I want to thank you, nwah, for this thread, because I think it's asking legitimate and important questions. I don't agree with retaining compatibility with Morrowind in the same way, but that has been said already.
Now, currently this thread seems to be for comparing visions for post 1.0 and that's certainly an interesting thing to do. But I don't know enough about who makes which decisions regarding the openMW project to know whether that makes sense right now. If anyone knows about the inner workings, or if you're really interested in proceedings, click the spoiler, otherwise skip it.
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Spoiler: Show
- Because, if there's no protocol in place, then whoever has admin rights to the git repo is the factual decider over what becomes part of openMW and what doesn't. Sure, everybody can fork it, but most people will probably only look at the original repo.
So my question is: Is there already a protocol/some guidelines or sth like that in place about post-1.0-merging? Because right now, I guess, the decision making process simple enough that no such protocol is needed (a. Does it do sth that vanilla MW has but openMW doesn't yet have? b. Is the code quality acceptable? -> If 1 and 2 are true, merge).
It's very easy to over-formalise any process or group, but it can also streamline things a lot if some basics are there. And it would just be about putting into words what everybody feels is the most natural way to do things.
For example: I think, it makes a lot of sense if the person who actually has to do the work in the end, i.e. deciding what gets merged and maybe even having to make adjustments, has the final say. Because nobody wants to do other people's work. But to support that person, some guidelines as to what the original authors and contributors had in mind, or what the community wants, or what users seem to like, might help the decision making process.
Because I like the idea of this thread, but I think it could be more specific, here's my suggestion:
First, we
collect items for the post 1.0 vision, for example "post 1.0 openMW aims to de-hardcode things like MW's attributes, skills and such", or "post 1.0 openMW aims to simplify language selection".
Then,
if people object to an item, or want to change or specify it, or want to suggest an alternative,
we initiate a vote on said item, either with a simple yes or no, or with the options provided.
And if you find that a good idea, we can do that in a separate thread, in which the first post contains the items currently favored by the community. Which is then the
non-binding community guideline for post 1.0 openMW.
Thoughts? Good idea/bad idea? Crazy over the top? Tell me. Oh, and if anyone tells me how to initiate votes here, I'd also volunteer to do what I described above.