[needs-packaging] JGGE and UHC

[Digitalghost]

I would like to add my game engine and a game made in the engine to the package repository. The game had an existing linux community while it was closed-source so it has already been tested under linux by 10-20 people and is fairly robust.

URL: http://code.google.com/p/jgge/ (JGGE) and http://www.underworldhockeyclub.com/cms/ (UHC)
License: LGPL
Notes: This used to be a closed-source application and some work may be needed to make it suitable for ubuntu's package manager. Just let me know what to do and I'll do it.

[Jorge Rosa (jorgerosa)]

Awesome ice hockey game! Jason is sharing the game and the game engine. So everyone has a great starting point to develop other similar sport games. I think, from now on, GNU/Linux sport games will finally have great commercial quality (if not better).
I think i´m not exagerating when i say that: Today is an important (historical) day to our GNU/Linux games community!!!
THANKYOU very much, Jason Gauci!

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

*** This is an automated message ***

This bug is tagged needs-packaging which identifies it as a request for a new package in Ubuntu. As a part of the managing needs-packaging bug reports specification, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/Specs/NeedsPackagingBugs, all needs-packaging bug reports have Wishlist importance. Subsequently, I'm setting this bug's status to Wishlist.

[M (mtaverne)]

@Digitalghost
Ok, I started having a look at your game.

1) First of all: What are the licenses for:
-Game code
-Engine code
-Game art

The .zip files downloaded from the main site contain something which looks like a proprietary license.
The svn checkout from Google Code contains the LGPL for the game and engine code.
I don't know if the LGPL can be applied to game code (it's meant mostly for libraries) or if it makes sense to apply it there.

2) File factory and mediafire are not the nicest way to offer downloads. But I can understand that if you don't have the possibility to host large files on your website.

3) Since the game data is probably the same for Windows, Mac, GNU/Linux 32-bit and 64-bit, it might make sense to offer a single large download for game data and smaller downloads for the game+engine binaries.

4) The svn checkout was 2.1 GB!!!
I mentioned the problem and possible solutions I see here: http://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=356

5) The game didn't start at all for me under Kubuntu 10.04.
I downloaded the 175 MB .zip from the UHC website.

6) There are no compiling instructions or I didn't find any. Please put a Readme file in the root of the svn explaining how to compile the game.
I will try compiling from source if I find some time.

[Digitalghost (jgmath2000)]

@M
Hey there,

1) I decided on LGPL because there are actually two libraries, JGGE and UHC. JGGE is a generic game engine and I wanted people to be able to dynamically link JGGE in commercial products if they want to. I want changes to the game itself (UHC) to be contributed back, so I thought that LGPL would cover all of the bases.

With all that said, I am flexible with the choice of license and open to suggestions. With the exception of some of the GUI screens that were made by Jorge Rosa, I made everything myself, and I do not think I would be offending him if I said that I have the control to set the license to whatever I want, so if another license makes more sense, please let me know and I can adjust.

2) When I hosted the zip files on my own server, the server shut me down because of bandwidth issues, so I had to put them on those file sharing sites. Google code only allows files of size 100 MB or smaller, but I did but a multi-part rar on google code so people can download those instead.

3) This is a good idea, I will try this for the next release.

4) I definitely need to go through the svn and clean it up. I will do that as soon as the next release is out.

5) I have heard that the binaries do not work with ubuntu 10. The next release fixes this.

6) JGGE and UHC both use cmake as their build system. The basic scheme for compiling is to create a directory in the build/ directory, and run cmake-gui. It generally goes like this:

cd JGGE/build
mkdir linux_release
cd linux_release
cmake-gui ../../

I will create a README on the root of the svn with more details. Please let me know what issues you come across and I will create a FAQ in the README.

[Digitalghost (jgmath2000)]

I just updated the repository to include two scripts for people running ubuntu.

installDependenciesUbuntu.sh

This script will apt-get all of the libraries from the ubuntu repository that JGGE and UHC need to work correctly

buildLinux.sh

This script will build all of the library that are either (1) not in the ubuntu repository or (2) in the repository but are of too old a version. The script also then builds JGGE and UHC.

Let me know if you are able to build JGGE/UHC with these scripts. The scripts and the rest of the codebase can be found in the repository here:

https://jgge.googlecode.com/svn/trunk

If this works, I will make a source tarball for entry into the repository.