bsd-games--one package or many?

["Aaron V. Humphrey" <alfvaen1 at telus dot net>]

Greetings,

I'm fairly new to cygwin-apps, but I've been lurking on the main cygwin
list for a few months.  Subscribed to the digest, so it never seems
worth actually replying to anything, which is probably all to the good.

I've been considering porting bsd-games to Cygwin, and recently managed
to stop considering and actually do something about it.  I've gotten the
code to compile, though sometimes only by commenting out things like
flock() calls(fcntl() research is still forthcoming).  I also managed to
link in err.c through a somewhat hamhanded approach that I'm not happy
with.  I think I've also managed to track the code to its upstream
source.

It has occurred to me, though, to wonder whether bsd-games would be best
done as a single monolithic package, or as a number of smaller packages,
per game or the like.

If it was a single package, then it would take up less space on the
packages list, and it would be easier to synch it up with release numbers
from sites like Debian.  It's also a group of programs that traditionally
go together.

On the other hand, three of the programs(wtf, fortune, and robots)have
already been released as separate packages.  If a bsd-games package was
then added, should they be merged in?  Left out?  Added as dependencies?

Some of the programs are ncurses-dependent, and some are not.  "factor"
can be built to depend on openssh(?) to use its factoring routines, but
I'd hesitate to make the whole package dependent on that.  Some of the
programs are not really game-like("number", for instance).

I know that Debian has also split up the package because of licensing
uncertainties; I think only "rogue" is on the bsd-games-nonfree package,
but I think there are others that have been left out of the packages
entirely because of unclear licensing.  I don't know if that's an issue
for Cygwin.

I also harbour some doubts about the legality of propagating "monop", for
example, which is surely trademarked or copyrighted or something by the
makes of the Monopoly boardgame.

Also, if it's done as smaller packages, it'd be easier for me as a
first-time packager, and I'd be able to get something ready to release
more quickly.

So I'm leaning towards multiple packages, but I'd like to get opinions
from others before I commit to it.

One thing that I also wondered about was "words", as in
"/usr{/share}/dict/words".  Wordlists are required for "hangman" and
"boggle", at least, and as far as I can tell aren't available in the
Cygwin installation anywhere.  Is that another package people might be
interested in?  If I can find a wordlist I'm happy with, anyway...


--
--Alfvaen(Web page: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/alfvaen/)
Song In My Head--Barenaked Ladies:Another Postcard
Current Book--Jean M. Auel:The Plains of Passage
Wind that speaks to the leaves, telling stories that no one believes