This is not how I remember it - I think they actually quite their full-time jobs to work on Kaya.
Too busy to look for the quote now. One of the early Kaya threads, when I was asking for business model before making a donation.


I like burgers... does that count?

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- Bantari
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I'm sorry, I have trouble seeing the actual argument here. How does making the client protocol open stop you from using CGoban 3 for the remainder of your life?

And btw, if you feel uneasy answering this in less than 100 words, maybe that's an indication that you don't really have an argument.

It just makes no sense for me, as an imaginary developer, to open the protocol and say 'here, write clients' while still spending my time doing/maintaining my own.


Personally, I rather look at quality of text then quantity of words, but lets agree to disagree here, we each have a preference.
I just have to remember when talking to you I have to use small words, big letters, and not too much text as not to confuse you.

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- Bantari
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My old program doesn't work correctly anymore, since I updated my OS. It still works mostly, but just has a few minor annoyances. Nothing that really prevents general usage.

The company that wrote it won't fix these minor annoyances, and won't open up their source code to outside developers, even though they give away their program for free. I don't understand why this company won't give away their source code, or sell it to someone else.

Although, I hear that they are working on a newer, more modern version that will work better with these newer OS upgrades.

Maybe I shouldn't have waited a little longer before upgrading from Windows 3.1

So you were wrong. There has not been a diligent effort for many years, but it cruised along. So all it takes to get back to that model is to have one or a few volunteers able to maintain the code, and it doesn't need a big commitment.



Your "point" meanders like a river, changing whenever pesky obstacles like contradictory facts get in the way.



I joined in 2002.



Sure, and wms gets all the credit for that. But to get KGS back to cruising mode where basic functionality isn't broken doesn't require that effort.



It's been dinged, and the perception is bad, but the actual damage in terms of players isn't that bad. KGS had been running with a peak number of users of about 2000 for a long time. That has dropped off to about 1800, so I'd say a rough estimate of a 10% loss is fair.



Don't use quotes for your inaccurate, made up paraphrase. To restate the original position using actual quotes:

Bantari: "I understand there are a lot of programmers out there who would like to look at the code, tinker a little, and never look at it again - but I don't think KGS (or any server) could survive such model."

PaperTiger: "You're wrong. KGS has survived on an even worse model for years (near abandonment), to the point where a basic feature, sound, has stopped working. Even if wms just let somebody in to fix the occasional bug the situation would be much improved."



Or maybe it would just go back to the way it was, with the usual grumbling about lack of new development, but not the backlash of such a basic feature being broken for what, about 2 years now?



False dilemma. I'd prefer wms either take an hour and fix the sound bug himself or just hand over maintenance to somebody who can. Given that the compiled client code was hacked to fix it by somebody means enough people care that somebody could be found for such routine maintenance.

Since we are where we are, this model is obviously not working.
Or are you happy with how things are going?

Oh... I see what you are saying...
KGS was running fine for the past X years when WMS was doing just routine maintenance, and you were happy with that. And now that he stopped maintaining it - you just want to go back to the 'cruising' years, right?

Well, ok, sure, its a viewpoint, but a rather naive one. The situation we are right now is probably *because* of the years of cruising. I claim that to reverse it now you cannot just start tinkering with the code here and there, go back to the neglect we have before - I bet there is a more serious changes needed due to the time of 'cruising'.

I would not be surprised now if it was easier to write a new client from scratch (as WMS is doing, I hear) than to fix/maintain the old one.
But unless WMS speaks, we will not know, and you might well be right - 'just cruising' might be a good option.

In either case - weather we wait for the new client, or WMS gives the code to somebody else and we have to wait until that person looks into it (which might take even longer) - we have to wait or play somewhere else. This is what years of 'cruising' give you, and I rather wait and do it right than just cruise for another X years and do even more damage.

As for the rest of your post - I think you are just talking in circles.
But I will read it again later, maybe I will make some sense to it.

