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Re: [pygame] New GUI
On Jan 22, 2008, at 12:27 PM, Kamilche wrote:
Casey Duncan wrote:
My own pygame dev being at the hobby-level, I can't say that I
would have much interest in a commercial add-on to pygame myself.
However, I would be interested in a high-level overview of what you
found wrong with the existing guis and how your solution does not
suffer from these perceived problems.
From a business standpoint, you might have trouble marketing such a
thing in the face of the incumbent free solutions, regardless of
how superior it might be. The dual-pricing scheme that Laura
mentioned could help encourage adoption. Another option might be
two versions, a bare-bones open source library that is functional
but has few bells and whistles (perhaps lacking the gui builder),
and a commercial upgrade that has everything anyone could want.
Yeah, that's true. I wish there had been something like mine
available at the time I started my project - I would certainly have
used it and saved myself lots of trouble.
When push comes to shove, the worst drawback of all the Pygame
GUI's, is not having a GUI builder. It's offensive to me, to have to
write code to draw a screen!
Interesting, I actually prefer that. I typically find code generation
offensive. Ideally (In my mind) a GUI that had GUI builder would not
require it. Funny how different people are sometimes 8^). That said, I
want a system that is highly automated and "just works" for the
typical case, not requiring reams of code and refactoring of my game
just to get started.
I know lots of people would love this GUI I put out, and it
existence would help promote the Python language as a whole. But
you're right, there are lots of free GUI's out there. If I do end up
making it available, I'll probably do something like 'free for free
software projects, but if it's used in a commercial or shareware
software project, there's a licensing fee of $100 per developer' or
some such thing.
I myself am pretty sensitive about licenses. You could have the best
software ever written, but if the licensing is too difficult for me to
understand or has too many arbitrary restrictions I'll use something
else or go write my own. Also licenses have a strong affect on whether
I want to contribute to a project, regardless of whether I use it or
not. What's my motivation to contribute to something that makes money
for someone else? These are all things to consider.
I'm not sure whether or not to release it. There's a difference
between 'Good enough to use in house' and 'Good enough to sell,
complete with examples, documentation, and help.'
Indeed, releasing things is hard sometimes. Setting realistic
expectations helps though, as does a demonstrated commitment to
keeping the thing going over time.
What I REALLY want, is people to collaborate on it with me, adding
enhancements and new controls. I suppose I could just get it out
there in base form, but with the licensing in place, and see if
enough people are inspired by it to make it take off.
Making a community around a project is very rewarding and a lot of
work. It also requires you to give up some amount of ownership and
control over your project. Opensource is the ultimate meritocracy
though, if its useful, they will come.
Also with guis the barrier to entry (i.e., hello world and something
useful) needs to be pretty low for it to catch on. It needs to not
dictate how I write my whole game, it needs to be easy to integrate
with an existing (py)game. It needs to make common things easy and
hard things possible, etc. Mostly it needs to stay out of my way and
let me do it the way that is right for me. Pygame itself is successful
IMO largely because it gets these things right.
-Casey