Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer

[Eric Mullins]

h.g. muller wrote:
> > If there are legal issues with hosting those files in git, then I 
> > suggest we not include them at all.  (on site, nor in the installer)
> >
> > Because of problems with various external programs, maybe it's best 
> > to focus on winboard all by itself.  If you want to host your own 
> > "Gold Pack" you still can.  What did 4.2.7 include?  Gnuchess, 
> > crafty, timeseal and timestamp.
> >
> > Now that I think of it, I like this a lot.  Make winboard basically 
> > standalone and thus a relatively small install file.
>
> Except that "relatively small" in fact means more than 2x larger 
> (5.9MB for 4.2.7b vs 2.8MB for 4.4.0 as I have it now).
> Most of it spend on components that were not really of much interest 
> to any user. (Two mediocre Chess engines they
> would never even have looked at if they did not come with WinBoard.) I 
> think that is a really bad idea.

I don't understand.  Logically, focusing on winboard would be smaller 
than including extra stuff.  That's what I suggested.

> > That would allow you to make your Gold pack and not worry about legal 
> > issues on git.  And anyone else with a different view of winboard use 
> > could make his own package with external components.
>
> Anyone can do that anyway. They could even regress to a package with 
> GNU Chess + Crafty, not capable of running
> UCI engines, and perhaps they will do just that. They could even host 
> WB 4.0.2, because they think it is the best
> thing in the world. But I don't see any of that as a reason to not 
> provide the best functionality we can from our own website.
> Lack of a smart bundling strategy is the prime cause of the decline of 
> WinBoard amongst Windows users. They move
> to other GUIs that do provide all-in-one. People demand that nowadays.

That's fine.  Let them get that from something like your Gold Pack while 
the winboard project focuses exclusively on winboard.  I don't think 
it's our job to decide what people should run with winboard.  The 
winboard project should be about improving winboard, and that's it.  
Including other stuff, particularly stuff that isn't GPLv3, is really 
not consistent with a GNU project.  Particularly as we have several 
closed source items in the last package I built.

I don't see any reason to provide anything but help, winboard, and 
perhaps some INI files.