if the package makes system-global changes like file associations, menu items, icons, etc. Especially if those were taken by an existing program already.

But at the same time I'm sure that in the end those problems can be fixed or worked around.

Why don't they say what it is?

Jyhem — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 10:03:58 +0000

I concur. The piss-poor design of this website must have lost more potential players than any weakness in the gaming itself could.

Even if you put the the "info" page as homepage (which you should), the second must useful page is the "screenshots" page. Which is *also* missing from the menubar !
This is even more silly as it actually exists, only it's hidden behind the "media" link.

sigh :-(

klik://wesnoth-latest

farnz — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 13:12:45 +0000

Klik differs from autopackage in that klik does not expect to install stuff onto your machine. It just downloads the files needed to run the application into an "AppDir", and runs it from there. See the architecture documentation for full details. It therefore cannot conflict with your distribution package management (unlike autopackage), and uninstalling your klik packages (restoring the system to its lack-of-klik state) is a simple case of deleting the downloaded AppDirs (which won't conflict with anything from the distro).

How do you pronounce Linux

farnz — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 13:08:05 +0000

The sounds are still available on kernel.org; try the English version or the Swedish version.

How do you pronounce Linux

jschrod — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 12:16:59 +0000

Oh, I don't know about Japanese, but my Spanish and Swedish acquaintances pronounce Freak as I do in German: the English way. For us, freak is a foreign word that has been incorporated into our languages and is part of our everyday speech.

Proper names like Linus or Linux are a different thing, though. There are both American folks with that name (Linus Pauling comes immediately to mind), as well as it is a common name in the scandinavian countries. (With very different pronounciation, of course. :-) Anyhow, I have to say that I don't know where the *.au files of Linus are and that I have never listened to them. Having been in in the North often enough, I know how they pronounce it there. :-)

Cheers, Joachim

How do you pronounce Linux

emj — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 12:57:29 +0000

I would like to see you promounce freak in Spanish, Swedish or even Japanese... ;-)

BTW are the *.au files with linux pronouncing Linux in Swedish and English still available? They are pretty funny showing how pronouciation works when you are talking your native tounge (swedish) and not (english).

Why don't they say what it is?

hollis — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 16:49:25 +0000

Very true.

The same goes for release announcements too: "Version 0.7 of Foo is out! Changes include a new frobulator and a reimplemented bar." But what _is_ it?

nesuixn't

erich — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 16:00:51 +0000

The biggest issue with nesuix is that their web front page doesn't even contain a clue what it is about. or that it's a game at all. Or what it's licence is. Just some tiny text about some new releases.

klik://wesnoth-latest

erich — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 15:58:36 +0000

I don't see a point in using klik, except to make my system behave less predictable (and thus less stable).
klik reminds me a lot of autopackage, which I think is a very bad concept.
Also how is klik supposed to e.g. prevent things like the C++ API differences?
No, I'm really happy with my distributions dependency management, so I do not intend to install anything else.

Why don't they say what it is?

walles — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 15:34:47 +0000

Why is it so hard for many projects to present themselves on their main page? They should have the Info page as a front page, not the News page.

"Nex - you - isn't"

jschrod — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 09:13:02 +0000

Interesting. I would have thought that Freax is pronounced in most languages the same since it is derived from Freak (which has been incorporated into many languages).

Whereas Linux is pronounced differently in its originating language Finnish and English. (AFAIK, Finnish is like German: The `i' is pronounced as `e', the `u' as in `wonderful'.) French is different again.

Btw, the graceful animal Gnu is not pronounced /noo/, at least not in my language (German). There the `G' is spoken. And I always pronounce GNU, the project, just like Gnu, the animal, in my own language. Which seems to be quite right, if I deciver your pronounciation glyphs correctly...

Bit anglo-centric in your pronouncation woes, aren't you?

Cheers, Joachim

"Nex - you - isn't"

amazingblair — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 01:53:10 +0000

Apropos of nothing:

"Nexuiz" is another example of all the clunky names that we nerds come up with. I can think of no redeeming way to pronounce it. It seems that computer expertise is linked to having a tin ear for language. I still remember the feeling of revulsion that washed over me when I discovered that "Gnu" was NOT pronounced /noo/, like the graceful animal, but /guh-noo/, like... well, like nothing at all.

Thank goodness Linus Torvalds allowed himself to be talked into "Linux" instead of his awful first choice, "Freax" (sp?). Brrr!

-Amazing Blair

klik://wesnoth-latest

giraffedata — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 00:18:14 +0000

Your allegations of "astroturfing" are completely and utterly unfounded.

Your implication that there were allegations of astroturfing is what is unfounded. That comment ("this looks like ...") just states the author's impression. As such, it invites contradiction by a more knowledgeable person, which you thankfully supplied.

klik://wesnoth-latest

piman — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 22:11:49 +0000

> b) waiting for your distro to package it for your system.

Except Klik packages are built out of Debian packages. So while you might not have to wait for *your* distribution to package it, you could also just be running Debian.

The Battle for Wesnoth hits 1.0

riel — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 21:18:19 +0000

While the graphics are not as nice as those in commercial games, I have to say that Wesnoth is much nicer when it comes to gameplay.

I have lost way too much time to Wesnoth...

klik://wesnoth-latest

lovelace — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 19:41:26 +0000

I have absolutely nothing to do with klik and, in fact, I've never actually used klik myself. I just happened to see that article on Wesnoth and klik just yesterday and thought it would be a good example of how fast open source moves, especially since it was relevant to the article.

Your allegations of "astroturfing" are completely and utterly unfounded.

klik://wesnoth-latest

yokem_55 — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 19:15:31 +0000

It's notable, in part because it isn't the same as a Fedora package. Klik packages are user runnable files that is fairly distribution independant, which makes it very easy to get to the software without a) building and installing it yourself, or b) waiting for your distro to package it for your system. Thus for new stuff coming out, klik packages represent a nice, quick and easy way to try new software.

The Battle for Wesnoth hits 1.0

cdmiller — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 16:45:59 +0000

Heh,

In a different genera Nexuiz is going strong:

http://www.nexuiz.com

The Battle for Wesnoth hits 1.0

isaac — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 16:04:05 +0000

I just wished to thank LWN for such a nice article about Wesnoth :), I really expect you (and other people) can continue your work even with Wesnoth out there ;)

Isaac Clerencia, Battle for Wesnoth RM

klik://wesnoth-latest

proski — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 15:25:23 +0000

I see references to Klik in comments to several stories. It looks like astroturfing to me. If appearance of e.g. Fedoda packages for particular software is not newsworthy, why is it for Klik? Maybe you could contribute a good lengthy article about Klik instead of sticking a short comment to every story?

klik://wesnoth-latest

lovelace — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 14:55:23 +0000

Wesnoth has also apparently become a good example of how easy it is to make a klik package. It appears that within 3 hours of the debian package being uploaded someone had made a klik package of it. (http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/1517)

The Battle for Wesnoth hits 1.0

smitty_one_each — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 13:29:17 +0000

Yeah, I emerged it.
I thought that the tutorial was top notch. I think even my mother might like the game.
Alas, no time. :(

The Battle for Wesnoth hits 1.0

dvrabel — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 10:21:17 +0000

"Wesnoth may not be able to compete with the latest commercial blockbuster"

The graphics, sounds and music don't even stand up to commercial games from over a decade ago.

As for the "artists working for free are scarce" argument, I have to disagree. There's plenty of talented artists in the various 'mod' communities. Wesnoth just doesn't attract them because the underlying game mechanics are too 'old school'.