this isn't a good package discription, as it tells of other packages
(darkplaces) and a commercial game (quake 1), which has nothing to do
with the content of the nexuiz package!
Nexuiz contains/uses darkplaces. This is a significant part of
Nexuiz. Without darkplaces, it's just a collection of artwork,
quakec, and sounds.
There are plenty of examples of popular applications in Debian that
mention commercial software and non-packaged programs when it helps
the user understand.
For instance, look at the firefox entry:
Description: lightweight web browser based on Mozilla
Firefox is a redesign of the Mozilla browser component, similar to
Galeon, K-Meleon and Camino, but written using the XUL user interface
language and designed to be lightweight and cross-platform.
.
This browser was previously known as Firebird and Phoenix.
This tells you what it is based on and mentions camino which isn't
packaged in Debian. This gives you an idea of what firefox is and how
it relates to other browsers (at least similar).
The xmms entry mentions:
It looks almost the same as famous Winamp, and includes those neat features
like general purpose, visualization and effect plug-ins, several of which come
bundled, then spectrum analyzer, oscilloscope, skins support, and of course, a
playlist window.
It mentions a Windows only, closed source program. Yet it is very
helpful in telling you what type of player it is. Everyone knows of
winamp just as everyone knows of quake1.
If I just converted from Windows to Linux, I can do 'apt-cache search
winamp' and find a player. If I do 'apt-cache search quake', I won't
find anything useful.
Perhaps the most relevant to this discussion is mozilla. Here is its
description:
Description: The Mozilla Internet application suite - core and browser
Mozilla is a sophisticated graphical World-Wide-Web browser, with a
large number of various browser features like support for HTML 4.0, CSS
2, JavaScript and Java. Of course, besides the network option, it can
also be used as a standalone HTML viewer.
.
Mozilla is based on part of the code base of the well known "Netscape"
("Communicator" or "Navigator") browser. It was opened up to the free
software community by Netscape Communications under a new NPL license.
.
See the website http://www.mozilla.org/ for more information on the
development of Mozilla.
This tells you the history behind Mozilla which is very important. If
the mozilla description said nothing about Netscape (and I knew little
about it and was just searching), I may not even try it out. I think
the same importance applies to mentioning Darkplaces/Quake1 in Nexuiz.
Quake1 is a commercial game but the engine is not. Why not point out
that this engine in Nexuiz is an enhanced quake1 engine? It is very
relevant to the nexuiz package. It tells you what type of physics and
game play you can expect.
just imagine a system administrator, thinking about installing the
nexuiz package or not - the package discription has to state a clear
point, what's in this package and shouldn't confuse users.
Just imagine a user who wants to install a game. They see this
description and know nothing about the history behind Nexuiz. There
are plenty of packages that mention where it originated if it is
useful in determining whether to install or not.
Why does mentioning specifics about the history of Nexuiz make the
package unclear?
A user is likely to think that even though id software open sourced
quake1-3, there are no free games using any of them packaged in
Debian.
and there's absolutely no need, to mention the gpl'ed contents, as
nexuiz is in debian 'main'.
True and I only mentioned that because it is based on a quake1 engine.
As far as I know, this is the only free software game using an open
source engine from id software. I think that's important in
distinguishing Nexuiz from every other game in Debian.
sure, i've got to admit that the current discription (in nexuiz-2.0-x)
isn't the best one! i tried to improve it and hope, it'll give a better
statement in the 2.1-1 package!
It still doesn't mention anything about Quake 1. I guess I don't
understand what the problem is mentioning it when it helps the user
determine if they want to install it.
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