Subject: [bug#72912] [PATCH 0/1] Update Minetest to 5.9.0 (again)

From: Jan Wielkiewicz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2024 01:05:48 +0200

Hi,

On Thu, 5 Sep 2024 15:17:56 -0400
Leo Famulari <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hi Jan,
> 
> Thanks so much for performing this complicated upgrade! I confirm it
> works fine to play Minetest.
> 
> On Sat, Aug 31, 2024 at 02:26:05PM +0200, Jan Wielkiewicz wrote:
> > The minetest-something convention is for packages that are either
> > games for minetest or mods for any minetest game. Minetest - the
> > engine executes games. Previously "Minetest Game" was the default
> > game for Minetest (the engine), but is not anymore. A similar
> > example would be a game called "MineClone" for Minetest, the
> > package is then called minetest-mineclone. But "Minetest Game" is
> > indeed the name of the ex-default game, hence
> > minetest-minetest-game. "minetest-game" would suggest it's a game
> > for minetest named "game" also could make it possible to confuse it
> > with simply "minetest" - the engine. The name of the
> > package: https://github.com/minetest/minetest_game
> 
> We have similar conventions for other packages in Guix, such as Python
> modules.
> 
> But if a Python program is named by its authors "python-foo", we do
> not package it as "python-python-foo". Well, there is one package
> like this currently, but that's one mistake, after we avoided the
> repetitive names many times.
> 
> I think that if somebody wants to play the basic Minetest game, they
> will not have much trouble choosing the package called
> "minetest-game".

Well, I guess "minetest-game" should be fine then.

> I've attached a diff against your patch that makes that change and
> some other minor changes.

Do I need to apply the patch and resend it or will a maintainer take
care of that?

> Specifically:
> 
> It tweaks the description of the minetest engine packages to remove
> the "marketing" word "easy", as requested in the guidelines on writing
> package descriptions:
> 
> https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Synopses-and-Descriptions.html

Looks good.

> It also uses "minetest-game" as an example of a game that could be
> installed based on this engine. Or should we use mineclone? We don't
> have any other games packaged, right?

There are multiple games for Minetest, most of them listed on ContentDB
https://content.minetest.net/packages/?type=game
The general idea is that after dropping MTG as the default, it's up to
the user to pick what they want to play. ContentDB can be also accessed
in the game and the game upon the first startup instructs the user to
install a game. ContentDB has a relatively strict policy for package
inclusion: https://content.minetest.net/policy_and_guidance/
Most games/mods are free software, some packages that aren't are
clearly marked as such with red text. Most importantly Minetest by
default hides non-free packages from ContentDB in the game. So it
should be fine to let users pick a game they like from ContentDB.

I think that Mineclone is not the best default game because it does a
1:1 copy of Minecraft. It is free software and assets are free, but a
1:1 copy is legally questionable. That's why I believe we shouldn't ship
Minetest with any game preinstalled.

On a side note, I plan updating existing Minetest packages and adding
more games for it, but this work should be merged first.

> It adjusts the version procedure of minetest-game to respect the
> guidlines in the manual section Version Numbers:
> 
> https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Version-Numbers.html
> 
> It removes irrlicht-for-minetest entirely. I don't think we need to
> deprecate libraries that wouldn't have been installed into someone's
> profile.

Makes sense.

> I'm not as sure about minetest-data. Was that something that people
> would install? I never needed to in order to play the minetest game.

People still play this, in fact it has hundreds of mods and is still
the second most popular game, it's just not official anymore. Also the
input was propagated so it makes sense to replace it with the new
"minetest-game" package I guess? If people don't want it they can still
remove it. But new installs shouldn't get this installed by default.
Long story short Minetest devs considered MTG was a bad advertisement
for the project also a waste of their resources and decided to focus on
the engine instead.

> What do you think?

Looks good.

--

Jan