Proposal--Wesnoth on Impulse?

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

An idea/proposal for you all. Have you thought of trying to get Wesnoth on Impulse?

For those who don't know, Impulse is a competitor to Steam, a service for purchasing and downloading games and other software.

There are two big differences, however. First, they have lots of game from indie developers and one man operations. Secondly, the services creator and owner has said that he wants 30% of Impulse's offering to be free downloads, which they don't have so far.

That being the case, I believe that contacting Impulse to have Wesnoth added to their library as a free download would be great. It would, at the very least, expose the game to a lot of people who would otherwise not know about it, just as it has done for many small indie games.

I'm quite willing to be the representative/contact man/upload preparer myself, should the devs be interested.

[ancestral]

Wesnoth is free so no one is stopping you

[Aethaeryn]

Wesnoth is free so no one is stopping you

That being said, it would be best to do it through the official (Windows?) packagers and with the blessing of the devs.

[Noy]

I don't think we're that interested, as I've pointed out in other threads. We find our current distribution system as being well suited for our project. Its a common open source model. So what if impulse wants more free games; its not really our concern to support them. The only reason why we might want to is to increase our exposure for Wesnoth, which we don't really need either. Our current exposure has given us a large number of high level talent that has developed the game you now play.

And while I understand the Iphone raises a possible contradiction, its the only way we could distribute on that platform which people have asked for for quite some time.

[Zerovirus]

Forgive me for asking, but what exactly is the distribution system? I mean, I got here by something of a non-orthodox manner. What websites and/or other media is Wesnoth using to broadcast its benefits to the commons?

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I'm certainly not asking you to replace your current system, just supplement it by adding this game to a popular distribution system that people that are not in the open source software group also use, exposing it to a whole new audience. There's no actually benefit to the devs or the game I was thinking of per se, nor was I asking anyone else to do what little work would be required, since I would do that myself, nor was I saying anything was "wrong" with the current system, just an alternative way to reach a new audience while increasing the visibility of open source software in general.

That being said, if the devs as a group insist on being "not interested," I will respect that and follow their wishes, even if I don't understand that kind of thinking.

[Noy]

I'm certainly not asking you to replace your current system, just supplement it by adding this game to a popular distribution system that people that are not in the open source software group also use, exposing it to a whole new audience. There's no actually benefit to the devs or the game I was thinking of per se, nor was I asking anyone else to do what little work would be required, since I would do that myself, nor was I saying anything was "wrong" with the current system, just an alternative way to reach a new audience while increasing the visibility of open source software in general.

That being said, if the devs as a group insist on being "not interested," I will respect that and follow their wishes, even if I don't understand that kind of thinking.

Please read my above comment because I discussed the bolded portion directly. More people isn't necessarily better if we don't have the capacity to handle them (moderation on the MP server, administration of the forums, ect.) The people we attract through the open source community are typically more involved and interested in these sort of games, which benefits us.

[Aethaeryn]

nor was I asking anyone else to do what little work would be required, since I would do that myself

By wanting to be a middleman between Wesnoth and Impulse, you are basically saying you want to be a packager for this particular package management system. It's actually a lot of work to be a packager, continually updating something. If you think it's "little work" and forget a release here or there, or are late on a major release, that's a huge (assuming you're correct) chunk of the community left playing outdated versions. It's actually a security risk as well as an inconvenience to run outdated software of any kind. Someone would have to reliably send the .EXE of Wesnoth every single time it was compiled. It's not that you were asking anyone else to do it, it's that it would be easier if the current Windows packager(s) did it.

As for why noy doesn't like it: the developers want slower, more controlled growth, as noy has stated.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

If Noy's statement is pretty much the overall opinion of the devs, then this thread has served its purpose and can be locked at the mods convenience, unless some other mod or dev cares to say something.