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Quality is precisely my point. People who get defensive and have no arguments often tend to write big essays on various issues while somehow avoiding the main points in question. I'm sure you have seen this kind of behaviour in others.


Personal attacks fall into the same category of defensive behaviour that's mostly employed by people who feel themselves on the losing end of an argument.


Why not? Worst case scenario: somebody writes a better client, which should benefit the server.

I think the pure fact that WMS does not give the sourcecode away, e.g. for developers that may build a parallel go-server that has nothing to do with KGS, tells you he has plans with KGS for the future. He never did quit, even we he slowed down now. I remember once MoyoGo from F. de Groot. It started like kaya, with a lot of ambition and prospect and it looked good for 2 years and then the developer got tired of it (for several reasons) and didn't continue the project. That what really kills such projects, not a slow-down phase.

I wouldn't say I was happy with just the routine maintenance, but it wasn't that bad, either, and it was much better than having such a glaring feature break and be ignored for 2 years.



The situation we are in right now, where basic functionality has stopped working, is because he stopped doing routine maintenance. Full stop. Having somebody, anybody, spend an hour to fix the sound bug would be a big improvement. Full stop.



That's nonsense. It would take less than one hour for wms to fix the sound problem. It's just a matter of changing from one API to another. Somebody already did it in the byte code. wms has the source.

These are probably both oversimplifications.

Short enough for you?

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Occupy Babel!

I would really like someone to pinpoint the class and method in the Java API that plays wave files in Java 6 and not Java 7 for me.

I have not been able to find one.

Sure, I have. But it is a simple and common logical fallacy to assume the inverse. I have also seen long essays which make excellent arguments. This is why it pays to read rather than make wild assumptions and generalizations and try to limit people to arbitrary number of words or 'they have no argument.'


Oh great... so now if I use more than 100 words I have no argument AND if I use less but say something you dislike I have no argument neither?
I took your dismissal of what I say as personal attack on me, based on nothing else but a number of words.
Really funny.

Well, no matter. This is really off-topic here.


Well, write one, then talk.
Its always that elusive 'somebody' to do the work.

Anyways - WMS explained many many many many many times why he does not want to allow that and why he does not believe it will benefit his server. I think his is not the only way, but from his perspective it makes sense. Not sure what else to add. And I said quite a few times that if somebody has an itch writing a client - nothing is stopping them, knock yourself out.

I am really not sure what you are trying to accomplish by this argument here.

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- Bantari
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It's not that 100+ word arguments are automatically invalid. It's just that, if you have a real handle on what is true, it might be possible to express the idea concisely.

To me, wordy arguments are a bit like aji keshi moves in go - it's not to the point, and you're destroying potential. Just play the moves that are necessary.

That being said, I have a lot of aji keshi in my posts here - probably more than most.

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be immersed

I knew wms don't want to open the KGS sources, but the reasons escaped me. So can you please enlighten me?

A recent link: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=6350&p=111241&hilit=kgs+open+source#p111241, and an old rec.games.go thread where wms lays out reasons in detail: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgr ... D9x6Bk8gEJ.

Basically, wms wants his protocol entirely under his control, so that he can make changes freely, without having to worry about whether other clients are in sync.

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Occupy Babel!

At the time of the rec.games.go posting, it appears that the agument about making changes freely is more applicable, since he states that he makes changes on a regular basis to the protocol. If this is no longer the case, perhaps this is no longer much of an argument.

What seemed more relevant to the current situation was his argument that he would get questions from developers if he opened the protocol, and he did not want to deal with these questions (as he argues in the last paragraph).

Personally, I don't see a reason that he would be obligated to answer protocol-related questions if he made it public, as he perhaps receives just as many questions about why he didn't make the protocol open in the first place

Oh well!

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be immersed

I have decompiled my own copy of kgs and fixed the stone sounds myself. It really is a simple change. If I was at my computer I could tell you precisely what class doesn't work in java 7. If I remember I'll do it later.

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Each of us woke up one moment and here we were in the darkness.
We're nameless things with no memory; no knowledge of what went before,
No understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.