Re: [XBoard-devel] Installer

[h.g. muller]

At 16:00 23-8-2009 -0600, Eric Mullins wrote:
> h.g. muller wrote:
> > [...]
> > 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.
>
> I'm not sure I agree with that.  What evidence is there?

I have been engaged in many discussions about merits of various GUIs on 
several forums,
and this is almost always what people come up with when you mention 
WinBoard. "It doesn't work".
"We don't know where to download XXX". "We don't know how to install YYY".

> I know winboard has declined in popularity among players on chess 
> servers.  In that demographic, the problem isn't bundling, but that the 
> opposition is more appealing, generally more intuitive, and more 
> cross-platform  (babas works great in wine).  That's not going to change 
> no matter what how we bundle winboard.  Jin and BabasChess pretty much 
> dominate the free category, and there is Arena too.

I think that WinBoard can be at least as intuitive as the other mentioned 
interfaces,
as long as you don't bother people with low-level installation tasks for 
which they have
to edit ini files with an obscure syntax. Anyway, I see no reason to give 
up without
a fight.

> For running engines on a chess server, winboard is still very popular for 
> casual users.  The only other reasonable choices for them are ChessPartner 
> and Arena.  Those running winboard already may even decide there's too 
> much hassle to switch to 4.4.0 because it's set up so differently from the 
> way they currently run.  I personally know a few people who have tried 
> 4.4.0, and are back to running 4.2.7.  I haven't asked them why-- I guess 
> I should.    Again, a bundling strategy isn't going to change much here.

Yes, it would be important to ask them why. And I don't understand your remark.
How is WB 4.4.0 "set up differently"? It is fully upward compatible with 4.2.7,
and they only have to copy the 4.4.0 winboard.exe over their old winboard.exe
nd everything will work as they are used to. The first time they do this 
they might
see a few auxliary windows they were not used to, which they simply close by
clicking them, and they will never see them again.

> Some advanced engine operators may run winboard.  But I think icsdrone and 
> xboard are a lot more popular for advanced 24/7 types.  There are 
> several  custom icsdrone versions out there, most of which you would never 
> know were icsdrone at all.  Nobody in this category is going to change how 
> they operate.

I am not sure what you want to argue with this. We also suply an XBoard 4.4.0.
You think we should remove the ICSbot.ini, to save 800 byte on the 
(unpacked) install,
because people using the install are unlikey to run a 24/7 bot? Well, I am 
an engine
author, I harldy ever run Linux, but I do like my engines to participate in 
the monthly
on-line blitz events and tourneys like CCT and WCRCC, and using WinBoard in 
zippy
mode has always been a perfect solution for that.


> Who else is there?  Just people who play against engines.  I don't have 
> the foggiest idea about this group, but I suspect almost nobody uses 
> winboard, nor have any desire to.  They use chessmaster, chessbase,
> shredder, doesn't rybka have a gui?

These are commercial GUIs, and many of the people I know have several of them.
There are also people that do not want to pay for software, and these have 
to use
free GUIs and free engines. I don't think WB couldn't have a market share here.
It is completely free, so people that have bought a GUI with their 
commercial engine
could easily try it next to the one they have. (Well, of course Rybka, 
Shredded,
HIARCS, are all UCI, so they won't even get it running under WB...) If we 
have no
market share there, it is because we are not competative. One (in itself 
completely
lethal) reason is lack of (pre-installed) UCI support. The other was lack 
of functionality
and customizability, making WB a clumsy interface with an unappealing look.
These points have been addressed in 4.4.0 too. Once WB is objectively the 
better
interface, I have little doubt that we will expand our market share there. 
And it is
my intenstion to make it competative.

Marketing is an important key to success, though. Hiding user-friendly installs
and in stead providing a package that only hackers can manage will not help.

> Face it.  Winboard is an advanced program for relatively advanced 
> users.  You can try to make it easier for them by bundling, but I don't 
> think that's really the job of the winboard project.  And I don't see it 
> having any significant impact on "winboard market share."  I'm not sure 
> that's really a concern of the winboard project anyway.

Well, I am not officially part of this project anyway, so my objectives can 
very well
differ from those of the WinBoard project. It is my intension to improve 
WinBoard
to make it so competative that it gets the market share it deserves. There 
are a few
niches where WinBoard has no competition, such as Chess variants, so it must be
easy to capture 100% market share there. In Chinese Chess competition is just
starting, and although they have a lead the market there is huge, so I 
think it is
worthwhile to push that a little too, just to see what happens.