Bug#720108: supertux: Please keep 0.1.x as the default version

[Reuben Thomas]

Package: supertux
Followup-For: Bug #720108

I'm a bit puzzled by many of the messages in this thread, which say
something like “0.1.x is unmaintained, please can we have the latest
version”.

This would make sense for many sorts of program, but it doesn’t make sense
for a game. When I play a game, I’m not interested in support for particular
hardware, integration with other software, or any of the other reasons for
running non-stable software. I want a finished, polished game, ideally.

There are many games in Debian that are basically “dead” as regards
development, but this does not in any way detract from their playability.

As for Supertux, the 0.1.x branch is recommended by upstream, and I see no
good reason not to respect that recommendation.

If new levels (perhaps still in development) were available, in the same way
as “mods” for many game engines, it would be nice to see those in Debian;
but I don’t understand why one would want to package an in-development
version of a game?

The only reason I can think of is that if the 0.3.x series is in fact quite
stable, then given the length of time since Milestone 1, and the apparent
slow pace of development, then packaging 0.3.x as well is quite reasonable
(provided the maintainers don’t mind).

Hence, I can understand why Ubuntu package 0.3.x, but not why it’s the
default; and there’s no reason for Debian to follow suit.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers trusty-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'trusty-updates'), (500, 'trusty-security'), (500, 'trusty'), (100, 'trusty-backports'), (90, 'vivid-updates'), (90, 'vivid')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.13.0-40-generic (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages supertux depends on:
ii  libc6                     2.19-0ubuntu6.4
ii  libcurl3-gnutls           7.35.0-1ubuntu2.2
ii  libgcc1                   1:4.9.1-0ubuntu1
ii  libgl1-mesa-glx [libgl1]  10.1.3-0ubuntu0.2
ii  libglew1.10               1.10.0-3
ii  libopenal1                1:1.14-4ubuntu1
pn  libphysfs1                <none>
ii  libsdl-image1.2           1.2.12-5build2
ii  libsdl1.2debian           1.2.15-8ubuntu1.1
ii  libstdc++6                4.8.2-19ubuntu1
ii  libvorbisfile3            1.3.2-1.3ubuntu1
pn  supertux-data             <none>

supertux recommends no packages.

supertux suggests no packages.